So welcome to our first meeting for the year 2020. If we could get a roll call Chloe. Commissioner Ruth. Here. Commissioner Newman. Here. Commissioner Christensen. Here. Commissioner Welch. Here. Chair Welch. Here. Thank you. And now we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance. The Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America is to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, is under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Very good. So this meeting is cable cast live on charter communications, cable TV channel 8 and AT&T Uverse channel 99. It's being recorded to be replayed on the following Monday and Friday at 1pm on charter channel 71 and Comcast channel 25. The meetings also can be viewed from the city's website at www.cityofcapitola.org. Our technician tonight is Kingston Rivera. And with that, if you just would help us by putting your phones on silent, that would, that would be great. So they're not interrupted during the meeting. So to start off, we're going to write in our new business. We elect a new chair in January. So I guess I'll take a motion for chairperson. I nominate Ed Newman. Okay. So we have a nomination of Ed, who is our current vice chair. I second. And a second. All those in favor? Aye. There we go. So I can move. Thank you. And I want to, before we elect the vice chair, just, I've done this before. We've had this rotation and I'll say it again that it's very difficult to follow chairman Welch because he has a unique ability. To run these meetings, to afford the public a great opportunity to participate in the meetings and still keep them moving along. And I'll do the best I can to do the same. But as I say, it's at our heart choose to fill. Thank you for your service. Okay. So next item of business is we need to elect a vice chair in the event that I'm disqualified or I'm unable to make a meeting. I don't know how the other two, we have two newer members. Mick has done this number of times in the past. So I would nominate Mick to start out unless there's someone else that feels like they're ready to jump into it. I'll second. Okay. Any other nominations? If not, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. So next. I just want my chair back. That's really my chair. The next item of business under oral communications is any additions or deletions to the agenda? There are not. Okay. And next is the opportunity for public comment. This is a time for anyone to address the planning commission on anything that is not on the agenda. And as I say, which I hope has some relevance to what planning commissioners do. Hi. Hi. Sharima Koi here. I hope the Capitola Mall redevelopment is relevant. Definitely. Thank you. Tiny Capitola is already on the map, a charming place known for its wharf, beaches, shopping, restaurants, and a multitude of successful events like the Art & Wine Festival. We can leverage the fact that tourists are already interested in coming to Capitola. The mall redevelopment should take advantage of this interest and expand our amazing destination spot by enriching the dining and shopping experiences of tourists and locals alike. A recent study was conducted to ensure that the mall project is fiscally self-sufficient. The resulting numbers indicate that because of the increased cost the city must pay to provide services such as police and schools for the proposed 637 living units, it actually offsets the revenue that Capitola would receive from the residential housing taxes. Other folks have commented that there are plenty of other locations for affordable housing projects within Capitola. Losing the precious mall property space to residential use would be a travesty. The mall redevelopment is a potent opportunity for creating an extension of the village. It can be a vibrant location for people to meet and gather and spend their money within our city limits. The proposed residential towers are a staggering 85 feet when our existing restrictions are 40 feet high. The proposal also specifies that the setbacks shrink from our established rules. Why would we stray from our laws just because a property owner wants to make more money with housing? Would we change the street speed limit from 25 miles per hour to 40 just because someone filled out an application? Much of the proposed amenities and green space are strictly for new residents when it should be for all mall patrons at the mall. The high-density housing plan calls for 1,100 car spaces. These car spaces should be anticipated for hungry and thirsty shoppers who want to spend their money at the mall. The housing factor should be removed from the plan and a hotel put in its place. Keep in mind the community development department mission statement includes to preserve Capitola's unique cultural and historic character. Please work with Merlone Geyer team so that the proposal is reflective of the look and feel and the needs of Capitola. The well-being of Capitola is a priority over the return on investment from any developer. I'm Sherry McCoy and I approve this message. Thank you. And I think that's what we've already mentioned. There'll be plenty of opportunities down the road to address this project as it is processed. Anyone else? If not, Commissioner Comments. I had one which was to see if there is any update on the gross sign violations of mattress firm on 41st. I do know that we've received a code enforcement complaint and are moving forward on that. I do not know exactly where it is, whether or not where it is in the process, but I can reach out and provide you with an update to the council. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if anybody has approached them at all from the officialdom to explain to them that you can't have six sidewalk signs out there. I mean, even before we go through a formal process, maybe they just aren't aware that we have rules here. This is sort of an annual thing with them. So we spoke about this at our planning huddle this week and they've definitely had another violation, I think, within the last year. So they are well aware of the regulations and so I think we'll probably move straight to a citation with this because they've been spoken to before. I still have pictures on my phone of it from last year. So we've been pretty tough on people on 41st who have come in for sign applications and it's really not fair to them to put them through all the expense and limitations when someone just blatantly disregards our rules anyway. So there is a pending letter that will be going out. Great, thank you. Anything else? Any staff comments? Yes, I did want to make you aware that we applied for an SB2 grant. SB2 grants were open to all municipalities and counties and this was towards the housing efforts. So any real estate transaction that takes place, there's now a $75 fee which goes towards SB2, towards housing. And so the first round of grants was really to help jurisdictions bring their codes up to PAR and help with anything that will help fast track housing development. Back in November we submitted an application and it was for helping create pre-approved ADUs that would actually fit within Capitola lots. And also to help with there's a SB35 as a separate regulations to help streamline permits and development permits can no longer be under SB35 looked under subjective criteria such as compatibility and privacy. It has to be, you have to have objective standards. So we'd also use the money to update our code to create objective standards which along a property line you could limit or suggest a certain amount of windows and separation and the heights of those windows as something for privacy. But so we were notified last Friday that our application was accepted and that we've preliminary approval. We applied for $160,000 so I haven't gotten the amount for which we've been approved yet but I'm hoping it's for the full amount. So I'll give you an update once I know more about the amount and once the action is official but we've gotten the preliminary approval. So that's great news for the city. And that's it. Actually one more update just because the capitol, we do not have an application yet but I am expecting one within the next two weeks. Great. I think we'll come back to the housing issue later on. Yes. The agenda here. Next is approval of the minutes from the regular meeting of December 5, 2019. I move approval. Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? None. That passes. That takes us to our public hearings. We have three public hearings. The first one is 1591 Prospect. This is a fence permit with the location exception and major revocable encroachment permit for a wall in the public right of way located within the R1 single family residential zoning district. Staff report please. Good evening commissioners. Chair Newman. So the application before you is for 1591 Prospect it's to construct a fence and privacy screens which will encroach in the public right of way. The property is located at 1591 Prospect Avenue within the single family residential zoning district. The proposal includes a major revocable encroachment permit and an exception to the fence height standards which both require planning commission review. This is a continuation of the December 5, 2019 planning commission meeting. Staff has since conferred with the city attorney regarding encroachment permit questions posed by the commission which are addressed later in the presentation. The lot is on the corner of Prospect Avenue or Lincoln Avenue within the jewel box neighborhood and is surrounded by one and two story single family homes above the property and fence as it appears today. The existing fence is aligned with the approximate property boundary. Above are the locations of the proposed encroachments. The pink dashed line is showing the property boundary there. The proposed wall in red to the left would be made of plastered concrete blocks and has a maximum height of 42 inches. The privacy screens shown in blue will consist of wooden posts and slats for a maximum height of five and a half feet. The proposed wall and privacy screen elevations above. The planning commission must evaluate major revocable encroachment permits using the following considerations. The expense and difficulty that will be entailed in removing the improvements in the event of street widening. Whether the proposed improvements are in conformity with the size, scale, and aesthetics of the surrounding neighborhood. The preservation of views and whether granting the permit would tend to result in the granting of a special privilege. These considerations were analyzed in the staff report and no conflicts were found. During the December 5th 2019 planning commission meeting, the commission requested input from the city attorney regarding encroachment permits. Question one posed by the commission was whether the encroachment permit could become private property over time. State law prohibits the ability of public property to ripen into title against any public agency. It has been similarly addressed in California courts which have decided that the encroachments may not be acquired by prescription against the city. Question two posed by the planning commission was whether an encroachment permit granted an exclusive use right to the permit within the enclosed area. The municipal code suggests that areas of the public right of way obstructed by any improvement or object through the encroachment permit process becomes private space. However, should the owner at any point in time refuse access to the improved area by city staff or utilities or should the encroachment become a public access issue, the city has the ability to revoke the permit as mentioned in the previous slide. The applicant is also requesting an exception to the fence location. Corner lot fences are required to be set back at least five feet from the property line on that side of the lot which has the greatest length along the street which in this case would be Lincoln Avenue. The pink line shown above represents the property boundary and the green line represents the five foot setback. The areas in red near the top and the bottom indicate portions of the wall and privacy screen that enter into the required five foot setback. The applicant is also requesting to remove two trees along the proposed wall. The red circles indicate trees proposed for removal and the green circles indicate trees to remain. Although these trees are in the public right of way, they are adjacent to 1591 Prospect Avenue and therefore consider the responsibility of the owners to maintain. The owners may likewise request the removal of the abutting trees with proper findings for removal such as a development application. The two trees are along the proposed route of the encroaching wall which is why the applicant has requested the removal of these trees. With that, staff recommends that the Planning Commission review and improve the encroaching permit, fence permit, and tree removals based on the conditions of approval and findings. Any questions of the staff? I had one question about the map, page one of the plans. I was very confused by the Prospect Avenue location. Maybe it's the name of the streets. If you look on the location map at the upper corner of the plans, they've got Prospect parallel to Lincoln and they've got the portion of it is parallel till it makes the turn. So why does it say Soquel Wharf there, road? That's down below the hill. It's confusing how it looks. Alright, so I'll just stay confused on that. No, I know that is Prospect because I see what you're saying. Anyway, I just wasted a lot of time trying to figure out the maps. Okay, so if there are no other questions of staff, this is a public hearing. Is the applicant present? Good evening commissioners. I'm Pedro Rosado, architect. I also represent the owners in this matter and has been reviewed by staff at the previous hearing. Concern of the commission was granting approval of the encroachment, which would give owners the exclusive use of city property and increase the value of their property. Our understanding of the revocable encroachment permit is that the city maintains ownership. There is no transfer of title and the city has the right to make any modifications or revoke the permit regardless of what kind of improvements the owner has made. Similar projects have been approved by this commission in the past. One is to the neighbor to the west. Their wall encroaches is an encroachment and they have the wall five feet from the street curb. Another project with a wall encroachment was approved July 2019 at 511 Escalona Drive. And another previously was approved at 210 Central Avenue in previous years. We realize that although a precedent has been set, approvals for encroachments are on a case-by-case basis. The owners are asking for approval of this project so that they can enjoy occasional use of the outdoors in a semi-private setting. The setbacks on the south side of the property are three feet wide. That's hardly any space at all for being able to sit outside and enjoy the weather or do anything. And on the west side is also, there's probably around 90 square feet of area in there. So the only area usable is on the north side which is along Lincoln Avenue. This northwest corner is the only area on the property open for outdoor use with minimal traffic and not blocked from the sun by the canopy of trees, the oak tree taken up approximately half of that. We have reviewed the staff report. We agree with the proposed conditions of approval and we hope that the commission finds in favor of this request. And I'm available for any questions. Thank you. Any questions for Mr. Rosato? Thank you. Anyone else from the public care to address this item? If not, commissioner comments? I move staff recommendation. With the appropriate findings? Yeah. With the appropriate findings. Second. Okay. Before we vote, I'm going to explain my no vote. Okay. Okay. On this, just, I heard the commissioner's thoughts on this last time. So I'm aware of what the outcome of this vote is likely to be. But I just want to say that I'm going to oppose it because I don't think it's a good idea for the city to be giving what is in fact exclusive use of an area of property to a private citizen. He's basically, they're putting up a wall there and taking that section of the property for their own use. And it would be naive of us to think that this will ever not be, ever be reclaimed by the city or that if the city attempted to reclaim it, it would go down easily without lawyers and whatnot. So I think if the city wants to give away property, it should make an equal gift to all citizens of Capitola. And we'll now have a roll call. Commissioner Ruth. Hi. Commissioner Welch. Hi. Commissioner Christensen. No. Commissioner Wilk. Hi. And Chair Newman. No. No. So that passes. Three to two. And the next item is Romer Street improvements, which I'm just surprised there aren't more people here to participate in this public hearing. Staff report, please. I've posted lots of notices all up and down that segment. The city of Capitola. Do you want me to wait? No, you can go ahead. The city of Capitola is applying. It is multi-tasking. The city of Capitola is applying for a coastal development permit for roadway improvements on Romer Street. The improvements include a new sidewalk on the north side of Romer Street, new striping with class two bike lanes and roadway repaving. Above one of the cross sections for the proposed improvements. Sidewalk and driveway widths vary between the cross sections, but the layout is consistent. Proposed roadway improvements with car lanes and bike lanes along Romer Street. Curb, gutter, sidewalk, and driveways on the north side of Romer Street. And parking curb, gutter, sidewalk, and driveways on the south side of Romer Street. So this would be facing east towards 41st Avenue. The sidewalk along the northern side of Romer Street is currently incomplete. The city is proposing to add new sidewalk to create a safer route for pedestrians connecting 38th Avenue and 41st Avenue. The Romer Street and 41st Avenue intersections in here. New to the intersection is a median curb and a green bike box. The bike box is painted, is a painted bicycle exclusive zone to increase bicyclists' safety at stoplights and during intersection crossing. The Romer Street improvements project has been in the Capital Improvement Program, CIP, since 2012. The current project limits were initially established in 2012, but the final design was not completed until funding was secured in the form of Measure D allocation and a Santa Cruz Regional Transportation Commission Regional Surface Transportation Program Exchange allocation in November 2018. The proposed sidewalk and bike lane improvements create a safer means for the public to access the coast and recreational opportunities in Capitola and Santa Cruz County, consistent with the purpose of the local coastal plan. The proposed project complies with the required findings of a coastal development permit. With that, staff recommends the Planning Commission review and approve the coastal development permit based on the conditions and approval, conditions, approval and findings. We have Kailas here tonight as a representative of Public Works if you have questions. I have one. Does the median strip extend beyond the driveway for the new timberworks building? So would prohibit them from making a left turn into it off Romer? So to address that question, Commissioner, the intention of that median strip being lengthened and being made out of concrete as it is now, they're just bollards and the primary concern that was voiced to us from the residents that live on that street was that oftentimes we have people who are trying to go to the hotel and they make a right turn on to Romer and then realize that they need to continue and turn in later and they'll cut across right there, make a left turn in front of that. And so that creates a very dangerous driving condition and lots of near misses have happened. And so that was extended to prevent those drivers from making that maneuver. As far as the timberworks, I do not think that it goes beyond there because as it is right now, those cones are, I think the limit of the cones as they are right now still end before that property. And so it might be close but he's seen these plans quite a few times so that issue was never raised. The corner property right here where the mouse is, that's 40, 25 Romer Street, so this is the timberworks property. Yeah, this driveway and right here is the end of the curb, I believe. Okay. Any other questions? I guess this is a public hearing and you are representing the city of Capitola? That's correct. Okay, you have anything further to add? So yeah, I guess I'd like to add maybe to address why your question is why we don't have more members of the public here. We did have a public workshop on this project and I think the majority of the residents that had the greatest impact to them are those that currently do not have sidewalk in front of their house. So all of those residents we've been in pretty good coordination with on trying to make sure that we're aligning things in a way that allows them to still maximize the use of their property. The situation here is that many of those residents have been there since this Romer was mostly a residential street and over time the industrial and kind of different uses have come into play. And so they're somewhat tucked, it's a residential, it's partially residential and partially commercial and visitor serving with the hotel. So we're trying to be as accommodating as we could to those residents who are losing on street parking right there. And as a result we tried to maximize their driveway approaches to allow them to still be able to utilize their residents as they do today. I gather we got no written concerns from any of the residents. I think some of the residents are here today if they had any comments. We'll get to that. And then yeah I guess the other thing we would like to add is this is for the most part we've received a lot of positive input from this. We've been coordinating with the Regional Transportation Commission because a large part of the funding is coming from them. So we met with their Elderly and Disabled Technical Advisory Committee as well as their Bicycle Advisory Committee. They provided some input on the project trying to make some modifications to improve the utility for both the public in the form of vehicles, pedestrians, and bicyclists. So I believe that we've come to a point where we've really tried to maximize the utility of this project for all three modes of transportation along Romer Street. And we're excited to have this built. It's a street that many people, we get a lot of complaints about Romer needing attention. And so usually we're able to tell them that we're in the plans of able to have something completed hopefully this coming year. So I'm hopeful that this is something that we get to see materialized in the upcoming months. You have a time frame? So after this meeting we're ready to go out to bid on this project. So our goal is to bid this project now in the upcoming months with construction happening early summer and be finished before the fall. It's one of the worst streets in the city. Yeah, the score that that street gets is I think in the teens, which is out of a hundred. So it's pretty poor. Okay, let's hear from. Thank you. Let's hear from some of the members of the public. Good evening. My name is Bart Hoekstada. I'm not really good at public speaking, but anyway, I'm one of the residents on the north side of Brommer actually live next to the west of the New Timberworks building. I'm losing my parking. I've thrown the flood. I'm good with that. I've started reconfiguring so I can park off street. My main issues are with the safety of Brommer.  The speeds that are reached from 38th Avenue to 41st for people to make that green light reach 60 miles an hour easily sometimes. I think the other residents could attest to that. That being said, I had brought up in the meeting at the hotel about speed bumps and was told that it's an arterial road. We cannot put speed bumps in it. That being said, I sure would like to see something being done for safety on this road. It's out of hand. It's ridiculous. So if we can't put speed bumps because we've been all of a sudden designated a truck route, every house on that road is a residence except for the new hotel. So we're a residential street. People don't look at it that way, but we are. And I don't feel like we have much of a say on what goes on there. So if we don't get speed bumps, we need some kind of traffic study done between four o'clock in the afternoon till 6.30 at night on Monday through Friday.  It's pretty crazy. I just had a cat run over three months ago. And cats are roaming, so whatever you guys don't care about that. But nevertheless, it is not a safe street for the residents pulling out, pulling in, irregardless. The ballers that Kalish spoke about, they're not ballers. They're plastic strips. People run over them to get into the hotel. They clog up traffic. It's just, you know, they're going to extend the medium. I'm happy to see that it's needed. The other thing I wanted to address was the fact that Bromer is a truck route. I don't see with us being residents except for the hotel, who designated Bromer as a truck route? We have Capitola Road. Well, then we were told, oh, the trucks can make the turn on Capitola Road. But yet they can turn on our road, taking a right off of 41st, going west towards 38th to make the loop and save. Well, it's now it's Lucky's, Orchard and so forth. Once again, we're the stepchild of it. We're designated the truck route. Why? We've got Capitola Road. Portola is more commercial than Bromer is. So that's a question that I definitely wonder about. The south side of Bromer, we have a retention pond, I will call it, which has an approach for county vehicles, city vehicles, whatever to go into that retention. I really understand that. The fact that it's, I've never seen it used by anyone from the city or county or wherever addresses that retention pond. Parking is at such a premium. We've lost the parking on 38th when they did the bike lane, I believe, on the west side. So now parking on the south side is being used by not only the residents of Bromer, but some of them on 38th. Not to mention the people from New Leaf, the hotel. We, our parking situation on Bromer, we were told during this kickoff meeting at the hotel. Oh, well, you can't have a residence only permit. The coast commission got rid of that in 74. Repose as a residence only parking permit. I guess they got that in 74. So, you know, I'm not trying to whine here, but there are several issues on Bromer that I think safety wise need to be addressed. And I feel like it's, it's just been, you know, too bad, so sad to deal with it. And, and, you know, 38th, 41st is a problem area between the stop sign. People see that light go green and they'll hit 60. I guarantee you. So I don't think any of you folks who want to deal with that living on a street that you lived on. So I'm hoping at least do a traffic study during the heavy commute time, four to six, six, 30. You'll see. It'll speak for itself. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak? And Kalish has been very helpful, by the way. I didn't mention that, but he's worked with me and we met. So I'm Mark and this is Krista and we live right next to the hotel, right, right next to it. And on Windward Lane, little subdivision there. And yeah, our whole issue, like Bart said, is with public safety because we lived there for 21 years. And so I do, I've done a traffic study for 21 years. Every time I pull out of our subdivision, the site distance that we need to be able to navigate out and and avoid a collision with a car coming from 41st onto Brommer going north. And then the cars coming from 38th. It's a crapshoot because we don't have enough with park cars. We're coming forward at the speed rate of speed. It's really crapshoot. You pull out and you go, this is the best I can do.  And so it's really difficult. So I saw the improvements that were done on Jade Street with the speed table. And I have to confess that I was one of those guys that would get it down Jade Street when I saw green light. I would be halfway down and go, I think I can make it home. And the light was green and I was one of those guys. But when they put those speed tables in, I became a calmer driver. I obeyed the speed limit and I got home safely. And so it really translated into something that was effective. I looked at it and I went, you know, that's just what we need. And so I didn't understand why that wasn't part of the plan. And why it can't be part of the plan because speed test here. The speed, yeah, and more so the speed table, it's a longer, you know, it's not as abrupt. It's not as hard in the vehicles. And so I think that would solve a lot of barts in my concern because I was doing some landscaping the other day and I was out there for about four or five hours and on our landscape within our subdivision. And I, like Bart said, I was amazed at how fast cars go by there. Even county trucks with the emblem going, you know, and making, trying to make that turn on a 41st. I said, this is crazy.  My truck was actually getting run. Yeah. Okay. So the way we do this is that you speak to the commission at the microphone and then. Sorry. But anyway, I think it's a real reasonable thing. And we're not trying to belly ache, but I'm more concerned about the safety. We got grandkids too. A lot of family visits and it's, it's our main concern. And I feel if the plan doesn't really address that part of it, it's a real concern. It's, and I think I don't want to blame this on the ways app on my iPhone, but we've got a lot of increased traffic in the last two years that use Bromer. And so, yeah, that's, that's my concern. I think it should be part of the plan. So thank you. Thank you. And also that subdivision on windward lane was built in 1999. And they put a keep clear painted lines so we could pull out or when we're pulling into our subdivision from Bromer. So, so if there was traffic backed up, we could just pull right in and out. I just wanted to make sure that that was repainted again because it's getting pretty worn. And I know, you know, if I have to stop to, and you know, usually the traffic's backed up probably for, I don't know, half the block, especially during traffic, the traffic hours that that could really, if I had to stop to wait to make a left turn into windward lane, that could back up traffic on 41st and everything. So just wanted to make sure that that keep clear was repainted again as it originally was. And like my husband said too, you know, about we have to pull almost halfway into the street before we can even see right or left to make sure a car doesn't hit us. And yeah, it's just a continuous problem. And it's probably gotten a lot worse in the last 10 years since the hotel's been there. I mean, we're fine with the hotel. That's been great. But there is a lot more traffic now. And even just hearing the first lady come up and talking about the new 637 units that may go into Capitola where the mall is, you know, where's all that traffic going to go to?  So we really appreciate your consideration for our safety and everything. Mark and I have lived in Capitola for 45 years and we love our home. And, you know, we just want to keep the essence of Capitola like it's been. And we appreciate that. Thank you. Is there a red zone on either side of your entrance to prohibit cars or parking real close to it? There is on both sides, but it doesn't. It went out far enough probably 10 years ago and then someone painted gray paint over the red. Just a homeowner painted gray paint over the red. So it really shortened it up about a car length, but that's the that's the amount of space we needed. So we can see down the road. Thanks, Mark, but get out and leave. I just want to rejoin. So yeah, so someone painted over the red strip. They painted over with gray paint and it took probably one and a half car lengths away. And when that red strip was there, you know, the full red strip as it originally was, that gave us enough areas to where we could see the traffic, you know, coming forward. Now it's pretty much blind. That's the gentleman you should talk to about getting that red curb back where it should be. Our daughter and son-in-law also live in one of the six homes on Windward. And I know Alicia has been in contact with you through email and probably phone conversations quite a few times. So, you know, we just want to work with everyone and we so appreciate you hearing our voice. Thank you. We'll be thankful the Wilmer Street Broadway connection never happened. Otherwise it would really be a lot of traffic. If you've been here 45 years, you were a member when that was being discussed. True. So anyone else from the public? I don't see anyone. So Mr. Molozumdard, do you care to respond to anything that's been said? Being interrupted there for a while, you couldn't hear what was going on. I think I got the gist of most of the comments and a lot of these have been raised over the course of the project, either at the public meeting that we had and then subsequently since then. So I think I'll start with the, do you have the, can you pull up just the striping plan? Sean, I think one of the slides shows, I thought we had stuck it in there, maybe not. Okay. Then that last one with the, the one with the green is fine. So, so partially that it's not that we designated this as a truck route. It just by default turned into that. So what ends up happening is delivery trucks coming down 41st that feed into the parking lot that has Lucky's, Osh, and that area, they can't make a left turn back out onto 41st from that parking lot. So they end up going down further south on 41st. And this is the last street, I think that they can make a right turn on. And so they just, it's become the default truck route. And they go, so they make a right turn here. They go to the 38th and they go back and then get back on 41st and leave. So it's just kind of the loop that they take. And as a result, we had had the utility pole there hit numerous times over the years. And so part of the project is actually pulling the width of the lane. The westbound lane is a little bit wider at the opening of 41st than it is currently. And it shrinks the size of the eastbound lane on Brommer heading towards 41st. And so what we're thought there is that that will have lower risk of having big trucks strike the utility pole there. And then in addition, that squeezes the size of that lane on the exiting Brommer onto 41st. So really in practice, there's no longer the ability for a right turning car to squeeze by a car that's either queued to go straight or left. And so with that, there's maybe going to be a little bit less of the kind of haste of people trying to get through. Because if there's one car there that's not making a right turn, or as it is now, you can squeeze through. And so driving behavior may be modified. The other aspect that we're doing with updating the striping and increasing the size of the striping for the bike lane will actually reduce the path of travel slightly for the vehicles. And our traffic engineers tell us that there's a moderate, maybe measurable reduction in speed when you reduce the lane of travel. But as far as being able to implement the speed table idea, we did look at that. But the designation of this street, which is not designated by the city, but by Caltrans, which designates the streets as arterial collector, has that designation. And so what we've been advised is implementing speed bumps, speed tables on a street that has that designation isn't compatible. And so that's why we didn't move forward with trying to incorporate that into this project. We did have a few traffic studies points taken. We didn't do a full evaluation as far as morning, day, and evening speeds and volume. But we do have some 124 hour count and we'll be getting another count because the police department's actually updating their inventory of the city. So we'll have a little bit extra data on this. But what the data does show is that you do have pretty, you have the occasional very fast driver. And I think the average speed is a little bit above what the posted speed is. That isn't outside of the norm for some of our other streets in Capitola, but it is an issue. And so as far as being able to reduce the speeds on that street, there weren't a ton of options that we were able to incorporate into this. Our hope is that with having the designated lanes on both the north and south side that are much harder to see right now, the whole roadway will, as a driver, will appear a little narrower and potentially will have lower speeds with that, with improving the bike lane and making that a little bit more visible. Our hope there is also that it'll have that same effect. What other questions? Oh, so the red curb length, that is something that, so we're trying to make, we tried to come up to a happy medium there because the length of that red curb also eliminates on-street parking. And with this project, we're already eliminating, I think we estimated about eight or nine on-street parking spots. So that red curb length as they exit windward, I think has fluctuated in length over the years. And I don't know the history as far as what the, if there was ever like a set length that we needed to have it at. As far as our standard specs that we use for exiting, for, you know, for driveways that exit onto streets, we're not short of what the kind of required distance is, but that's fairly short. I mean, if you've driven in cities like San Francisco, you can see where they have, you know, they'll have eight feet or 10 feet only. I think we've got, I don't, I think it was up to 45 feet at one point, and I think now it's around 20 feet of red curb. So that was trying to strike a balance of understanding they have that challenge of exiting onto the street with the people driving too fast, but also trying to accommodate parking at the same time. Let me ask you a question here. Do you think that further traffic study would be beneficial in terms of whether or not to go ahead with the project as designed? I don't think we'd see anything different. I mean, if we saw faster speeds or we saw more volume, there's not, there isn't really more that we can do with the layout of the way the street is as it is to incorporate something new. There really isn't any other options that we thought about that we eliminated because of something or that we would bring into play because of a traffic study. Peter, you have a couple questions. So I was confused, the red curb, so that means you're increasing it or decreasing it? No, so right now the plan is to keep it as is, and we're not changing it, but it has fluctuated over time. So that's independent of this project. The striping of the curbs isn't really... And the keep clear thing, repainting is also independent of this? What keep clear? Right in front of Windworth, for 21 years there's been a keep clear sign painted. Oh, okay. So actually in the road itself? You can see it from Google Maps. Okay, and we don't have that in there now. I don't know if you have a different plan. Okay. But it still hasn't been maintained. Okay, guys, one of the reasons we do this in an orderly fashion is because there are people who watch this at home and people who watch it later on, and they can't understand what's going on if people are just having a workshop. Okay. Okay, you can see it from Google Maps. I do have the updated striping plan, and that keep clear is going to be updated, so that will be refreshed and thermostriping. Any other questions? Okay, but getting back to that red thing, red stripe. So you're saying that if you were to increase it at all, you would lose a parking space, and that would create all kinds of havoc from other neighbors? I mean, so it's, yeah, yeah, that's, roughly, that's true. All right. Anyone else? Thank you. Okay. For a second, you can come back up and address us again briefly. We missed each other already. Pardon? No, I'm right. I've already run into trouble, haven't I? So, like you know, we've lived there for 21 years. It was a new subdivision and new road. Okay. I don't want you to repeat things that you've already told us, okay? Okay. I've already knew that you lived there for 21 years. Okay, sorry. So the initial red curb, when they put in the subdivision, everything was 45 feet. Now, and then, so it's been maintained that, and then someone, some homeowner came by and painted the gray curb so they could get more parking, and now it's 20 feet. Now it's 20 feet. So it's been reduced almost half. And that's created, you know, a problem for not being able to see before you pull out. So now we're having to pull out almost halfway into the lane in order to make a safe left-hand turn. So that's the problem. And, you know, it's great that we're having all this new roadways designed and everything, but it's not safe for the residents and the homeowners. I mean, that should be number one, you know, safety. So the fact that he's saying that the traffic is, you know, going a little bit over the speed limit, well, that hasn't been any of the neighbors' observations, you know. It's mind-boggling how fast these cars go, and it's just unsafe, you know. I mean, you should put Capitol Police out there. They'd make a fortune riding tickets, and maybe that would help, too. Pretty short stretch, though, for enforcement. That's the problem. Bye.  This is my first city council meeting, so I'm sorry. Okay, thank you. Thank you for your input. And, all right, take it back to the commission, and there's a lot of food for thought here. I think the improvements are long overdue. I don't have any solutions as to what to do about the speed. We're not going to be able to do anything about the traffic and the trucks. I just don't see how you solve that problem. I mean, we could toss it to staff, but I'm not sure what kind of solutions they come up with. But I support the improvements. Yeah, I know that this Bromer project has been on the books for a long, long time, because I would talk to Steve Jesberg about fan-mart improvements, and he says, oh, you're right behind Bromer. That was many years ago. So I know this has been in the works a long time. I know there's been a lot of community outreach. I know this city council has talked about this in the past. And I think Kalish addressed all of the questions in terms of safety as best as could be done. I mean, in terms of they considered it, they did what could be done, the improvements need... I appreciate the citizen's concerns and safety, of course, is primary, but I don't know if there's a solution other than police enforcement of some sort. We have talked about... We went through that whole thing on Jade Street, right? And then we talked about flashing lights and speed tables and bollards, and we got Kimley Horn involved in endless studies, and basically came down to, well, you could do a speed table, and that was it. And they may be some signage, but we can't do speed tables here. So we're, you know, with the narrowing of the lanes and the addition of the bike lanes, I guess that we just have... That's the best we can do. And I just... You know, if there was another solution proposed that we could consider, I'd be interested in it. But I think we're in good shape here with this plan as best we can be. Now if the commission is going to make some comments now in public hearing, it's been closed. Okay. You know, I think there may be a couple of thoughts. Listen to Kalishen on why the trucks are coming down 41st. Are they exiting King's Plaza, I'm guessing? And if that's the case, then maybe we can work with King's Plaza to make that loading zone that goes behind Save Mart, whatever that place is now, to go one way from 41st to 38th. So they can't come out on the 41st and make that right turn. And maybe that would force them to exit on 38th and go north towards Capitola and not have to come down 41st south. So I think King's Plaza is open to working with the city right now. I think there's some... Because of the mall and everything else, they may be open to doing that. That's my guess is why the trucks are coming down there. I can't see why other trucks would... I see why they come down Brommer, coming out of that King's Plaza. But if that's it, we can maybe work with them to have that one way so they can't come out. That may reduce some of the trucks. I think the design in itself will help reduce the speed. It's not going to stop it, obviously. I sometimes park my truck out on the street just to make cars slow down because it does narrow it and people seem to slow down because even though we sell on White Street, because I race cars but I hate speeders on the street. It just drives me crazy.  So the design itself, I think, may lend itself to slowing some of those people down. I can see where, actually from Google Maps, I can see where the gray paint eggs are actually over the red. It's interesting. If you look close enough from the aerial view, you can see where they did. So the city, I'm sure, can go back and make sure it's the correct distance because that is obviously a safety hazard. So I think we can reduce maybe and address some of your concerns. But yeah, unfortunately, I don't know how we enforcement We can try and do an enforcement. I can tell you from Topaz and Jade when we put the streets up, they put a ghost car, they call it a police car with nobody in it out there. And they had another police car counted, I think, where they say 90 cars still turned up that street, even with the police car there known as illegal turn. So, and unfortunately, our police officers are just, you know, they run a lot of calls, believe it or not, in our little town. So, but I think definitely we can work with the police department to start some enforcement, at least out there and put a, you know, maybe we could get, you know, we have the speed, you're traveling at this speed. And we can at least offer some of those solutions, I think. But aside from that, I think the project is long overdue. And, you know, since a kid, we use Broma as a thoroughfare. It's always been there as a thoroughfare. I think with the impact of Highway 1 being with more and more commuters, we're seeing it all through Capitola. And that's the reason why we end up doing the work on Topaz. So, Broma's just become another commute lane opposed to Highway 1. That's a bottom line and we're all being impacted by it. So, other than that, I think, you know, it's a good project. So, I'm empathetic to your situation. I don't know if we can help, but we can at least throw a couple ideas out there. Any thoughts? I'm hearing that the project is appropriate for Broma. But then you have these specific concerns that don't necessarily relate to the project details except for you'd like more interest to be guided in that direction. How do we make it so that interest actually focuses on the speeders? Can we implement anything? Well, we just have a project in front of us here. We're not philosopher kings. Okay, let's take information back. Yeah, I mean, Commissioner Ruth, do you have anything further? No, I just think if you're hoping this project is going to slow the traffic down, I think the only thing that slows it down right now is the condition of the road and when the road gets improved it's going to speed traffic up. I think that's almost to give it. So, I think our only answer is probably enforcement, but I'm not sure what kind of answer we're going to get on that because it's such a short street. I think this project has obviously brought to the surface a lot of issues. It aren't really project specific, but they have to do with what it's like living on Broma and the traffic and situations that's not different from a lot of other places in capital where people are speeding on Warf Road and people can't get out of their driveways. And these are all concerns and relate to our traffic problems and our driving habits that maybe aren't what they should be, but right now what we have before us is just this specific improvement project. I mean, it's good to air some of these concerns and maybe solutions can be found, but in terms of what we're here to do tonight, it's just really to decide whether or not to go ahead with this improvement project. I would move approval of the project with the conditions and the findings. I second. Any further discussion? If not, all in favor? Aye. I did have one comment. It seems a little weird to me for the city to make a recommendation on its own application. The coastal development permit. So I wanted to, just if I could, for a coastal development permit, it's really about making sure the connectivity to the shore continues to the bay, and the review criteria that we look at for a coastal development permit is really, you know, there's a lot of criteria about keeping that connectivity and the review is really about connections to the ocean within the coastal area. This will go before city council as well. There will be another opportunity for a public hearing. And at that stage, you know, this is going to be going out for bid. Contractors will be looking at it. I can definitely bring the concerns back to our public works director tomorrow and let him know what happened at today's meeting. But so it's, this is for the coastal development permit. It still needs to go through the bidding process. A contractor get awarded the contract. And the city council making the passing the contract. So they'll have a closer look at the project as well. So I just wanted to let you know this isn't the last step. There will be another public hearing in front of city council. Okay. Well, thank you all for your input. And we'll move on to the last public hearing item, which is an update to the zoning ordinance. The local coastal plan. Implementation plan to plan. Thank you, chair Newman commissioners. Give everybody a second to walk around a little bit. Testing. Okay. So tonight we have a zoning update for you. This is a three part zoning code update that involves correction and update and two separate updates. This is being brought forward separate from the larger zoning update of, you know, all of title 17 inside the coastal zone. That one we're still working with the coastal commission on. This is something that we're trying to get moved forward a little more quickly and expeditiously because it's based on things that are actually already in new state laws of January 1st in the case of ADUs or the result of recent legal decisions in the case of the signs. So we're trying to just move these forward a little bit faster. So staff is proposing that the maximum residential density limits in the community commercial and regional commercial zoning districts be removed from table. The action would bring the zoning code into conformance with the general plan residential and commercial development limits would then be established by the development standards in commercial and mixed use zones. Those standards include flurry ratio, height, setbacks, open space and parking. Staff is also proposing, sorry, the city attorney has recommended several changes to our sign regulations based on court rulings as I mentioned before. Those changes include adding language allowing non-commercial content wherever commercial content is allowed, adding definitions for commercial message, commercial sign and election period, and adding a section allowing small temporary non-commercial signs on residential property. If you have any specific questions regarding these or what was in the staff report, the city attorney will be at the next regular meeting. So she can answer any of those questions for you. Can you just answer maybe the simple one on the previous slide? Sure. So when you say commercial message, what's the issue here? What's the controversy? I believe this has to do with free speech and the non-commercial message is defined in the new code as any message that has no commercial relevance. So I mean, it can be any statements. You could have like Mattress, Firm, Save the Whales or something like that. A good example that you'll probably be seeing in the near future is we've recently received an application for a conditional use permit for the Takara building. And it's going to be a temporary use by a church. So although the church is in a commercial establishment, they can utilize the same signs and place the name of the church within the signs. I have a question, Ed. Is there any connection between eliminating the residential density requirements in the regional commercial zone and the proposed or about to be proposed mall development? No. So to go back on that one, what occurred was when we updated the zoning code, we put a 20 units per acre density limit in the code. But looking back at all of our meetings and when we talked about updating the community commercial and the regional commercial, there was never a discussion on that being a major change within our zoning code. So we think the density limit was accidentally placed in the code. In the past, it's always been dependent on the floor ratio, height, setbacks. If the planning commission feels more comfortable keeping in the 20 units per acre, we could do that. We did bring a lot of analysis forward to the planning commission and city council when we updated the general plan talking about if you have a density limit established within these areas, actually they become open to the density bonus laws in which if you have a 20 unit per acre, if you bring in a certain amount of affordable housing, we'll say at very low rates, they could get up to a 35% increase in density. So there's different ways to look at it, but really in Capitola parking is one of our most restrictive development standards and between the floor ratio. But it was an accident. How does it impact the proposed mall concept, as we currently know, with the current language? And how would it impact it if we take that language out? So the current mall is built at 20 units per acre. And we had guided them to not exceed 20 units per acre because that's the highest density in our multifamily zone. So we said we would guide you not to go beyond that to fit within Capitola's highest density. If you were to take that out, they would have to, in order to make it more dense, they would have to create more parking within that development. Right now they're over the height limit. So it's really, it is going to be a, you know, they're asking to go beyond the limits to provide community benefits. So it's a discretionary permit and you have a lot of oversight on what you can, what you'll allow to go beyond height, but they possibly could make it denser, but they'd have to build more parking garages. And they've said to us that they have no intention of making it denser. But it becomes allowable if we take that out. It does. It could become more dense, but it, it's, right now they're beyond the development standards in terms of height as proposed. So they're, they're really asking for this special community benefits review rather than a density review. But the general plan doesn't have the density in it. So we're, so you're just trying to make it consistent with what's in the general plan. So we, the zoning code added the 20 units per acre and it had never been in the zoning code before. The general plan was silent to it. So we recently updated the general plan to specify that density is a reflection of the floor area ratio height, the development standards in those zones. So the general plan is up to date with no density limits. And now we're within this zoning code change proposing to remove the, the error that was made during the update. I can put up more analysis and go back to some of the old staff reports in the report for next, the next meeting. Do the reverse and, and update or make sure the general plan followed the zoning ordinance as we updated it. It was an error that it was placed in there. So that was an error. It was added to the land use table. Wasn't there another item too? Yes. The most important one that some of us have been spending all of our time on. I'll bring more analysis in the staff report for the next meeting. No, no, I'll bring more analysis. Yeah. Okay. So onto the fun part. There were six bills signed into law in October of 2019. That completely changed the way ADUs or accessory dwelling units, since we're just introducing this now, are processed and approved in all of California. Those changes all went into effect as of January 1st, 2020. Despite the major changes to the government code, the state of California has not provided any guidance to local jurisdictions on how the new law should be interpreted or implemented. In fact, the most recent information on the California HCD website is actually to the new things as of January, 2019. So they're a little, little behind staff. However, has been working very closely with the city attorney and with a planning consultant named Ben Noble to draft a new ADU ordinance in the, you know, a couple of months or a month and a half since those bills were signed into law. So what are all these major changes to the ADU laws at the very highest level what they basically do is restrict jurisdiction's ability to regulate ADUs and junior ADUs. Most existing local ADU ordinances such as ours will not be consistent with new requirements until they are either amended or replaced. Completing ordinances are null and void, in which case the government code, I will only say this one, 65852.2, governs. I've been saying it a lot at the counter. So what does this mean for the city of Capitola? As I mentioned, the city of Capitola's existing ADU ordinance is not consistent with the new state law. Therefore it is null and void. ADU applications in the city will be reviewed and adopted under that government code section until the city of Capitola adopts an ordinance that complies with that code section. The draft ordinance will be presented at the next planning commission meeting on February 6th. The new legislation is not very easy to comprehend. I joke to Katie that I should have our draft ordinance in the state law because I've been carrying them in my pockets for the last month and a half. We originally intended to have that ordinance before you tonight. However, due to the complexity of the new laws, we are working through a few more questions that have arisen so that we can bring forward a draft that we really feel confident in that it complies with state law. There are several general ADU standards that have changed. Jurisdictions must allow ADUs in areas zoned to allow residential uses and may only restrict location based on adequacy of water and sewer, impact of ADU on traffic flow and public safety. Owner occupancy requirements are only permitted for junior ADUs. This is the only provision of the new law that sunsets in 2025, which means that the city could require owner occupancy for all ADUs again after that point, but any units built between 2020 and 2025 will remain exempt. Jurisdictions may prohibit rentals of less than 30 days in all ADUs and must prohibit short-term rentals in ADUs approved under the limited standards, which I'm going to describe later. Our draft ordinance, as a matter of fact, does go with that first one and restricts them into 30 days in all ADUs, which you'll see next week. Is that what the packet goes out? Jurisdictions may also allow the separate sale or conveyance of an ADU from a primary residence if it was constructed by a qualified nonprofit organization under AB 587. This part is optional and will be raised as a discussion point in the staff report for the next meeting. That would require a lot of split. How do you assess? Just getting into that today. I assume it would essentially be like a condo conversion of a lot. One other thing I wanted to point out is that the owner occupancy requirements for those ADUs that are in place and have owner occupancy requirements, they continue to apply. So they can't now just rent out both units. The owner occupancy stands within the deed restriction. We'll actually get into that next month as well on a separate project, 511 Escalano, which was approved with one, didn't record those deed restrictions yet, and one's going to be bringing it back so that they don't have that requirement. We might or the city council might want to decide to make them all uniform. There's a few items like that. Including a very important one, parking. So anyway, there are general requirements in a lot that are applicable to limited standard ADUs, only including jurisdictions may not require correction of non-conforming zoning conditions as a condition of approval. No fire sprinklers may be required unless they were required in the primary residence. We must, as I mentioned a second ago, we must require rental term longer than 30 days, which we look at as a small win for jurisdictions that we weren't expecting. We may require percolation tests within five years or 10 years if the test has been recertified as a condition to add an ADU to an on-site water treatment system. I included all this stuff. Some of these are really going to be very few and far between, or maybe not relevant at all, but I wanted you to have all the information here. Ordinances permitting ADUs in multifamily buildings that were adopted before July 1, 2018 may enforce design development and historic standards on ADUs in multifamily buildings. This actually wouldn't apply to us because ours did not do that. And last but not least, and this is a big one, all standards including maximum floor area must be waived to permit at least an 800 square foot ADU, 16 feet in height, with four foot side and rear yard setbacks. So to elaborate on that, if you have a home that's built out for its FAR, we think we should get rid of our FAR relative of the .6 FAR because at this point, any home that's maxed out can come in for an additional 800 square feet. What is to force them to treat it as an ADU as opposed to an addition to their house? With a kitchen. Which we are already seeing. But it doesn't even, even if we do get rid of our FAR, they still have the right to do this, right? So it doesn't really make a difference. Well, then they'd have the increased FAR and they'd get the 800 on top. So that's why the 60%, because, for example, a lot of the larger lots do this, where they go from 48% to 60% max FAR. So they would get to 60% and get another 800 square feet on top of that. So it'd be a huge bonus for larger lots, in particular in the city, and since we're already getting 800 square feet over. So if you have an attached ADU, you have to have those setbacks up there. What if you have an unattached, free-standing ADU? How far is the setback between the existing structure and the ADU? Just adequate for fire safety. So as long as it's fire rated correctly, it goes as close as you want. Okay. The new laws also change the review and approval process. Applications for certain types of ADUs must be reviewed and approved ministerially with no discretionary review or public hearings if they meet minimum standards. Which I will describe on a later slide. These will be referred to in the ordinance as limited standards ADUs. And those include internal ADUs, which are ADUs converted from existing structures, which include primary residences, attached and detached garages, and any accessory structure, even if the structure is non-conforming. Detached ADUs on single-family parcels, including detached ADUs paired with a junior ADU and a primary single-family residence, so essentially a triplex. Internal ADUs in non-livable multi-family spaces, such as storage rooms, boiler rooms, passageways, attics, basements, or garages, and detached ADUs on multi-family parcels. Time to act on permit application has also been reduced to 60 days from 120 days, unless the application is concurrent with an application to build a new single-family dwelling. If a complete application is not acted upon within 60 days, it's kind of like a subdivision map act thing. That's probably deemed approved. I'm going to review three types of ADUs in the following slides. Limited standards, which I just mentioned, full standards, and then the ADUs that are actually subject to design permits and conditionally used permits. The first type I will review is the ADU that is subject to limited standards. There are two types of ADUs that must be reviewed and approved under limited standards on single-family lots. And so the first one is one ADU or junior ADU within an existing or proposed single-family unit or accessory structure. An expansion of up to 150 square feet is permitted but only for ingress or egress. What's a junior ADU as opposed to an ADU? A junior ADU is actually a 65852.22 in the government code. It's restricted to 500 square feet. It still has the owner occupancy requirement. It has some other very specific requirements related to it. Internal access, I believe. It has to maintain internal access. At least it used to. It doesn't have to have its own bathroom. It can technically share a bathroom with the primary resident. It's just a very specific type of conversion ADU. Like a one-room studio. Yeah, within the house that has, I think it can have interior and exterior access. Yeah, so exterior access is required and setbacks must be sufficient for fire safety. The other type on single-family lots is one new construction detached ADU on lots with an existing or proposed single-family unit. Those cannot be more than 800 square feet, not more than 16 feet in height and must have 4-foot side mirror setbacks. This is the one type of ADU that may be combined with a junior ADU to make the triplex setup. Good question.  But I'm just wondering how you guys plan. Well, so are any two-story and ours is going to be a discretionary one required design permit and conditionally used permit? You're allowed to be more permissive with your codes and I looked through Santa Cruz as well. I'm not shh. It's definitely more permissive. They actually went with three feet instead of four and I think there's some other areas where they went a little more permissive as well. And so you are welcome, you know, the city of Capitol is welcome to do something similar if they'd like, but we at the moment are just going with exactly what the state law said. But our draft, I think you can go up to 24 feet, but it does require a design permit and COP. Oh, it does. There are also two types of ADUs that have to be reviewed and approved under limited standards for multifamily lots. Multiple ADUs within an existing multifamily building. These must be converted from space and not used as livable space. These are the ones I mentioned before for storage rooms, boiler rooms, passageways, that type of thing. But they do have to meet building code standards. With these local jurisdictions, 25% of the existing units in the building or one unit, whichever is greater. So for example, a multifamily building with 12 units could have three of these conversion ADUs if they happen to have a storage room, boiler room, and a garage that could be converted. We would have to approve that. And then not more than two detached ADUs on lots with existing multifamily units. So these have to be detached from the existing multifamily building. And then they have the same 16 foot height, four foot side and rear setback requirements. Would that include a car port? Yes. Okay, so next up is the ADUs subject to the full review standards. There are also new standards that must be applied to additions and new detached ADUs that do not qualify for ministerial approval under the limited standard section that I just reviewed. This category would be limited to one story attached ADUs and detached ADUs between 800 and 1200 square feet. So pretty narrow category here. Applications for these types of ADUs would be reviewed and approved administratively under standards very similar to the limited standard ADUs. With these local jurisdictions are expressly allowed to regulate parking, but with a very large asterisk there because there are major exceptions that I'm going to address in just a couple minutes here. Height, landscape, architectural review, maximum unit size, and standards that prevent adverse impacts on any real property listed in the California register of historic places. Local jurisdictions are also prohibited from enforcing minimum size requirements. As mentioned earlier, no setbacks are required for conversions of existing structures even if they're non-conforming. And then there's a couple of minimum and maximum size requirements permitted. The minimum size must at least allow an efficiency unit of 150 square feet. And then there's two different maximums in terms of one bedroom and two bedroom. One bedroom maximum has to be you have to let someone have at least 850 for a one bedroom or 1000 square feet for a two bedroom. As I mentioned a minute ago, while the new state law mentions that we have the ability to require parking, it also exempts most ADUs from parking requirements. No parking spaces can be required for internal, so those are the conversion ones, junior ADUs or attached ADUs. In addition, no parking spaces can be required if the ADU is located within half-mile walking distance of public transit. It's located within a national register, historic district or other historic district officially designated by the city council. Or if the ADU is part of a proposed or existing primary residence or accessory structure. When on-street parking permits are required but not offered to the occupant of the ADU and when there's a car, a vehicle, pickup, drop-off location within one block of the ADU. So as a result of those exemptions, the city of Capitola can only require parking spaces for detached ADUs and only those exemptions on the previous slide apply. However, the very first one of those exemptions, one half-mile of public transit, exempts most of the city from parking requirements as shown here. The area in gray on the right, including the Clifford Heights neighborhood, is the only area where the city could actually require parking for detached ADUs. I need at least. So only place where there is parking. Yeah. However... Very wide streets. However, there are several bus stops along Park Avenue that are currently inactive and not included in the previous map. If that bus route were to be made active, all types of ADUs on every parcel in the city of Capitola would be exempt from parking requirements. Given the fact that all types of ADUs will be exempt from parking requirements in the majority and potentially all of Capitola, Planning Commission may want to consider removing all parking requirements from the ordinance. So we can discuss that in the next meeting. This flow chart shows how each ADU type would move through the approval process. This is still being worked on and still working on what types of applications and all that good stuff. But this is the basics. The limited standard ADUs would submit an application. The city has a 60-day planning and building review timetable to work with. We can only apply those limited standards. So the 800-square-foot square footage, 16-foot height, 4-foot rear and side set backs, that's it. We can't apply anything else. They are, however, subject to the general requirements for all ADUs, which is a very small category. And then it's mandatory approval. The full review standards submit an application, same 60-day planning and review timetable, also subject to the general requirements. But then we also are allowed to subject them to the development standards and objective standards that you'll see in the ordinance that comes out next week. So a little more to work with and then there's approval. And then the ones that are actually going to come to you for a design permit and a conditional use permit, they submit an application. We have a 60-day review unless they are submitted with an application for a new single-family dwelling, at which point they're on the timetable for that single-family dwelling working its way through our design process. Those are also subject to general requirements for all ADUs that are also subject to the full development standards, the objective design standards, and then some of them may be asking for deviations from standards, and we are going to have a section there that has specific findings that need to be made by you to approve those. There are also changes related to fees that can be charged by the local jurisdiction, but they mainly relate to impact fees and utility connections. Since the city of Capitola does not charge impact fees and is not a utility, these changes do not really affect us. Local jurisdictions are authorized to charge fees and remers for costs incurred to implement the new state law, for example, the countless hours I have spent on this, including the cost to adopt and amend the ADU ordinance. Matt, so my understanding was so if you're on a city water permit process, but because we're with a special district with Soquel, they don't have to, they can still charge a permit fee. I know they are consulting with their attorneys on this as well and the guidance that they have provided us for 2020 has meter fees for all new construction ADUs but not for conversion ADUs. So they're going to handle it in the way that they see fit. So that's how they're proceeding through 2020 and we'll see how it goes. And the other portion of our city that's under Santa Cruz water is there's no they won't charge the fee. That was my understanding but the district could still charge a fee. Let's see. The state law is very prescriptive as to what they can do and so it will be interesting to see whether that holds up. There are a couple other random ADU changes. The junior ADU standards were relaxed. For example, it used to have to include a bedroom that has been murdered out of the main house that has been taken away. So they changed just a little bit. AB 670, I got a text about this tonight from a buddy actually about whether HOAs could still prohibit these and the answer that is no. AB 670 voids CCNRs that prohibit and unreasonably restrict ADUs or junior ADUs. AB 671 requires local governments to include a plan in their housing element to incentivize and promote the creation of ADUs that can be offered in income households. Jurisdictions may count ADUs in our housing elements and it sounds like HEDU will be giving us guidelines on those. So in terms of next steps the draft ordinance will be presented to you at the next regular meeting on February 6th. Once the planning commission has approved the draft ordinance, it must be reviewed and adopted by the city council. After that, it must be sent to the HCD within 60 days of adoption. They may submit written findings regarding compliance with code 65852.2. If HCD finds that our ordinance is inconsistent with that government code we have to either amend our ordinance or adopt the ordinance without changes but include findings stating why we think it complies with government section government code section. And then just another note ADU ordinance updates are exempt from CEQA. So it takes a little time. And sorry, that's it. I have a question. Yes. In the jewel box area where most of the lots are 40 by 80 the city in the past and I don't think this is an ordinance but they've always discouraged or prohibited a second curb cut. So if you were to put an ADU on your property would you be allowed a second curb cut to provide off street parking? I don't believe so because our driveway with section is actually in chapter 12 so the state law doesn't address that and there's a limitation in government code that has to be no more than 16 feet or 40% of the lot width. So that wouldn't allow any of those to have a second curb cut because that would be most of their front edge. So before we get too far into the weeds and kind of there's many, many specific issues we could look at and talk about and probably be here for hours I kind of want to get a sense of what's going with this so the state has enacted some statutes that are very complicated and very comprehensive about all sorts of rules that apply to ADUs and so we're jumping on this because there's a default statute in effect right now the state law.  What are our objectives? What are we trying to accomplish here? How are we going to do it? What is the process of just having another hearing on February 3rd and then going to the city council adequate? I like the staff's thoughts on that. Sure. So we've seen many jurisdictions move forward with emergency ordinances in talking with our attorney. We're trying to work and rework our ordinance until we felt confident that it was in compliance with state code. Our objective here is really we need to draft an ordinance that meets the requirements of the state but at the same time protects capitol to what we understand our residents So where does that come from? For example the city of Santa Cruz apparently has adopted some more liberal standards in favor of trying to expand public housing and are we saying that we know that the city of capitol does not want to go that direction and wants to try to fight the concept as much as it can and minimize its compliance with the state law are we saying we want to expand our compliance with the state law and where does this come from? Who voted on it? So we're trying to move forward with emergency ordinances at the next hearing to bring forth the draft ordinance and talk about those areas where we have flexibility to make those decisions of whether or not for tonight we introduced the parking standard and we have the ability to just wave all parking for ADUs depending on just that Matt and Sean have probably it's not one question on ADUs the day that they're getting it's multiple so there you know people are well informed that this is happening we can try to get the word more out there for the next public hearing so that hopefully people will weigh in we know exactly where the state stands and how they like it addressed in the past and right now it feels like we need to get something in place but at the same point no we haven't gone out to the public and ask the difficult questions of do we want to make it as tight as possible but in compliance with the state or should we be loosening this so that we can move forward with So I had the same concern and to me it seems like the city council to weigh in as to are we going Santa Cruz route or are we going the minimal look for any loopholes route because when you mentioned the two foot setback or the three foot setback and the requirement is four it's like well okay there is a political statement here that says we want more affordable housing we want to solve this problem and so Santa Cruz I guess is going in with both feet and they want to really help out based on that limited information that you just gave us so my question would be well as a commissioner I am not an elected official somebody guide me am I going through here looking for loopholes because I started to or am I being guided the other direction let's help these people out and find more affordable housing well unless we wanted to provide a recommendation to the city council say here is what the planning commission thinks and then they could argue that but I think there is a big question which is what is our direction are we all for this or are we fighting well I think to some extent that is our role is to make a recommendation to the city council we as planning commissioners spend a lot more time in the weeds with this type of stuff than they do with city council the political side is going to come out once it gets to the city council I don't know I understand is someone directing us I see that as our role this is kind of set a path this is our chance to have a voice and I think the people that I have talked to about these ADU things coming in is it is going to be a huge impact for Santa Cruz wherever but when you take into account what we are listening to tonight traffic, parking and just the small high density areas that we already have it is going to be a big impact to our cities potentially I could easily have a triplex at my house and so could all my neighbors and so you add all those cars into this into the mix and is that really where we go with the general plan that was chaired by Commissioner Newman here is that we are trying to keep this quaint town the way I don't know if that really fits in I think it is going to to me I think what comes to us forced upon us by the state it is going to force us to allow more housing by default but I am of the mindset to try to minimize it and you know I was appointed because we are not elected but the elected officials are finding they are going to take either our recommendations and say no we see it differently we want to make it inclusive anybody who wants to come to capitol so is there going to be a city council meeting before you come back to us on the February so this is a great opportunity we are actually taking it next week to this update to the city council and the staff report gets released tomorrow and I can ask for direction from vote here and say are you taking the same thing that you just presented to us to the city council for input before it comes back to us yes okay so I wasn't aware of that that is I think we need to have big picture direction here before we can start dealing with every and it might be some are different we might for example feel that parking requirements need to be as tight as possible as the capitol but owner occupied maybe we are willing to we don't think that is a big issue we need to kind of take them one at a time here and have an idea of what the policy what our policy should be yes the city before we talk about all the details yeah so I think what TJ is saying is that should that come from bottom up or top down well all I know is we and when I talk with the city council members I have interaction with we have a lot more insight to the codes and where we are at today they see themselves at that political level maybe they want to jump on the bandwagon and say everybody we should make it as inclusive as we can to make as many homes as we can in capitol that may be the political stance but I think from my perspective as a planning commissioner is to know our codes and all the in and out of our intent of our general plan and how we because the general plan pretty much drives our codes right and so if that's true then we kind of have some insight to where we want to go with this but this is new since our you know although this is no it changes the whole I agree game changer and I'll tell you right now I was going to say for commissioner comments but I won't be here for the February meeting so so I think like to think about it as two tiers to now in the city of capitol if you're have a single a lot with a single family on it or can be developed with a single family or a lot with multi-family they're allowed to have an ADU and we have a we're going to be required to approve that within 60 days okay so the second tier is how we're going to review these ADUs and that will be what we're going to need guidance on so the required four-foot setback from side and rear lot lines if that doesn't make practical sense and we want people to have more flexibility of maybe it would be better to have the ADU closer to the property line so there's we save backyards and they're more usable then that you know these are things that we'll be asking for guidance on but as far as the allowance of the ADU they're going to be allowed at least one on multi-families the standards are much higher with the up to 25% so I think yeah but the specific example you brought up I mean we could conceivably or you could ministerily since we probably won't have a say in it ministerily say no this ADU is disapproved because there's no way you can put a four-foot setback in here therefore disapproved as opposed to oh no I know the city council and the planning commission really wants to encourage these we're going to go ahead and allow the two-foot setback and I think you need guidance on that and I think we need to provide it or someone needs to provide it just for clarity under the the way that it was written by the state if if they can't meet those setbacks out of the yeah they can ask for but we'll get into all of that but there's but yeah for an 800 square foot unit up to 16 feet with four-foot setbacks but they can move forward for a deviation for that but it also allows it if they already have a non-conforming to enlarge the non-conforming and think of how many non-conforming we I mean our whole city is basically non-conforming today so yeah it's a big if they apply for this too if they apply for a deviation again this is going to be handled ministerily and not come to the planning commission that deviation would come to you deviations will come to you okay so I also think that they put a lot of pressure on us in terms of the timing of this all of a sudden it's it yeah and the staff especially and it's in effect automatically unless you you can enact some ordinances to tweak it but in the meantime we've got a law for you here so that's fine but I mean we have enough trouble with our ordinance so we keep finding errors and here we're going on a rush basis in the next meeting already be enacting what's what seems to me like a complete game changer and capital it is do you have any insight to other places how many people are rushing to the tour does they have ADUs is it are people jumping on the bandwagon to add ADUs in other districts our districts really haven't adopted it yet because it's so new just started in January it doesn't matter if they've adopted it so my impression is they're you know rushing every and every how many applications have we had so far in the first two weeks in January we had one on January 2nd which you're going to see next month that's actually one that you guys had already approved that's like I said it's coming back just because they did not have the de-distriction basically and then multiple a day I think we're going to see more conversions wait so for clarification multiple inquiries a day I don't think you've received in terms of the actual applications I've only had that one because they were waiting for that to pass so that on January 2nd they could come in and apply but there will be many more soon I've been hearing it's a sentiment of entitlement of people saying like I'm allowed to have up to 800 square feet and regardless of whatever jurisdiction puts limitations of saying you can have you know two-foot setback but they're allowed to argue the point of saying that if I'm allowed to have 800 square feet back here I can push it up to the property line and they're heard is that seem legitimate no not quite up to the property line with a deviation they could I think one thing to be prepared for is applicants that recently got approvals and they were you know 80U size has gone up if it's a two bedroom it can go up to 1200 square feet so there's we may be seeing more revisiting recent approvals that we're going through the building permit process at this point but haven't built yet but really wanted a larger 80U that's another thing so it may be a good way to go about this would be to adopt an ordinance just to have it in place and then come back and work through just be doing like a standard ordinance for he has tons of clients who are I mean for example the ownership requirement is that's a new ballgame too and I would like to take a close look at that and see how we deal with pre-existing and all these different components of just that one issue so that controversial one in Cliffwood Heights that we had the second story edition all that controversies for nothing right for nothing if that came in at 800 square feet it's automatic okay so just to try to get some order some order on this I don't know if I can can I just make one I didn't know if we were to question yet of course it's a meaning yet reform so I'm looking at some of this stuff and it talks about the Coastal Commission and it can't violate the Coastal Commission Act 1976 so if we were to get the Coastal Commission to approve our zoning code that gives an out on this whole thing because the Coastal Commission they're not a local entity they're a state entity they approved our zoning code in most of the city therefore they have to approve all our ADUs and all our changes it's an effect and as far as the Coastal Commission there's no public meeting required so if we were to issue a Coastal Development Permit if it required a Coastal Development Permit under if it just met the requirements for a CDP it would be an administrative CDP that we would issue so it's because it's an effect we would just I as the Community Development Director would review it administratively and I would make a request for a Coastal Development Permit they would get their Admin Permit as well as their CDP but we can't require an amendment to the LCP it does so we'll be submitting an amendment to the LCP immediately and then the Coastal Commission is going to have to approve it because they're going to be bombarded with ADU ordinances this year but I don't see where it violates any I mean it doesn't go I was looking for well yeah housing in the Coastal Zone is a value to the Coastal Commission the other loophole I was wondering is it I also read in there about water adequacy that you're allowed to deny this if there's a water sewage I think it is the words it was mentioned in there and clearly we have a water shortage here in this Soquel Water Creek District that's referring to the availability of services though not if there's a water crisis it just means you don't have water lines or sewer lines available to a property that's too bad yeah I thought there was a density loophole as well but I'm sure they've got all those blocked it's a little interesting that they make a comment about density saying this can't exceed the proposed density by nature of what this is exceeding what we've established as our maximum density I was confused about that as well so is this whole thing expiring five years only that one clause about owner occupancy of junior ADUs oh yeah they get more complex and we have till July 1st to submit otherwise we're in violation of I thought it was a July 1st 2018 deadline to submit a draft of our ordinance that was referring to the multifamily if you had already had a multifamily ordinance in place at that point that allowed ADUs with multifamily buildings then you get to still apply design standards and things like that that you had in place at the time we didn't have anything in place at that time so that's why I mentioned that that didn't apply to us there's no deadline in this because it's already law I mean we're functioning under it right now if an application came in today we'd be treating it accepting it and moving forward with it under this so in that this is already law I think the rush is just we would like to have something you know together that's our interpretation of this that we can move forward to you in city council and then as you mentioned you know take public direction on how we want to tweak it to allow a little bit more have it be more restrictive you know that's we can't do that until we have some sort of a draft in place and so that's I think at the city council hearing next week the staff can present the planning commission concerns about direction here and how this should be handled as well as just the details of the ordinance and so forth and kind of get some input from them as to how they think this should progress with the understanding that this at least in the opinion of most of the people up here is a very very big deal in capitol and maybe something we can't do much about but still I there are at least some aspects of it that we can address and we need to know what direction we're going then we can come back I'm not sure that February 3rd is the time to have to vote an ordinance up or down we can continue it's February 6th but we can continue it you know we'll be asking for direction that night just with all the inquiries that come through the desk as just to provide service to our residents to have an ordinance in place but if we need more time I'll definitely be asking the questions of city council next week in terms of how do we want it to be more lenient than the state I mean that's the only option it can't be tighter than what the state's written so although it's very complicated is it also very precise and prescriptive like you pointed out so there's not a lot of wiggle room in terms of needs to be interpreted and that needs to be interpreted and so you're looking you as staff is looking for guidance in that interpretation it's very precise we could loosen the you know like the setbacks or the height but it's extremely precise in creating the avenues for how you need to treat individual situations but if you said you know let's treat them all the same and they all get a fast track and limited review it's going to be a little more lenient but it is it's confusing it's not well written but once you get into the exact it seems very prescriptive and precise and the state's really moving towards objective standards for all for housing so you're going to hear more and more of that where we can't have these compatibility reviews and even with the ADU ordinance and how it's going to affect like a historic structure with an ADU addition we're proposing we can put objective standards in there to try to guide it towards the secretary of interior standards and what you know in addition to a historic would be but it can't you know we can't call it up for a conditional use permit design permit it's going to be an administrative review so that's one area that we're we've written objective standards into the code to try to be consistent with the way it's been applied in the past but yeah we'll come back with guidance hopefully if we yeah it is if we're going to have a full on ordinance draft to deal with at a meeting it would be really great if we could get it a little more in advance then we get our packets maybe have more time so the packet will go out in two weeks actually and so we could try to get the ordinance out possibly by next Friday so you have a whole week in advance to start looking at as soon as we we're just working out some of the last details of it but it's pretty well baked at this point so we'll get it to really okay anything further on this subject okay directors report um I don't have a director's report as you know the wharf is open again it was closed for a while there due to a couple pilings and but it's open again and no directors report this evening any commission communications I had two questions one about Osh which is now outdoor supply hardware do we know when that's gonna air open? it's already open? yeah dang I'm behind the times we're not going to west side Capitola enough unfortunately I'm too used to going to Home Depot but then secondly Coastal Commission anything with the Coastal Commission and Santa Cruz just had did they come to the agreement in Santa Cruz? they're close I'm meeting with their community development director next week they're gonna have their final revisions so hoping to bring you some information on that probably at the next meeting but they've got to go back to the board of supervisors get their approval on the most recent changes and then take it back to Coastal Commission for final approval and my last comment is I won't be at the next meeting so okay alright so there's nothing further we'll adjourn until ground hockey


Well, I got what I wanted. I wanted a Jacobs letter but I could put in my window and have it as an ornament on my window ledge and something that I could put on. I don't have nets or anything that may catch fire. It's probably one of the safest places to pull it and where it will get the most admiration. So I'm quite happy with that. I can actually give it a lot more voltage. I can actually set it to 15.3 volts at the peak, nearly 7 amps. I can actually put quite a bit more into this. I can only deliver 10 amps maximum from this supply and this one's failing me altogether on the parallel mode. It's just not playing the game properly. At least this one's working after a little fix because at one stage it wouldn't give out any more than 5 volts. I whipped the back off and had a poking play around and must have been a loose connection or something because it's working again. That's pretty. A bit more tuning with the power. I should be able to get that running a nice steady flow up and down and I might just play around and put a bit more wit on those wire prongs. Whatever. I don't know what you'd call them. A bit of sticky up bits of wire. So yeah, I'm chuffed. I got me Jacob's ladder. Yay! Well maybe I could. It's because I've got the fan blowing onto the flyback and the driver's sake. I'm not sure it doesn't get too warm and it messes a little bit with the I think it's quite good. It livens it up here. I put my finger in it earlier just to see what it would be like. It was a little bit different to what I expected. I expected heat not so much just sort of like grip-chir. I just rammed my finger. When it was at the top I just flicked my finger through it just to see what it was like. It was interesting. I wouldn't suggest it to anybody. I suppose I better say now that playing with this sort of voltage is really really silly. You should be very very careful with whatever it is you do. Don't play with them unless you know the risks and you've got somebody who supervises you, who's qualified. Anyway, enjoy. Bye for now. Thanks for watching.