 live on charter communications cable TV channel eight and AT&T Uverse channel 99 and is being recorded to be re-broadcast on the following Wednesday at 8 a.m. And on Saturday following the first re-broadcast at 1 p.m. on channel 71 and Comcast channel 25 Meetings can also be viewed from the city's website www.cityofcapitola.org And our technician tonight is Brian not to be confused with staff As a reminder, please turn off your cell phones during the meeting and as We progress if you come up to speak please sign your name on the podium to and confirm spelling for the record if you wish I see there's a lot of interest in the application this evening and I ask that during the public comment period Everyone maintain common courtesy listen to the speaker and refrain from applause or reactions Okay So to the agenda we are To the pledge of allegiance Roll call, I'm sorry. Thank you It's my first time Mission or SD present mr. Jensen present mission or will here and vice chair Christensen here So on the item to any new business No Okay, great item three oral communications any oral communications mission and Editions are deletions to the agenda. Yeah, just of note. We had four written comments for our Public hearing item this evening and those were included in supplemental packet They're at the dais there for the commissioners and they're at the back table for the public. Thanks. Thank you Public comments short communications from this is the time for short communications from the public concerning matters Not on the agenda all speakers are requested to print their name in the sign-in sheet located at the podium So their name may be accurately recorded in the minutes members of the public may speak for up to three minutes Unless otherwise specified by the chair individuals May not speak more than once during oral communications. All speakers must address the entire legislative body And will not be permitted to engage in dialogue. Is there any? public comment commission comments Staff comments good evening vice chair and planning commissioners I just wanted to remind you it an invite went out for the Training for commissioner training for next Tuesday the 31st. It'll be via zoom at 5 p.m. a good opportunity for just learning the protocols for how the meetings are run and Also, I wanted to bring to your attention the liquid amber tree out in front of City Hall We've unfortunately had to put a removal notice on it. It is It's become pretty treacherous with people walking on our pathway and it continues to lift up Not only the pathway, but it's also affecting our foundation under the police station so we're making a hard decision and Moving forward with removal and I just want to bring it to your attention that it's it's now been noticed for the 10-day period And if it's not appealed we'll be moving forward with hiring a tree company to remove that and then at the end of tonight's Meeting I will give a director's report. I'd like to give you an update on the storm and the efforts by the city Thank you That brings us to the good and scent calendar item for All matters listed under the consent calendar are considered by the By the Planning Commission to be routine and will be enacted by one motion in the form listed below There will be no separate discussion on these items prior to the time the Planning Commission votes on the action Unless the members of the public or the Planning Commission requests specific times or to be discussed For the separate review items pulled for separate discussion will be considered in the order listed on the agenda Item a is 517 oak drive. It's a variance for the required parking dimensions to be To construct a first story additions without meeting current parking standards There's a request for a continuance to february 2nd 2023 Is that correct? Do you have a motion I move the consent calendar I'll second okay. We have a second We have a roll call Mission or sd. Hi mission or johnson. Hi mission or wilk. Hi ice chair christensen. Hi motion passes for zero with chair Westman absent, okay Um that brings us to our public hearing um Item five public hearings are intended to provide an opportunity for public discussion of each item as A public hearing The following procedure is as follows staff presentation planning commission questions public comment planning commission deliberation and decision The first item is 4401 and 4 525 capitol erode This is a design permit conditional use permit density bonus and coastal development permit request for a 36 unit 100 affordable housing project on an approximate point 81 acre site in the northeast corner of capitol erode and 44th avenue Staff report, please. Yeah, thank you vice chair christensen and good evening commissioners Um, i'm going to be summarizing the staff report. We've got a slideshow for you a couple of things just off the top Uh, this is a little bit more in-depth than our typical slideshow So i'm going to try to keep the pace up. I'm going to talk a little bit faster than usual But by all means if you have any questions, please slow me down or stop me And I wanted to also make an announcement that layla from the city attorney's office is present Because of the density and bonus aspect of the project We did seek a lot of input from the city attorney's office And layla was also key In in helping us do edits to the staff report and oftentimes when we issue staff reports will follow up with commissioners For this project specifically we held Little mini workshops compliant with the brown act of course, but layla was also instrumental in that So with that I can get into the formal presentation We've got an aerial photo here of the project site. This is at the corner of 45th Sorry 44th and capitol a road at the terminus of 45th okay so Don't need to be redundant, but the uh the project does have a design permit a conditional use permit coastal development permit and density bonus through state law It's in the mixed use neighborhood zone and the combination of the two sites here is 0.81 acres A little bit of background on the site specifically Really hasn't been touched or redeveloped since 1985 when the existing office buildings were built There was a phase two concept with two additional buildings, but that was never constructed The big picture overview of what you're reviewing tonight is a full demolition of existing parking facilities and all buildings on the site for regrading There's two primary buildings with the proposed project the tenant portions there of our three story total of 36 units And it's 100 affordable There are two parking lots being proposed each with their own ingress egress off of different streets And then as I mentioned the lots would be required to be merged A little bit of real real world context here. I've got some street views just circling Uh going top to bottom counterclockwise around the site. So we're at 45th Capitola road intersection in the top view 44th and capitol road on the middle view and then 44th avenue I'll just point out this is for zoning purposes and development standards. We take the narrowest frontage So this is technically the front for planning purposes Going to give you a little bit of an overhead of the proposal. This is sort of a tour of What is being proposed? So I mentioned I'll start with the vehicular access. I mentioned two parking lots. So at the north side of Of the property along 44th, there's a proposal for a two-way ingress egress and 15 parking stalls And then uh over at the intersection of 45th and capitol road, there's 21 parking stalls in this parking lot proposed Uh, this is what's called building a throughout the plans. It's got 24 units And then this red and blue and gray is some Amenity spaces and community spaces. I have a floor plan view of that. I can get into some a little more detail And then this is what's referred to as building b. This is uh Got 12 units in it and in both of these uh in the tan are three stories tall at the core here There's a a taut lot in a community courtyard and then toward the rear is trash facility In total buildings are about 32 thousand four hundred seventy five square feet 36 units 36 parking spaces A couple of ev chargers and quite a bit of bike parking So looking at this is building a's floor plan Just kind of the unit breakdown there within This is a three-story stack. So all floors are basically the same We've got two Two two bedroom units two three bedroom units and then four single bedroom units in the core This is the to the east the public space. So this is a long-term bike shelter For 36 bikes. We've got community laundry a community room with a kitchen Restroom and then the blue is management and leasing and facilities offices This is building b Same layout in that it stacks, but only four units per floor one one bedroom one two bedroom and two three bedrooms And this is the the primary elevation. So I Using this one just to kind of go over some of the architecture and use some materials and colors This would be facing capitol road So we've got six and 12 gable roofs Up along the roof line. We've got six different massing brakes along this elevation You can see the single story element is the community building There's the use of composite rail and cement board Our cement paneling framing around some of the window pop outs And the siting is primarily a mix of cement board with a couple of different colors and stucco with a couple of different colors The city did send this out for a third party review. We used rm As a peer review architect So they reviewed it twice and they understood that it was an affordable housing project, but the applicant Did improve the the proposal quite a bit and did actually take most of their comments into consideration with their second submittal This is all four sides. This was a little easier to fit on a slide, but all four sides of building b Nothing really new to add here other than you can see cement board versus stucco on some of the other Building facades as it wraps around This is a materials board so upper left these are the two stucco colors for the primary building facades and then on the upper right this is the use of the two different colors of cement lap siding The center one here. This is a for window pop outs. This is a cement panel for framing window pop outs on the second and third floor and then Some other things. I won't go into all of these composition shingle roof a storefront at the community space and then some of the railing At the private patio decks it would be composite railing And so this is kind of the a1 rendering This would be the the intersection of 45th and capitol a rose gives you a three-dimensional Look at the entire project landscaping is projected out as being several years mature in this picture, but This is the overall look at the project in 3d And then this is a view From the north side parking lot that takes access to 44th avenue Seeing some of the interior of the property with the taut lot trash enclosure and a single story community space through the convergence of the two buildings here Landscape plan, so the applicant is proposing 26 trees They've demonstrated a 40 percent canopy at maturity the city standard is 15 percent. So they're Asserting that their proposed trees would exceed that standard And also on the landscape plan they ran calculations compliant with both state law in SoCal creek water district to show that their proposed plants were low water use and could meet the The water allowance maximum for the property A little more detail on just the interior facing community spaces This is showing some of the both the fixed and movable furniture that would be included in in this courtyard space And I think all Eight of the units all but eight of the units have a private patio deck. So Eight of the singles Do not have a private patio. So they would be relying on this space as their outdoor amenity space Just a highlight of sustainability features At day one, there would be two hardwired ev chargers. There would be conduit laid and capped for 13 ev ready parking spaces The applicant has shared with us that through one of their funding sources There's a requirement for solar panels. So that would be part of the project I mentioned low water use and then stormwater retention systems. So Um This is based on a 95th percentile storm event. So basically that's a One hour event that would accumulate 2.1 inches of rain over the site and so the The storm water retention swales that are built into this project could absorb that type of rain event and hold all water on site before it metered out to the storm sewer So shifting gears a little bit the other aspect of this project Is the fact that the the applicant is an affordable housing developer And they're invoking density bonus concessions and waivers Which impact our ability to analyze the project And apply our local zoning and development standards So some history there density bonus law is actually 44 years old In its original form. It was more or less just an offset type of incentive to offset developers that incorporated some percentage of affordable housing More recently and over the years legislatures gotten quite a bit more aggressive with arming developers with these tools that they can Bypass local requirements and specifically I'll say in the last two to three years. There have been some some very specific amendments to this law and And height and parking are seen as as primary barriers to production of affordable housing And that is acknowledged in the the government code sections I attached to the staff report As well local agencies used to be able to require some level of proof That if a developer proposed concessions or waivers they would need to prove that these made the project more feasible or Less costly and now the shoe is basically on the other foot Cities would be required to make substantial findings That the proposed concessions or waivers Did not have a significant impact on cost. So we basically have to take these at face value This project specifically is 100 affordable it qualifies for four concessions And unlimited waivers In defining what a concession is and what a waiver is there's there's certainly a little bit of Laptop to both have to do with relaxing or Bypassing development standards, but a concession is is the stronger of the two tools because it actually Could allow a modification of the zoning code So again, if we were looking at a market rate type of project We'd be looking at variances and potentially code amendments, but we are Not permitted to do that per state law with the proposed concessions and waivers associated with this project Our role really rather than requiring across the board Compliance with variance or sorry with zoning standards and development standards is really to assess if the project Is the project eligible? And does it comply with the state law? So specifically the four concessions that the applicant is proposing that the top two are directly related The one is a setback reduction at along the north property line for building b Uh proposing a five foot setback where 11 feet 10 inches would be the typical standard And the way our daylight plane standard works It would take that point uh 11 foot 10 inches from the property line and would go vertical 25 feet Angling into the property at a 45 degree angle If you can't envision that it basically means a top floor setback And so that's uh, there's two units that project into that upper floor What would have been a setback if this was a market rate type of project The other two are related to parking So the applicant is proposing a one-to-one parking ratio where the city's current code would require Two and a half parking spaces per unit And the mix of parking Compact rate compact spaces to standard size spaces applicant is also asking for 42 where 30 is the maximum With regard to waivers, building height 36 feet or 27 feet is the standard Just one comment on this is that the building is is Naturally, if it was If we were looking at just a parapet and a flat roof type of building The building could top out at about 30 or 31 feet The the last five or six feet really has to do with the roof line architecture Uh, the replacement tree size so typically we're looking for 24 inch box size trees on the landscape plan The applicant is not committing to a specific size, but a few slides ago I noted that they are demonstrating compliance with the canopy at maturity And then entry design In our objective standards for multi family projects We typically want the entries of the individual units to face a sidewalk and engage the street The applicant is trying to build this with no elevators elevators are a pretty costly Impact they would need two of them. They're typically 100 to 125 thousand dollars And so they are saying they need a waiver to not have elevators which ties into putting all the accessible units on the ground floor And would additionally incur a cost because they would have to make ADA compliant walkways go all the way out to the sidewalk. So for all of those reasons, there's an entry design waiver And then the last one has to do again with the objective design standards for Buildings with a facade longer than 100 feet our typical standard is to as for an eight foot recess for every 50 feet I mentioned there are six recesses and projections along this facade, but they're more on the foot and a half to two foot range Next topic is sequa and environmental review. So city consulted with dooduck as a consultant we've used Typically for our environmental reviews. They prepared a six page memo that's attached to the staff report And they concluded that the project was eligible for a categorical exemption Under 15 332 noted here I'm not going to read all of the five criteria But I do want to highlight criteria a just for To be clear So the project is consistent with the applicable general plan designation and all applicable general plan policies as well as all applicable zoning designation and regulations Well, the You know on again a face value if you've got a density bonus project that's bypassing local standards This would appear to be a problem, but there's actually case law where That involved the city of berkeley as the defendant and the court was clear that when density bonus is used this Categorical exemption can still apply um We also consulted with uh dooduck to do an individual transportation study specifically to study the intersection at 45th and capitol um That was not part of the project originally and uh was a response to Trying to get acceptable emergency vehicle access And so that was a later introduction to the project we Uh, I will say it initially we're not thinking that was the best design. So we wanted to study it Our consultant came back with A couple of recommendations and they also did some parking modeling or sorry a transportation modeling And their conclusion was that that parking lot would introduce seven am peak hour trips and eight pm peak hour trips They're recommending an adjustment of the median and the crosswalk to realign And so that will become a four-way stop rather than a three-way as it is existing And the public works director Met with me and that consultant and ultimately determined that those were the only off-site improvements that would be needed For that intersection So taking another another look at that, uh, just wanted to kind of put a graphic to it So the green would be the new driveway as it would approach Entering on the north side of capitol road. I've highlighted in purple there where the existing median is Use the pointer here. So the median would median would move over 10 feet And the crosswalk now is a bit skewed and it would square up with uh with both sides of this Of the capitol road Getting into community input. So this is these are the supplemental or additional materials that I mentioned We i'm just summarizing these there was definitely more detail in the individual letters that you received but parking is certainly Certainly a comment that we got But our our fairly simple answer is that the applicant is using a concession to override local standard Uh, there was some comments about intersection safety Um, I did just kind of cover that I will say also the the the condition that's being introduced there is is really not Uncommon in capitol of the city hall has two Driveways that exit into four-way stops knob hill at hill and bay has the same condition With far more traffic than this project is introducing There's some concern about high density just kind of in general. Um, we got a comment that there was Just a lack of support from one of the commenters and then today we received one letter of support Saying that affordable housing is in need in the area Almost done. So thank you for bearing with me. This is just some cleanup items for Our recommendation. So a couple of amended conditions that we're recommending The consultant had a recommendation for a hammerhead at the parking lot that accesses Capitola road They really the applicant was able to design it without a hammerhead to allow an ability for turning around The main concern here was having passenger or vehicles back out into the intersection So they were able to accommodate with another design So really not a concern, but I wanted to take the hammerhead language out of there to avoid confusion And then 50 is really just drafting oversight. There's an area of landscaping along one of the parking lots that Didn't get shown and so this makes it clear that that's supposed to be landscaped So I am at the end of my presentation. Uh, the staff recommendation is to the planning commission to exempt the project from sequa under the noted infill development exemption and approve the project With the design permit conditional use permit conditional development permit and density bonus As requested with the conditions of approval and findings as amended in the prior slide So with that, I'm happy to take questions Questions Um three actually so you mentioned in one of the slides I said 40 canopy coverage, but in the presentation early presentation was 28 percent is that Mature versus initial or I thought 28 percent canopy coverage somewhere That may be existing Oh, that's what's there now Well, I guess my concern is as long as we exceed the 15 percent I just wondered if that was 40 percent. It's obviously better. So I think a big deal out of it Anyway, um while you're looking up that my next question has to do with the safety concern Since that was brought up since our density bonus discussion has Public works or the police department weighed in any further on that safety issue The public works department specifically the public works director was on a couple of different calls with me and the Consultant after they had done their analysis They typically will send us a draft report and allow us to comment on it And so the public works director was involved with that They haven't made any any further comments or yeah, the the conclusion was It's it's essentially an incremental increase in the use of that intersection Getting into a little bit more detail I think the primary concern is turning left out of that parking lot The consultant is saying that about 20 percent of those trips would turn left 80 percent would turn right toward 41st versus 20 percent toward orph and then If you look at the pm peak hour, that's the the worst case of the worst case that we're introducing eight trips into that intersection over an hour Now I'm just wondering it would be nice if we had a checked box thing from the police department and public works that said Yeah, they've looked at this and approve it But I understand that that there's kind of a tacit tacit gets sent there Uh, finally there was in the density bonus discussion Uh commissioner westman mentioned the notion of Maybe a condition that should be considered which was to have local residents Have first priority Was that discussed any further? I know that's not in your conditions now I can comment on that one. So we actually I reached out To the housing authority to ask about that whether or not they typically get conditions on this type of project This project has 25 project based vouchers. So, um They typically would not allow for residency Preferences with any project based voucher units because there's concern about the fair housing act and if you're saying that Only residents from capitol are given preference when we were talking about the fair housing act It really needs to be accessible to all and where Um Where we're a community with Great infrastructure and schools To to not allow folks who may be in a neighboring community that doesn't have such a high rating in terms of Um public benefits and schools would be against the fair housing act So we're suggesting this evening that that Although a great idea it really um is in Contrast to the fair housing act Thank you. I don't know if layla would like to add anything else to that No further questions Is there any other questions? I have a couple questions. Um one thing I can you explain How the noticing of the project was notified to the community And what steps we did to inform them about the project and the history of that? Yeah, so we sent uh Newspaper notice three weeks ahead of our pre previously scheduled meeting on the 19th Uh two weeks ahead. We sent notices Postcards to tenants and owners listed and we get this Through the tax assessor. So these are mailing addresses associated with the the taxable, um either owner or Occupant space And then we post the site. So there's a stake with a posting there Um after our continuance last week I was able to call the newspaper and have it reposted the following day For the weekend edition in the in the paper So that's posted for this meeting on the 25th On top of that The the voluntary outreach was done by the applicant I believe the the applicant reported and sent me a flyer that they said they were going to send to the same 300 foot. I don't know how they obtained their mailing list, but Those were all the ways of outreach that I'm aware of perfect, um Sorry another another question. Um, can you go over the height of the building? Um on how You know from the floor level sampling how it comes up to be with the proposed height this now Yeah, let's see if I've got a slide that we can kind of walk through Actually do do one better. I I plotted in the daylight plan in case this became part of the discussion So I tried to describe this But if you look, uh, the The architect has laid out The floor-to-floor plate heights Um, so 10 feet per floor Going up and then as I mentioned the So the top plate here is 29 2 So that's the top plate of the third floor and I mentioned the rest was basically roof line architecture that's built in in the the building a It's actually a flat roof behind so that all of this roof line Aesthetic is Is basically to give the building a top perimeter architecture in front of a flat roof pad So can I follow up on that question? Yeah, just a clarification So I noticed tj welsh is in the in the audience and he talked about height and mentioned that Really you should measure the height requirement to the plate height and not the peak that way we would You know encourage Gabled roofs and that kind of thing as opposed to a bunch of flat roofs Is that is that how we measure our height requirement to the plate height or or to the peak roof? No, we take the the highest projection. So it's typically the ridge In a like a single family home in this I would look at the tallest point of the roof Straight down to the grade That's how our code requires it. There are some allowances for projections like chimneys and and other appurtenances on roofs, but We're just looking at building height. We're looking to the top of a ridge usually okay And just to follow up on the height um just for everybody when you say it's a 10 foot plate So that's a nine foot high ceiling in turn interior with the one foot of framing I saw you know with that It's not a 10 foot high ceiling per four, correct Yeah, that's that's taking into account both roof and ceiling Joists so yeah interior clear probably eight and a half to nine. Okay. Thank you And then the one last question I had um was on the traffic with the intersection kind of Falling up on with the question with the safety issue. Was there any concern with it being offset off the 45th Avenue, you know, I know there's an adjustment that's looking out for the crosswalk From the alignment standpoint other than your comment on just the left hand turn Yeah, it's it's not ideal. Um, but I think ultimately the conclusion from Uh, the the both the consultant and the public works director was just that the volume of vehicles going through there just wasn't enough that it was a significant impact that required further mitigation or Um, that would meet a threshold of You know not being able to move forward Requiring a redesign they did not think that it was that significant of an impact or risk Thank you Yeah, I'm sorry. This project is big and so I spent a lot of time trying to understand it and I got a fair number of questions. Um The first question is isn't this property within a half mile of the santa cruz metro capitol a mall transit center And if it is according to is the way I read it at least on the density bonus law Per rep bg they would be um Given a height increase from 27 well from whatever it was to 33 feet And and in addition to that the way I read it, um They would be allowed to have a 0.5 parking spaces per unit not Two and a half that we're asking for I don't know about the distance specifically to that transit center but I I do know that when when the state law talks about high performing transit stops It's really talking about a rapid transit stop and none of the stops within the city meet that standard So, um, I did look at that aspect not exactly how you you're looking at it, but we did look at that They um, they're required to meet that requirement. They have to have 15 minute frequencies So we actually don't have any in um our region The santa cruz region that meet that frequency. So, um, although like over the hill There'd be areas with bus rapid transit that would qualify for that or train system But it doesn't apply here. Okay. Good. Thank you. Um back to the notice I remember when Uh, monacovin was trying to put some project forward. I forget what it was I think they were expanding and putting in underground parking or something crazy Uh, but anyway, the entire, uh, depot hill neighborhood was noticed on that particular project So I haven't personally quite a ways. I'm well beyond the 300 foot Limit so wouldn't I mean, isn't that a precedent for a project this big that we should really notify people in a much larger Radius than just 300 feet from the project Uh, the the code actually has a threshold for uh, if over a thousand addresses are within A 300 foot radius that we would do Actually, not we would avoid Um, we would do like a a whole page Posting in the newspaper and we don't even have to do mailing. So our code almost goes the other way As far as monacov there may have been Some additional outreach, but I mean we're as far as noticing we're we're following the code and I could think of reasons why we wouldn't notice more You know without the applicant's Permission as well. So we're we're following The code as it's written okay, um Parking parking is a little bit of a you know to me that is a bit of a nightmare. So Without going into a lot of numbers, um In the United States the average is 1.89 vehicles per household in 2021 I looked around and try to see what the variance is over, uh, income levels per household There's really not much of a variance until you get down to Less than about $20,000 per year income and then you see a drop from the 1.8 number down to something lower than that and I I did some Some analysis of this and they have a kind of a deficit of Anywhere between about 32 Parking spots to down to about 12 if I take kind of the minimum from those low income houses Did we ask them? The developer if they could come up with some creative ways to house those vehicles by perhaps leasing parking spots from some of the local commercial companies for an overnight stay for example There are you know commercial entities across the street. There's the capitol mall, which has Oodles of parking these days at least Um because I'm worried that you're gonna fill up 44th street 45th street Um with cars, you know at certainly at night and who knows during the daytime as well And you know, I walked around there and there's not Whole heck of a I walked around on a Thursday in the afternoon and there wasn't not a lot of room on 44th street So it feels like parking is going to be a problem for the community Yeah, I think our Summary is that if they Propose a concession we we have to take it at face value I know that that's not an answer that Probably some interested in the project are going to want to hear but if we're going to follow state law That's how we have read this and analyzed it I think from a real world perspective. I have talked to the applicant about I believe they own and manage eight or nine other Similar types of of properties and so I I think they're prepared to talk about a little bit about that and how they are ultimately as a property manager comfortable with this number of parking So when it's their time to speak we can ask them to okay. Yeah, I mean they have the way I read it They have one um one project in San Diego that's actually operating and they've got eight others that are In development right now at varying stages um speaking of the developer there's a letter from um Myers-nave and in that letter they talk about a financing mechanism mechanism and it says Uh to finance the implementation and monitoring costs of this project. Is that something we're paying for? No, no, do you do you remember what that reference is? I've read that letter a couple of times. I don't I don't It's kind of like an odd sentence sort of in the middle at the bottom I don't know what he was talking about um Yeah, and the other the only well, let's get back to the height so Uh in your shot you had before the of of the daylight plane You know one thing it kind of well, I guess I would say irritated me is you know They they could have shown us that daylight plane in a simple CAD bottle with the Tools we have today just it feels like at winter stools is uh, you know December 21st They were going to shadow the capitol gardens quite a bit Those there's a set of units that are kind of right off building b that I think are going to be in the dark for Uh around sunset um But they used a six and 12 pitch on those particular gables, I mean and and they used a four and 12 elsewhere I mean they could at least cut it down a little bit, right And it wouldn't I don't Feel it would really affect the project that much from a look standpoint architect is here, so I think you could Respond to that. Okay Um Yeah, I'm like everybody else that Intersection it in the evening rush hour is a nightmare There's one car every 5.6 seconds goes through that and uh, I I don't think we can too much about that unfortunately That's it. Thank you. Um just to be clear I have a question just to be clear, um Because of the state mandate, we can't if if they're offering these concessions we can't um necessarily You know if we had a problem with the height we said, you know, we would like it to only be three stories There's not really anything They're offering it. We can't The man they do that kind of thing the bar on that would be be pretty high So we do have to take these at face value. We would have to demonstrate that there is some Um Uh demonstrably significant impact to public health and safety And presenting that okay But but nothing prevents us from asking questions to see what they could do, right? We can talk to the developer about the flexibility and and options. Yes, sir Okay, um does anybody else have any more questions? I just want to follow it Can use elaborate on the uh from the code standpoint on the notification you said, um I didn't follow I couldn't track when you said that you were not allowed to Over notice if you want to call it that? You said the developer would have an issue with that. Yeah, I was just I don't know if the developer would but if we are Uh as staff Deviating from the code and noticing people that are not required to be noticed. Um, that's not a On a decision that I would want to make at my desk. So again, I'm just Noticing we're following the code. Yeah, I just wanted if there's ever been another project That was on a larger scale like this That we look at in capital that's been ever noticed more than that or is that just a standard? And I was looking for information that's questions been asked me. So that's why we're posing the question there have been instances such as the um the monarch cove in where the planning commission has directed staff to Reach out to more Properties and possibly the hotel in the village when we did the conceptual review But there have been a few since In the last nine years since I've been here Like less than a half dozen. I would say that we've had those requests But they have been made in the past and it usually comes from planning commission. Thank you for city council Okay, so any other questions no um Would the applicant like to speak This is the applicant present Yes, please Thank you Good evening. Thank you for having us I'm gary bascom. I'm the project manager for uh, crp affordable on this project I must have my colleague jack burleson over here who's the finance director from crp This is um bob lindley the project architect So I wanted to give just a brief overview of our company and of the Why this site is a good site for affordable housing and then I'm gonna let bob give a brief overview of the project and then I'm I'm sure you guys have a lot of questions so we'll get into that so a bit of background CRP started its affordable branch back in 2017 Um, we have projects located all throughout california. As you mentioned, we have some in san diego Some in uh, worthington, uh, sorry the imperial valley Um, total we have in operation around 250 units. They're currently Operating and we have another Approximately seven projects with 700 affordable homes under construction Most of those will be complete by around this time next year Um, and we have another 20 projects or so in various stages of the design process this one being one of them We're we're really excited about this one. Um, specifically for the location The main reason is because of its proximity to a lot of amenities Such as uh, the capitol of mall like you mentioned There's the supermarket a public library the jade street park Lots and lots of restaurants cvs places of worship worship Um bus routes like you mentioned not necessarily high transit or high volume ones But they are they are within walking distance Um, and like you like you mentioned, um parking is always a concern with these projects And so we take that into uh, you know, it's very important for us and we take that into consideration So being within you know walking distance of Lots of amenities as well as public transportation is really important, which is why this site Is a a great one in our minds um It kind of was brought up but not really, uh 25 Of our units are project based vouchers Which means the income threshold for those is a 30 percent of the am i the average medium income Which depending on the unit you get is anywhere between, um Have it here between 34 and 48 thousand dollars a year depending on the size of family and the size of the unit you get and so We are proposing a one-to-one parking ratio, but what we found in the projects that we have is You know with that Many units The majority of those being at that level of income a one-to-one parking ratio is successful You will have parking on the street. That's obvious that will happen But it still will be a successful project one thing i'll bring up is you know, we own and operate these for 55 years We're locked into that by the state of california So the last thing we want is to have a project that doesn't function well and have you know kind of an operational nightmare um And kind of as uh, you mentioned i believe paul At one point we actually considered a 0.5 parking ratio based on the transit but you know based on the location and and The fact that didn't quite qualify under those Technic legalities, you know, it didn't really work that way. And so we kind of drifted away from that as the project evolved Yeah, that's that all that's for me and i'll let you go Um, my name is bob lindley. I'm a principal architect with studio t-square. We're we're based in oakland I personally live in davis When we work from home, we um, we basically are working from all over in sites in california I want to thank um, brian for the for the great Overview of the project. I don't think I could improve on what he's said in terms of describing the project I would go ahead and make a couple of comments about how we ended up with the design that we have and it did It did begin with a lot of you know heart-to-heart discussions with planners and and i really want to you know Compliment planning here in in capitol are they're very collegial and and willing to work with the developer If they see that the developer wants to do a good project. So we appreciate that We started out with a building that was basically Fronting capitol a road all the way down with the parking completely concealed behind the building Which did a couple of things for us. It concealed all the parking from view from 40 from capitol a road It also uh did not require that we would have an entrance into the parking from capitol a road So it was going to be 100 from 44th The other thing that it did was it allowed the building the mass of the building which is you know Albeit nine feet taller than the the code requires normally To completely comply with the cutoff Angle for for that daylight. So basically we had we had our parking. It was about you know 20 Almost 30 feet deep before we even got to a building form. So it completely complied with with that When we went to um to look at that with um with your fire department, they were not happy with that design They wanted us to include a hammerhead turnaround or a through A through version that would exit to 44th street. So when we looked at that we realized we would have to Reduce the number of units By maybe a quarter on the project to make that happen to create enough You know space and we would have lost parking in the as a result as well and open space for the residents So we thought that was really important to preserve open space as much parking as we could And create a building that that was aesthetically pleasing the city So we at that point Change the design completely into a two two building design One with the main building facing For um capital road and then a second building at an angle going back towards the rear property. So to make that work We did need to get into that setback where we weren't violating it originally We did with the new design, but that allowed us now to have two parking areas With a depth of 150 feet, which is the magic number for the fire marshal So they allow us to do a 150 foot dead end Access for fire. So now we're we're keeping the fire department happy making making sure that we have good good response for emergency vehicles And as a result we were able to create I think a better overall site plan where there's where there's more variety of building form There's a setback for the building b So that it's perceived height from the street is much lower now We've made the community building more front and center and that's really a one story element So for for a major portion of the frontage of the road where we're either at one story or even lower We're doing a lot of tree planting along there We're putting in bioswales along the street frontage so that we can create a really nice green edge Which is in keeping with with capitol. So um for those reasons I I won't go further, but we would certainly Be willing to take any of your questions about how we arrived at the design we did So thank you Yeah, uh, thank you Garrett for coming up from san diego and Presenting this project to us. Is this a um wood construction or steel and concrete? So the construction so we could drop the Ceiling height to eight feet and drop the overall height by three feet at least Theoretically but You might want so yeah, it's the the building height is based on a fairly typical floor floor ceiling assembly, which is a Tji joist With fire there's fire protection. There's acoustic protection. So those assemblies tend to be of around 14 inches deep So if we go 10 foot floor to floor that will give us a around an eight foot eight clear ceiling height We could go as low as eight feet, but it becomes very difficult to accommodate Plumbing light fixtures and things like that and we get some some spaces then that have to be softened down They get very low To the code minimum of seven feet and that's only allowed in hallways kitchens bathrooms So what we found and we've done a lot of this kind of housing is that the 10 foot floor to floor really Really helps to give a little bit more ceiling height than those units And I don't think that you know overall we would it's really only two floor ceiling assemblies that we're talking about If we were to decrease that to the code minimum eight feet We might pick up as much as one foot in overall height on the building and I doubt that that would even be perceptible I'll follow up on the your question about the roof pitch. Could you elaborate on that on the one on the roof pitch? the roof pitch Is I think we can be flexible on that if if you felt uh, and you made a comment We had a six and 12 and we had five and 12 or we could even go to four and 12 Just a reminder everybody turn off your phones We're flexible on the roof pitch. We could certainly look at lowering it Slightly instrument design standpoint probably design standpoint. Yes. I think so. I mean it's it really is it's the thing we like an overall composition of the building and Typically when you go with a taller building you want a little bit steeper roof pitch because it just proportionally feels more appropriate to the design You look at a lot of the old frank word right low, you know one story two story buildings have very low pitch roofs that prairie style Looks great. Um, when you do a low pitch on a taller building sometimes it looks a little squashed So We want the building to look great I'd echo what garret said that you know we we do a lot of this housing And we we put as much into these affordable projects as we do with our market rate We want them to fit really well in the neighborhood and to be well received. They're going to be there a long time So We could look at that though I'm willing to and I'm sorry one other question. I should know the answer this but looking at the plan Uh The units are it has like a mansart more or less on the top of the roof So it's our mechanical equipment around the roof deck right and that's that's a conscious effort to do that If we were to go with a fully pitched roof It would be quite high in the center because of the depth of the building So what we do is we play a little trick here and we we do the mansarts, but we make them, you know, look Look real from the street and from the from the ground plane ground plane But it then gives us a flat roof area where we can put mechanical equipment and it's not seen by anyone Rather than having condensing units on the ground where you run into them, etc The other thing that it helps us with is that we are planning to put in a good amount of Solar pv. So the flat roof is excellent for that We can then rack them and get them oriented the right pitch and you don't see them either So those are two reasons so you condition my heat pump or It's an all-electric building. So we are we are looking at greenhouse gas reduction very seriously And our climate change So it is an all-electric building these will be heat pump Units so all the condensers will be up on the roof We are Yes, yes, I mean so the answer Yeah, I'm hesitating because I think on this project we are going with fan coils and heat pumps on the roof. So yes Yes, so the mansart is going to be screening Exactly Approximately 36 units 30 36 condensing units or are they going to be like multi slave units? I mean there'll be individual units for each each uh each unit. So there would be 36 There would be 24 on one building and 12 on the other Perfect And then just one last question. Um, when you talk about solar array Is that being designed in now because I know sometimes when you look at the solar array layout later You know needs to be adjusted and so then that comes back to adjust Aesthetically maybe the height looks taller because the array is taller Is that Been engineered in and that's going to sit below the mansoring proposal We do engineered in from the beginning and yes, it will be sitting below sight lines for the mansarts So in the mansart, we'll have all the mechanical unit and the solar array so that Don't be an issue with that. Correct. Yes. All right. Thank you So guys go follow up question because I need to clarification on this They like playing concern to paul that you had could we maybe look bring up the one of the views of the building If I understand your concern paul you said that there there's a shadowing effect On a neighbor Could you could you point that out and is that what we're talking about changing the roof pitch in order to To address that concern go to the site plan Uh, it's by the way on the site plan. We hit the apn number of the neighbor not this property Um Can I stand up and point will people see that? Help me So if you go where you uh to yeah a little bit more to the right and then from that corner You go up you you think you're gonna shadow some of the capitol of garden units that are north of this particular property in the winter time When the sun is well in a winter time when the sun is coming up in winter time when the sun is setting So you're you're talking about changing the pitch of the roof of those units that face I was just trying to be nice to the neighbors and not shadow. Well, exactly So I want to know if that's the same topic that you guys are talking about I think it's it's a really good comment paul And I think I think we do that already, but if we don't we can so if we look at the elevation Of the north facade of building b. It's possible to pull that up. I think we already do show a Uh basic mansard hip roof there instead of a gable But so it's similar. I think to the lower right hand corner there. Do you see how the roof comes down? So there's no gable at that end. So we do maximize the amount of Of light that will come in the other thing I'd point out too is that We kind of got a little bit lucky here. I know trees are not forever, you know, especially with the kind of storms we're getting But there's a really nice stand of redwood trees right along the property where that building sits And so I think it's the trees are going to do a pretty good job of hiding that That mass from those neighbors of the north the other comment about that is the The neighbors of the north is mostly parking along the frontage just behind our so I don't think It's going to be shading much of their usable open space It's mainly going to be their carports and the driveway, etc Yeah, there's a couple of units you can see them on the page a 1.0 Like I said in the summer in the winter at the sunset sunrise you're going to shadow a few units But you're right, but there's a lot of trees there, which actually is Beneficial to your particular design, which I think is a good design by the way I'm a you know a street standpoint. I'm just looking at it. It's a nice design Any additional common questions the applicant um, they do have any solutions for possible overflow parking like staff was suggesting One thing we are doing. I know this This doesn't park a car, but we are providing a lot of secure bicycle parking And you know again as you're mentioned, this is a great site. It's walkable to services and It is it has been our experience and I've I've been designing affordable housing for about 15 years now It's been become kind of a specialty and we've done communities from lake tahoe down to You know san diego and everywhere in between and What I have heard back from our affordable developers is that a one-to-one parking ratio for a family project Does work that oftentimes there are still parking spaces available Believe it or not a lot of a lot of folks just can't afford a car especially if they can live close to transit If they can if it's a bikeable community they can have a bike. So we do try to we do try to provide um Good amount of bike parking space For folks so they can be encouraged to do that. Um within your management practice. Is there any mitigation that you A guidance for each tenant of you know Maybe a please don't crowd the street Um, it's a good question. I have to get back to our director of operations, but it's it's an ongoing thing You know every space is is assigned their stall and they work with the tenants as they come in So for example, we have a lot of compact stalls They would work with the tenants if they have a big truck or something to Move them around if they if they need to but that that's part of the ongoing maintenance of the project for the duration of the of the timeline, okay Is there any additional questions for the applicant? No, okay um Thank you very much. I appreciate all of your input So with that we're going to open the public hearing and as a reminder Again, we have a lot of interest in the application and um I asked during public comment that everyone is respectful and lets everybody else speak and take their turn. Um And then also that we refrain from applause or reactions. Just just a side note and um with that We're going to open the public hearing and Thank you. Sorry, excuse me Vice chair I do have a couple of public speakers on zoom who've had their hands raised for the duration of the presentation So just let me know when you'd like them to speak versus in person public comment. Should we take this first or should we do? Oh, thank you Let's um Okay Okay all right, well let's take um Public comment right now if and then we'll move to the zoom does that sound good Okay, all right three three each person is limited to three minutes And um, we'll keep track Good evening mayor I'm paula bradley, and I live at 1841 44th avenue around the corner from the project I submitted a letter, but I would still like answers to the questions that I posed which um, I haven't heard answers to those yet Since parking is reduced from 2.5 spaces to one space per unit How will the demand for parking be limited if one unit has two or more vehicles? They'll be parking on 44th 45th 46th If a resident with three vehicles Applies for a unit will this be considered in the application process? And will on-site parking be assigned Concerning the compact parking spaces, how will the management Make sure that only compact vehicles are parked in those spaces as we all know from any parking lot Cars park in any parking space they can find that's open And that creates a problem as you know There's no guest parking so everybody has a guest where will they park? Um Landscaping should be required to be maintained in a healthy thriving condition Trees are not going to reach a 44 percent canopy unless they're thriving And the landscape won't mature either Please add a condition to maintain the landscaping in a healthy growing thriving condition for the life of the project Trees are only being replaced one to one Not at the required two to one ratio. So is it possible to have off off site tree replacement? Capitola needs more trees not less trees um I asked about the bicycle parking the long term bicycle storage how that's going to be secured from theft People are not going to be able to park there unless they're sure it's secured Nobody's going to want to carry their e-bike up to the second or third floor And what is the oval shown on the site plan that's behind the Playground is that a a pet exercise area by any chance and if it isn't this project should have one Um, the design overall looks good to me However on 44th avenue that elevation looks more like a back than a frontage So it's not going to look good on 44th avenue. That's also a street frontage There's only a small door and two windows um And and then there it was brought up About the notices and um, there was only one very small eight and a half by 11 Posted on the front on capitola road. There should have been one on 44th avenue. I only saw it because I walk my dogs Thank you. Thank you very much Good evening commissioners I live on 46th avenue 46th avenue has only a few single family homes on the east side of the street Both the south and north ends have multifamily apartment buildings and the entire west side of the street consists of multifamily apartment buildings and con condominiums While these apartments and condos provide some parking to their tenants There is significant overflow of additional cars parked the entire length of the street Add in the homeless that are living in their vehicles Taken up parking. There is not enough street parking to accommodate all of the current residents I walk my dogs in the early morning and witness residents Probably coming home after the midnight shift Circling around and looking for street parking. Sometimes even the fire hydrants are blocked with parked cars I've seen them idling in the street and they wait for another resident to get in the car and leave for work in the morning So they can park their car And finally go home Uh 46th avenue is also congested with parking Sundays for the church when and when events happen in the village I have to search for street parking for my own car to ensure my visitors have a place to park in my reserve spot Developers request a waiver to have a one-on-one ratio of units and parking spaces When the capitol of standards 2.5 42 percent of these spaces will be for the compact cars only which means residents of the bluffs Will be parking their additional and or larger cars on the surrounding streets as will their visitors This neighborhood already protested the proposed uh rezoning of capitol avenue to accommodate four story structures Over five years ago the developers have requested a waiver to the height restrictions A three-story structure in the small space is too tall and does not fit in this neighborhood There are no housing or business Buildings around at the are that tall nor should there be If the planning commission relaxes these existing rules and grants the developers these exceptions It will be determined It will be detrimental to the quality of Existing residents this neighborhood is already inundated with residents cars and traffic and cannot accommodate anymore This project is being imposed on this neighborhood, and it is not welcomed Thank you. Thank you very much What was your name? Uh, did you sign in? What was your name? I'm sorry Michelle Henderson. Thank you. Michelle Good evening. My name is Philip cross. I live on 42nd avenue The only reason I know about this meeting from walking my dog on capitol avenue and seeing the posting on the site And i'm here to oppose it I don't know some i've learned a lot this evening about the density rules and it sounds like it can be railroaded into approving this thing What I think actually requests you guys do is have another meeting Put out mail notices out to a quarter mile radius the room will be filled with people opposing if you did that Um, there's going to be at least 30 extra cars parked all over the place like michelle was saying it's going to be bad In the end of my street on 42nd avenue. There's apartments there, and there's the same kind of things locked up all the time And there's only half the street. It's only parking on it's going to be very bad And even if there was enough parking spaces for this project the The traffic would be too dense as it is I've lived in my house for 35 years now And in a quarter mile radius There's lots of more houses where the down the street. There was one house and some Or to treat that like 15 houses into the street. There's four big houses where there was two little houses And I can't see loma prieta anymore because they built another house on grace street And it's just too much density already in our city So what i'm asking you to do is to postpone this have another meeting With a more wider mailing notice more people because this project is bad for the reasons I stated Time against it Thank you. Thank you It's hard for me to write Get it in Hi, my name's melody newcomb. I live at 17 63 44th avenue I live right almost where the entrance comes out of that parking lot My neighbor phyllis who's in her 80s lives right on the other side of me She's about five feet from where the entrances of your 15 spaces coming out And I'm right on the other side of phyllis Phyllis wanted me to tell you tonight that when she tries to back out of her driveway right now Because of the cars that are parked there already in the trucks that she's afraid she's going to hit somebody She's going to hit a car or she's going to hit You know, she's she's going to injure somebody and I have had the same problem Across from my street is the capital of gardens 96 units 87 parking spaces And the overflow is always on our street I have dealt with that and I've lived in this house for 23 years I want you to know i'm an occupational therapist. I've done home care in this county for the last 10 years So I understand affordable housing. That's not the issue The issue is the density and the traffic and the parking Because I've been in everybody's home except for probably all of you here at home's But I live in this community and I walk by that area probably every day I take a night walk. I look at the traffic patterns And I know I can't even turn on my own street half the time Sometimes I have to go to 42nd avenue or 43rd avenue to come back to 44th avenue to get to my own home I I tow I want you to know I have people on my street. It's kind of like a dumping ground at the end There's motorhomes. There's boats cars left cars on jacks And I'm calling all the time to get these taken out of the area because I want to maintain the quality of my neighborhood So I have apartments on one side across and now you're going to have them on the other You're going to affect my quality of life and I do want to stay there. I do want to see my grandchildren grow up I do understand we need affordable housing But I do think the density for this area and this project is not a good idea You get the worth to war phrase you get the capitol art and wine festival You get a lot of events a lot of traffic already goes down the street And you're just going to make it miserable for the residents that live there. Thank you Thank you very much Melody Hello, my name is shane melhun. I'm a resident on 46th street I just want to bring up some concerns that First off, I want to say I'm all for affordable housing, but this is one of the worst projects I've ever seen There's not enough parking. There's not enough parking for the staff or the maintenance team that are that it's going to be needed to run this property You're putting it right on the sidewalk. It's too close to the rope for a three-story building. I've also noticed Uh Before this mean last week. I sent out 60 notices of those 60 notices 45 people had no idea this mean was going on 45 um Of the proposed building that you're saying is a three-story building that will overlook into the capitol gardens community You guys didn't make them do a privacy wall or anything I've worked affordable housing. I know how many people they are allowed in there. You're proposing a project for at least 167 people That's too many people for that tiny little sliver of land And I just want to let you know This community opposes it and if there was proper notices, there would be a lot more people here Thank you. Thank you very much. Shane Evening commissioners I'm mick ruth I live in the jewel box Actually right around the corner from this intersection. I've been there for 52 and a half years So I've seen a lot at this intersection a lot of incidents a lot of near misses I believe this project's really incompatible with the surrounding area, especially architecturally But my main concern is the intersection brian mentioned One other intersection in the community knob hill market That's more like an actual street that runs in a knob hill market and aligns with the other street across the way This driveway does not align with 45th avenue, which makes it a very difficult To make that eye contact when you're across the intersection from somebody or in any one of the four avenues of that intersection You know it he also stated it's without the concession it violates every provision in our in our zoning code Uh Most of us that use that intersection pedestrians bicycles drivers There's a lot of pedestrians use that a lot of accidents have occurred there in the past In fact just a couple months ago. There was a lady jogging 62 years old Was hit in the crosswalk She was a friend of my niece and nephews She was critically injured spent six weeks in the hospital And now is spending up to a year in a rehab facility because every bone on the left side of her body was shattered by the impact Those are the kind of things that Occur at that intersection not frequently But they do occur and this is just going to acerbate that situation and make it worse People frequently run the stop sign When traffic backs up they come down the right turn only lane and then they shoot straight through the intersection to get ahead of All the traffic So, you know, we've done a lot of improvements in the city in the past few years to make the roads safer for pedestrians and vehicles Just claire street most recently I don't want to see us backpedal I don't want to make this intersection less safe than what it is So if you could use your authority to revise the site plan, it's a blank slate as I mentioned in my letter They can accommodate those buildings any way they want on that site And eliminate that driveway. So that's what I'm asking you to do So, please don't approve it with the driveway. Listen to the residents that live by there and use that intersection several times a day Thanks Thank you Nick Good evening guys. Um, I'm here because the zoom length. It's in your notice does not work so I even tried when I got here on my phone to see if it would work and it does not work So there is a problem with notifying the public I only found out about this because of a concerned neighbor And I live three houses down from that intersection of 45th and capitol a road My grandfather bought the land on 45th avenue in 1952 and built the house back then when there was Fields across the street I've seen my family has seen development happen. They've seen things change But this change does not fit our community Um, I'm concerned about all of the things that have been mentioned But also my son goes to new brighton middle school. He walks home He uses that intersection to cross as does a lot of kids And it's already a dangerous intersection at 45th and capitol and to add more cars to that and a second Or I guess a making a four-way stop is going to be A safety issue The parking is also an issue My 16 year old daughter has her license if she has to park far away from our home because somebody else is parking in front of our house and A 16 year old girl who comes home from soccer practice late at night is attacked because she has to park Far away. That's a safety issue and that is a huge concern It's already a concern about the amount of cars that get that we get from overflow from diamond street from the From the condos over there. They're parking all along and it changes every day and every You can drive down our street during the middle of the day and you're like, oh, there's plenty of parking here You come by at 10 o'clock at night. There's not parking. There's not parking at 6 a.m people come and go So I truly believe in affordable housing My own sister Was homeless for quite a while and I believe that we need affordable housing But the amount of units That they're trying to squeeze into this tiny lot is unacceptable And I ask that you notify the public of these hearings In a larger spectrum and not just finding out from a different neighbor and that you Require it to be a smaller number of units for this project and There needs to be a huge revamp of everything. Thank you Thank you very much Kathleen Somebody put the cap on I'm watching that timer. So I don't want to get behind Good evening vice chair christensen peter paul. Jerry. It's good to see you guys again. I sent you uh my concerns of what I could in a kind of a quick manner because It seemed like this has happened so quick. This has happened and Maybe it's the the storm that got away from us and time just went by but I looked at it's only been like three weeks since the application and So I was thinking about this process How did how did we get to a point where in three weeks a developer can present a project and and go for approval? Honestly, I can never think of this happening in my eight years when I was on the planning commission that We had that time but beyond that it's it's kind of the process We talked about noticing and and katie pointed out that on these large projects We send out noticing and asked for noticing in larger areas and and this is one of those cases It's going to affect more than just that Very small 300 feet area. So Noticing is part of it, but also we don't have our consite committee anymore All this information used to come to us. So we do have our rem who by the way, my firehouse was beautiful I'd love living in it, but um, no interaction really between You folks on the planning commission and god bless paul and gerry who just got voted in and and here they are with one of the Largest projects they got to deal with so A lot of issues and I think a lot of it is if we just need some time to Really review. There's a lot of discussion. We talked about height I I read some height issues and while they are afforded the the concession or waivers it would be in this case The waiver was from what I read and and a city suit in one Is based on the heights needed to approve their extra floor So in this case would be 30 feet, of course, you didn't up with a flat top rip So you have to do architecture, but I think that should be your choice and and not rrm and staff making those decisions for you and just presenting to you in a short time frame. So You know, my request is that you continue this item Send out more noticing get more feedback and that's really dive into The project I I'm glad people brought up some of the concerns about the intersection. It is not like knob hill This is completely different. You have a driveway that's offset. It's a driveway. It's not Really noticed as a stop like you would have at knob hill I happen to attend church in that uh right next door and I watch um, I happen to be on the safety team and I watch that Intersection, uh, well almost every weekly every week. So It has a lot of concern there and I think the congestion being a firefighter. I understand the fire marshal's concern of Getting having access and the reason 150 feet is because that's the length of our hose to get us to the To the building and there's a lot of other concerns. I think that we could look at As far as parking and maybe you know, how we could make that really fit into the community I think we need affordable housing. I wish it was for our seniors Uh, unfortunately the elevators, uh, eliminate that. So thank you very much Thank you tj Guess it's my turn I've never been to a planning commission meeting. So if I do anything wrong, let me know Madam chairperson and uh planning commission I'm sorry that you have to deal with this project. Um Little history, uh Used to be a old city council member that lived about 500 feet from here Whenever he saw something he didn't like on the tv on the meeting He'd walk over here I fortunately lived close enough where I was able to pull that off a little winded, but uh, I made it um This project is probably one that uh, had you had time to review it You've rejected for many reasons unfortunately Buildings like mobile homes, we have no say over the state dictates what we have to do Recently you were all dealt with ad use and what the state dictated you had to do And they went against probably most of the policies we have in this city Most of the policies that the eight years I served People would get upset if you brought up something about height or density or traffic especially traffic and parking which That's not kidding anybody. It's the worst in this city. It's always been the worst even the pictures in the 20s show the parking problems So here you are at the task of dealing with all these mandates and waivers That go against everything you believe in and I don't fault staff Because they're presented a project they need to present And I do believe we need affordable housing desperately And I was hopeful that there was a big site in town that was going to deliver that test someday And that and the other thing that comes up is people worry about rena numbers And there's no pressure on the rena number the rena numbers are our effort To make an effort to try to provide housing not whether we deliver housing And I don't think we've ever not Tried to deliver housing And we were open to multiple housing units at the mall Should that project ever reappear So I believe that this project may be too big to put on your plate And I think when I get something where there's enough of this Uh people in the neighborhoods that have dissension and concerns and issues about noticing You know whether they didn't over notice when we do big projects skate park hotel monacove We notice We didn't want to over notice here because there's legal problems So my thing to you is and I don't even know if this is possible. There's not an attorney here But if you can kick this to the city council, that's what I would do Let them figure this out You're it should decide what fits in this town and you already know that this doesn't fit And if they could I've got by the one the the uh half parking because of the 15 minute timing believe me There'd be half parking everything they could do and this I'm not faulting them They're doing a good thing to provide housing But the burden shouldn't fall on your back Let the big boys make this decision. Thank you Thank you Is there anybody else that'd like to come up? Do you still have three speakers on zoom beginning with kalisha webster who have just allowed to speak I'm kalisha. If you could please unmute yourself Is This site is ideally situated near transit shopping and community amenities Making you the perfect location for development of a walkable bikeable and more sustainable community And by including deeply affordable extremely low income housing The project has the potential to more equitably serve the city's most vulnerable special needs populations And help to meet the city's legal mandate so affirmatively for their fair housing CRP's proposed development Help the city in meeting its renewables for the deepest levels of affordability which are most difficult to achieve But most importantly it creates home for the most vulnerable members of the community at greatest risk of displacement or homelessness Due to the high cost of housing in the region The city of capitola is home to nearly a hundred adults with developmental disabilities Of whom less than half have been able to transition to living independently Not by choice, but because of the look of deeply affordable housing available to them Adults with developmental disabilities typically have fixed incomes from disability benefits or Time in low wage jobs in the city due to the lack of extremely low income units We also support the developer's request to decrease the number of parking spaces in order to maximize the residential capacity at the site due to the project's proximity to trees and shopping and community amenities And because we see not only in our own work As most people with developmental disabilities do not drive or own a car But studies of projects including similar income households so that they have significantly lower parking needs than higher income households We look forward to seeing this project move through the development process and hope to see the housing potential at the site maximized In order to create a more inclusive and sustainable capitol Thank you. Kalisha The following speaker will be Cynthia. I've just allowed her to speak if you could please unmute yourself Can you guys hear me? Yes Okay. Hi, my name is Cynthia. I am a resident at 44th avenue um I All for affordable housing. I grew up on affordable housing Low income. I know the value that it brings to a community Unfortunately, I do not have the same opinion as the previous speaker Parking will always be an issue especially if there's only one parking assigned to a whole household So parking is a big Is already going to be a big issue the amount Of the level of the building is too high And you guys are trying to fit this big Beautiful building into a space that just doesn't fit. It's not a good fit I would love to see other options that we have But this space is just it's it doesn't work and the Building behind it the what's it called capital gardens? I don't know if you guys Are aware there there are some buildings that face right Near that the the parking structure that this is going to build You guys are not thinking of the residents that already live there So I think this is a really bad idea. I don't think Thank you. I think this has been pushed through so fast and the residents here are not being notified So I'm against this 100 percent The last zoom speaker is calling in from an 831 479 phone number I'm allowing that person to speak if you could please unmute yourself. You'll be able to make your comments Yes And I'm calling in with concerns about the density of this project as well as the lack of parking that the developer is proposing My my sentiments echo nearly every single one of the speakers we've had tonight with regard to Not enough parking You could have the meeting the planning commission meeting on a walking tour of the neighborhood right now And you would not find one single place to park And that is without This development being there Um Having participated in the general plan advisory group I want to quickly the number of plans that are already earmarked For the corridor between 41st avenue and 45th The properties that have been identified as opportunity sites For housing and mixed use development And beyond that the mall which we all know Is targeted for very large scale density development Project of this size at 44th and capitol a road is too big And I would encourage the planning commission to think about the long range plans for the city And thinking about quality of life. It's not only to the residents who already live here But to the people who we are inviting to move in and become part of this community When we are stuffing people into High high density developments and not giving them a place to park. What kind of quality of life are we inviting people to experience here? It's not very good Concludes my comments Very much Thank you very much erin Um, do you have anybody else? There are no other speakers on zoom. Okay. Do we have any other? Comments in the crowd All right, so i'm going to go ahead and close this public hearing and Divert it back to the commission for discussion Peter Yeah, I can start this out. Um I'll start with a question because it's it's nice to hear ed barnorf come up and speak on this issue And and realize that i'm still on the same page with him on these kinds of issues And the issue is Bring it to this city council, which I think is really where this thing belongs eventually. So my question is the staff is Uh After we rule here, there's an opportunity to appeal to the city council And the question is what is that process? Is that is that cost, you know a fee? Who has to do that? How would what would that let's say we approve this and Some member of the community would would want to come forward and say I objected this. I want to take to the city council Could you go over that process? We're going to pull up the fee schedule. There's different Um avenues in which to do an appeal Which shows sean's pulling that up right now, but a member of the public can appeal a project and The language is included in the back of the agenda for this meeting Regarding appeals by members of the public I guess it's the fee schedule that i'm kind of interested in Because we we can reject it and have the applicant appeal or we can approve it and have the public appeal If if the applicant appeals they pay the cost of the appeal so the billable hours that staff puts into a project um if Is appealed by a city official? There's no cost And appeals by others so affected parties is five hundred and sixty two dollars. So what was the first one again? If the applicant were to appeal Their cost is the it's the cost of what our billable hours are for the appeal So if it were approved tonight and a member of the public appealed the project it would be five hundred and sixty two dollars If it were denied tonight and the Um, but it could be approved tonight and a member of the planning commission could appeal it and that that would be no cost It says appeal by city official, but you you can't appeal your own decision Well, so a city official Would so a city official a city council a city council member could um Could appeal it, but I I would question whether or not they could vote on the appeal if they were the ones to call up the appeal They they kind of lose their vote by doing so Laila do you want to comment on this? Okay, thanks so much. Um yes, uh sitting city council member Depending upon what the ordinance says could potentially Uh, file an appeal as an individual member of the public. However, um, that would Um, conclude them from voting on the item as it would create a conflict of interest for the item Okay, well that clarifies my question here in terms of my comments. I'd like to just first thank the members of the public for coming forward and bringing forward a lot of Very thoughtful and informative comments Um, when I looked at this proposal I initially opposed it because it's a clear violation of the municipal code and the general plan and everything that we've been Chartered to enforce But then we had a meeting with with the staff and legal regarding the density bonus and how the state supersedes our local ordinances And uh, so I you know in in that meeting I pressed to see well, you know, we're Where are their exceptions? Where are they maybe exceeding even the state requirements where we know what kind of leverage we have As brian pointed out, uh, really we have to you know, approach this thing in terms of health and safety maybe environment But in terms of things I looked at is like well The number of concessions the the state requires four concessions I thought maybe these were in excess of four concessions and maybe so maybe that was an avenue But but then the waivers are unlimited. So that kind of Kind of limits that I I think the notion of the safety of the intersection might be a reason to really Take a close look at this. That's why I asked earlier if the police or the public works made a formal statement on this Uh, perhaps just relying on one Uh independent consultant, uh, is Especially based on all the concerns that's a public brought up in terms of that safety Safety of the intersection. Maybe we shouldn't lean too heavily on that one consultant firm Um, so there's an opportunity to object to this thing in terms of safety. Um Obviously the number of parking spaces is is is a problem This even exceeds the state guidelines if you look at the state requirements, they have a guidance of Well, if you run the numbers, it'd be like 46 spaces not third not 36 So this even exceeds the state guidelines Although even the state guidelines as was pointed out by staff are very soft and and are told, you know Basically, um, you know, you you need to Be very forgiving in terms of parking so Basically what I when I looked at this thing and and tried to push back and and see where we could enforce our local ordinances Didn't get a whole lot of support from staff or legal Basically got the impression that any of our arguments could be easily challenged and overruled and With that kind of input I said, well, this is this is something the city council has to take up What this is I think our job is to look at municipal code And now the state code and make interpretations of those codes And to the best of our ability And not challenge them or try to supersede them ourselves with our rulings So that's that's a job for the big boys is it bought our bought our point pointed out just a moment ago um I do kind of look at this and and do see the positives. I mean as everyone pointed out there is a real need for affordable housing You know a lot of people a lot of the homeowners object, but I'm sure the new tenants and maybe some of the local renters who could get Maybe a cheaper rent Would be in favor of this um All in all there's there's some There's some benefits here that you know, we could look at the bright side and say hey, this is three stories not five Um, it is it is a good location in terms of public transportation accessibility and amenities So therefore the bike parking lot, man, you know electric bikes that kind of thing. Maybe the parking won't be as bad as we all predict unlikely, but I mean at least it's a decent location from that standpoint um, it's also near an employment opportunity so There could be a lot of people who work on 41st street who would have walking opportunities to walk to work a bike to work Um, I'm okay with the landscaping. I mean we're fortunate that they've taken Some strides some strides to to get to 40 canopy and have some decent landscaping attempts They've worked with staff to to follow as best they could Our design guidelines in terms of the roof saw roof line and the facade and the massing The materials that varied. Um, so All in all I have to say that I think they've made reasonable attempts to uh to blend in with the community and provide Affordable housing And again, I I agree with all the the applicants And it could be worse I would be I don't think that we should continue this thing because I think we've heard basically the objections. I mean we could hear a lot more people object to this project for a lot of reasons but um But basically we're gonna come up and as one gentleman said we're kind of railroaded railroaded into approving this thing Whether we like it or not because the state trumps the local authority. So The people who can address this are the city council if they want to they want to fight the state And that's why I I would uh, I would just assume kick this upstairs And uh, was curious to know how to do that Other than that, I you know, that's I could say we could do worse on this project And I my I have a tendency to kind of lean towards approval But I'm willing to listen to everybody else's comments Um, yes, well first of all staff. Thank you for the report and I I definitely appreciate the public coming out Um, my biggest concern is as I've been in the community here now for 10 years Um, I'm a huge advocate for uh community involvement and um, I'd like to hear from the community And so I appreciate everybody coming out. My concerns are with this size of project Um, and hearing, you know that People are just seeing a notice and everything would be that maybe we haven't heard from the whole community And as much that I agree with you about might ultimately end up being at a city council level decision Um, I think there's a lot of work that we probably have to go into this to understanding I think it's educating the whole process and um, You know As a commissioner, maybe city council might find out their hands are tied on a lot of these decisions But I think it's an opportunity to learn. Um, we look at this is I don't know the exact if this is the biggest project to come through in the last 10 years But it's a very large project and I think we're going to set a practice going forward from here In educating our community on where our hands are tied and where they're not tied And on some issues we bring up the intersection as a safety issue Um, you know that could be an issue that you know can be discussed at a city level It can be appealed by me it can be discussed But um, educating the community about Our elected officials above our city council right level Has tied our hands, but I think there's a whole education process and these go into it. Um And so I you know my feeling on it is It be continued Forward, but also that we look if there's Um, there's comments around questions that have been I've received multiple emails. I was out on the site multiple times people ran into me You went about there on site looking at it and bring up questions that there's a way a question to answer period So that we can help educate the whole community around this project And you know, maybe after today no one's exactly happy But we can celebrate that we went through a process that everybody's thought their voice was heard Or at least were educated through the process So if um, I would look at kind of continue it as a recommendation and then working through To the process of getting everybody informed So if it did get to it did get to the city council level That we the background work was done for them at that point other than You know, it's just starting all over and you know looking at gathering information at that point, okay So that's where I am with it. I I'm concerned about the public notice Um, I think there's some flexibility in the design for the height that we can maybe work together and figure out And then re looking at and I think you bring up a great great point on, you know, having PD waging on You know, exactly if there's any safety issues or something like that. Maybe you look at some statistics I think some people made some Assumptions on how many incidents are there? Maybe we could really look at that and educate our community if there really are issues or those just isolated instances and then looking at You know, if another traffic study would have to be done if they're You know for a validation. So that's what my thoughts are on this project Yeah, thanks, jerry. I pretty much agree with everything that jerry just said. I think I'm not worried about over noticing We've like we talked about we've done that before with big projects like this. This is a big one This is also unusual with the uh with the density law that I'm willing to bet 99.99 were larger percent of the community has no Understanding I've probably never heard of it And I think we should send out a notice to a wider swath of people We should continue this Jerry was talking about. I think we should ask the applicant to reconsider the height And the daylight plane issue the height in general Maybe I know you've given some thought to the driveway solution Maybe there's something we haven't thought about and like I said earlier some creative way to solve the parking problem, which I think the community is You know, it's bringing forward, you know, a few people have talked about it here You know, we'll probably hear more from a larger crowd, but is there something we can do about parking? Because I I I'm not sure I I would agree that it's a one-to-one ratio Even in the low-income community. I know you have some experience With your uh your project in san diego, but I don't I don't know if that's generally true Um, so I I think we just need to spend a little bit more time on this and and Commissioner jensen's right. This is setting a bit of a precedent. We hope that there'll be more of these affordable Housing developments brought forward and I think it's an opportunity for us all to learn about how they actually operate So can I pull the thread on this? This seems like both of you are leaning towards continuance Uh, I'm just trying to imagine what more we're going to learn I mean we'll get more community input I I think it'll be Not expert opinion. It'll be more of what we heard um The the thing I would want to continue it for would be to get perhaps another safety study Uh, I I don't know about any more density Uh discussions or parking discussions how I don't know what What more we're going to learn there the only thing I can think of would be maybe A little bit more on the safety of that intersection because I think uh, Mr. Ruth brought up a good point, uh, and and certainly staff did that we have to worry about self health and safety of the community But but I don't think we need to know well So if if that was the specific recommendation to staff that we get an either or another independent Or have the police department weigh in or or have more input on the safety of that intersection I think I'd be okay with the continuance on that basis I would I clue your thoughts christian are welcome. I'd also I I'd like to see more emphasis on the parking I'm sorry. I'd like to see more emphasis on the parking just to see how If there can be more measures You know pay attention to how they're going to deal with the parking on the street and um In in terms of like maybe a study just or just you know Well, you mentioned getting the like external agreements with a done another parking lot or something. Yeah, just Other analysis basically and um Along with uh Yeah, I agree So a management plan for their parking or an something like that some type of provision where it's not just um Going to exacerbate the existing problem Um If I could just seek a little clarification on the um potential request for the What sounds like perhaps the additional traffic site? um For the first staff spend a bit as well as my could you elaborate a little bit more on what Would be to be included in that study be not on what hasn't really been Reviewing and assessed by the consultant Well, my could what struck me is when one of the I think it was Mick again mentioned that Like the the offset in terms of the driveway So that you know when you have a four-way stop sign you you you have a tendency to make eye contact with the person across the way And so that maybe the fact that this is it is offset makes an unusual traffic condition Um, you know if there is precedent for this kind of thing that they could you could say, you know Mention knob hill, but that was shot down is not a very good argument. Um, where this driveway concept being offset Is is not a traffic issue Have I just have another opinion someone study that intersection and And and look at whether or not an offset driveway No, don't even need to study it You just need to look at the the plans of that of that offset driveway and have somebody who who is a traffic expert Or or in public works who can say that is common It doesn't provide a safety problem Therefore, you know, let's go forward or yeah, that's really unusual Um, especially you know at high traffic with all this You know traffic equally come in all the different directions. You know, we've got we this is a real problem here um I just don't think that and I've you know, I've seen other consultants come in and and and do Come up with some crazy ideas So the notion of this particular that we're we're leaning making our decision on safety based on this one consultant's Input I would just like a second opinion So if that's the police department, if that's a separate study by the public works I'd be okay with that, but I I think the the public has brought up enough concerns about that intersection that Just this one Consultant is it doesn't isn't enough to convince me that we're okay Absolutely commissioner. Thank you for that reputation. Um in situations like this, there are certainly going to be a lot of Um, different opinions on whether or not there's you know, a safety issue here or a safety issue there um, one thing that um, I would just recommend is that any any decision be based on uh facts that can be That can be supported by substantial evidence um, so rather than opinion or You know personal conjecture As as much as we appreciate public comment on this um, you know, I did not hear a particular, you know study reference or Anything of that nature, but that would just be something to keep in mind as the commission Continues to deliberate Well, we could for example get kimmy horn as a consultant We always turn to all the time to look at this and say do you agree with these other guys? And specifically address things like this offset driveway Yeah, I think that's that's it. It's a non-aligned offset driveway Is that you know, is there is there any precedence for something like this and You know, what do the safety people say about that? It's offset by you know a good 15 feet ish Um, does that not give us, you know enough meat on the bone so to speak in terms of facts that that's a fact That's how this site plan lines up Hey, and by the way, you got you've got roughly six cars per second going through that intersection from Uh, west to east between 430 and 530 every night. I actually call it the capital or raceway, but um You know, it there's a lot of the traffic volume is pretty high Okay, so I think as somebody who knows In safety vehicle safety, I think you ought to look at this not just a traffic management consultant If that's possible Thanks, mr. Yeah, I I don't pretend to be a traffic expert. Um, and I would probably defer to staff on um, whether you know, they on the The depth and breadth of the traffic study that was done Um, I know that staff has evaluated the project and and kind of has made their recommendation based on that um, but again, I would defer to staff as to um, you know, what what the What the depth of the study was on and exactly what it looked at So briny. Yeah, I understand what we're looking for Yeah, I I guess I would just Restate what I what I already did say is that the The intersection is realigned to accommodate the new driveway. So there was thought given to that I don't think that the consultant Dedicated an entire paragraph to that but it was more in the recommendations to modify the design that they gave to the applicant the applicant responded by moving that driveway over and then Showing the median moving over 10 feet So I mean this was part of the discussion It was part of the response to the discussion that the applicant provided but Uh, if the core bring up a picture of the intersection again so that we could If the core comment here is to get a second opinion, you know, we don't have that But was the the alignment considered Uh, I would say yes it was So the width of the crosswalk is about 10 feet I traced in what the existing median is so it moves west and feet This alignment here was moved east At the consultant's recommendation So it's shown in its final configuration That's what that's what we have. Yes. So that does not align with the Street across the way Right that was mixed concern So the the question then is that a public safety issue significant enough to Deny this application and we have one Consultant that says it's not a problem And I think we're looking for Something else We want more verification of that Police department public works Emily horn somebody Is right, I mean I'm out of I'm out of line here I would I would think it'd be a consultant from the standpoint of you know I think it'd be interesting to you that from the police response If what instances stuff like that but to have another I don't I think that's completely reasonable I've attended I mean I would came into this meeting willing to to approve this after after looking at all these things I've listened to the public. I've seen their concern. I think they have I think there's a lot of concerns we can't address but that's one we can so That's kind of it's kind of all right. Yeah, I'm not I wouldn't say the consultant said it wasn't a problem I don't think they addressed the problem they addressed the traffic volume and the queuing and they addressed whether we need to put a Stoplight there or not It didn't say that that design would be unsafe or they didn't say that would be safe in my opinion I mean it's a very good study by the way the inputs to the model were we're Arithmetic wrong, but I don't think that changes their conclusions Um, but I think we do need somebody with some knowledge of safety to look at it. Yeah, okay, good And that'll give us an opportunity now. So did you also want to increase the? Noticing yes, how far I Half a mile, I don't know something like that You know in the monarch cove in one it was at least half a mile I don't know what we did for the when we talked about the hotel down I believe for the monarch cove in We actually Noticed all of depot hill because it was the neighborhood and it's the one in and out Typically when we've increased noticing Right now it's at 300. I would suggest 500 feet Radius and it goes from the the exterior limit of the Um, the property 500 feet. So you're gonna grab our typical lots are 40 by 80 So it will Get a larger Okay, what about that'd be about seven houses What's that in me about seven properties in right at five but in a in a circle around the property, so it's I don't know exactly how many properties were noticed for Like it has to be Approaching 300 were noticed already So it's gonna increase that I'm just I'm just concerned people saying they haven't seen it and you know if there's noticed only in the front I don't know if that's true. I mean it was only posted in the front was a post on the side Um, if people say they didn't see it didn't research see the notice I mean we might like to your discussion you might just hear the same comment again, but again everybody understanding the project, you know I guess what why I wouldn't want somebody to not understand what the project is And didn't have time to get input or know that they were heard. So I think those two things are valid All right, so here's here's what I heard to parrot it back so We wanted to flesh this out if it does give go to the city council We want to give them as much information as possible and get as much notice as possible so that they're not Stuck with having to do a lot of research on their own So with in that In that spirit, we would want to continue this in order to get a better safety Study In addition to get more noticing so we can get more public input so that if it does go to the city council at least the public will have had a good chance to study this and Comment on it And then we'll also have a better safety study And so then we can rule on that and then and then if it goes further At least they'll have more information. So that's that'd be the rationale for asking for a continuance Is that is that so much? I'm sorry commissioner if I could just add some clarification to the noticing There is a requirement that the commission, you know The project as long as it was noticed consistently with the code Which did require a 300 foot notice perhaps if the applicant would like to come up and You know discuss the potential for a greater notice That would be helpful for community outreach as you were saying and also Ensuring that the safety of that That intersection is evaluated. I think that would be very beneficial I would Would you Um, I guess my comment would be To increase the notice Back to your comment. I'm sorry. I don't know your name council, but uh had to be based on facts Um, it is this public noticing Is that change something that's legally allowed to To increase that public notice that would be one comment and then the next one would be Um, is the traffic study asking for additional studies that also based on a factor is that on the Opinion that we don't believe the study that was done already previously Those would be my comments is uh, what are those decisions based off of? So, um, we can share the map of what was noticed Sean, will you pull it up and and I will say if Occasionally there are notices that come back to us that have not been delivered, but it's maybe Like a very small amount that this what you're seeing in yellow is what was noticed That's the 300 foot radius from the properties the two properties And if we were to increase that to 500 feet, that's what the green notice would be The green line So that this is the this is the tool we utilize and then it creates The mailing list. It's all connected to the county Gis and the tax assessor records and of who's living where so So that that those are the facts of the yellow is the 300 and that is where we noticed too And if you wanted to increase to 500 I can also say that If you were to take action on this tonight For an up or down vote You could also tell us give us direction that if it were appealed You'd like the appeal notice because it would get noticed on appeal to be the 500 feet So just to offer that so the rationale for the 500 feet would be because this is a big project and It affects the entire Jewel box area and then some and is that rationale enough to Ask for additional 500 feet as a over and above the 300 We can ask for Further further noticing right it's within our purview. So I'm gonna Uh Turn to our city attorney on that one because I'm just not sure what this type of application if we have the ability to Ask for additional noticing beyond the code. I know we've done that as a courtesy before for other applications But where this is state? It's the density Law bonus. I I just I'm unsure how to answer that one Yeah, thank you Katie and thank you commissioner. So um the municipal code does does indicate that the plan commission should review and consider and act upon um a an application that Complies that was noticed in compliance with the municipal code And in this situation, it was required to be noticed at 300 300 flow radius Um for the purposes of the conditional use permit But like Katie mentioned on appeal that that radius requirement increases to the 500 feet So are you saying are you saying then we're not up? We are not we do not have the authority to ask for increasing increasing the notice radius on A review of a conditional use permit Yeah, so like I said the the municipal code does require action on the item You know, which can which can be a continuance. Um, but you know so long as the So long as the requirements of the code were met That's kind of the the the limitation the upper limitation unless there is you know some willingness, uh, perhaps into You know reach out a little bit further either for you know public Or outreach or you know understanding So i'm still i'm still unclear the applicant is happy with the 300 feet It's the it's the commission who would like to expand it to 500 feet and we do or do not have the that authority to ask for that The way that the code is written. Um, there is not an authority to to Require an additional radius of noticing But on appeal they would have to notice to 500. Is that correct? Is that what i'm hearing? Yes, I don't have that specific provision in front of you, but I that's what That's uh, I think what k you and you had mentioned Well, I was I was suggesting that if they were to take action tonight that that's direction that they could Give to us but what i'm hearing is that they could give us that direction, but we would have to get the consent of The Applicant that to to allow us to go to a greater extent because the code actually does say for appeal It's 300 feet My comment was that if they decided to make take action on a up or down vote we could Consider increasing the radius and maybe the applicant would be um Allow us to do so Give consent The code the code for an appeal is 300 feet It'd be an ask of the applicant I'm sorry to keep going on this. Um, when i'm just concerned about when like on our code, for example The city decided that they were going to notice more and that was fine with it and so on this project It was just a basic minimum that was met at 300 Uh because it was more of a decision made that that 300 would probably be adequate at that time And then our other project it was evaluated that it should be 500 feet or all of depot hill is that correct? Yeah, I think under that one we we got direction and there must have been consent from the applicant that we could um Notice a greater amount of people so I'm just looking for practice, you know And what about when we were talking about like the hotel in the village? So typically we do the 300 feet like I said, I've uh Less than a half dozen times of I I think monarch cobin was one and then I think we did additional Um noticing during some zoning code update items that we knew I think it was like the vacation rental overlay We went a little further out items that we really thought the community would be engaged in but it wasn't for that one It wasn't really an application that they were looking at other than the city changing their own code And then for depot hill that was the entire neighborhood because of the in and out in the traffic Thank you Um out of curiosity. How would we I mean as um ed suggested ticket to city council I believe that would be through a vote tonight of an up or down vote and then it could be appealed to the city council You cannot um just Suggest that because this be heard by a city council. You do need to take action on it before it would get to city council Does anybody want to make a motion? I can make a motion to continue it You have one motion to continue Uh, could I have a clarification on that? Are you having uh, are there um Contingencies or grounds for that continuance? Uh, yeah, I would like to review the safety condition with the traffic um, have that evaluated and then um I would look at ensuring that the 300 foot notice was noticed And that it was properly posted and so that the community that says they didn't know about it Uh, we're we're well aware of it So you would be directing staff to provide more safety Information and then to justify their 300 feet Correct if we can't if we can't reach out to the 500 and I want to ensure I just I'm just responding to comments from the community motion Here's the motion So do read back what the motion says it needs to be a second I'm reluctant to second it um because I'm just not sure I think the motion should be to continue this with the request that uh staff Provide more information on the safety of the project because that is an allowable Reason for rejecting the project health and safety reasons according to 65 9 1 5 So I think that was the state gives us an out if we think that there is a safety issue So we need to get the safety question answered my opinion So is that a second so procedurally we have a motion and then are you seconding that I am seconding as long as we add some clause about a Safety and additional or actually it was not a safety review. It was a traffic review. Could we want a safety review of the intersection? Okay Could we read what what your Motion yeah, the read back of the motion the motion I have on file from commissioner Jensen Is there is a motion to continue the item With direction to staff to provide a safety review for traffic relating to this project And then originally you had requested that the 300 foot notice It is ensured that it's properly distributed to residents. Is that no longer part of this motion? It's still part of it Okay, so the motion is to continue the item With direction to staff to provide a safety review for traffic relating to the project and for staff to ensure that the 300 foot Noticing requirement is accurately distributed to residents Is there a second? I'll second that Okay, a first and a second. Do we have a roll? Commissioner esti. Hi Commissioner Jensen. Hi commissioner wilk No vice chair christensen I Motion passes three one with chair westman absent Okay, thank you everybody um all right, so number six is six Is the director's report? Thank you. Yeah Okay, now we'll move on to the director's report. I have a Quick slideshow for you this evening. Just I wanted to give you an update on the storm and the impacts to the city and Of course our businesses and residents so I'm not sure Why there's a security alert Hmm It's not showing up on our screen to press anything. I think sean's going to check the Yeah, can we give this to julia there were changes julia if you can run it off your Ryan's No Oh, there we go. Yay. Okay. Thank you Okay, well, uh, this is a staff update on the significant weather event Next slide, please It was a brian Great Okay, so the background is on january 4th. The emergency was declared and the evacuations in the In the village On the 5th around I think it was 9 a.m Major damage was done throughout the village with uh due to the large waves and And the the rain the atmospheric river city council on on that friday afternoon ratified an emergency declaration From there on out, I will say our staff on the 5th we The community development department went door to door. We brought in we had um inspectors come in from csg which is a contract service we utilize we also had Through our emergency operations center. We had two More inspectors building inspectors come over from the county So with six inspectors including our building official They were able to go door to door through 200 to 250 different structures and put a placard on every structure between the hours of one And nine p.m. So it was extremely Just uh, so proud of our team and what we were able to accomplish Um Our group here was filling out placards Sean was Also going out and putting when we knew areas that were definitely not affected by the water Sean and others in the department were putting those placards on buildings. We had finance writing out placards So it was just a really good team effort and got out there and and happy to report no injuries Um So after that we spent a lot of time going through and just updating tags There's the red yellow green system on each building green as you can occupy it yellow means You can go in remove your things and whatever the placard says you need to follow the directions and then red means it's too It was too unsafe to even enter. We need to to have a A professional come in and check the safety of the building before it can be entered by anyone On as you know another storm came through on the eighth We ordered a crane for the Stockton bridge and fear of trees coming down the The creek on the ninth we had a second evacuation of the village from 7 a.m. To 2 p.m The shelter was opened at jade street On the 10th we had that visitor We had governor Newsom come visit and see the damage FEMA visit to the village on the 14th and then the president of the united states on the 19th so pretty incredible 15 days with Really sweeping impacts to our village next slide please So what have we been doing in our different departments? So at the city managers department a lot of Social media getting the word out so 13 media posts at this point two newsletters three press releases Multiple interviews and taking people through tours of the the village and then three visits from government officials They've also created a recovery web page to provide resources and updates to the public Next slide please In in terms of Finance and mutual aid We've submitted initial damage estimates to the santa cruz county office of response recovery and resilience The initial estimates for city damages. This is not our residents and commercial damages is 2.6 million Next slide please This is a breakdown of the damaged infrastructure originally the municipal wharf we had budgeted 700 700,000 and I'm sorry 7 million and now we're looking at possibly another million in repairs Riverview pathway 175,000 cliff drive 400 Jetty we need to rebuild some of those rocks that was just Rebuilt a couple years back. It's another hundred thousand Stockton bridge has had impact And then hoopers ramp and stairways I just for the municipal wharf for messaging right before the holiday on december 23rd We got the news that the federal government passed the budget and our wharf was fully funded to To reconstruct and repair. So at this point we're we're now We think we need another million dollars, but we're pretty close because we have 7 million of funds that are Identified for the wharf. So now we're just about a million dollar short with that over and above the measure d So we got additional money. So I think it was measure f where we got those funds from Yeah, measure f and then there was um Money through the state that we received. So we were at about three And a half and then we needed a matching grant through the federal government and that passed on december 23rd So we're in good. We're in a much better position for this than we were a year ago To rebuild our wharf So next slide, please um This past weekend there was we had to wait on volunteer efforts everyone We kept getting calls and we have a really long volunteer list But because the weather continued to be bad and with the high tides, but this past sunday We were finally able to hold save our shores beach cleanup day And there's now they created a path down to the water which is safe We had to limit the attendance to manage crowds So there was you could sign up and then once it was full of sign ups that was we put a limit to it Next slide, please And then police police contain uh, they continue Regular communications with business owners. They're continuing to maintain patrols of the impacted areas Um, definitely been taking Folks on tours through the village and being a main communicator in the whole Emergency participating with FEMA visits and then they continue to attend the county EOC calls Um, and for public works, it's continued cleanup of the waterways potholes addressing falling trees Coordinating with callow oes And then more recently the fencing along depot hill due to landslides and erosion areas And then in our department community development, we've been providing at the direction of city council no cost inspections and permits We're doing expedited reviews the building official, um She's been amazing. She continues to work with the businesses and the residents and proactively going down to the village On a daily basis to figure out gas water sewer and inspections. I do want to We've got tj welch in the our audience tonight. He's been very instrumental in He and robin working very closely to get to the to get the pg and e back up and running to all of the customers Within the venetian and along the esplanade. So thank you tj Um, and then robin and actually tj has been attending these two We've been having a series of zoom meetings on monday wednesday fridays to impacted businesses as well as separate meetings for the venetians just to Give them updates as soon as we know them and then also question and answer periods for those impacted next slide, please And uh, so what happens here is the next question for planning commission So when you're looking at the buildings along the esplanade and you see the Impacts we're doing emergency When robin's out there. She's actually issuing emergency permits so that they can do work on site We'll be bringing those we'll be bringing anything that needs a coastal development permit It will be no charge to the Businesses or the residents, but we'll be bringing those into you and it's probably going to be in march in april that you're going to start seeing Like just bulk items for coastal development permits that we're allowed to issue the emergency permit But we have so many so much time before it has to be heard by the planning commission. So That's in your near future Next door you've seen our The small business Administration set up a business recovery center. It's been amazing all our i've seen All the businesses that we know down in the village coming in and they can get money and a much more Quicker than and at a lower rate To help them in the for the gap period until their insurance money comes through so They were estimating two to three weeks in order to bring financing to them So and then we've also been involved with coordination on the Regional level for disaster relief centers So that's more for residents that have been impacted and that's the federal government coming in working with fema And call oes and they bring in Any agency that you can think of at the federal and state level That may be able to help someone who's been affected. So the dmv has tables there for those people that A tree fell on their car The hcd is there the housing and community development from the state to help those people in mobile home parks So it's really i went to the watsonville one this weekend just to check it out So there's one at watsonville at ramsey park as well as the felton branch library They're open from 9 a.m. Till 7 p.m. Every day and they're a great resource to anyone that's been impacted and that is my summary of What what we've been up to for the past three weeks, so thank you Thank you katie All right now we're on to item seven commission communications Nobody Just want to welcome the new commissioners and it was a trial by fire man This is the toughest one you're gonna have to go through I do have just one question. Um, would there be a way and just a question could we Have a way at their next meeting on the questions that have been submitted Is there a way that there can be maybe some response back to or Like in your report maybe at the opening of the meeting like we kind of respond to some of the questions I know it's you know at the setup We don't really respond, but I think the community if they have questions It's just an answer back how we can identify that question answer period, but just the responses to those Sure, we can actually send a response and then forward that on to you So that you see the response to the public So when other people in the community see I was just wondering, you know, so If a question gets asked is there a way like at the beginning of the meeting Could we just run through with those questions where if they're not a ton of them, you know So under they understand that there was response. I mean, I think this is all positive You know looking at it, but just that they know when they're getting they're asking a question that there is a response back That is there a way that that can You can envision that working. Yeah, it all depends on when we get the questions in so I think that But we can definitely draft a response and for the next meeting for that one We can attach it to the staff report as you know What public comment we've had and have those responses Because we do try to limit the back and forth between question and answers of the podiums so that makes sense. Yeah Thank you. And just one last thing. Thank you for all you and your staff for what you guys did I thought it was amazing looking at what everybody did but the response and Inspections everything it was amazing to see everybody come together. So thank you and welcome that was Really a quick The last hearing the very fast hearing to have you come on board in that Context I apologize, but it's great to have you both here and Looking forward to the next few years. So, thank you Thank you. Okay. So with that we're gonna adjourn That's good. All right. Thank you everybody Let's try Oh Sorry, they make what you like to say. Well the meeting's over. Oh, yeah Just some quick ones Some questions. I think should be asked of the applicant for the affordable housing So I because we've closed the public hearing. I think you could write this in but it would be inappropriate for us to talk about the meeting We and we can't provide a back and forth right now. I'm not I wasn't going to do a back and forth I I think I'm not going to ask a question I'm just going to make a comment. I just without the applicant in the room. I don't Okay Sorry, ma'am The 300 foot rule isn't that a minimum? Oh, yeah Yeah, it's a minimum the 300 foot rule isn't cast in stone. You can go beyond that I forgot last time I was too embarrassed to ask