Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for today's Planning Commission meeting. Today's date is February 9th, 2022, and the time is 931 a.m. And today's meeting is completely remote via Zoom. And let's see, there are a couple of different ways to follow the meeting or participate in the public hearing. To both you and participate, I recommend using the Planning Commission Zoom meeting link, which is posted on the Planning Department's homepage, at sccoplanning.com. Alternatively, if your computer is not equipped with a microphone, you may provide comment by telephone. Please dial 1-669-900-6833 to call in. When prompted, the collaboration code number is 843-2858-7177. Again, this information is posted on the Planning Department webpage. If you forget the phone number or have last-minute questions on how to connect. All right, so we have two public hearing items on today's agenda. For each item, time will be provided for members of the public to contribute their testimony. Speakers will be muted until called on to speak. I will ask participants who wish to provide testimony to either remotely raise their hand by selecting the hand icon on the Zoom link, or if calling in by telephone by remotely raising your hand by pressing star nine on your telephone. I will call on participants by either your last name or the last four digits of your telephone number. If you're participating via the Zoom link, when I call on you to speak, you'll see a pop-up on your screen that says Unmute. Please accept the pop-up, set your name for the record, and provide your testimony. If calling in via telephone, you must unmute yourself by pressing star six on your phone. Members of the public will be provided three minutes to speak, and I will remind everyone of the numbers to press on your phone if you forget. We'll take it slow. Also, if at any time you have difficulty connecting to today's meeting via the Zoom link or calling in via telephone, we do have support staff with us today, Michael Lamb, and he will be checking his email periodically. And his name is spelled Michael, and then dot lamb, L-A-M, and his email is michael.lam at santacruisecounty.us. He'll be checking his email periodically, and he's on standby to assist you if you have any issues connecting today. All right, and with those instructions, I'll go ahead and turn it over to the Planning Commission Chair, Tim Gordon. Good morning, Chair Gordon. Good morning. Thank you, Jocelyn, and welcome everyone to the February 9th meeting of Santa Cruz County Planning Commission. It is 9.34, and we'll go ahead and call this meeting to order. Could we please have a roll call, Ms. Dre? Yes. Commissioner Dan? Here. All right. Commissioner Lazenby? Commissioner Shepard? Here. Commissioner Schaffer-Fritz? Here. Welcome back, and Chair Gordon? Here, thank you. We'll go ahead and move on to item number two in our agenda today, additions and corrections to the agenda. Do we have any to discuss, Ms. Dre? I know no additions or corrections today. Thank you. All right, and item number three, Declaration of Ex-Parte Communications. Do any commissioners have anything they would like to declare? No. All right. I would mention that I have, excuse me, had a couple of conversations with a few members of the public on the tiny homes items today and just a lot of support. And that's it. Item number four, oral communication. Yes, oral communications. And now's the time where we'll hear from members of the public on items that are not on today's agenda. Ms. Dre, do we have anyone that I'd like to speak to? All right. I'll take a look. So again, this is for folks to provide comments, feedback to the Planning Commission on an item that is not on today's agenda. If you have comments on an item that is on today's agenda, the Canada's amendments or the tiny homes ordinance, then you would want to wait until we get to those items. I'm raised a moment ago, but I think it went down. Chair, I'm not seeing any. Thank you so much. Okay, so then we'll close oral communications and move on to consent items. Today we have AB 361 resolution, which is continuing the Virtual Planning Commission meetings. And if any commissioners wanted to speak on that, happy to hear comments. Otherwise, a motion could be in order. I move approval. I'll second it. Thank you, Commissioner Dan, and all in favor? Say aye. Aye. Aye. And any opposed? Any dissenting item passes. Thank you. Move on to item, the schedule, regularly scheduled items now. Item number six, the approval of minutes from the January 26th Planning Commission. Would any commissioners like to make a motion on this item or have further discussion? I don't think this is for the item five. We're on item six, the approval. Yeah, I'll move approval. Thank you. I'm not sure why there was such reticence. I'll second it. Thank you so much. And scheduled, regular scheduled items, we're doing roll call votes. Could we please have a roll call vote? I'm a little confused. We're on item five or six? Item six is the approval of minutes. The approval of minutes. OK. I can't vote because I wasn't at the meeting. Sorry, Chair, would you like a roll call vote on that? Please. Thank you. Commissioner Shepard. One what? We're taking a roll call vote on the minutes. Oh, sure. Yes. OK. Commissioner Lazenby. Yes. Commissioner Dan. Yes. And Chair Gordon. Yes. And Schaefer Freitas abstain. OK. Thank you. Thank you so much. That passes. We will move on now to regular scheduled item number seven. This is public hearing to review and provide a recommendation to the board of supervisors on proposed amendments to the cannabis cultivation setbacks in the commercial agricultural zone districts. Technical changes associated with minor conflicts in code and associated sequence of exemption. Proposed amendments are to chapter 13.10.650 with Sanctuary Ciccione code. Ms. Drake, do we have a presentation today? We do. We have Sam Laforte with us today from the cannabis licensing office. Alice, will you please promote Sam Laforte to a panelist or a presenter? Just a moment while we get him set up here. All right. All right. Good morning, Sam. Good morning. I don't know why my camera's not on. I've been trying to fix that. There we go. All right. Will I have control of the presentation I submitted? No. We usually have CTV staff run the PowerPoint. So let's see. Will you please load the PowerPoint for this item? Item number seven, which is the cannabis cultivation ordinance. And then just say next slide, Sam, as you move through it. OK. Well, good morning, planning commissioners. Let's move to the next slide here. I wanted to give a quick review of how we got here. And at the August 24th meeting of the board, the board, a board member identified and elevated community concerns, which led to a motion which included evaluating those concerns around issues between cannabis cultivators in the CA zone and residential uses, which are but them. Next slide, please. May I interrupt for a quick second? Yeah. Item two. Hold on, Sam. There's some really terrible background noise. Can you mute yourself, please? Are you still hearing it? Let me let me see if I can switch to my headset if that makes a difference. Sounds like there's a vacuum running in the background. That's much better. Did that make any difference? That made all the difference. Thank you, Sam. Oh, I'm I'm sorry about that, everyone. I don't know what happened there. All right. So on October 19th, the staff presented the analysis to the board and the board chose to expand setbacks in the CA zone district for outdoor grows from 100 feet to 400 feet. The setback distance for indoor operations was not changed and the setback distance for nurseries was reduced from 100 feet to 50 feet. The board's proposed changes aligned the outdoor cultivation setback distance in the CA zone with the setback distance in the ag zone, the residential ag, special use, TP, C4, and M zones so that all adjacent uses have. Our CTV staff person had a Wi-Fi connection issue, so she's reconnecting. And as soon as she does, we'll pick right back up again or maybe we want to restart your slideshow. It's pretty brief. There's only two more sides. OK, so we should be able to get through it. Recording in progress. Here's to be a good sign. One more slide, please. I did want to provide the PC a little bit of background that the setbacks in the CA zone were originally 400 feet and they were reduced to 100 feet for all cultivation activities based on a board motion at the June 2nd, 2020 meeting. Next slide. So this item is in front of you today because conflicts between agricultural and residential uses are not new or unique to our county. The proposed changes will line the outdoor cultivation setbacks in the CA zone with all other zones, which commercial cannabis cultivation is allowed. These changes represent an increase of 300 feet to the existing setback requirements. And that's it. Thank you, Mr. Laforte. I appreciate the presentation there. And this time I'd like to ask the commissioners if they had any comments or questions of staff before we move to public comment. I do have a question, just a brief question for Sam. If you remember the October 19th meeting, I believe that was not a unanimous vote. Is that correct for this recommendation? That is correct. I believe it was a 3-2 vote. Yes. Thank you. Any other commissioners? OK, let's go ahead and move to the public comment portion of this item. Ms. Drake, can you please open that? Sure. So this is the opportunity for members of the public who wish to speak on this item, the proposed cannabis ordinance amendments, to either raise their hand using the Zoom icon or the hand icon on Zoom or by pressing star 9 on your telephone to remotely raise your hand. So I'm seeing we have some speakers. And we'll hear from everyone once. And when I call on your name, you have three minutes to provide comment. So we will start with the last four digits of the phone number being 9876. Good morning. And please state your name for the record. Hi, my name is Sarah Barbent. And I appreciate this opportunity to speak with you today. The recent non-retail cannabis ordinance history is a bit convoluted, so I want to draw your attention to some points. In the August 24th Board of Supervisors meeting, they requested five items, three to be included in a report and two actions, draft a moratorium and draft a noticing and community input process to mirror the retail cannabis requirements. They were unanimous in their vote to support these items. In September, the supervisors passed the moratorium on new non-retail cannabis licenses four to one. But then in the October 19th meeting, the board divided and voted three to two to simply return to prior ordinance language rather than to continue the moratorium. The board appeared to be conflicted about this issue and the staff report that day may not have helped. As reported in the Sentinel, and I quote, the staff report read like an advocacy for the industry and did not contain a vein of neutrality in any stretch. So supervisor friend who brought the item forward in August due to the disproportionate impact of adjacent agricultural and residential land in his district. The setback that the other supervisors are speaking of really does nothing to improve the situation within residential areas. The issues have arisen specifically where we allow a license to be secured within a residentially zoned or conflict area, end quote. The issue of setbacks that prompted the original actions in August have not been resolved by this proposal to return to former setbacks. The ability for stakeholders to be noticed and provide input is yet to be addressed. The staff report simply reiterates the board's actions without providing much justification for the proposal and ignores other elements such as the noticing and community input directive. I suggest at this time the staff be directed to continue research in this matter so that a more complete and substantial proposal can be provided to the board of supervisors that actually solves the issues. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, I will go to the next speaker who wishes to provide comment today. I'm seeing a name of Vicky Shepard. Good morning, Vicky. Will you please restate your name for the record and you have three minutes to speak? My name is Vicky Shepard and I live in Watsonville, Off Crest Drive and I'm here today to talk with you about why there's so much concern about non-retail cannabis license. According to the staff's report, there are 1,400 parcels eligible for cannabis licensing and they project that 40% of them will. This will change the nature of farming across the county. It is common for there to be pocket rural neighborhoods adjoining commercial ag and with housing pressures being the way they are, is spreading, this is inevitable. But when you buy in a rural area, you sign a statement saying, you understand that farming will occur with the potential noise, odor and dust. When I signed that statement, my local farm was a flower field and cannabis wasn't legal. There was no thought that there would be 220,000 square feet of mechanized buildings with infrastructure, needs of three big box stores like Costco running 24-7. Not to mention the frequent harvest occurring, lots of personnel and large delivery trucks up and down our one lane road, a road that we neighbors maintain without county assistance. My area has had homes for over a hundred years and we have existing cannabis greenhouses in the neighborhood side so that they did not impact neighbors. We had a great relationship with the Heather farm, but we really only know what cannabis license, what the cannabis license applicant intends from his preliminary application, which is scary. He indicates he's going to use the existing falling down greenhouses with no odor mitigation, eight foot fences with motion detection lighting, 40 large truck trips, a week and more, all within yards of many neighbors, a state park and an environmental reserve. And there's no means for us to provide input, except if we have specific concerns about the actual construction permits, as community input is not a part of the licensing process. As your neighbor, I'm asking you to consider how to better protect communities and the cannabis industry. It doesn't do any good to site cannabis operations next door to a bunch of unhappy neighbors. And we've all stood up multiple times in front of the county and this residential neighborhood surrounds the farm that is in question in our neighborhood, but I know that there are many other rural neighborhoods that will be horribly impacted if this passes. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. That was Vicki. We will move on to the next member of the public who wishes to speak on this item. I'm seeing a hand raised by Paul Lego. Good morning, Paul. Will you please restate your name for the record? You have three minutes to speak. Yes, can you hear me okay? Yes, good morning. Great, good morning commissioners and Mr. Laforte. My name is Paul Lego and I live in Liselva Beach near Manresa Uplands Campground. I just want to state for the record that I'm not opposed to cannabis or cannabis cultivation in appropriate locations, but I strongly believe that the setbacks that are being discussed today are too small and will allow cannabis cultivation to negatively impact families and children that are living on parcels adjacent to these potential growth sites. I would specifically today like to question the recommendation from staff that these changes are exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA. My understanding of CEQA is that the county has the responsibility to provide evidence to support its claim that these changes are exempt from CEQA. And I didn't see any evidence of that anywhere in the report. On the contrary, I think that it's common sense that if you reduce the setbacks from what was previously proposed, particularly for these indoor nursery greenhouses that your reduced setbacks are more likely to impact neighbors. In addition, and this is one of the subtleties here, they've changed the way that setbacks are calculated. At the beginning, when we were talking about all this, the setbacks were calculated lot line to structure. Now the setbacks are proposed to be calculated structure to structure, which as you can imagine, in many cases will lower the distance from the grow operations to the impacted families. And you can imagine now 50 feet from a nursery greenhouse to basically someone's bedroom window. I think that the environmental impacts, including odor, noise, traffic, light pollution, and more from cannabis cultivation are well documented. Allowing these cultivation operations to be closer to residential housing can only make these impacts worse. I ask that you please take the time to research and document these impacts and analytically or scientifically determine what a safe setback is from families and children. I do not believe that you should approve a CEQA exemption today. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, that was Paul. Okay, it looks like we have a speaker by the name of Jean Marie. Good morning. Will you please state your name for the record? You have three minutes. Yes, good morning. Can you hear me? Yes, good morning. My name is Jean Marie Lachlan, and thank you for this opportunity to comment on gender item number seven. And I, like many of my neighbors want to point out the significant difference between the retail and non-retail cannabis ordinances. Both state that they have a similar purpose, which is to mitigate negative impacts such as neighborhood disruptions. When it comes to the setbacks, the two ordinances are very different. In the retail rules, a license is not to be issued within 300 feet of any family resident, urban or rural. For the proposed non-retail cannabis ordinance, the setbacks are 400 feet for outdoor and only 50 feet for the nursery operations. And as Paul mentioned, not only do the different setbacks, there are different setbacks, but they also have different ways of measuring. For retail, the measurement is to the property line, whereas non-retail is to the actual inhabitable structure, making for short setbacks. So that is about 300 feet in a non-retail situation and 50 feet for a semi truck trailer between a bedroom window and a grown house. I believe the setback should be based on proximity to the controlled substance. The Board of Supervisors were not in agreement when they addressed the non-retail cannabis ordinance in October 19th meeting as indicated by their three to two vote. And to those attending the meeting myself included, it seemed like it was just an ad hoc decision to return to the prior setbacks. The staff report did not indicate how this proposed option would address community concerns or provide for any input from the community. We are depending on you, the Board of Supervisors, to make reasonable decisions. And unfortunately, this proposal needs more substantiation and consideration to provide the supervisors with a complete package. Thank you for your attention. Thank you, Jean Marie. All right, I am seeing we have a hand raised by a gentleman by the name of Greg Fernandez. Good morning, Greg. Please restate your name for the record. You have three minutes. Mute yourself. There we go. Sorry about that. Hi, my name's Greg Fernandez. I'm a cannabis cultivator with a nursery license and processing and distribution in Santa Cruz up there on Hughes Road. We have been approved by the county to cultivate roughly in 600,000 square feet to include nursery. And I just want to bring to your attention the difference of cultivation and nursery. So dropping the nursery setback to 50 feet makes all the sense in the world because there is no odor issues. There is no light issues. There's no noise because the immature plants that start out as seeds or seedlings, clones and teens, they don't begin to start emitting any odor until they're well into their cultivation process. So, and nurseries are prevented from cultivating. They just sell immature plants. So I just wanted to make sure that you are aware of that because there's some misrepresentations from the couple of these speakers so far. And a couple of us are the first two speakers for sure. They indicated they lived by this one problem applicant who has to go through many more hoops to get licensed. By the way, they're on Crest Road or Crest Drive. I've had an offer. I placed an offer to buy that property from the Kitayama family. I know it very well. I've driven it at least 100 times, been on site. And we decided against it because of the neighbors. It's a beautiful area. And I just, I knew that it would not fly with the neighbors. Now, if somebody came in with a nursery application, solely a nursery application, I would suggest that that would be okay because again, there's no odor or light pollution. And let's see something else was brought up. Oh yeah, the staff reports. It's something like, somebody said 40% of the 1400 eligible parcels. Goodness gracious. I have driven Santa Cruz County and called virtually every single possible licenseable property. And I'm telling you, there's no way in heck that we'll get to 40% saturation, not even close. And I personally, again, driven every single property and attempted to contact ownership. You might get 10% penetration. That's about it. Thank you, commissioners, for your time. Mr. Laforte, thank you. And that's that. Have a great day. Thank you. All right. And I'm seeing that we also have a hand raised by Darren Story. Good morning, Darren. Please restate your name for the record. You have three minutes. Good morning, Jocelyn and commissioners. Thanks for taking my time. I'm fine with the setbacks, whatever's proposed. I feel like the state of the cannabis industry is really challenging right now and economics is gonna kind of settle this. There's a few good operators left in the county where already in parcels that most of us went through the full use permit when there still was 400 foot setbacks per CA parcel to grow sites. So, for those of us that are established and struggling because we're arguing about one project like Greg just mentioned, I believe it was a September meeting. Supervisor Koenig asked staff to come back with recommendations on how to stimulate existing operators and create a viable economic platform for the county, in particular to stabilize the tax revenue that's coming in because it looks like we're not gonna have a whole lot of new licenses. And it's important for the county to still have that stable revenue stream or at least give an opportunity for all of us to work together and create economic vitality for all our communities. And I would greatly appreciate if the commissioners would rekindle that request of staff today so that we can start talking about the future and how to work together and how to create businesses that everybody's proud of that don't infringe on other people's rights or perceivable enjoyment of their property. So that's all my request, please. Let's try and find some solutions to move forward past the setback issues. Thanks a lot, Jocelyn, have a great day. Thanks, Darren. All right. I see hand raised by Pat Mallow. Good morning, Pat. Will you please restate your name for the record? Hi commissioners, this is Pat Mallow. I've been born and raised in Santa Cruz County. I've spent probably close to a decade now working with the county electives, regulators, community members, neighborhood groups to try to come up with some sort of ordinance that would allow the existing industry of law abiding medical cannabis businesses who are obeying previous county ordinances into the new statewide system that was rolled out in Prop 64 and before. And ultimately we've failed at that task. We had hundreds if not thousands of groups, people interested in continuing to be legal cannabis operators into the adult use rec system from the medical system. And now we're left with a handful of operators that really have gone to hell and back in this process. And like others, callers have said or speakers have said, right now is the time where we should be focusing on making this process work. I mean, we've had a C4 committee that I was a part of with many like of the stakeholders, community members and industry folks. And we really put something together that we thought was a compromise that bounced around in the county system. I know the planning commission has been a part of this process. It's been a long process and we need to keep going forward in that and making it work. What we've seen throughout this has been stumbling blocks of individual projects or individual gardens having conflicts with the neighbors and neighborhood groups and neighborhood groups seeing no other option, but to get involved in this like larger ordinance crafting process and to accomplish stopping one individual project, a couple of individual projects. I think everyone who's been following this issue knows what neighborhood groups and what projects are the problem. And so really I'd like for us to come together as a community and solve those issues, but not get off track on the large thing that Santa Cruz County voted for to bring about legalized cannabis in this county transition to old medical folks and people who have been participating and built this industry and provide tax revenue to go to things like the Thrive by Three program who we all came out and got behind. So I know that's a lot. It's been a long process for all of us and let's just keep moving forward. And thank you everyone on this call and everyone at this meeting. Thank you Pat. All right, going back to a list of callers and hands raised. I see a hand raised by Tom Moran. Good morning, please restate your name for the record. You have three minutes. Okay, can you hear me? Yes, good morning. Thank you, good morning. So my name is Tom Moran. I live off of Browns Valley Road in Coralitas. Again, thank you to everybody for hearing our discussions this morning. Others have already pointed out clearly concerns which reference the current conflicts when you have cannabis operations in residential areas. And I want to state like everybody else, I have no objection to the cannabis industry. It's really just an issue of when the operations are intermingled in residential areas. In addition, I know there's a lot of discussion around Crest. There is also a large cannabis operation on Browns Valley Road. It is out of compliance on screening and occasionally on odor control, both of which I have addressed at the cannabis office and these have not been addressed. As others have said, really one of the concerns is the smell cannabis produces. And I looked this up a volatile sulfur compounds which is a similar chemistry to skunks which as you know, use this scent to drive off predators. So even though I live and I've lived in Coralitas for 10 years and this is a mixed agricultural residential area, given that cannabis wasn't legal, this is certainly not the kind of thing we would have anticipated even in an agricultural area. Therefore, what I ask of the group is to please reconsider appropriate setbacks. What that will do is mitigate the impact on residential people who've lived in these mixed residential areas. And it would be as others have said, a good step so that we can all have a set of parameters we can work with going forward. And the industry can proceed and we can continue to value our quality of life here in Santa Cruz County. So those are my comments. Thank you for your consideration and I appreciate having the opportunity. Thank you very much. All right, and I am seeing a hand raised by a gentleman just named Michael. So Michael, please state your full name for the record. You have three minutes. Thank you, commissioners. My name's Michael Balch and I live in the neighborhood that has been referenced by other speakers where a large cannabis operation was proposed and has been sort of the genesis of the community activity around this issue. I just want to comment on the agenda item itself as written and how it was submitted to the commission. You know, as mentioned by Commissioner Freitas that the Board of Supervisors was actually very divided on this issue and Supervisor Friend and Supervisor Caput both stood up and represented their constituencies in protection of these neighborhoods. So we appreciated that. So it was not a clear item at all. And further, Supervisor Friend called out the Cannabis Office on their staff report and its appearance of bias. And you know, in reading the agenda item in there with regard to lack of voter control and just the assumption, and it truly is an assumption because it has neither been tested nor litigated in terms of an exemption from CEQA or the Coastal Commission. At full transparency, I've been a commissioner in another body in another county. And quite frankly, I would have been incensed to receive such a biased report from a county agency whose charter is for regulation, not advocacy. And that's exactly how I read these reports coming from the Cannabis Office because it disadvantages these families and these communities out here in favor of what is not a small industry. I've heard it referred to even in this session today as nurseries and gardens lacking in odor. Nothing could be further from the truth. All you need to do is look at the very first picture of Mr. Forte's presentation to see what sort of structure is being proposed or was being proposed as looming over the homes in this community. Bands in the background, lighting and large structures within 50 feet of these homes. I ask that the commissioners consider that. I mean, some of you have pictures of family behind you in this session today and these are the families that are out here now. So not only is this challenging for the cannabis industry but it's challenging for us who live out here and are trying to live our lives in a peaceful and normal way. So I ask the commissioners to just keep those setbacks out and solve the issue so this doesn't keep coming back, protect our communities. Thanks very much. Thank you very much. All right, and it looks like we have a caller with us or it looks like maybe on the Teams app by the name of Lawrence. Good morning, Lawrence. Please state your name for the record. You have three minutes. Okay, can you hear me? Yes, good morning. Good morning, I'm Larry Azaro. I'm a native Santa Cruz and actually ancestors were pioneers from the 1800s, early 1800s here.  I was trying to follow the link going to the tiny homes meeting and I've been stuck here. Is there something to get the one that was scheduled? So the tiny homes discussion is the next item on the agenda. So hold tight, we'll call on you after that item is presented and that it should be coming up shortly. Okay, thanks. You're welcome. All right. Okay, so I'll just go back to the public now. If you are a member of the public who would like to provide public comment on this item that we're on right now which is the cannabis ordinance amendments, please raise your hand. All right, I see hand raised by Susan Williams. Please restate your name for the record. You have three minutes. Many commissioners and staff, my name is Susan Williams and I wanna thank you for this opportunity to address agenda item number seven. I'll focus my remarks on a point made in the staff report that cannabis is just like any other crop. If this were the case, there'd be little contention between cannabis operators and neighborhoods. When I think of farming in our area, what comes to mind are strawberry fields, artichokes and apple orchards. The picture in my mind of what a cannabis operation looks like is very different. Cannabis is a highly regulated substance and has legal requirements that makes its operation and production very different from other types of crops and agriculture. Well, that's a good thing. Protecting the crop and the community, it does not make it look like or feel like a typical neighborhood farm. It isn't just the regulated requirements that make this crop different. Cannabis requires very specific growing conditions to have high quality yields. Much of Santa Cruz County does not have the optimal climate for this crop due to our proximity to the coast and our human climate. Because of this, this crop needs to be grown in a highly mechanized manner with round the clock lighting, noisy dehumidifiers and heaters to produce the desired quality and yields along our coastal zones. With this level of infrastructure, cannabis can be harvested multiple times a year, which means more large transportation trucks and traffic from personal vehicles than what most crops require. The amount of technical, mechanical and delivery support to grow cannabis is truly different from what most of us think of commercial agriculture. Your responsibility as planning commissioners is to determine the land use compatibility and to ensure the fair treatment of existing neighborhoods as new types of industrial style farming are introduced into Santa Cruz County. Thank you for listening to me and I look forward to seeing your actions on this item. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, last call for public comments on this item, the cannabis ordinance amendments. Okay, I am not seeing any chair. I will turn it back over to you. Thank you so much, Ms. Drake. And thank you to all members of the public who spoke on the matter. We really appreciate the input and the feedback and at this time we'll bring it back to the commission for further discussion and action. When any commissioners like to speak, Commissioner Dan. Sure, thank you, Chair Gordon. I will make a motion to approve the staff recommendation after I hear from other commissioners, but I just wanted to address a few things. This has always been a balance. This has been a long iterative process. This commission in 2018 went through a very lengthy meeting where we adopted or recommended the ordinance that was eventually adopted to the Board of Supervisors. I think we had 18 separate motions that were recorded separately in order to achieve that. Knowing this is an iterative process, I support the staff recommendation. I do want to make a couple of comments based on what I heard from the public. And I'd like to start with just a basic comment about how our democracy works. A number of times it's been brought up that this was a three to two vote. I just want to point out that since the beginning of I think for a number of years we've had a split on the board and that's how democracy works. You don't need unanimity in our system. You need a majority. And so there has been a majority to move this forward. Our commission often is unanimous in our decisions but that's not always the case at the board. I also wanted to address some comments I heard about criticism about the staff report from Mr. Laforte. I also read that staff report and I just wanted to say that I thought it was extremely well written and it was back-based and it was neutral. And I feel that with this staff report as well. I believe they were referring to the staff report in October that went in front of the board but I also wanted to let Mr. Laforte know that I appreciated this staff report as well and felt that it was just very neutral and just very back-based and I appreciate that. And then as far as the cross drive situation and I believe most of the neighbors who spoke were neighbors of that neighborhood. My understanding is the cultivator who came to the board meeting in October indicated that he was not moving forward with that project. So I just wanted to point that out as well. So I support what is in front of us and like I said, I'm prepared to make a motion when it's appropriate, thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Dan. Any other commissioners? Karen Gordon. Yes, please, Commissioner Trevor, thank you. I agree with Commissioner Dan. I think it's a good staff report. I support its conclusion and would second the motion. Thank you so much, Commissioner Freitas. I think you're muted there. Yeah, for reminding me. I could not support a motion to approve this. I think it is important that the public is aware that this recommendation came through on a three to two vote. I think the residents who spoke today, and it was not just cross drive residents, there were other areas represented, spoke very eloquently about their concerns. And I think what I heard them saying is they really want a community or input some other way of having some discussion about this and I don't think that they feel they've been adequately heard. And I would like to make a motion that staff gather additional community input and that they examine other options that are possibilities for setbacks. And I would like to suggest that the temporary moratorium be extended. I'm not sure that it needs to be extended for 10 months, such as in the previous recommendation. And I also appreciated a member of the public's comment that staff look into more incentives for existing or potential cannabis growers in this county. So I'd like to include that in my motion when I make it. And I'd like to listen to other commissioners now. Thank you, Commissioner Freitas. And so to be clear, that wasn't a motion at this time. Right. And Commissioner Lazenby, did you have any comments to add? Yes, I do. I did live in commercial ag properties and the deed did say you have to be, you're unnoticed that there will be unpleasant smells from animals. And it did not refer to large buildings or noise. So I think maybe the members of the public might have been taken aback a little when the noise and the traffic came into play when it was not on their deed. I will have to agree with Commissioner Schaefer Freitas that I think we are doing ourselves a disservice if we do not correct the impression or the optics that the public does not feel like we're representing them or protecting them. So I will vote with Schaefer Freitas. Thank you, Commissioner Lazenby. I appreciate that. That leaves me. So I do see both sides of this. I was not involved in the 2018 meetings that Commissioner Dan spoke of, but I can imagine how it's going. I guess I just wanna be really clear on this item. We've heard from a lot of members of the public that there's a broader challenge that they're seeing and feeling the impacts of not just the setbacks, but to be really clear that this item is only discussion around what the setback should be is that correct, Mr. Lazenby? Yes, this item is based on the board motion for just the setbacks in the commercial agricultural zone district only. And I just would also like to clarify that this is aligning with other types of plants that can be ground within these areas, is that correct? No, it's actually an expansion of setbacks required in the commercial agricultural zone district. So we have what's known as agricultural buffer setbacks for homes and uses that aren't adjacent to agricultural uses, which is a 200 foot setback from the property line of the ag zone parcel to the residents or the other use on the adjacent parcel. So the adjacent uses are supposed to be 200 feet away from the property line of the ag zone. So this is double that and could impinge upon the usable land within the commercial agricultural zone district parcel by an additional 200 feet or potentially more than that if there's been a setback exception for the neighboring parcel. So, Chair Gordon, what I'm not understanding was this actually increases the minimum setback distance for outdoor cultivation from 200 to 400 streets. So it's an increase which should satisfy some of the concerns of the neighbors and it's more than other kinds of cultivation. The other condition is to change the setback for nursery operations themselves from 50 to 100 feet. So that means I was thinking indoors particularly. So we're, we are extending the protections for neighbors significantly with this with what is the staff is suggesting as a resolution. That's why one of the reasons I am supporting it. I think reducing the setback from the greenhouse doesn't make 50 feet will help the industry and doesn't really affect neighborhood concerns in the same way. So, and I, and just, I think we all need to discuss this and see if we can find some common ground. If possible. Yeah, thank you. And that seems, I just want to clarify we're going from 150, not 50 to 100, correct? So we're going from 100 feet to 400 feet for cultivation, outdoor cultivation operation. Oh, thank you. I got it wrong. The setback of 100 feet for indoor cultivation operations is not, there's no proposed change for indoor cultivation operations. The nursery setback is proposed to change from 50 or from 100 feet to 50 feet. So it is a reduction. But to provide some context on the nursery operations, nursery cannabis nursery operations do not include flowering plants. So cannabis plants don't emit an odor prior to flowering. I think that is an important distinction to make for the public and for the commissioners to understand these are small seedlings and smaller unflowering plants similar to any other commercial nursery operations. And there is no odor associated with them. The security requirements would still be there. But I think it's important to understand that there is a difference between a nursery and a full cultivation operation. And it's a different license type. It's restricted by the county and the state in different terms also. Thank you. And just to one last clarification, what is that distance for other types of nurseries? Is it 50 feet as well? No, so for other types of nurseries, the only setback we have is the standard property line setback for development, which is 20 feet. But we're talking about the CA zone. So there is supposed to be an additional 200 foot buffer from the property line to an adjacent habitable use. So that would be essentially a 220 foot buffer is what's supposed to be there. Now, those 200 foot agricultural buffers, people can be granted exceptions to them. And they sign a similar waiver to any development where adjacent to ag, there will be noise, smells, lights, all those things. But I do think it's important for the commission to understand that light pollution was a concern raised by numerous people at this hearing and light pollution isn't allowed from cultivation operations, whether it be nursery or flowering. We do have requirements included in our best management operations practices, which include the use of blackout curtains. So no light can escape a cultivation structure. So that part is addressed by our code and was considered by the county over the extensive time of developing these regulations through 2016 through 2018. So that part I do believe is important to understand there is no light pollution from the cultivation operations. Can I ask one more clarification question? Of course. So let's go over this again because I think it's getting a little confusing at least for me. So we are talking about a proposal that will change the outdoor cultivation activities from 100 to 400 square feet. And as you've explained that, that outdoor cultivation means growing plants through to the flowering stage, correct? That is correct. Okay, so we're increasing that setback. Yes. And we are proposing to change the setback for nursery operations, we're gonna reduce it. And that means where they're growing young plants. And I do remember that we added the provision to allow nursery operations when we amended the cannabis ordinance because the way we passed it in the first time didn't really provide what cannabis growers needed. They needed to be able to grow young plants. And since they didn't flower and produce smells and so on and so forth, that was an acceptable use. And now of course we provide for that. So we're just saying, you're saying this is for young seedlings that are later transplanted. That's the other setback. I'm a little confused when you introduced the 200 foot setback. That's not a third setback. I am confused. Understand what's proposed. What does that have to do with the 200 setback which is standard for all agricultural operations? Nothing? I was just trying to address Chair Gordon's question in regards to what the setback would be for other types of nursery operations. And to simplify my answer, the setback would be 20 feet from the property line. Okay, so we are going, this proposal says for cannabis it shall be 50. 50 feet from an adjacent structure. So if there's a home on a property, it'd be 50 feet from that home on the property but no development would be allowed within 20 feet of the property line at all. So it's the same if not more. At least 20 feet, but 50 feet from any structure. Yes. So considering those items that, the agenda item today is setbacks. It's not whether a use is allowed in a certain place. It's not anything else about there. If there's people that would like to comment on that from the public, there's other venues to do that. You can write to the board. You can do a lot of things. This item today, you know, it appears to me that we are increasing setbacks. We are meeting the needs of the community and I would be happy to support it as is. Chair. Yes, please. I'll make a motion to approve the staff recommendation. I'll second. Thank you. We do have a motion and a second on the table to move the staff recommendation. Ms. Drake, can we have a roll call vote please? They're going to be in discussion before we do. I apologize. Thank you. Thank you so much. I cannot vote approval of this item. I think we've heard loud and clear this morning from community members. If there's even confusion among board members trying to understand all this. And I heard voices saying today that they really want to be heard and that they'd like a little bit more time. They're well aware of the setbacks. They know about the 400, the increase to 400 feet. They understand that, but they still have some concerns and they feel that they have not been heard. So I cannot vote for this motion. Thank you, Commissioner Freitas. Would any other commissioners like to speak on the motion before we move to a vote? Well, I did hear some of the members of the public that said that the measurement, whether it be a setback or an increase in a setback, that it was being calculated linearly from structure to structure instead of from property line to habitable structure. Is there still confusion on that? Is there still a 40? I don't believe there's any confusion on that. The way setbacks are measured for non-retail operations has not changed through the existence of the program. It has always been from the cultivation operation to neighboring structures. But the cultivation operation could be the property line. Am I correct? Or the last row of cultivation? It would have to be 20 feet from the property line. That is our development buffer for any use. Okay, thank you. I did have one, I guess, additional question that I'm sure has been brought up, but it would help if there is still some confusion. This one might be one that could be asked by a member of the public, is if there is a nursery already created and then someone on a residential use would like to build a house or home closer, that would make that setback of the nursery need to be extended, what happens? I would ask Jocelyn to chime in, but I will do my best to answer. It is my understanding that if you would like to build within 200 feet of a property line adjacent to an agricultural parcel, you have to obtain an agricultural buffer setback. So agricultural in place to protect agricultural uses from competing non-agricultural uses. This is documented in code in several places, and I will leave it at that for now. Thanks for that. I appreciate that. I think the clarity there that I was looking for, which I received is that this is all documented and the public does have a way to find out these questions and maybe we can just really clearly state like can they reach out to you if there are further questions or items of concern or, you know? Yes, and I've spoken to members of the public, those on this call a few times prior to the previous board hearings. That's all my questions and comments. And did any other commissioners wish to speak before we vote? Okay, hearing none, let's please, Ms. Drake, do a roll call vote matter? All right. Commissioner Dan. Yes. You're voting no on your motion. No, no, I was the motion. My motion was to approve the staff recommendation. I voted yes. Isn't that what we're having the roll call on? We're having the roll call on commissioner Dan's motion to approve staff's recommendation. That clarifies. Does that make sense? Commissioner Shepard, does that make you clear? No, commissioner Dan, did you vote yes or no? I voted yes. Okay, okay, go ahead, sorry. All right, commissioner Shepard. Yes. Okay. Commissioner Schaefer-Fredes. No. And commissioner Lazenby. No. And chair Gordon. Yes. Okay, the motion passes. Thank you. Thank you everyone for that. Okay, that will close item seven at this time and move on to item number eight. Item eight is a study session to consider the updates to regulations concerning tiny homes on wheels. This is gonna be a fun topic. I know we're all really excited to hear this one. Ms. Drake, do we have a staffer's group? Chair. Oh, please, yes. Is it possible to just have a five minute break? Absolutely, let's do that. Let's call a five minute break. It's 1040 now, let's return at 1045. Actually, if possible. If you don't mind, chair Gordon, we are required to do a 10 minute break after three hours. So since we have so many speakers, it might make sense to just do 10 and then we've got that done. That's perfect, thank you. I appreciate that, thank you, sounds good. So 1041, 1051, let's try to be back. All right, very much right. 751, let's see if we've got all of our, maybe we should do a quick roll call. Does that sound good? Yes, please, thank you. Okay, sure. So we're reconvening the Planning Commission meeting February 9th. We just took a 10 minute break. I'm going to take roll call and make sure we have everyone back with us today as far as the commissioners. Anyway, Commissioner Dan. Sure, thank you. Okay, Commissioner Shepard. Yes, I'm here. Commissioner Schaefer Freitas. Present. Commissioner Lazenby. Yes. And Chair Gordon. Here, thank you. Okay, then yes, let's just start over again here. We are moving on to item number eight, the study session to consider the updates to regulations concerning tiny homes on wheels. And Ms. Drake, I believe we have Daisy here and the staff report. That is correct. CZ, did you have a PowerPoint? Yes, I have a PowerPoint. Okay, good morning. And I am getting a little bit of feedback on yours as well, a little bit of a buzz on your, let's see how that goes with your microphone. We had that same issue with Sam. Alice, will you please load the PowerPoint presentation for this item? Thank you. And then Daisy, as you move through, just say next slide and Alice will advance your PowerPoint. Let me see how your audio sounds. Okay, it sounds like it still has a bit of a buzz to it. It does. I don't know if you have, Sam had the issue and then he switched over to his headset and it worked out much better, but you have a headset on, so I'm not sure what the issue might be. I do. Do you have another one maybe, Handy? I don't have another headset, just the one. Disconnect my headset and just try to, hold on, I'm trying another one. I thought that might be a good idea. Thank you. It is better. Yes. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes, much better. Thank you. Good morning. Okay, great. Good morning. Sorry about that. Not sure what the problem was there. Great, so thank you so much, Chair Gordon and commissioners. The purpose of today's study session is to provide information to you about options for regulations for tiny homes that are currently being considered and then receive direction as to how staff should move forward with an ordinance. Your commission first considered regulations for tiny homes at a study session on March 24th, 2021. And at that time staff was proposing to develop tiny homes regulations concurrently with the updates to regulations for accessory dwelling units per direction from the board of supervisors. However, since there are unique issues to consider regarding tiny homes at that March 24th study session, your commission gave staff direction to separate these two policy projects and conduct additional research and public outreach for tiny homes. So then in December of 2021, we restarted work on this project and we conducted three community meetings with over 150 attendees. In addition to oral comments received at these meetings, we've also obtained feedback from over 50 written public comments and over 350 online survey responses. Additionally, we received feedback from the Housing Advisory Commission in January and we've also reviewed tiny home ordinances prepared for seven other California jurisdictions and coordinated with staff from some of those jurisdictions. And a summary of this research and input is provided as exhibits attached to your staff report. Next slide, please. Okay, so before we get into the details of the regulations that we're considering, it's important to review what we mean when we say tiny homes. So tiny homes are small independent housing units, generally less than 400 square feet. In the industry, the term tiny home can mean either a small house on a foundation or a house on wheels that can be towed to different locations. Currently, the Santa Cruz County Code already allows tiny homes on foundations as permanent housing, as small as 150 square feet, either as primary homes or as ADUs, subject to relevant zoning code and residential building code standards. Tiny homes on foundations that are 400 square feet or less may also apply special standards in appendix Q of the residential building code, which has allowances for ceiling height, lofts, ladders and stairs and egress windows. In comparison to tiny homes on foundations, tiny homes on wheels are treated as recreational vehicles in Santa Cruz County and the County Code does not currently allow permanent habitation of recreational vehicles except in certain designated RV and travel trailer parks. The current code does allow RVs to be used as temporary housing during construction of a home on a foundation. And then note that the building code does not automatically apply to tiny homes on wheels since they are considered vehicles. So since tiny homes on foundations are already allowed here in Santa Cruz County, the proposed regulations that staff is looking at focus on tiny homes on wheels specifically. Although staff does propose to structure the regulations to define both tiny homes on foundations and tiny homes on wheels in order to clarify what regulations are associated with each of these housing types. A key question to ask here is why are we considering allowing tiny homes on wheels as permanent dwellings at this time? In other words, what is the purpose of developing these regulations? Santa Cruz County is experiencing a housing crisis and tiny homes on wheels represent one more affordable housing option that has been gaining popularity in recent years. Tiny homes on wheels tend to be attractive and affordable to buyers because they are compact, prefabricated but customizable, cost less and take less time to construct compared to homes on foundations can be owned separately from the land where they're parked and can be moved. And then a related question to consider is whether standard RVs and travel trailers should then be considered as types of tiny homes on wheels. Most jurisdictions with tiny home ordinances have not opted to include RVs and travel trailers in their tiny home regulations and have narrowly defined tiny homes on wheels as using residential building materials and resembling residential buildings rather than vehicles. That said, the difference between tiny homes on wheels and RVs and park trailers is generally aesthetic and the county could potentially incorporate RVs and park trailers into our tiny home ordinance. Next slide, please. So at the community meetings, as well as in written comments and in our online survey, we've seen overwhelming support from the public for development of regulations for tiny homes on wheels. Here you can see the results of the online survey over 80% of survey respondents are very interested in these regulations. So that indicates to staff that the county should move forward with developing regulations. Overall, a few key themes and concerns have emerged from the public. Those interested in developing tiny homes are mostly drawn to this housing option because it is a lot more affordable and faster than development of a home on a foundation, especially given the current housing crisis and supply chain issues. Tiny homes on wheels are especially interesting to CZU fire survivors as an efficient way to rebuild housing units on their properties, either as an interim option before a home on a foundation is developed later or as an alternative to a home on a foundation, in which case the tiny home could potentially be towed off-site in the event of another emergency. There is concern that tiny home regulations for Santa Cruz County may not be developed in time for CZU survivors to make use of this option. So there is some sense of urgency coming from the public for that reason. We've also heard that applicants would like to be allowed as much design flexibility as possible, but there's also some concern about mitigation of potential neighborhood impacts, such as parking. And then in rural areas, a repeat topic of conversation and concern has been septic constraints, more specifically the cost of septic systems, alternatives to septic systems, potential impacts of septic system requirements on development feasibility of tiny homes on wheels. Next slide. So then in terms of regulation options for tiny homes on wheels, there are many policy questions to consider. So first and foremost is geographic location. Most jurisdictions that have tiny home ordinances have tended to limit tiny homes on wheels to single family zone districts. And some jurisdictions have also limited location based on environmental risk factors such as fire danger and sensitive habitat areas. Our survey results indicate that about three quarters of respondents would like tiny homes to be allowed on any parcel or on any parcel that allows residential land use. Other respondents have felt that tiny homes on wheels should be limited to certain types of parcels, such as existing mobile home parks, large rural parcels, urban parcels that are closer to services, CZU Burn Area parcels. There was also some survey response and community discussion about allowing tiny homes on wheels on certain rural parcels that are currently considered unbuildable for standard foundation homes. There's also discussion about allowing tiny homes on wheels outside of residential districts, for instance, on church properties. Staff is recommending that the Santa Cruz County ordinance would allow tiny homes on wheels anywhere that residential land use is allowed subject to discretionary use approvals in any zone district where use approvals are usually required for homes on foundations. Also, the ordinance should continue to allow tiny homes on wheels wherever RVs are allowed. Next slide, please. And then in terms of configuration and number of tiny homes on wheels on a parcel, there are several options that the county could potentially allow. Staff recommends that tiny homes on wheels be allowed to substitute for one or more of the allowed dwellings on any given parcel. We heard support from the community for this idea. Staff also heard community support for larger tiny home villages, as well as additional accessory structures on wheels. But staff does not recommend pursuing those ideas at this time since added density would require additional analysis and possibly general plan amendments and environmental review. To give the commission an understanding of what staff is proposing, here's an example of a single family parcel. On the top right of the slide, we can see what is currently allowed on this example parcel, one single family home, one ADU and one junior ADU all on foundations. The four site plans on the bottom of the slide would all be allowed with staff recommendation. So the first site plan shows a tiny home on wheels being used as an ADU. The second site plan shows a tiny home on wheels being used as the primary home. And there's also an ADU on a foundation located on the parcel. The third plan shows a tiny home on wheels in addition to a primary dwelling and an ADU on foundations. And then the fourth plan indicates three tiny homes on wheels. Based on staff's review of ordinances that have been created for other jurisdictions, the first site plan configuration option shown here is by far the most common, where a tiny home can be substituted for an ADU. However, some jurisdictions have also allowed these other configurations as well. Next slide. And then there are a variety of options for development standards for tiny homes. Overall, survey respondents have been in favor of having special standards for tiny homes on wheels that are different from development standards or ADUs or other buildings on foundations. In particular, since tiny homes on wheels are movable, it may be appropriate to have more relaxed development standards applied to tiny homes on wheels in comparison to buildings on foundations. However, it may also be appropriate to apply existing development standards in the county code to tiny homes on wheels in order to promote neighborhood cohesiveness and avoid confusion related to having yet another set of standards in our code. So staff has reviewed all of these options and recommends that setbacks, floor area ratio, lot coverage and parking should be the same as that we require for accessory dwelling units. This is how most other jurisdictions have applied development standards for tiny homes on wheels. However, staff does recommend certain special standards to apply to tiny homes on wheels and that would include unit size and height, which are constrained by DMV requirements, as well as placement of tiny homes on wheels in driveways if other development standards are met. So the advantage of locating a tiny home on wheels in an existing driveway is that the property owner may not need to build a new parking pad for the tiny home and also may avoid disturbing a new area of a site to accommodate the tiny home. Next slide, please. Next slide, please. Thank you. And then in terms of design, as I mentioned earlier, tiny homes on wheels are generally built to resemble homes rather than vehicles and jurisdictions that allow tiny homes on wheels as permanent housing have tended to include design requirements in their ordinances that set tiny homes apart from other movable homes, such as RVs and travel trailers. And then with design requirements, it is important to keep in mind that most tiny homes on wheels are going to be prefabricated. And while there are a range of architectural styles that can be achieved, the overall shape of the homes is somewhat boxy in order to meet DMV height and width requirements for towing. So as a result of that, other jurisdictions have not really made any overall architectural style requirements that have instead taken the approach of prescriptive requirements, such as, for instance, minimum roof pitch, a menu of allowed siding materials, building grade windows and doors, skirting around wheels and integrated mechanical equipment. At our community meetings, members of the public have generally been supportive of these types of design standards, especially in denser urban neighborhoods, as long as they are not difficult for a standard tiny home prefab manufacturer to achieve. Some feedback has been received that perhaps the ordinance should not include design requirements at all and should consider including RVs or travel trailers to qualify as tiny homes on wheels. So staff recommends that tiny homes on wheels should be required to incorporate residential building materials, should incorporate mechanical equipment within the structure and should be located on a parking pad that meets structural specifications that staff can develop in cooperation with the county building official. Staff does not recommend that tiny home design be required to meet the menu of ADU objective design criteria that were recently approved by the board for inclusion in the county's ADU regulations because most of those standards are related to the ADU aesthetically matching the primary dwelling and that is less important for a tiny home on wheels since it can be moved offsite. Next slide, please. And then two other issues that will be critical to consider for tiny homes on wheels are utility requirements and ownership and occupancy. So in terms of utilities, most jurisdictions require connection to a sewer or septic system, water system and the electric grid, but some do allow off-grid systems if there are backup systems available. There's a lot of discussion on this topic at the community meetings and environmental health department staff were able to clarify that for off-grid waste water systems rural properties must by law, by state law are required to have enough septic system capacity to support dwellings, including tiny homes on wheels. Environmental staff further clarified that property owners with backup septic in place are able to use composting toilets and there's no associated permit requirement for composting toilets. Staff recommends that the county allow tiny homes on wheels to have off-grid electric water and wastewater if the backup systems exist. So for off-grid electric, that would mean that the tiny home on wheels would need to have a renewable energy system capable of supplying 100% of the electricity needs and would need to have the ability to connect to the grid. Off-grid water and wastewater, tiny homes on wheels within the urban services line would need the ability to connect to the water and sewer systems. And then off-grid water and wastewater, tiny homes on wheels outside the urban services line would need backup water and septic systems with capacity to serve the tiny home on wheels per state law. And then in terms of- One quick question about what you just said. What is a backup system? A backup system means that there, so it means that- Like specifically for the water and septic. Yeah, so in the rural area, backup wastewater system would mean that the property has a septic system with the capacity to serve the tiny home on wheels. And the water? That there is a water system with the capacity on-site or I don't know, there's some areas of the rural county that have the community water system. So either an on-site water system or community water system with capacity to serve the tiny home on wheels. But I mean, are you saying they would need to develop a well-served water? I mean, in the valley to get a connection is complicated and expensive, but it's the only way you can build anything. So what would this mean for a tiny home user? Yeah, so my understanding is that the state law requires that for water and wastewater, that there be a system in place to serve the tiny home on wheels on grid. And that if there is that system available, then tiny homes on wheels can use the option of being off grid. And that's sort of where the state law lies today. I understand that clearly about electricity. I'm still not, have you looked? Maybe it just needs to look further looking at. In the valley, there's a couple of water systems. There's some community ones and then there's the San Lorenzo Valley. To build anything now, you have to get it. You have to get a well-served water or you have to develop a well, which involves permits and inspections. How would we handle tiny home service for water? Right, yeah. If we don't know now, that's an area that I think we'll need to explore, obviously. Yeah, I think that could be, it could be explored further and more detail could be provided. It could be that a well-served letter would be required. It could be that actual construction of a well would be required, depending on the available, the water systems that are available to the property in question. Okay. And this is an area where staff could invite, for instance, environmental health staff to join us at the next public hearing on this topic to provide more detail to the commission if that would be useful. Well, I mean, I think that's going to be a somewhat thorny issue, that's all. But I'm interested to see what we could work out.  The idea was that one of the advantages is you could move your tiny home, but would you, do other jurisdictions require that there be a hauling vehicle and during fire danger time, so they can get out? No, not that I'm aware of. Okay. I'm sure other people have plenty of questions, so I'll stop right there. Okay. All right, so I will finish up my presentation here. So regarding ownership, because tiny homes can be moved off site, tiny homes on wheels are considered to be personal property as opposed to land and buildings on foundations, which are considered real property. So for that reason, ownership of tiny homes is separate from ownership of land and other real property. So staff recommends allowing tiny homes on wheels located on land owned by others in order to keep tiny homes affordable. This aligns with feedback we've received from the public. Staff also recommends that the county ordinance should not allow short-term rentals, meaning rentals for less than 30 days in tiny homes on wheels, since these homes are being considered as an affordable housing option. This aligns with what other jurisdictions have done and also aligns with feedback from the community. Although staff has received some feedback that short-term rentals should be allowed in order to keep more flexibility in our tiny homes regulations. Next slide, please. Okay, and then in terms of what approvals to require for tiny homes on wheels, most jurisdictions require that they be built to either the American National Standards Institute, 119.5 Park Model Recreational Vehicle Standards or the National Fire Protection Association 1192 Standard on Recreational Vehicles and that they must be certified with the DMV. Beyond those requirements, some jurisdictions have added additional construction requirements. Some other jurisdictions have added more flexibility in terms of construction requirements. For instance, in Humboldt County, in the event that a tiny home on wheels owner wants to modify their ANSI or NIFPA unit or build their own tiny homes on tiny home on wheels, that jurisdiction allows compliance with the residential building code with approval of the chief building inspector. When we asked about permit requirements for tiny homes on wheels in our survey, respondents tended to prefer that tiny homes be permitted similarly to RVs or in some combination of RV permits and building permits. Staff recommends that we follow the lead of other jurisdictions and allow compliance with ANSI or NIFPA and also offer the alternative of compliance with the building code. Staff also recommends that tiny homes on wheels proposed to be parked in areas with high or very high fire danger should be subject to fire safe standards similar to those required for buildings on foundations. And then staff recommends that the county's ordinance should lay out a simple ministerial approval process for tiny homes on wheels. So applicants would submit information about the tiny home itself, along with a site plan showing where the tiny home would be parked. Staff would verify compliance with development and design standards, construction requirements and registration for travel on roadways. And then in some cases, discretionary permits such as coastal development permits may be required. And staff does recommend that the ordinance should require discretionary permits in cases where discretionary permits would be required for ADUs. And then one additional issue that was raised by members of the public was some concern about maintenance of tiny homes on wheels over time. And it was suggested that tiny homes on wheels, permits or approvals could perhaps include a required permit renewal every certain number of years to avoid public nuisance or code enforcement situations that can be challenging to resolve. Of course, any requirement for permit renewal process necessitates additional planning department staff time and resources that may not be available. So that's the trade off there. Staff does recommend that the commission consider requiring a permit renewal every five years. Next slide, please. Okay, and then with that, staff recommends that your commission conduct a study session to discuss the proposed amendments to the county code regarding tiny homes and then direct staff to prepare an ordinance with these amendments along with a CEQA notice of exemption for consideration by your commission at a notice public hearing on a date uncertain. And staff does recommend that the ordinance be bifurcated in order to allow for approval outside the coastal zone upon Board of Supervisors approval. So that concludes my presentation. Thank you so much, Daisy. Great presentation and really great work on this. I know this is a lot to get through and we're creating a new code if anything is challenging and especially a new building type that hasn't been done. I just want to make a few quick comments. You know, last time we did a study session on the ADUs that you led, that was really, it was went really well, I thought. And you were able to capture kind of all of our random ideas and put them into a on our plans. It's really great work on that. And I'm glad you're on this one able to help us out with that. I'm sure it's going to be a lot of back and forth. So, and then I wanted to take a quick pause and just understand a little process, I have a process question here for the commissioners. I assume we have a lot of public comment. So would it be appropriate to maybe have a few smaller questions now and allow the public comment to happen before we really dive in? Well, I was thinking maybe we could have some comments now because some of our questions, maybe once the public wants answered anyway. Yeah, and then after public comment, you know, with something complicated like this, it might be helpful to just kind of go like issue by issue. But we can get to that after public comment. I agree with that approach. Okay, that sounds good. A few questions, high level stuff, and then maybe step by step after public comment. That sounds great. And then who would like to start? Well, I'll start. Please. I had a couple of questions for Daisy. I think your report is thorough, but leave some areas that are just, leave me still scratching my head. They're mostly about water and sewer and environmental concerns for, let me give a very focused question. For example, we have a tiny home in our neighborhood that's parked, not connected to anything. I think they're just storing it there. But right now there's no setback from the creek. It's three feet from Sandy Creek. In your estimation, Daisy, I didn't see much about tiny homes conforming to those kinds of requirements like setbacks from our riparian areas or something. Would they still, in what you're proposing, would they still be subject to those kind of setbacks? Yeah, thank you for that question. Yeah, so what staff is proposing is that tiny homes on wheels would be subject to the same requirements, the same setback requirements that we require for accessory dwelling units. And those setbacks are standard setbacks of four feet on the side, four feet on the rear, and then whatever front yard setback is required in the zone district. But in addition to those setbacks, ADUs are also subject to environmental buffers entitled 16 of our code, just like all buildings on foundations. So we are proposing that tiny homes on wheels be subject to those same environmental buffers, and that would include buffers from riparian areas. Okay, and then I see in what you're proposing you would allow ADUs in driveways, except when they inhibit people's access to their grudge. So that is kind of gray.   That's a little unclear. And then it brings the same question to me as if you parked a tiny home on a garage, once again, would they just run a house to the primary residence's water and septic? Or in which case, they're more like an RV. I'm a little confused how that worked. And from what I've heard, tiny homes on driveways are gonna be a relatively controversial topic because there's an awful lot of cul-de-sacs and potentially having a tiny home and many of the driveways is a serious, it would impede traffic, fire safety, just crowdedness. I'm unconvinced that's such a great idea, but what did you mean in what you talked about about allowing tiny homes and parking and on driveways? Sure, yeah, thank you. So what staff would be proposing there is that tiny homes could be parked in a driveway as long as they're meeting the development standards, the other development standards in the code. So that would include the setbacks that I just mentioned. As well as the parking requirements for the tiny home and for the main dwelling or ADU or any other buildings on foundations that are located on the property. That's what I guess what I'm asking. Let's say you have a single family home which may or may not have an ADU and they have a standard two-car drive and they have a two-car driveway. So if we end up requiring a parking space for a tiny home because we might wanna have a hauling truck available and then the homeowner has their two cars, then we're just increasing off-street parking immediately. I don't see how, what you mean, quite. Sure, yeah, so to use that example, so let's say that you have a standard kind of single family home, it's got a two-car garage and then in front of that there's a parking, a driveway that can fit two more cars. Under this proposal, we wouldn't allow a tiny home on wheels to be parked in that driveway because it would block required parking for the primary dwelling. So, okay, that's much clearer, thank you. When would you allow then a tiny home in front on a standard driveway and a single family home or did you have some other concept of what you meant by a driveway? Sure, so let's say you have, like say a larger rural parcel that has a longer driveway with a big parking pad and turnaround area and there's extra space already on that driveway where you could accommodate a tiny home on wheels without blocking any of the required parking or garage access for the primary dwelling. Then in that case, staff is proposing that you would allow the tiny home on wheels to be parked there as long as you're meeting other requirements as well, such as the setback requirements. A lot of driveways are just along the side of properties and so we would still require a side yard set back for the tiny home on wheels. So it wouldn't be able to be accommodated in all of those types of driveways situations. That makes more sense to me, but what about if you had such a place and for many, would the tiny home then just to deal with septic and the water backups with the primary residence septic system in the valley, they're all septic systems and water hookup half, would they have to demonstrate that they have the excess capacity and would they just hook up by a hose? Yeah, they would need to demonstrate that they have the capacity in their existing systems on site or upgrade their systems and the staff recommendation has not gotten into the details of exactly, let's say how a connection would be required and what that would look like, but the commission could certainly give staff direction on limitations or guidance that we might wanna provide in the code about that. Yeah, I just think there needs to be a lot of development about how we can, the utility connections, the water, the septic, et cetera, how it's all gonna work. So we don't raise false expectations on either side. I mean, it sounds good, but we need to deal with fire hazard zones, water systems and septic systems, even because of the state requirement of the red backup. So that's more complicated and I don't feel that the staff report has really investigated that very well and I think to be responsible about this, we're gonna have to look into it very carefully. And the other question I personally had is, I noticed in your staff report, one of the reasons for tiny homes is if there were fire danger that they could be pulled out and that was my question. In that case, how do we know they have a tow vehicle available because you could just park one and drive away and then it's a sitting duck in a fire situation. Whose responsibility is it to make sure that there's a way to get them out of there? That was one of the advantages of having them. I'm not saying that it can't be done, but I think it needs to be explored that if we are going to allow them because they're so mobile, then we gotta make sure they're really mobile in an emergency because during the fire, you had to get out of there in three hours or two or suddenly or immediately. So I just wanna make sure that we are thinking about fire issues throughout development of this ordinance. I'm not saying that's about it. I think that's just responsible, that's all. Yeah, I think I could respond to that just briefly, which is to say that I think staff was recognizing the moveability of tiny homes on wheels as a potential advantage to owners of tiny homes on wheels. So if there were an emergency in the future, those owners could plan ahead of time to have a haul vehicle in place. It could be overstepping in terms of zoning ordinance to require a haul vehicle on a property that has a tiny home on wheels, but I haven't seen that in other ordinances. I guess I'll just put it that way. I wasn't suggesting that requirement. I just wanna make sure that when we think of them as movable, what does that really mean in a rural area? So I won't take up any more time because I'm sure the other commissioners have questions as well. Thank you, Commissioner Shepard, great questions. Did anyone else wanna ask a few things quickly? Commissioner Lazenby? I do have one question. And that is regarding plan development, such as age restricted single family home communities where the plan development documents, the underlying mandates require that there be only one habitable structure on the property. And most properties are postage size anyway, but there are a couple that are because of the perimeter and the configuration. They do have larger backyards. Would there be tiny homes on wheels allowed there? Can you overstep an ordinance from the municipality or the whichever agency created that plan development? You know, I think that would be a question that staff would need to look into a little bit more. What I would say is regarding like accessory dwelling units on foundations, their state law explicitly requires local jurisdictions to allow ADUs regardless of any local ordinances or CCNRs associated with homeowners associations. There isn't a similar state mandate regarding tiny homes on wheels. So my understanding then is that our ordinance on tiny homes on wheels would not supersede a local HOA requirement or, but then in terms of, you know, another ordinance that exists and how that those ordinances are put together for specific plan unit developments, staff would need to look into that a little bit more to understand the interaction there. Thank you and I appreciate your presentation. Thank you, Commissioner Lazer, the commissioner, Dan. Thank you, we're up next. I did actually thank commissioner Schaefer-Gradus, Hedercanda, long ago. Oh, I'm sorry. If you'd like to go, Melanie, I can't. You know, I really, at this point, I'd like to hear from the public. I feel bad that they waited so long for this item. So I will hold my questions till after public comment. Okay, I'll ask some questions now then. I want to thank Daisy for the staff presentation. It was really excellent. I had just some general, like, broad questions that I thought maybe I could ask now and then there's not really an answer. Maybe we can think about it during this public comment. And that is, you know, first, I just want to say, like, when this came to me, I wasn't sure how I could ever see this. I wasn't even clear on the distinction between an RV and a tiny home. And I think I, that's what I said a year ago when we brought this up, but now I do. And so I credit you for that. And so I really want to thank you for that. So one of the questions I had was kind of a, I guess this would fall into like a health and safety building code kind of like bucket. And that is, you know, since in the past, we've kind of distinguished between a legal, dwelling, which we're considering making tiny homes now and in like an RV, which is personal property that you drive around and visit places and whatever. And the state code has always said, like, if you have a mobile home, it has to be in a foundation and I believe that's probably for some safety reasons. So I guess the question is kind of, so what, what are we going to do to kind of satisfy that kind of safety issue? And I know we don't have tornadoes here, things like that, but I imagine, you know, and I saw there was a reference like, oh, we're going to have to work out with building code. But I guess, so what is it now that's happening that we're considering kind of throwing that out and then saying, no, this is important enough, you know, we're in a housing crisis, whatever, that we're going to do this, but then also what are we going to do to make sure like at a high wind event, you know, this doesn't blow over or in an earthquake or can, are these safe in an earthquake, I guess. So that might be for later, the next time this comes forward. So that was one kind of overarching question. And then the other one, which was referenced in the staff report was how we deal with this from the assessor's point of view. And I, you know, I'm still not quite clear on that distinction, you know, if they're going to be primary dwellings or kind of at odds with how they're defined in state code. And I know you're saying like, we're going to look into that. So I guess I'm just kind of doubling down on that. Something that we need to figure out.  What's, is there, what do we do with that? Like, you know, because work is a dwelling unit, but yeah. And so I think I'll leave it there. I had questions about utilities that you answered. So that was great. Oh, my other one was about height. I didn't, I think I saw a reference to height, but I also was wondering how that's measured. Is it measured from where the wheels touch the parking pad or is it measured from where that dwelling actually starts? And then the second question is, I wasn't clear on what the proposed max height would be and whether or not there might be different max heights depending on where the tiny home might be located. So I'll stop there and let others speak. Thank you. Great. So I can briefly address these questions. In terms of the, you know, safety question, you know, I would say the main reason that, you know, staff is considering tiny homes on wheels as permanent dwellings at this time is from direction from the board of supervisors. And that's coming from the community ultimately and in reaction to the housing crisis and this being another, you know, option for housing. Interestingly, I haven't seen in a really, most other zoning ordinances, requirements for things such as tie downs, but that's certainly something we could look into and research more and talk more with staff from other jurisdictions that have had ordinances in place for a couple of years. To see whether that's something that makes sense to include for safety reasons. Then in terms of the assessor's office, yeah.  So tiny homes on wheels don't necessarily increase property value. In California, there aren't many jurisdictions that are allowing tiny homes on wheels as primary dwellings. They're mostly allowing tiny homes on wheels just as ADUs so far. So there aren't many places to look to for examples, but there are jurisdictions outside California that staff can look at for examples. And then we can also coordinate with our assessor's office here to better understand what the impact might be.  So I wonder if the assessor is going to look at if you build a parking pad and you rent to an ADU whether that increases your, because I mean, you do like, I guess the whole point of property taxes is like to help pay for services and roads and all that stuff. So I guess that would be occurring if you add a tiny home on your property. So it seems, yeah. It's a fascinating and interesting policy. Yes, it is. And that's definitely on our list from a staff perspective to coordinate with the assessor's office. It's one of our next steps. And then in terms of height, my understanding in California is that the height limit is 13 feet, six inches for a tiny home, or for, you know, for towing. And I actually don't know if that's measured, where that's measured from exactly. And staff can research that and make sure we include that in the ordinance. But our idea was to require just the height that's, you know, for max, yeah, the height that's set by the DMV because that's ultimately it's going to be lower than anything else that we have in our code. So the photos that you showed us in your presentation, those were all the height of around 13 feet. That's what the question was. I mean, I loved the photos. They looked are adorable units. Some of them looked, they looked pretty tall, like comfortable that, you know, they looked above. Yeah, most of these units have lofts in them, small lofts, but they have lofts in them. I would just say, you know, not all those photos are from California. So there are some. So the height is set by this state DMV and it differs across states, but only by a few feet. Okay. Yeah. And then I guess I just, I forgot to say this, I am just to let the commissioners know I am interested in dreamlining a process for CZU, the CZU burn scar. So we could all just kind of think about that. But yeah, thank you, Daisy. Appreciate it. Thank you, commissioner Dan. All great questions. Good start. I have a probably way too many. So I'm going to probably hold off for now too. And then if the other commissioners are ready, let's move on to the public hearing portion. Yes. All right, that sounds great. Yes. So this is the time for members of the public who wish to speak on this item, the tiny homes study session to raise their hand using the hand icon on the teams app or to press start nine on your telephone to remotely raise your hand. And I'm seeing a number of folks with their hands raised. So I'll just start at the top here. I'm seeing a participant by the name of Turan McKinney. I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name, please restate your name for the record. You have three minutes. Hi, thanks. My name is Turan McKinney. And just to clarify some of the questions that the group brought up, 13-6 is the height that you're going to hit a bridge when you're driving down the road. So 13-6 means that's where the lowest bridges are in general. That's why they have that. I believe that's why they have that height. And first of all, I want to thank you, Daisy, for doing all of this work. I agree with almost all of the staff recommendations with a couple of exceptions regarding utilities. You know, these tiny homes are hooked up just like an RV. So you get the water from the hose from the house that you're parked nearby. Same with the electricity. You usually have a 30 or 50 amp panel that you plug into and that's RV standard, RVIA standard. And that's what these are following. My support, having the ANSI regulations instead of having building code. We have to remember that this is really about cost and scarcity. So the more regulations that we start out with, the more expensive it's going to end up being and the more people are not going to be able, more people are not going to be able to avail themselves of this. So regarding the septic issue, which is my huge, which is near and dear to my heart, I'm curious as to how, how, how will the capacity of septic systems be calculated? Because for rural homeowners like myself, it's a huge issue because environmental health likes us to all have enhanced septic systems, which are 50, 60, $70,000. And that's not tenable for many, many people. The composting toilet self-contained in the tiny home, composting toilet idea is really appealing. But how do we do that? If you have your own system and it's sufficient for your own house and you're composting toilet using tiny home tenancy is adding, is not adding to that, how is that going to be calculated? I guess I didn't say that very well, but I hope you understand what I mean. And regarding maintenance, the issue of maintenance, you know, every year I have to do a backflow testing and it's a one page filled out by the backflow testing person. And we have to do that every year. The backflow testing person and we could have the maintenance checked off on a one page sheet by a licensed contractor or a licensed home inspector that can go through the unit, they can check that it's safe and sound and send that into the county so that staff isn't recruited to do that job. Other than that, I'm running out of time, but I really just want to make sure that you guys know how grateful I am that you guys have done the work to do this. And to please bear in mind the cost to the homeowner and to the dweller of regulation and over-regulation. Better that we start out with minimal and add as we see fit later, then start out overly regulated and then nobody goes anywhere and nothing gets done. Okay, thanks so much for your time. Thank you. All right, I am seeing a hand raised by a gentleman by the name of Todd Marco. Good morning, Todd, please restate your name for the record you have seen minutes. Hi, my name is Todd Marco. I'm executive director of Nicene Rio Gateway in Aptos. We are a local, a new local community nonprofit focused primarily on parks and transportation. Since equitable access to parks and transportation is interconnected with equitable housing, I'm highly supportive of these proposals. Given the importance of encouraging public transportation and active transportation as an alternative to single-occupant vehicle use, I'm hoping that exceptions to or easing of parking restrictions will be allowed for parcels in close proximity to business centers and public transit options. In other words, in primarily urban, suburban and exurban areas. It's important to remember that some of the people most in need of affordable housing are the same people most impacted by the high cost of automobile use and ownership. Thank you. Thanks. All right, and next we'll go to Vicky Hinckley. Good morning, Vicky. You have three minutes. Can we see your name for the record? Unmuted. Hi, thanks. My name is Vicky Hinckley. I submitted the survey and I said, oh, there's my first grade picture. Oh my God. I submitted comments to the commissioners to reiterate quickly. The foundations for a tiny home on wheel apparently is zero. I guess people put them on jacks. I don't have one. And tie them down, you know, bungee cords, I don't know. But, and I know that was mentioned as something to look into. But what about a tiny home not on wheels like a container house, a cargo house? I have one of those in Washington. It's literally a camp house. It's not, you know, what I would build here for a residence. But a cargo house, a container house, what foundation is required for that? It seems it defaults to like an ADU on a foundation for lack of any other regulations, right? But I submit that a couple of 40 foot container houses, of course, dolled up to look just like all these other cute little tiny homes is more stable than a throw or a toe, the tiny home on wheels, right? That isn't really attached to anything with any significant security. Picture, you know, container lots, yards at the bay, you know, in Oakland, San Francisco, anywhere.  So anyway, that's one thing I'd like to see addressed. The other thing is reiterating the prior comments about the septic. So picture the scenario, tiny house in the woods. I would love to have a tiny house in the woods, but I cannot put in a septic system, not to mention maybe the little bit of dirt I've acquired isn't suitable for septic. There's plenty of that, right? So the perfect scenario is that, you know, the composting toilet or the incinolette, or whatever it's called. So I would have really, and it sounds like you said that maybe those are state rules, but anyway, it seems like that really needs to be looked at further. Maybe you can't do it for this first rollout, but seriously, that's what the composting toilets are here for. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, we'll now hear from Jeffrey Ellis. Good morning, Jeffrey. You have three minutes. Please restate your name for the record. Jeffrey, you need to unmute yourself. Can you hear me? Yes. Good morning. Good morning. My name is Jeffrey Ellis. I would like to see if this ordinance goes forward that it takes neighborhood concerns and needs into account. It should not apply to the entire unincorporated area and turn half the county into a trailer park. We don't want this. Now I know this because one of these tiny homes showed up on Thurber Lane and Santa Cruz Gardens. It was parked down the street, which was totally illegal, but it sat there for months and months. When I talked with my neighbors about it, the question was not, is this a great thing, but how do we get rid of this? Later on, it got moved to the guy's front lawn. It doesn't not seem to be there anymore. I'm not sure what happened to it. What should happen is that tiny homes should be allowed in areas where there is substantial neighborhood support for allowing them and it should not be allowed in other neighborhoods. I mean, look, if CZU folks want these things, need these things, that's fine with me, but a lot of us don't want them. Now, as far as the distinction of real property versus personal property, these things are personal property, which means they're not real property. There's gonna be no property tax. They're gonna be freeloading off the rest of us. For paying for schools and roads and everything else. I mean, low cost is great, but costs need to be fairly attributed to an allocated to the people who live in a neighborhood. And it's not fair for me to have to pay property tax for somebody else's needs. So I really appreciated if you would look at the neighborhood needs and wishes and limited to the neighborhoods that really want these things. Thank you. Thank you. All right, I am now seeing a hand raised by Kim Schultz. Good morning, Kim. Please state your name for the record. You have three minutes. Good morning, Mike. Yes, my name is Kim Schultz. I'm talking to you as a CZU property owner with great interest in this measure because I've spent about between $20,000 to $35,000 to reestablish utilities on the site. And just last month received our temporary housing permit. And that money spent was to, for the purpose of putting a tiny home on the property and living there while we go about rebuilding the permanent residents. And I wanna first, I wanna echo Chairman Gordon's comments kicking this off of recognizing staff's effort to dealing with a gnarly issue. And I was very, I was very excited to hear that recreational vehicles are very similar in function and operation to other category of tiny homes with the one exception of design aesthetics. Then as I read through the staff report and what was offered in the presentation were objective standards which would in effect preclude recreational vehicles as tiny homes on wheels to the extent that things such as siding, roofing materials, pitched roofs, eaves are identified as required design elements. And certainly don't, that's not, that's something you don't have on a recreation vehicle. So in it, but in which we chose to buy a recreation vehicle based on an at our anecdotal research of what would function and operate best over prolonged period. And so we opted for the RV. I think that there are other elements that could be added to the design standards that address some of the concerns that are identified such as a porch, porches, decking, fencing, landscaping to protect the view shed if you will of the surrounding neighborhood and community. And so strongly encourage that. And I think staff is on to a good subject about the renewal certification and perhaps instead of every five years it should be every three years so that you nip some potential issues in the bud. Before they manifest themselves to be an eyesore in the health and safety concern. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you. All right. I'm seeing a member of the public by the name of Ted Ben-Harrie. Good morning, Ted. Please restate your name for the record. You have three minutes. Thank you. Ted Ben-Harrie from the Rural Bonny Dooms Association. I'd like to first say that we feel very strongly that there should be emergency permits for CZU fire victims and that they should be allowed to get as many time extensions on permits for having mobile homes or RVs and tiny homes until they can get back to where they were before the fire and rebuilding their properties. The second thing I'd like to emphasize is that we need different standards within the urban services boundary and outside the urban services boundaries because there are very different situations there. Another thing is I'd like to ask who are the survey respondents? We didn't identify whether there are people who are in rural areas, in the urban services boundary areas and it would be very helpful for us to know who responded to all of those issues. Let's see, the other thing I had a question about whether these tiny homes would be physically inspected by the county staff or who just accept the plans or photographs, I think it's very important to have physical inspections of the actual buildings and the location of the buildings and how they're hooked up to the services rather than just having something brought to them on paper. Let's see, what else? The property tax issues that were brought up earlier, I think that is of paramount importance also. People should be paying for the same services that everybody else is paying for. I know the county has great financial issues with money for roads and a whole bunch of other things and we wanted to do everything to minimize that so that those things should not be able to escape paying property taxes. Then the last thing that I wanted to comment on is that we don't wanna see a situation where there were a bunch of hoses and electrical cables with all the possibilities for causing fires that they would bring and just septic hoses leaking and polluting the environment. It has to be some sort of permanent and safe utility connections made for any buildings or RVs or tiny homes that are put on any properties. That's it. Thank you. All right, I am seeing a hand raised by Hallie Green. Good morning, Haley or Hallie. Will you please correct me with your name and you have three minutes? Thank you. Yes, my name's Hallie Green. I am part of the long-term recovery group and in fact as the vice chair for that entity. So we've been working with a lot of fire survivors.  Can you guys hear me? Yes. Okay, great. I just didn't see the time we're going. Okay. So I just wanted to thank you for your consideration on moving this forward. I not only think this is great option for folks who are struggling to rebuild. I would love to encourage you to expedite something for these fire victims. I also act as a local coordinator for United Policy Holders, which is an advocacy group for insurance rights. You may or may not know a lot of people will lose their assisted living expenses, which has been paying for many people's rental options either at the end of this year in August. If they get an extension, it would only extend them another year. So there will be a lot of people that have been assisted for these last year and a half and will not be in that situation coming up pretty quickly. So I would love to see if there's some options we can do to help expedite that process. I also just really appreciate the work moving this forward. I am really concerned for our local communities and housing crisis. And I think options like this would be very beneficial. I do understand the concerns. I live in a more rural area. And I do see that it can be very different here from down in Santa Cruz or half-toss areas. But I would really think there'd be a good way to move this forward. And again, just really appreciate your time and wanted to thank everyone for putting this on the docket. Thank you so much. Thank you. That's Holly. All right, I'm seeing a hand raised from by Michael Pesano. Good morning, Michael. It was still morning. Good afternoon, Michael. You have three minutes. Thank you very much. Two answers basically on the height limit. Some of the park RV units are I think might be a little bit taller than 13-6. And what they'll do, they'll just drive around the overpass as it's done at several locations, like on Highway 1 where some of the railroad crossings are. They'll just go around.  And one of them is standard height. But then the second one has a loft unit, especially some of the park RV that have loft units, they actually raised up the roof. They got a specialized contractor from down south that does these and actually raised the roof so you can actually, the loft goes from 50 inches up to, I think, six feet so you can walk on the loft. And I lived in a park RV unit here on Commercial Way in my book for five or 10 years and it was comfortable. And I did have the earthquake bracing. They took off the wheels and put on jacks, but they had earthquake bracing that actually went to the frame and all that. But I think the park RV units are awesome and to allow on the county and break with the hookups. I mean, they're all standard RV hookups, at all RV parks, maybe something like that could be figured out. And yeah, I'm disappointed too. I have many friends that are losing their FEMA funding and are trying desperately to get it extended.  These people basically lost everything and it's very disheartening that the FEMA is like walking away and saying, sorry, no more funding. So thank you. Thank you. All right. And I'm seeing another member of the public here who wishes to speak, Tim Richards. Good afternoon, Tim. You have three minutes. Please restate your name for the record as well. Hey everyone, my name is Tim Richards. I'm the business philosopher foods, hold three commercial leases at the old sash mill. And I just wanted to applaud the commissioners for bringing this important work to become legislation. Santa Cruz will be joining several other cities and counties throughout the state of California that have legalized tiny homes on wheels as dwelling units. And I would just like to speak also as a property owner in Santa Cruz County. We own some land up here in Bonnie Dune that was affected by the CZU fire. And I'm grateful that the County actually has legalized tiny homes on wheels already for burn properties in the CZU complex. However, it's only temporary housing that it's currently legal. So I just wanted to say that if it's acceptable to legalize tiny homes on wheels for full-time occupation without a single residence in this area of the County, then I certainly don't see any reason why it shouldn't be legalized for full-time occupation elsewhere in the County. So I'm actually personally considering whether or not to build a tiny home on wheels right now on our property because we don't have any structures. They all burn down in the fire. And I want to know that my investment will be safe. If I do choose to build a tiny home on wheels, here on our property, I don't want to find out that after I get my temporary housing permit in three years, then it's going to be illegal and we're going to get red tagged to have something that's currently legal. So to me, it's a logical inconsistency. I think that you should definitely move to legalize the full extent of tiny home occupation that you're considering, which is not just as an ADU, but also as a full-time standalone dwelling. And not to do so, I think would be inconsiderate of those who have lost in the fire, as well as those who struggle financially to afford housing in this County. And even as a business owner, I've been here since 2015, my family and I struggle to afford housing. We're paying $2,200 a month just to live on this land. It has nothing on it after the fire. And if we were going to build on foundation, even a 900 square foot house would cost us $4,500 a month for a mortgage. We also don't feel safe to build on foundation yet. Even though one fire came through, it doesn't mean another is not going to. So I think it's unrealistic and unfair and actually lacks compassion to force people to build on foundation after a fire. So again, I'm really grateful for everything that you're doing to legalize these units. And I would also echo the call to legalize composting toilets as well. It doesn't make sense to have tiny homes as affordable housing if you're forced to get a $60,000 septic system, which is actually more than the price of a tiny home to begin with. So thank you for your time and for your consideration. Thank you. All right. Just wanna remind folks if they wish to speak on this item, the tiny home ordinance study session to raise your hand by pressing star nine on your phone or raise it, use the hand icon on the Zoom app to make yourself known if you're participating via Zoom. I'm seeing hand raised by Taran McKinney. I can't recall. Taran, have we heard from you yet? I believe that was the first comment. Yes, you have. I was the first person. I had just a quick comment, if that's okay. Only if allowed by the chair, we only allow one round of comments per person. Yeah, I appreciate if we have a lot to get through. Let's stick to that. Thank you. I am seeing one final caller here that just raised their hand, Joshua Engberg. Good morning or good afternoon, Joshua. Will you please restate your name for the record? You have three minutes. Thank you. My name is Joshua Engberg. I am the owner of a business called Tiny House Basics. We build Tiny House trailers since 2015 and we build about 450 trailers a year for people all over the United States. We are based just outside of Santa Cruz County, but I have a big passion for the county because I have a lot of clients and customers and understand their unique situations with living tiny or trying to find very affordable housing situations. Since 2015, we built many Tiny House trailers for people to build their own Tiny Houses on. We really try to empower people to do that and also many full Tiny Houses for customers and clients in Santa Cruz County. First off, I just want to thank everybody so much for moving forward with this and just a very thorough research and reaching out to the community for their thoughts and feelings on it. I wanted to clarify a couple of things. Height restrictions, it's 13 feet, five inches from the ground to the top of the house for most states in the United States. California is actually unique where they allow 14 feet high and that's actually regulated by the DOT and actually most Western states are 14 feet and the permit actually goes via the DOT and not the DMV earthquake tie-downs since Tiny Houses are on wheels, very resilient to earthquakes. I myself and my wife have lived in a Tiny House for eight plus years in the East Bay, been through a couple of earthquakes. Tie-downs aren't usually an issue but they definitely can be added on the trailer and if that's required. Tiny House owners have very immense pride in their homes so upkeep I don't think is ever usually an issue but I like that kind of yearly inspection with a contractor that sounds very good. Most people are really having higher quality builds in smaller spaces so it's definitely a total difference than RVs. I'd also like the discussion to maybe talk about grandfathering in Tiny Houses on wheels for people that are already in Santa Cruz County. I mean, we have some customers that have built Tiny Houses on wheels living on family's property and they've been there for five plus years now. I'd also like to maybe discuss other septic alternatives like maybe mass raiding tanks or something that the ability that people in rural land where they don't have access to septic they could have trucks that come in and kind of pump out the sewage but I think the general rule of thumb is that Tiny House owners have a very, they wanna follow the rules but they have a desire for affordable housing and yeah, so out of time but thank you so much everybody. I really appreciate all the work you're doing. Thank you. All right, last call for speakers who have not had a chance to address the Planning Commission. Press star nine on your phone to raise your hand or press the hand icon on your Zoom app if you would like to provide comment. So I'm not seeing any additional speakers at this time, Chair, I will turn it back over to you. Thank you so much, Jocelyn, appreciate it. So then we will definitely close the public comment and it's time to bring it back to the Commission for Discussion. I'd like to see if we can start briefly with just a few of the questions that were raised by the public so that they just needed that quick answer and needed to move on that we could get that to them. I think there's only a few and Daisy, I'm sure you're taking notes but I have them as well. Is there anything specific that you'd like to answer right now, Daisy? That's maybe not back it or could be a quick answer. Sure, yeah, I can go through my notes here. So there was a question about how capacity of septic systems might be calculated for tiny homes on wheels and how that might be, for instance, different from tiny homes on foundations. We did hear from environmental health staff at the community meetings on this issue based on new state and local regulations, something called the LAMP which is the Local Area Management Plan and associated county code updates. My understanding is that property owners will have the option of calculating capacity based on actual flow measurements. So that may enable tiny homes to have a lower capacity kind of requirements as compared to larger homes on foundations. And we can get more information from environmental health on that question as well. And see, going through my questions here. Can other elements be added to the design requirements to address community concerns such as porches, landscaping and screening? Certainly the commission could consider that. There was a question about who are the survey respondents that participated in the online survey. It's an anonymous survey, so we don't know. But the survey has been posted on the Planning Department website since early December. It's been advertised through the Santa Cruz County Facebook, Twitter and Nextdoor and through staff emails to the community in advance of public meetings. So that's how the word has gotten out about the survey and we do have over 350 respondents so far. There was a question about physically inspecting tiny homes on wheels and that certainly could be incorporated into the requirements for tiny homes on wheels that are certified through ANSI or NIFA. There are certification entities that would verify compliance for the tiny home itself. But there could be county staff work involved with actually verifying that the tiny home is located and connected on site. So that's something we could incorporate. Those were the main questions that I dropped down. The thing that I had that might not be necessarily in the packet, kind of like the difference between RVs and tiny homes and people wanna know can they just use an RV or not and maybe you can expand on that a little bit. Sure, yeah. So like I said in my presentation, you know, what most restrictions are requiring for tiny homes on wheels in terms of approvals is really what we already have as requirements for RVs and park trailers. So this ANSI or NIFA certification, those are RV certifications. Now, in addition to that, most restrictions also are requiring compliance with some objective design standards that would preclude RVs from being classified as tiny homes on wheels.  So those kinds of requirements. And certainly the county could consider, you know, not having those types of design requirements as part of our ordinance. To my knowledge, the only kind of local jurisdiction that is allowing that is Oakland. Great, thank you. I think you hit all the ones that I had kind of written down as easy answers for the public. So I appreciate that. Why don't we go to the rest of the commission and you know, I think it'd probably be easiest if we did kind of go section by section and discuss our opinions and make some recommendations on each section and move forward from there. If that sounds good to the commissioners, try and keep it a little bit structured as it's kind of a lot to get through. If that works for everyone, then I'd love to let whoever is ready to start. Chair, I have a question that is not in the report. So could I ask that question to my staff? I was just curious if these units will count towards our regional housing needs allocation. Yeah, thank you for that question. You know, that's a question that staff had as well. And my understanding after talking with representatives from other jurisdictions is that HCD has allowed, so the State Department of Housing Community Development has allowed tiny homes on wheels to count towards Rina. That is wonderful news. Great, thank you. Yeah, but the State requirement just has the county provide access or make the ability to build something available. The county's not going to build tiny homes. So it's not the same. The housing requirement is not that we have, the county's supposed to build them. They're just supposed to make zoning available for them. So I'm not sure how you would, Daisy, how could you use the fact that they would count since you have, how do you do that? Yeah, so the regional housing needs assessment is a requirement for a total number of housing units that the county needs to provide for every eight years. And then every year during that eight-year cycle we provide an annual progress report to the state reporting exactly how many units were constructed in the county, kind of slice that we slice and dice the data a few different ways, provide information on affordability of the units, that kind of thing. So we would be able to report tiny home on wheels permits towards those yearly totals that we provide to HCD. So that's in the usual way that say, okay, this is now zoned for this many units and that's how they read our compliance on zoning issues, right? Yeah, well, there's sort of, so there's one issue which is compliance with the arena in our housing element, which is chapter four of our general plan. And so that's where we say, that's where we demonstrate that we have capacity for the number of housing units that were provided, that were required to provide. And then every year we report the actual building permits to the state of actual housing that's been permitted and constructed. So progress towards meeting that overall housing goal. Do you know where in the income range the tiny homes would apply? You know, we'd probably calculate that similarly to how we calculate income for, or the income assumed income range for ADUs, which is based on the size of the unit and comparable kind of rental rates that we see in the market. So for ADUs, it's usually moderate income is what's reported. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Jocelyn, I see that Paya has joined in her hand raised. Maybe she had something to mention there. Absolutely. Paya. Thank you, good morning. And thank you, Jay-Z, for that information. And I wanted to add that we will be discussing this more with HCD going forward because we're gearing up now for the next housing element cycle. And staff will be doing that work next year. And HCD has not landed very specifically, at least not in the way they shared with us, on how they will count tiny homes on wheels, where tiny homes are on foundations, they will count as units. And we are anticipating that we'll put them in the same income category that we did ADU. So, Jay-Z's perfectly correct about that. I just wanted to make sure that to say that, I don't know that we have a final word for us for next cycle on how they will count the ones on wheels as far as units produced in the community. And we'll be getting more information about all of that as HCD is making their determinations because they also are still working on how they will review the housing elements that they get in the next cycle. So, thank you. Thank you, Paya, I appreciate that. Okay, let's try this. And obviously it's gonna, you know, there's a lot that kind of goes back and forth here between sections, but maybe we can start with just the first topic where we're making recommendations is the geographic location and see if we can get through this in some kind of order here. Then any commissioners wanna start on that topic in particular? Well, I think that we also should disallow areas where access roads don't meet fire standards like Lesser County. That makes sense to me. I agree with that. And I think they should be allowed where residential land use is allowed, not in other segments. When we talk about later in another iteration about allowing them in larger groups, that's when we could talk about allowing them on church property and so on. Right now, I think we gotta start by sticking to where residential development is already allowed. I would agree that with staff's recommendation, but I would like to discuss at some point those areas that are designated as coastal zone and perhaps special considerations for those neighborhoods. Well, I gotta note about that too. And I really think there might be different needs and different consideration as we have in most ordinances for the county between the rural areas and the urban areas. Well, different, slightly different. The ordinance could vary between those two big area. Those two, that's the way we bifurcate the county in almost every other development regulation and I see no reason why this should be different. It gives us much more freedom to do what's appropriate in urban areas and rural areas. Which as we know have different water availability, different kinds of roads and accessibility, it just makes sense to me. Yeah, if I may, I would even suggest three bifurcating it in three ways based on past experience, the rural services line, urban services line in the coastal zone, just with regard to parking because I'm gonna take a wild guess that the coastal commission staff is going to push back against us that will do anything to take away parking for coastal areas. I would agree. I think those three designations, how we looked at all development issues and I see no reason that this should be any different. I think we'll get a better ordinance if we do that. Okay, one down. Almost, I have one question there, sorry. How does it relate to like C1 zone lot, where residential is allowed just to confirm like that and like the multifamily zone? So multifamily zoning, essentially you could build as many as we normally fit in that multifamily zone in this ordinance and commercially zone lots, you know, you can create residential units, just confirming that that means that these can be used on those parcels as well. Yeah, so thank you for that clarification. So that is what staff would be proposing here, but the commission may want to discuss that further. So currently we have certain densities that we require on multifamily lots. So the tiny homes on wheels would be subject to the same density requirements and then and ADU requirements associated with multifamily properties. And then for C1, C2 and PA, which are the commercial zone districts that allow mixed use. We have a density, it's our maximum multifamily density on those lots. Okay, thank you. I feel like that is appropriate and is in line with what you've proposed, so thank you. Okay, Kim, that's, it is almost 1230, I have to leave it on and we can move ourselves along. Yeah, if anyone else has any item, things on item number one, geographic location. Yes, Commissioner Lason. You couldn't see my little hand. Sorry, it's okay. No, I just have a question with regard to geographic areas and anything that is zoned residential, that would take in to consideration, I would think that CZU fire areas. Is there any consideration for fast-tracking regulations for tiny homes rebuilding in the CZU fire scars? Because as one of our respondents had said that, they had already purchased an RV and that wasn't gonna qualify, my understanding. So is there any consideration we can give them for preliminary regulations that they can meet? Yeah, actually, at the conclusion of this discussion, I was gonna bring up a proposal to expedite permitting for tiny homes in the CZU burn area and have a little brief discussion about that. So, if that's... Well, I think that's appropriate, but I think we ought to let staff work on it and come back to us with it. This is a study session. Agreed, I just was gonna put forth an idea. I mean, I can articulate it now, but I figure we should just go through what's outlined in the staff report and then anything in addition to what's in the staff report we can bring up at the end. Agreed. Paya joined there again. Did you have something to chime in on that point, Paya? Or Drossling, can we... Thank you. Yes, just briefly. Any discussion about the CZU area, I just wanna be sure that the public hears that you are currently allowed to be in a tiny home and RV, a modified previously non-habitable structure, whatever it is you can come up with on a temporary basis for three years with some, we have some basic safety checks that have to happen first, but there is provision for that and I wanna make sure that people know they can come in and take advantage of that because we certainly encourage getting people situated because they need a place to be and while they're building a permanent home. Yeah, thank you, Paya. That's right. Great clarification. Thank you. Configuration then, did anyone have some thoughts on the configuration section and number of tiny homes? Yeah, so in general, the first paragraph of the staff recommendation, I think it's fine. Basically, it's saying as it can count as one of the ADUs or primary dwelling. So I'm fine with that. I think the third paragraph is getting into what Daisy and the staff are gonna have to dig into a little bit more before we see this again and trying to figure out how this primary calling