director and if it's in a long reach so we're gonna wait a couple minutes I guess we'll go ahead and get started for our special meeting of the planning Commission if we could get the roll call please yes Commissioner Ruth it's not here Commissioner Newman here Commissioner Christensen Commissioner Wilk here and chair Welch here thanks now we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance okay well welcome I think our fellow Commissioner will be showing up soon but we'll go ahead and get started we'll start off with any oral communications oh I'm sorry I should read the we have our little information sheet on here's why I can't tell you this is I don't it's okay so is it being here tonight do we have a it is and it is Lynn Duncan I believe okay so normally our planning Commission's meetings are being televised on a number of channels I don't remember off the top of my head and then it is also you can go and review and view it on our website at www.cfcapitola.com and oh.org is that right thank you I need all the help I can right now because I'm an ad-libbing but and then if you would just please silence your pagers and our phones then that would be appreciated and I think we're good with that well any additions or deletions to the agenda we did receive one public comment that came in this afternoon regarding item 3a from Swanson okay yeah I think all the Commissioners have a copy of that great thank you and I should also mention I I printed off a map of parcels in the R1 for you regarding there was previous public comment that was attached to the staff report okay but I thought in this discussion it would be helpful to break down the lot sizes within the R1 so you'd know how many different lot sizes fall under different size categories so okay also received a map great thank you so I guess we could note that Commissioner McRuth has shown up sorry from the Joe box to get here this part of our meeting is for public comments for those items that are not on tonight's agenda so if you'd like to speak to the Planning Commission about something that's not on tonight's agenda this is your time to get up and speak okay then we'll move on to Commission comments no comments from our Commissioners how about staff comments okay tonight's public hearing is an update on our zoning code this is a special meeting to look at the implementation along with the local coastal plan and there's a number of items we're going to discuss tonight but one of those items is I guess what we're calling this a presentation by mr. Sam showing so I will start off with you and if you want to come up and give us your presentation I appreciate it and Peter if you could just speak to that microphone for us we'd appreciate it so that it's recorded on the TV that working okay so I have a house up in the jewel box on prospect and I've had that since 2004 lived in the area since 83 and we want to remodel it and move here and retire and preferably a year and a half time not sure if we'll make that but anyway so I've been really digging into the code looking at everything and looking at what I can build and and I found one thing that just seemed kind of odd was this this issue of exclusion for a garage space okay and so if you go to the next the next chart so the code the old code is that line across the bottom I I think you guys are probably familiar with this but in the new code there is an exclusion for lots less than 3,000 square feet in size of 250 square feet of garage space and it excludes that from the total square footage or allowable square footage so you end up with this kind of jagged line of what you're allowed to build in terms of square footage versus your lot size so my lot is 3200 square foot if you look at that if you have a 3,000 square foot lot you can build a larger house so that's what's starting me down this path but really a certain looking at a thinking I need to build a bigger garage than what the minimum is allowed but I have to sacrifice floor space in the house my wife insists on having a garage and she insists on having a large enough garage where she can open both doors and things like that so I have to do that and so as we looked at things I started thinking of how could I address this this thing my first idea was why don't you just let us design to the 3,000 square foot rules so if I have a 32 hundred 30 200 square foot lot I just design a house as if it were 3,000 square feet and make that a level line from 3,000 square feet up to 3500 square feet and I think the you know the drawback of this is is that it does increase the sizes of all the houses in the city you know and so I was thinking through that and trying to think of a compromise and my next idea was this next chart which actually there's a kind of a precedent in the previous code for detached garages where it allows a hundred square feet of ancillary space to be excluded from the total square footage calculation and I thought okay there's there's something I could work with what I would propose here it's kind of a compromise between both plans is to allow 125 square feet of ancillary space in a garage above the 200 square foot minimum for every lot size and that green line would kind of become the new norm that that added space between the the old code and the green line is only additional space in the garage and this thing really really started getting traction with me because when I look around my neighborhood most of the neighborhoods up around here the streets are just full of cars and nobody has their cars in their garage and garage is a pretty much you know filled with bikes and things like that and that's the genesis of this whole thing when I was debating with my wife what kind of house we could build she said were you gonna put your bicycles I need you know I want my garage just for myself you got to build yourself a garage and things like that and so that's what came in this I think if we had a little bit larger garages then people would park their cars are more likely to park their cars in garage as it is now nobody it's pretty rare to see people using their garages up here especially in that jewel box area I'm not sure about the rest of town but I imagine it's probably the same in Riverview and things so that's the gist of my my proposal before the the new code is fully adopted to consider that modification allowing for some ancillary garage space and create more parkable garages great that's it well if you don't mind hanging on maybe we'll see if any commissioners have any questions for you before you just wondering how you would guarantee people are going to use the garage even though they get that extra space why would go door to door no there's no guarantees and you know I mean the you can't guarantee anything you can only try to motivate people and I know one thing is that with a 10 by 20 foot space you can only open one side of doors in a garage that size and and you know it's part of the debate I'm having with my wife as to what do we need a larger garage or a bedroom the kids can come visit us and things like that so she's choosing the garage but so there's no yeah it's pretty harsh she's saying hey they can sleep on the couch but yeah there's no guarantee but I just think it's the right thing to do I think 10 by 20 garages I don't know if anybody who's got a single car garage you got a 10 by 20 I mean do you always park your car in it I mean that's just it so our whole the whole thing we have these strict parking codes you gotta have two parking spots things like that but really with the way things are written we we functionally only use the outdoor parking spot so let's try to address it so could you explain to me again why you you chose the second option as opposed to the first the first option at least gets there I would love to have the first option it would allow me to build a bigger structure but I was concerned and actually after discussion with staff and things concern whether it's not pushing the envelope too far and building bigger houses across the boards you know see because the whole thing is this that the the map that was provided I don't have it it's of the lots I think maybe less than 25% of the lots in town are under 3,000 square feet so that larger larger space exclusion would only apply to kind of a minority of the lots in town okay so if we do my second proposal which takes that a flat line going up I think it captures a much greater percentage of the homes or the lots in town makes many many more lots eligible for larger homes you know or larger garages I would certainly love to have you adopt that I think it would be yeah I think that would be a great solution but I'm offering this as a as kind of a compromise if if you have concerns well we're not going to take action on it tonight but if you want more discussion I'm I'll just comment that and I kind of studied your presentation in the written presentation I think you've uncovered a serious discrepancy in our code with the 250 foot exclusion for her for lots under 3,000 feet that really doesn't make any sense and I agree with you because it it all boils down to a floor area ratio if you want smaller lots to be able to build more than you just have a larger floor area ratio instead of having the 250 foot garage exclusion I don't know how that how we ended up with that but it is an oddity and I agree with it some at some point I think we should clean up our floor area ratio portion of our code to eliminate that and just decide how much building we want to be allowed on smaller lots maybe it's a higher percentage I don't know but my point here is that I'm not asking for a larger structure I'm asking to build a bigger garage that doesn't take you can build a bigger garage you could build like a 200 foot house in the rest garage I'm not advocating building a bigger home but only having a 20 by 10 foot garage I'm advocating if you want to go above the the buildable space you can only add garage if you want to go beyond that well to me it just comes down the floor area ratio which I think bears some rethinking or dinkering down the road for us but thank you for bringing that up thank you so yeah I did have a question because when when I saw that chart I can see where we had the the existing line which kind of makes sense I guess but then then at some point a planning commissioner or city council decided to put this step in it and I was wondering if anybody remembers where how that why that square footage was picked because when I talked to Katie about this I thought that was like okay that was a clear cut you know lots eyes as a but looking at this chart it's pretty much a continuous so this was done in our recent code update so it was one of the when we went through floor area ratio there was the I had brought forth some changes for decreasing the side yard setbacks on the second story for really narrow lots and then out of those conversations it also turned into well maybe we in our floor area we should also be thinking so we we typically have this wedding cake factor for homes that happens on the second story because there's a greater setback second-story setback standard so on really narrow lots we were thinking of the Riverview area across from City Hall here where there's really narrow lots and they're very small to allow them to build within setbacks and from those discussions I think that's how we also added an allowance for garages on these really because thinking about the small lots it was a suggestion I think of one of the planning commissioners and that was built in for that reason but it is interesting our typical lot size in Capitola I think starts at 3200 square feet a 40 by 80 lot and goes up so when mr. Shamsho and came to me with this this item I from from my perspective on that the exception that we created it would almost seem like taking his approach of this line and bringing it back would start from the 3200 square foot lot and bringing the line back this way if because these are really the smaller lots in town it's anything under 3200 square feet is kind of not sure what's the planning commission that came up with that not the city council it may have been the city council I don't remember the audience doesn't remember I don't think we did it yeah I don't recall anyway after after looking at all these things and thinking this all through I kind of came back to the garage issue I think 10 by 20 garages what people are kind of forced into doing because that's the minimum you must build and they aren't that usable so we aren't solving the parking problem very good point taken and we appreciate your presentation if there's no more I just wanted to get a clarification on what Ed said but if we use just go by floor area ratio that kind of leaves it up to the designer to do whatever he wants right or she wants can we kick this back to the staff and say give us a presentation on maybe where this came from and give us some options fix it fix it yeah give us some options to fix it well it'd be interesting to see where I because I don't recall I was talking about it but I don't know if it was a city council thing or I think it had to come out of the city council review sorry okay yeah I mean this is here's the table for floor area ratio so the way in which floor area ratio is set up is the smaller the lot the greater the floor area ratio size so for a home that is for on these on a lot less than you know 3251 that's when you've got the floor area ratio of 57 or 58 if it's below 2,650 so it is set up that way the smaller the lot the larger the FAR I think it's pretty gradual it would be a little bit more dramatic the increase for the small lots which would that would be a better more consistent way of doing what the 250 foot garage exclusion was I guess intended to do very good thank you Mr. Champlion all right thanks okay we'll move on with the zoning discussion and this is going to be probably more than one meeting I'm guessing by looking at the book so I think what we discuss is maybe going through the discussion points and having staff go through the discussion points and then from there we can talk about other items and Katie maybe you can just explain the process of you know reviewing with the Coastal Commission and and how we got to the point we're at tonight yep so I have a few slides for you though okay I'll go over first I wanted to take time to introduce Kevin Kahn Kevin Kahn is the Central Coast District Supervisor he's located in Santa Cruz we met on a regular basis throughout the summer months and Kevin and Rainy Graven who is unable to make it here this evening is their analyst staff analyst worked very closely with the two of them and they circulated our our zoning code update to between five different staff members I believe and at all different levels so that there was quite a thorough review that took place in the edits that you see this evening and Kevin's here to help us out because there's definitely I had I learned so much during those meetings with the Coastal Commission of why they were asking for certain things and where it stems from in the Coastal Act so hopefully tonight as we go through these will be anytime Kevin you want to jump in just you can provide clarity to us and help educate the Planning Commission as well because it was extremely helpful for me so is this just a compilation of the five staff members comments or was it then reviewed and edited and one common agreed upon set was submitted so it was edits from five different staff members but then we sat down and went through all of the their edits and kind of agreed upon their edits at a certain point of what you're seeing so that that was some back and forth with staff and then I further took those and there are some that I didn't think should be adopted at this stage and what we can get into some of those are the topics of discussion tonight but most of them were agreed upon edits that we we talked about each edit in this draft and I'll just it we just wanted to make sure that we were giving edits to you know the best possible edits that it wasn't just reflecting my edits or Rainey's edits or one person but it went through our legal team and just to make sure there weren't any new surprises later in the process so we think we've you know done try to give us thorough a job as possible about going through our internal review steps great thanks welcome Kevin and and also we are not going to the next tonight or our next meeting discuss the geological or non-conforming is alright that's right and I'll get into that with this overview so I just high level the local coastal program is a mixture is a combination of things we adopted a local coastal program which includes our land use program our land use plan I'm sorry I wrote that wrong in there land use plan and that was included in your binder at the very end and the land use plan is really a long term policy document it it ties the coastal act to local long range planning for the city of capitol and it has many of the policies and implementations that should occur very much like our general plan but really focused on the coastal area and tied to the coastal act and then there's also the implementation plan which is made up of our zoning code its sections of the zoning code it's not actually all of the zoning code and it's also includes portions of the municipal codes such as our floodplain area and then the land use maps so that would be our general plan land use map as well as our zoning map the focus of the work we've been working on recently that's under that will be under review by the coastal commission is the local coastal program implementation plan which is our the zoning chapters are zoning map and we'll also be bringing them the general plan land use map so back in January 25th of last year we adopted our new zoning code and a new zoning map so you see this very nice new map that since the adoption of the code the new code has taken effect in areas outside the coastal commission so the first thing we ask when someone comes to our counter is where's your project located and then we know if it's outside of the coastal commission we we bring out the new code and our old 1975 edition zoning code is still applicable inside the coastal commission so the process we're going through right now is towards getting a certification of our zoning code so that we can go back to that one nice clean map for all of capitol within the zoning code part all of parts one two and three are included in the LCP IP implementation plan parts for their sections of parts four that are included and then all of part five the glossary at this stage we have a document that's about 90 95 percent complete for with all coastal commission edits what it's lacking is well we've done the work for chapter 17.68 geological hazards and chapter 17.92 for non-conforming geological hazards at the time of submitting that to coastal commission the rather than giving us red lines they're working on a policy document that's still in draft form at the coastal commission and they had advised that we look at Marin County's recent update to their geological hazard section but there were no red lines provided on that chapter and for chapter 17.1992 I got those more recently after we went through the majority of the edits and because of the density of capitol so close to the ocean the standard non-conforming that they would like to see that they typically have people adopt I mean it's a new standard it would be have far reaching impacts on areas like cliffwood heights areas really far away from the coastal zone and for us to go through that I think there's a lot more public outreach that needs to be done prior to working towards adoption of the non-conforming so for now we've got our 80 percent standard that would stay in place as we're working through in the next year we're updating our local hazard mitigation plan that talks about geological hazards and after that process is done I would plan to start the process of updating the geological hazards and non-conforming coming back to the planning commission getting red lines from coastal staff and working together through this process to bring those two chapters back to planning commission so that is one thing that I would like to hear from the planning commission before we go too far into this is is there support for bringing forth a 90 percent 95 percent document would you prefer that we start that process now of working on geological hazards and non-conforming or I'd love to have some conversation on that before we proceed yeah maybe we just do a consensus and they see what our fellow commissioners here think about putting off the geological and non-conforming and adopting what we can adopt now maybe in a easier format than jump into a debate through everything Kevin I don't do you want to add to that oh you know Kevin maybe you just do this for me just maybe explain if you can a little bit how the coastal commission in statute have where your authority comes from and then how you get to a point where it's gone beyond the tidal area into deep into our city and and how that part works sure so the our authority drives from the California Coastal Act of 1976 and it was in creating response to the coastal zone conservation act which is proposition 20 in 1972 and it established a series of policy so did a couple of things first it defined where the coastal zone is in the state and it specifically mapped by it was mapped by the legislature and so and so those maps of where the coastal zone boundary is including for capitol is is dictated by statute so that's how the the authority is of what the coastal zone is as derives from and then within the so development within the coastal zone needs to be consistent with the coastal resource poll coastal resource policy specified in the coastal act and there's a series of policies addressing things like protection of sensitive habitats public recreation access to the coast armoring and shoreline protective devices and a visual resources and a series of other statutes that said this is how development which is broadly defined in the coastal act is to be carried out the ultimate one of the ultimate goals of the coastal act or the way it's set up is a state local partnership so it isn't the intent is that it's the state's broad policies about how development is to be carried out in the coastal zone and then it's to be implemented by local governments largely by local governments by setting up what's called local coastal programs as Katie mentioned and LCPs are the tools by which local governments implement the coastal act in in their city and some mandates of the coastal act are very specific for example it's the coastal act is very specific about what can and cannot take place in a wetland for example that's the the statute's pretty clear on that other things are more suitable there's a lot of discretion that could be tailored to local government needs like things like protection of visual resources for example or community character and so it's the intent through LCPs a land use plan an implementation plan to take the statewide mandates statewide statutes and implement those in the the individual LCPs and how how to address that in the city and then once the coastal commission reviews and approves those LCPs most permits that coastal development permits are delegated to the the city the local government to carry out and Capitola's LCP was first adopted in 1990 and so this is one of the first kind of comprehensive there's been amendments since then but this is one of the first kind of comprehensive updates to a portion of it and so we've been working pretty closely with the city staff with good collaborative relationship on making sure that the the zoning zoning code and some of its provisions helps implement both the land use plan and the the coastal act and so that's probably more than you wanted to hear but that's a general gist of of where we're at and what our role is in this process very good thank you Kevin so Katie where do we we want to have this discussion about do we want to try to move forward what we have or the two chapters that we're not ready on seem to me to be fairly important in terms of the coastal plan as opposed to some of the other things that we have proposed changes on that I have trouble seeing how they relate to the coastal act frankly some of the changes but those two seem likely could really affect coastal resources those two issues and uh any other to submit do you have any discussion about that well so she's asking whether or not we should adopt this piecemeal chapter by chapter basically as opposed to wait and approve it all in one bit or one big bite and I would assume that eating an elephant one bite at a time is is easier so I would propose we adopt what we can especially while we have the coastal commission here very good and I would hope Courtney you have something you want to add Katie I what do you think about because I think the other two items also are going to be a little have a little more discussion if we will and maybe needs input more from our community because I think there's some pretty big impacts and by putting this those other two items until later is it possible to notice the areas that are affected along the riparian areas along the coast so the homeowners have a chance to have some input in that process definitely yet we can do more noticing than typical when you've got far reaching changes you can put a notice in the paper because it affects more than a thousand homes but in this situation with special circumstances of looking at if you want to do a hundred foot buffer from the bluff and if you want to do a hundred foot buffer from the Soquel Creek we can definitely do that and make it a very specific I think there'd be even before public hearings we would do similar to just some public outreach kind of more informal hear from the residents what do they think is a good approach when you're on a bluff and is it retreat or is it you know there's different philosophies there that I think we really need to get into those conversations with our residents before moving forward and I know we had an ad hoc committee on the bluff area and some of those others that may want to be involved in that so I think the items that we're looking at tonight are areas that we can come to some mutual ground and and it's not going to be that big of an impact but those other ones I think would be nice to have as much outreach to our public as we can because it's a pretty big hit for our our community such as small small area very good so with that I think I think as we go through thanks for bringing that up I think we we should have some public comment tonight I think as we go through the discussions we could and to just to be fair I think what the staff has outlined is some discussion points within this and there's many many items within each chapter but I think just to start off we can go through those discussion points and maybe at each discussion point bring in public comment I'd be happy you want to come up and make a comment let's open this to public comments that see hey we're not opposed to taking insight especially from experience individuals so so you're considering adopting part of the new zoning ordinance and leaving part of the old zoning ordinance in place and when we originally started this process the reason you were doing a new zoning ordinance was because you wanted to make things easier for the community under to understand and easier for projects to be done and it seems to me that you're choosing the worst path because now you're going to have part of the new zoning ordinance in the coastal zone part of the old ordinance in the coastal zone and in the other part of capitol you're going to have the whole new zoning ordinance so now you're going to have three documents that people are going to have to go through and figure out how their project is going to work I also think there is a certain danger in saving what are the two toughest sections of the zoning ordinance till the very end because you may reach a point where the coastal commission says look we're not going to approve anything else in capitol until you bring those two in and get that part of your zoning ordinance certified as part of your lcp so I think you need to have a little bit of a community discussion about do you want do you really want to go through and just adopt part of the ordinance or do you want to you know tackle the tough things all together so I would say think hard about just adopting part of the ordinance because it could come back to bite the city thanks Susan I appreciate your insight so can I follow up on that with staff yes because I assume that these chapters pretty much stand alone and maybe that's incorrect but if there's chapters that refer to back and forth to each other I can see the public comment being valid but if it's it's like okay you know section 17 a through x or whatever we're going to adopt in this area that area can you can you piece it up or does it really get confusing so what would happen is in the coastal zone the old chapters for geological hazard and the old chapter for nonconforming would still apply and we would you can so that that would be confusing and what we that would be the confusion so whenever someone's has a nonconforming or they're located on the bluff we go back to the old standard actually it would only be the nonconforming geological hazards we have no edits and it reflects exactly what the old code was so it would really be the nonconforming so a nonconforming in the area outside of coastal would be treated differently than a nonconforming inside coastal to clean that up if you wanted we could bring back the old nonconforming chapter at this point or you know if you want both to be in sync and not have anything have any discrepancies between the two but there would be a difference in nonconforming the new standards would apply outside the coastal zone and the old standard would that's the way it is right now right now it's worse because right now we've got the entire new code working outside the coastal commission and the old code working outside the coastal zone and the old code inside because right now we've got the entire new code applicable outside the coastal commission coastal area and now we're going to start applying part of the new code almost all of it to the coastal zone and then you know sort of it'll reduce the discrepancy in my view yeah and my question I just wondered if there was any conflict in other words you go to the new section here and in one section chapter whatever and it then you find a conflict or a contradiction because we didn't adopt it didn't adopt a new section no so right now you know are the contradictions there aren't with the geological hazards it's really a chapter that relates to specific areas within with an overlay so there are it stands alone and nonconforming stands alone so what kind of time frame are we talking for the whole package to be lightly adopted you know from I'll actually ask Kevin to answer the part of the coastal commission behalf but after planning commission makes a recommendation to city council and city council adopts it it would then go to coastal commission and do you mean for the rest of the zoning code or for the for everything it for everything it depends on kind of the city's process with respect to you know notice and hearings on the the hazards update and and the reason why we're it's entirely your decision but the reason we're okay with separating the two out is because of the fact that these are really tricky issues and does warrant a good robust public process dealing with contentious issues like what can it cannot be armored and and those type of issues so I I'm sorry I can't really ask answer that question it's it's a that's a tough one I if we move forward just the rest of the zoning code I think you know because we've been doing really good coordination I think we're pretty close I think that's something that we could bring to hearing in the relative near term definitely this year the rest of it it just kind of depends on the city's process on well let me ask Katie then what if the process were to adopt the whole thing at once and move it onto the coastal commission what are we looking at so months years oh no um so from the time that coastal commission so if we did this two-step process um I would hope that we would have this adopted by coastal commission this summer would that seem reasonable um and then from there I think our LHMP is going to be completed by the end of the summer and then we would have the staff capacity to jump back into this so have a public here have public outreach then start the hearing process so once so we've another once the city has completed their tasks of adopting a completed version of the zoning code does it have to be approved by the coastal commission before the old part and the new part are applied separately still or would we adopt it fully do we apply the new one once it's so if the coastal commission and that you've they've said that they would um certify the first part separately correct right right certify it separately um so then that would take effect at the time that that's certified and I would hope that that would be this summer because it's to get to this point we've done quite a bit of work on the staff level of reassurance and then after the summer I think we'd start working on the second part of geological hazards and non-conforming and outside the coastal area they've already adopted the new zoning code so and Kevin I like those words that you said about it's totally your discretion you keep up with that and we'll have a good night so you know I think another part of this is by doing it in part is it does build a relationship quite frankly I I don't have a lot of trust for the coastal commission and a lot of faith so I'll just say up front I you're a nice person and I think this gives us an opportunity to work through some easy things but um I have some heart burn over where we're going in in the future so um with that do we want to move forward and just do more public input okay come on over sir good evening uh Jesse Brista from Swanson um I was going to comment on something else but since this was brought up um the benefit of doing that two-step process is the current area that isn't up to date as part of the zoning you have a lot of projects potentially on a holding pattern with the old standard so if you move forward with that 80% plan you you have that standard that's approved by the coastal it's it's an incentive for a little more economic development from a developer standpoint and city as well and Jesse I'm glad you because I I totally went over my head and I forgot to do this we were going to ask those people from the public so we could take care of your items first I think you're here because uh the uh I think it was on our discussion number 10 is that right Katie that's correct so if if we can start and is anyone else from the public that has an item here specifically they want to talk about tonight there were still some people want to talk about the last point they can comment I can come back yeah we'll have you come back after we do that thank you um and we have the bludgets here for topic one okay very good okay so um as I said earlier I'm trying to retire here and remodel home so I'm an example that that he's referring to as a development and I am in a holding pattern and I look at the new code as a 95 percent you know improvement over the old code and there's just a couple of sections which need to be uh you know negotiated that could take quite some time so I'm really in favor of doing doing an approval of what's been agreed upon between coastal and the city and my my real question since I'm on it I'm trying to retire is why does it take till summer I think everything outside of those two sections is aligned between coastal and city staff so is that not the case so the summer is an estimate of time as soon as we have this the modifications agreed upon to a certain level and the marching orders from city council for accepting the changes then we'll submit it to the coastal commission these things it does take time in order for them to review a whole zone and they've done the work but they haven't brought it to their to the coastal commission yet this is all work that's been done at the staff level okay so it's similar to what we're going through with our planning commissioners tonight but they've all seen this many times which it'll be all new to their coastal commission so we estimate it'll be it's optimistic for the summer all right okay I had a question oh sorry sure don't go right ahead yes I was just wondering if the like Susan was saying if if at the end of it if there's any chance that the coastal commission might shoot down our potential to to modify those last two sections at a later point yes I mean I I'm not gonna I'm not gonna like I said these are very difficult issues issues frankly that we're still grappling with as coastal staff and coastal commissioners you know dealing with things like sea level rise and uncertain complicated things so I would hope that we can craft something working with the city and the residents and and craft something we're all mutually agreeable but I I want to you know to make it clear I I don't know if it's not it's not a certainty we'll just put at that but we'll do obviously we'll do our professional best so we may not have a consensus do you want to see if we want to proceed by motion to adopt the procedure that's been suggested yeah I do we do we have a consensus how many people are in favor of adopting it as a piecemeal as opposed to waiting no just take a I don't have a problem as long as we the time frame is realistic well we've been so I think we've been going since 2010 yeah that's when we started the general plan update all right yes so I think and I apologize for appearing to be disorganized up here oh I am a little disorganized but I so I think what we do because I know we have the budgets here and that is relative to our discussion number one so maybe Katie we can start with discussion number one and then we'll jump to 10 and get Jesse up here with their and then one other thing I want to clarify is that if there are other items that you would like to discuss I believe that we will be continuing this to our next hearing so at the end of the meeting I'd love to hear any additional items you'd like me to bring forth at the next meeting unless we're we finish this all tonight and also if the public has items that they want to discuss other than the 10 topics we can open that up at the end of the meeting as well okay and maybe um because I have a I have a lot of things in here I don't know I see a few yellow tabs on some of the other so maybe after because I I'm pretty confident we're not going to finish tonight so maybe we can email or kind of like we did on the original plan those concerns so we can maybe capsule analyze those in our next meeting okay and so the way that this will work is um we'll have Katie staff do a little presentation on the discussion and then we'll open it up for public comment and then after you've had a chance to comment we'll close the public comment period and bring it back for our discussion is that all right okay thank you okay so the first item is monarch covin the previous zoning for monarch covin was visitor serving zone and during the zoning code update we took the visitor serving zone and we made it a visitor serving overlay which means you need to have a base zone under it so the base zone for the monarch cove in parcel is single family r1 zone with the visitors serving overlay in the table in that um in that section the table 17.28-1 the this is showing the two maps so the old map is on the left the new map is on the right the um within the land use or within the table for that over the overlay note 12 was added stating under there was a note next to the single family under monarch cove that said single family dwelling that use would be allowed only of ancillary to visitor accommodating use so it would only be allowed if it's essentially secondary to visitor accommodating use so that was a major change um from what was submitted and just to to be considered by the planning commission and i'd like to get direction on that tonight okay any questions from katie before we open it up to the public would you would you like to come up and speak on this sure good evening everybody um please forgive us both we both have some sort of respiratory thing going on so our voices aren't quite what they usually are but i'd like to read you what i composed or what we compose today regarding our dilemma my husband was 18 years old when his family purchased the el salto property in capitola that property became a long lasting and beloved home for himself and our family it's been in the family for 58 years it has much history from before that time and much history since then it has experienced many changes downsizing including use historically the r1 visitor's serving zoning was in place until 2005 when the california coastal commission decided that this long standing zoning needed to be changed on the monarch cove in half of the old el salto property to visitor serving without the r1 zoning choice this action eliminated access to our historical use of a private residence that we previously enjoyed for many years it should be noted that the other half of the el salto original el salto property dual zoning the vs slash r1 was retained at that time and remains so to this day monarch cove in is a small 11 room in that is located at the very end of a residential neighborhood its primary source of income is that as a bed and breakfast it makes very little money in comparison to larger revenues and the upkeep on this older large property requires continual care and maintenance we have struggled to keep and maintain this property as there's not sufficient profit to really keep it in good order it is truly a labor of love that continually we have to help fund my husband and myself are both in our 70s and not always in the best of health we intend to retire shortly with no plans to keep the end open as a business a business that is not self supportive its size of only 11 rooms and age that requires continual maintenance and the number of employees it takes to do work that we can no longer do ourselves makes it very difficult to be financially self-supporting historically our neighbors have expressed that they will not support expansion or growth at monarch cove as it impedes their privileges of residential use our streets are narrow there and do not support additional traffic the city of capitol and our neighbors fully support this zoning changeback that makes so much sense to vs slash r1 we're approaching the end of our lives and wish to put this zoning issue back in order for ourselves and for our children we do not want to leave them with an underdeveloped property that is owned solely visitor serving and one that they cannot use as a residence to just live on we ask for your support of returning our privilege to live in the house and on the property that we've owned for 58 years give us back this opportunity to live in our family home and provide our children with the same privilege we would like to ask the coastal commission staff just a single question what is the reasoning by the decision to implement a zoning amendment which is unclear ambiguous with regards to visitor serving it clearly should be simplified reverting back to a very simple vs slash r1 zoning residential use should not be made ancillary to visitor serving thank you very much mr blodger you be okay sorry well i hope you get better thank you very much all right anyone else wish to comment okay with that i'll bring it back to the commission for discussion i'm just curious it's zoned r1 and according to the new plan with a visitor serving overlay how is that different than what the blodgers are requesting that that is what they're requesting they're requesting that planning commission not accept the new note that the note that says um allowed only if ancillary to visitor accommodation use so that note was not a that's a new edit but also note number three then goes on to state about single family development requirements on that parcel which applies to this also correct and that note means that if they were to develop this a single family if they were to subdivide create a new lot it would have to follow the r1 standards okay so i don't understand what the issue is so the issue is that with this new note they would have to they could have their single family home but it has to be secondary to a visitor accommodating use and their their wish is not to have to do a visitor accommodating use any longer on their parcel be possible to hear from the kevin as to the thinking behind the change yeah sure um and i really appreciate everyone's sentiment here and and um we understand the issues and and are sympathetic to them i think from where we're coming from is this is an important visitor serving use um and again under the the coastal act under the the law um these type of visitor accommodations visitor serving uses are a very high priority particularly at a locations like this that are have you know views of the ocean everything and so you know but recognizing the um you know the the residential quasi residential nature of this we we're trying to come up with some kind of compromise to say that you know there could be um long permanent residential use there so long as the um it wasn't at the expense of visitor accommodation so there could basically be both uses there um and it's you know there could be opportunities for excuse me for um you know other parties to to continue to operate accommodations use so that's the the thinking is just that we would like to we don't want to lose this important kind of priority use um and we're we're open to other ways to address this issue but that's um our our concern mcglane yeah i i i just have a couple concerns with that because if it's not economically feasible to operate it as a visitor serving facility how can you force them to continue and secondly when they did attempt to expand the visitor serving use up there the community raised holy hell about it and it and it didn't pass and it never will so i i'm curious how the coastal commission can force that onto someone for those two reasons well can i add another little twist to that and one of the reasons i recall i remember listening to this conversation when it came up before was that there is a sensitive environmental habitat there the monarch butterflies so the public concern wasn't just selfish in terms of traffic and whatnot they were concerned about maintaining the sensitive habitat and so that really forced the limitation to create a a a economically viable hotel because that would impact the environment and particularly the monarchs so they were forced to keep it small and so now they're in a box because that's not profitable and so now what do you what do they do you know kevin can i ask have you been to the property and i'm not trying to put you in a spot but if you've been to the property and and most of us who live in capital have been up there and i happen to live in the neighborhood and go by there frequently but it's not like it's a great view there is a but it's a very small component of the property to and this is my concern where the coastal commission impacts private ownership over something that is very very limited and in fact i would put it back on the state that you are negligent in maintaining some of your own properties and the new and the new brighton state park is one of them you haven't had access for the main trail or parking for a number of years now so how do we how do we tell our residents in our community that they can't have private ownership that everyone else enjoys in that same community over a perception of an ocean view which is it's actually pretty limited ocean view in return i'm not trying to put you on the spot but this is the type of discussion i think we're gonna have to get through to get to some common ground so maybe you can help us out there well again i think that the you know the way we see this is that there's an existing visitor accommodations use and this is a you know a long-term zoning code that establishes what uses are potentially allowable and we recognize the concerns some of the issues of the specific site which is why we're comfortable with allowing some type of residential but these are important uses that we don't want to necessarily lose and so that's and again it all comes back from from the from the coastal act about what are our priorities and generally speaking private residential is is lower a lower priority use than bonafide visitor accommodations so we're certainly we hear loud and clear the issues and we're that was the intent of trying to find some kind of common ground we're open to additional language on this issue but i think this is this is an important an important issue for us so i want to kind of broaden the perspective here because i mean i understand the coastal commission's mandate and totally agree with it the problem and i want to tie this in with issue number 10 because we're talking about a few visitor serving sites or rooms there that are way out i mean i'm familiar with that area i don't know i've walked a lot a lot of times around there and it's way outdated and virtually obsolete and the access is so restricted that the ability to modernize it and make it into a viable modern visitor serving property it just isn't there on the other hand we have the potential for a visitor serving facility 10 or 10 times as large or so in the old theater site which would accomplish the coastal commission you know and the coastal commission is wanting to put more and more restrictions on that one but that's where really if you want to facilitate people visiting the coast in capitola that project has the potential for doing it in a much bigger way than trying to resuscitate some buildings at monarch cove that you know are way outdated and the potential just isn't there you know with kevin suggesting that possibly you know they'd be willing to look at different options an idea that just came to mind is we have a very specific nightly rental zone which is in our village it's not up in depot hill but i was just thinking with this property would it meet you know if they were to do r1 and if the note was different and said something along the lines of single family dwelling in combination with nightly rental use so a vacation rental overlay on it it would almost it would have the vacation rental overlay on it so then it doesn't really impact it's not a full-blown hotel but it would have a nightly rental and it would be an evolution of this property there are three structures possibly four on the three i believe on on on the site and so under that scenario you know they could do nightly rental out of either the main home or the second structure but and have it within the nightly rental zone so maybe that's an edit we could bring back to the coastal commission for review possibly kind of middle ground and there are some areas just to the uh i guess i'd be the east of it that are open areas considered open areas where the road comes up on the backside that maybe we can have a dedicated lookout area but quite honestly you're not going to get much more of a view shed of the ocean from the property itself because it comes interior so um yeah i think there's some areas to work through there but i think to tie the hands of private owners on even having this maybe is an option to have nightly as a vacation overlay then maybe that's an option but i just hate to tie our hands of private ownership and and commissioner newman is is right we have a great opportunity to allow in a in a way more people to have the experience at the ocean in a way that accommodates parking in a controlled manner and uh traffic so okay right so can i can i explore this a little bit because i'm i'm trying to put myself in the blodgett's position here so if the the if this were this comment were to remain and they went ahead and retired there say remodeled one of the houses or whatever close the business because it's not profitable so there would be nevertheless zoned for visitor serving but there would be no visitor serving there would that be i can see where the coastal commission would think that's a nevertheless a good thing because then in the future uh if they were to sell the property or move or whatever then the opportunity to develop that property would still exist because it would be zoned for visitor serving so i'm just wondering to what extent this note prohibits them from remodeling and building their home and just closing the visitor serving portion of it for now i guess in that case uh that the house would become say that they got a permit to remodel the house while the bnb was still an operation and then the bnb went away i guess it'd be a legal non-conforming use it was certified it was um would they be subject to fines from the coastal commission any kind of sanctions i'm i you know we that's not usually how our enforcement team works but because this would be just a again a legal non-conformity that would be covered by the non-conforming rags but because it was established as a single family originally right prior to the coastal act right yeah and so katie do you have enough information from the commission so what i'm understanding from the what i'm picking up from our planning commission is to move forward without including this note in our revisions we're trying to convince the coastal commission to back off on this one yeah okay and to focus on other areas i think there's some options there i think there's some areas that have already been identified that maybe allows that access for the view but maybe doesn't impact the property owner so much yeah so i will ask with the idea of the nightly rental overlay expanding over this property is that i do feel that it's almost better to go back to the coastal commission with we've heard what you said and we think this is a fair middle ground but up to you all if that's a big change is expanding the nightly rental and that sounds fair because that gives them the option yeah it gives them the option to rent the home you call it nightly rental or i should vacation vacation over vacation over there i think that's a good compromise okay so maybe we'll do a roll call on that to see if there's consensus commissioner ruth hi commissioner newman yes commissioner christensen hi commissioner wilk hi just so i want to understand what we're voting on here so you're saying that your recommendation is to change to delete this note but replace it with the with a r1 with a visitor vacation overlay correct just over that one property that will not impact them from building the retirement home it will just allow them or future users to have their bmb well i understood i mean we're not precluding them from use miss i thought it was visitor serving slash r yeah it's visitor serving slash r1 so they can with the vacation overlay so yes i agree and chair welch yes thank you good does that kevin are we moving down the right path here does that help i hope that helps in it's going to be a long process i gotta feel that's good okay um so would you like me to skip to topic 10 yes okay next is topic 10 village hotel and height so within a lot of work was done during the general plan on the site of the future capital of village hotel and defining what the allowed incentives would be within our incentive chapter and one of those was additional floor area as well as additional height and in the draft code the the maximum height of the hotel it was written remains below the elevation of the bluff behind the hotel so that it would have to be lower than the bluff behind the hotel the coastal commission edits include adding new language so the maximum height of the hotel including all rooftop architectural elements such as chimneys cupolas etc and all mechanical apertures such as elevator shifts h back units etc remain at least 10 feet below the top elevation of the bluff behind the hotel um in reviewing this that i'll go over the first section first um creating a number to measure the the limit of the hotel i think is a good place for us a good direction for us to go in rather than to just make sure that the top of the bluff is still visible from certain feast viewpoints so to to identify that number i think that's something the planning commission needs to think through if 10 feet's the correct number or not and then the language also is amended that the bluff behind the hotel remain visible from and originally it just said the capitol a wharf and they've added cliff drive um so it would say from cliff drive and capitol a wharf as a green edge above the visible top of the hotel with existing mature trees maintained on site so this really aligns with our general plan i wanted to take some i went out today and took some pictures if we're going to say from cliff drive we should say where on cliff drive so this is from the southern parking lot of cliff drive i i don't think that's a bad place to set it's actually within the land use plan it's identified as one of our vista points and our viewpoints so i thought that would if we define it that would be a good addition to the code and then we should discuss the 10 feet and then also here's a picture um of the site it was early morning so it was really shadowed so not a great photo but so they're the considerations are for 10 feet below the top elevation of the bluff and that concludes my presentation on that do we know what the level of that house is there on el camino medio how far that is below the bluff just reference well it's a it's about mid a little above midway the stairs so it's it's a good 15 20 feet below i believe i do believe we have public comment on this one yes we'll open up for jesse you want to come up and good evening jesse bristow from swanson builders i'm development project manager for swanson we did provide comment today from our senior vp jesse nickle just to express our concerns certainly understand the preservation of the viewpoints of the bluff originally we've planned so directly behind us that bluff is at 63 feet from our rough conception conceptual design and i think currently with the four floors that we're looking at it's about 56 or 58 feet so there is some wiggle room there it's just the the one note that we expressed um not allowing any mechanical equipment so by law we have to have an elevator shaft so that shaft has to sit above the roof line um and that would essentially eliminate an entire floor and you know as the coastal commission is asking for a visitor serving use uh you know it is a low density hotel obviously higher density for for the village but um you that would be the top floor you're looking at 10 suites essentially with the way we've laid it out that's 10 suites you're losing at a premium rate probably 75 percent occupancy rate a rough number you're you're losing about $125,000 in transit occupancy tax that could go towards city funding city services and as noted in that in the letter the cumulative impacts of those people spending dollars and walking around in capitol uh certainly understand the 10 feet we think that's reasonable if it was smaller it would be great um i believe the the home right next to the the gray building probably goes a little bit higher the chimney stack is probably five feet below the below the buff and with mechanical equipment with those architecture features obviously we can create some type of screening that would be appropriate and in keeping with the character of capitol um just you know just not so there's a huge elevator shaft sticking out of the roof obviously we want to be um sensitive to that so we're we're essentially asking that um if it is going to be 10 feet we just allow for a mechanical equipment and we can we can screen that if you want to codify that it be screened that's understandable um the second note that we brought up is that it's specifically asked for the the village to have a story or the village hotel to have a story poll and it's it's specifically targets that use no other development from my understanding is required to have story polls um correct me if i'm wrong please you're wrong but that's okay go ahead am i wrong okay so um again we feel that there's more modern tools to to 3d screening sketch up there's all types of methods that we can show to identify the massing really feel that um having sticks with red flags over them just doesn't really show the vision of what we're trying to do and what we're trying to capture with the community with the city and and what the coast commission wants as far as a visitor serving use so we're we're asking uh those two items be adjusted things just any questions for yeah the city has eliminated the ar overlay in this new zoning ordinance haven't they yes unfortunately because that's a perfect application for the site so how does that our new story poll and was that um available when this uh was added um so under the design permit criteria so this will be under chapter 120 it's page 120-3 under enhanced visualization it says the city may the city may require enhanced project visualization materials including 3d renderings photo simulations physical models expanded streetscape diagrams viewpoint analysis and story polls um when any of the following and then it further specifies that story polls can only be required upon request of the planning commission and that was the outcome of that recent uh application so there there is we do have the ability to request story polls the arkand site committee does not it really has to come from our planning commission okay and and that was built in i think because we're there with the additional floor air ratio and the incentivized plan there was a lot of uh discussion about the merits and uh uh problems or uh burden of story polls and so we decided not i don't know if the coastal commission would be happy with this that it's a it's a planning commission discretionary uh application by application decision and rather than made mandated for for a specific property so um that the the only clarification that the coastal commission wrote and there was the spelling of the theater site the story poll regulation was in in the code that we provided to the coastal commission so i think that request is um from slumson builders that um under its section it's page 88-4 and it's section c it says theater site story polls prior to that to city action on a proposed hotel on the former capital of theater site the applicant shall install polls and flagging on the site to demonstrate height and mass of the proposed project it's there any more questions for jessie sit down all right thank you thank you thank you jessie so we had some discussion and i don't know when this was put in that when we originally were viewing the hotel site i guess because recently we had questions about the story poll and i think we decided that's what is mentioned later in the code that at our discretion so is that something we can apply to this as well and remove this and and leave it as um to match what we have in our code on the backside on the 120 was it three you could change the shell to a may okay and build in at the planning planning at the discretion of planning commission and city council it would be consistent with us any other discussion with what jessie had to say i think about the heights of the channel i have a discussion on that and then i have a point that hasn't been raised yet also in the edits on this one okay yeah jump in there so i mean it's a balancing in terms of coastal issues here and benefits and we don't want to make this project infeasible for what i consider to be a relatively minor additional view of the hillside in terms of just the mechanical equipment that they're talking about so i that's overkill to me and if it if it ends up making the project infeasible it would mean that a lot of benefits of having a visitor serving hotel in capitol would be defeated by the fact that we want to screen the elevator shaft so i i think it's uh it's kind of shooting ourselves in the foot from a coastal policy standpoint you know the other comment i wanted to make which no one has which hasn't been raised is on page 88 dash 5 under findings b4 regarding parking and kevin let me just say that the the theater site was um the subject i chaired the general plan advisory commission for four years and then was involved as a planning commissioner in the development of the general plan and the zoning ordinance and this site has been the subject of a tremendous amount of input from the community from the planning commissioners from the city council from the staff and we're balancing a lot of factors here so it's kind of you know a little bit difficult to get that kind of not last minute but coastal commission coming in at this stage of the game and saying and what i'm talking about is b4 where it says that parking for the hotel is provided in a way that minimizes vehicle traffic in the village great strengthens the village as a pedestrian oriented destination great and then the coastal commission added in protects and enhances public parking options so i mean this is another addition to the hotel project where the coastal commission could say uh you're not gonna we're gonna turn down your project because you not only you have a fine hotel and all but you haven't enhanced parking options in capitol village i mean that just seems to me like it's kind of out of nowhere i mean the hotel needs to deal with the parking generated by the hotel in a way that makes sense i don't know what that is at this time but i don't think in building a hotel they have to also go out and find a new parking lot for the rest of capitol village so i would like to know what the thinking is behind that addition to sure i obviously parking in capitol village is a complicated issue or there's lots of issues associated with it the intent here was just simply that there's currently parking there and we want to make sure that we're um you know if there's a loss of of public parking that it's provided in some capacity somewhere else there there's it it's not trying to be specific about how to necessarily mitigate or to address parking impacts but rather these are certain performance standards that we think is important for um you know the city to think about when it's addressing parking issues there would you be okay if that just said and protects public parking options rather than enhances that's the part i'm uh i'm objecting to because it suggests that in building a hotel you also have to go out and solve some capitol as parking problems with that is that workable for the from your standpoint i don't know if i want to necessarily give any definitive answers today um but it's uh i hear what you're saying and um you have the discretion to make that change so so can i add maybe some more information to that based on my recollection uh when we created our new parking lot um my understanding and you guys can correct me but my understanding was that there was an assumption that 50 of those spaces were to be dedicated into this new hotel should it ever be uh implemented so the notion of parking and the hotel has been has been in the public eye for a long time so i think we've we've already kind of addressed that and really concerned ourselves with that issue and have proactively done some things uh to provide for that hotel commissioner will i'll um just relay that there is we do have an in lieu program and policy in the city of capitol and there are extra spaces that were created when we've created the lower lot i apologize i don't have that number off hand to confirm or deny 50 i don't think it's 50 but it's close to that number um and that program is set up and it's specific to a future hotel in the village so but for consideration yeah so it would be good to gather whether or not the planning commission also would like if there's consensus to remove and enhance on that line for those in favor you want to just give an indication okay thank you i think we're good yeah so can we go back to the height thing yes go so i'm curious as to why the coastal commission is concerned about a view inland so the bluff a view of the bluff is a view of some houses on the top of a of a landing i'm not sure why that's a coastal commission concern or anybody's concern really uh that i would think that from maybe it was not cliff drive but from cliff avenue so if you're on top of the bluff you want to be able to look over the hotel and have an ocean view and not or and see the warp and not have your view obstructed exactly but from cliff drive is like why you're not even looking at the ocean you're not looking at a natural cliff you're looking at already developed houses so i'm not sure why you have that that 10 foot requirement why the coastal commission will be concerned about that one of our primary mandates is the protection of views tuned along the ocean and scenic coastal areas so it's not just blue water views which absolutely are you know probably our our biggest priority but it's also you know scenic coastal areas and so you know scenic overviews and certainly you know i was just driving in here this this evening and the the view from cliff drive overlooking all of capitol village is is great is spectacular and having that definitive edge of natural landform where the bluff is and katie hit the you know the intent behind the the the edit here is just simply to have a numeric standard so it's it's just building upon what the current standard says about how protecting that green edge and just saying a more specific quantitative what that actually means can we go back to the picture you took from cliff drive so that's hard to see from here but what you're looking at where the hotel is is it's currently where you're seeing a treetops you're not seeing a cliff edge right so the the the new hotel wouldn't block that it would block it would cover the area of the trees if i'm not mistaken so you're really not losing any view shed that i can see by putting a hotel there the the view would be looking down from grand avenue into the i think that was the concern so not so much i think the concern from capitol was the that it that was chosen that you'd still be able to see that green edge above the roof so that we knew where the height the maximum height would be as viewed from afar so i think that's where the language came from it from the capitol stuff i think from the coastal commission it's one of the viewpoints is when you're standing above it looking out into the village and as kevin pointed out it's not only of the the water but also of the village itself so i guess i'm confused if we're are we if we're talking about grand avenue looking so you can look down in the village not from here but from the bluff i can understand that but the view from here looking into the village uh i don't see how the hotel is going to interfere with the sight line of the cliff or i was i was just wondering maybe that that you were referring the inadvertently cliff avenue instead of cliff drive makes more sense maybe that's a typo even and and kevin i mean this these are the some of the biggest concerns of our community is the the height of this hotel and the parking of the hotel i think they're probably going to go beyond your your concerns in here and i think tying a number to it one thing we've done in the village area on height is we have a height limit on our buildings that we have in there but one thing that we allow is a percentage of things above that roof line for specifically what they're asking for chimneys or uh in this case where the elevator shaft is going to rise above it so i think i would like to see it consistent with the rest of our um code that allows for a certain percentage above recognizing that the the hotel is going to be below the bluff but some items and i do know what the percentage is i think is is a small percentage that allows chimneys to be above that height but i think chimneys are specifically mentioned i can't remember i want to say eight feet we have a standard for oh you mean from the building code sorry i don't know the number well no i think we put in something in our code about height in the village if we allow things to be above that height such as chimneys or in this case an elevator shaft to allow for that um you know the structure to be there while keeping the roof line below the the height of the bluff so we did that for harbor lights remodel right that was another one we did but yeah so i think i think we're on track i think this is something maybe that i don't know where we which way we move with this i personally i think we got to take out the the numeric part and allow for to be consistent with our code the percentage of items that protrude above the roof for chimneys or in this case an elevator shaft that would be my desire but we'll see what the rest of commission thinks are we reducing the height by 10 feet by this change you know i now i'm getting confused okay so the from from the top from the street there would you would have to measure 10 feet down from the highest point on the street 10 feet down with this change so before it was you know you'd have to be able to um it says the bluff behind the hotel remains visible from before the standard was capitol a war as a green edge above the visible top of the hotel we are reducing it 10 feet so you're reducing it 10 feet because a green edge could probably be achieved at five feet so it does though having a number in there if it were five feet it does give the builder a little more confidence in how how much that green edge has to be because if a developer came in where it's not to find with feet it's a little well i think the 10 feet is inconsistent with the rest of the structures along that bluff line so it it would be unfair i think to hold them when in fact they're going to be contributing to the the view through the rest of the that whole inlet of the the wharf and stuff so well i think the chairman has a good point that when an application actually comes forward there's going to be so much public discussion of this issue by people who are specifically interested in it that the the result is going to be something that is going to be acceptable probably at that point and it's better to leave it the way we have it rather than to try to build in more specific controls now before we actually have an application i like to see the application because i don't know i mean does this mean we lose a story or does it not mean we lose a story so as it stands now we are conceptually i'm not sure you've seen it kitty but we're essentially doing a two story so it's in keeping with the salza ice cream and then steps back into the hill so conceptually if you're on the beach looking at the venetian and then all the way back to the harbor lights hotel that would be the the massing of the step back not exact of course but so the closest point to the bluff would be the highest point you know a row of rooms and i believe we kind of have a how high from the quarter so we measure the the bluff at 63 or 63 and a half and then i believe our floor stops at 56 or 58 there's some room for the shaft in between there i don't have the plans on me i believe are the roof line hits at about eight feet below the the bluff in between that eight feet would be the elevator shaft that would be the highest or largest piece of equipment anything else would be smaller and easier to screen so i guess if we're looking at intent the intent is to preserve that that ridge line the bluff line while allowing that view shed from grand avenue and i i think they i think swims and builders understands that i know our community is going to enforce that and so if that meets the intent maybe we could just take that back to the coastal commission that we understand their intent and we have the same we share the same concern i would like to make sure that however we do we we allow for the elevator shaft a certain percentage that's consistent with the rest of our roofline code in in the village i think we should leave it the way it is and wait for the application i think we're just we're over with with the comments or without the coastal commission without the coastal commission changes i think we're micromanaging a project that we can't even see the specifics of yet let them submit a design and review it and the coastal commission has a they have a place to the seat there they have a seat at that review also so i agree with you i think it incentivizes um swanson to come up with some really great renderings to show us exactly how it's going to interact with the landscape and the overall plan how it integrates in the village is that enough consensus for you that is my my concern is that um that we've heard from swanson that the 10 feet would work when i did the math though it seems like it doesn't quite work enough but but so maybe if it were i heard 63 feet with a 58 feet so that's five feet that right yeah i mean our current plan without without comments obviously works so without comments from coastal the bluff is 63 we're five feet down at 58 and maybe that's where the elevator shaft is i have to have to look at the plans but five feet would work if you want to put a a number to it the 10 we we would probably have to shrink our retail frontage you know we ideas that have higher retail frontage that you know maybe 12 feet or something like that 15 feet but that would have to drop we'd adjust our floors because i think we're looking at maybe like nine or 10 foot floors i have to look at the plan it's very rough uh conceptual so um we we can make it work it's just the the mechanical equipment is a challenge by completely eliminating that because we're going to have rooftop equipment for for a restaurant it'd be easier with the the number five but i'll leave it to you here guys it's discretion so my only concern was that this would get held up for more times they wouldn't be able to submit an application if we didn't massage this language a little bit and maybe go to the five feet for the 10 but i'm building a code around a project that we don't even have plans in front of us for it that's not the way this should work we need to see i mean what we had is i think really great but if the coastal commission needs some more policy statements it's kind of vague policy statements about what goals they're trying to accomplish here those kinds of edits maybe it would be acceptable but to start throwing in specific numbers without plans and in front of us i just think that's not a good process the way i see this if this number is not in there this whatever they submit is going to be closely scrutinized by the city it's going to be closely scrutinized by the by the coastal commission so it really doesn't matter if that number is in there or not yeah well except that if it's in there then they can't you know they're not going to come in for a variance yeah right okay that's clear all right thank you thank you jessie okay we're off to a good start here you do not already so story polls is changing to a may and we'll remove that edit well i i think that makes it consistent with our yeah our code so any other public issues yeah i did susan do you have something you want specifically you want to talk about we can we're on a roll here so okay very good anybody else okay then okay i guess we we've done one and we've done 10 you want to go to two and yeah see where we get okay so Kevin wants to go to a specific area anything of interest so discussion two is from page 48-5 this is encroachments in the public right of way so one thing to explain is once we reference another section of code within our zoning code it becomes part of our lcp so we do have a we have standards for encroachments in public right of ways and that's in our streets chapters and if we reference the street chapter in this area then it becomes part of the lcp and anytime our public work structure makes a change to chapter 12 of the muni code it would also be required to go to coastal commission for an lcp update so in working with the coastal commission we've i think we've found a way in which to accomplish their goals of making sure that access and views are maintained from right of ways without involving bringing in another chapter into the lcp kind of the goal here so this has been one that in reviewing this with the coastal team the the first edits that were suggested to me i don't they weren't there were things that one one part of this was requesting that an annual fee be charged with revenues dedicated to public coastal access improvements for any encroachments in the public right of way there's a lot of areas up in depot hill there's 10 10 feet on either side of the road that are actually right of way that we allow the residents to utilize at every house and if we do you allow it you you require them to maintain it so and maintain it so if there's a tree that needs to be removed out of that section it's their responsibility to remove that tree um so that was one that when i brought this to the public works director he worked with me on the new language he said we're not interested in starting to take money understand the county does that and it's a good program for them but we've just got a different um at this point he directed me they wouldn't be interested in collecting fees for this but so encroachment and public right of ways we actually do require a coastal development permit anytime somebody comes in for an encroachment that needs planning commission approval so the new language would be that they may be allowed but it needs to be authorized but either the public works or the planning commission it really depends on the type of improvement and we'd review it under the coastal section of code of whether or not it meets the development standard and then it may require a coastal development permit and it would be reviewed under the coastal zone and the findings for a coastal development permit but with the additional finding that an encroachment does not restrict public coastal access does not obstruct public coastal views and does not impact isha which is our environmentally sensitive habitat areas and that all encroachment permits are revocable which we already practice is all encroachment permits are revocable so in looking at this how do we know which public coastal access are we talking about which coastal views and isha is defined and i'll bring up some maps but also in reviewing this and talking to public works one thing that they would like to add to this is that this provision does not include temporary encroachment permits which are handled administratively through the public works department and that's anytime you have we do encroachment permits for temporary road closures and there's quite a few that it's a regular basis that we have somebody working on a construction project in which they come into public works and need a temporary encroachment permit so we wouldn't want that to be included sorry so i i'm just going to jump into the next item too so i can show you the maps of where those public views are so in the land use plan there are two maps there are a couple maps that first identify access points through capitol if and very nice artwork by the way and those are along our roads and along the esplanade along park avenue and the railroad the access points and they all still exist today reading through that section the you know the description of the openings between the buildings along the esplanade those you know the same access points are have been preserved in talking about views public views that are identified there are views along the river view pathway there are views from stockton bridge and the parking lots a bunk cliff capitol a wharf there's identified views grand avenue the views we're just talking about about the hotel and then from the esplanade so in that language about the encroachments in the public area those are the views and the access points we're talking about you didn't include the prospect avenue path the path that runs in front of the houses along prospect avenue between the railroad tracks and the homes you know that wasn't on the map yeah why yeah i'll uh you know as an access point or for the view for the both well also for encroachment yeah it's a big time yeah good point so is i guess what i'm looking for is feedback that the drafted language is okay to submit with the addition that this would not include temporary encroachment permits and that we would leave out the fee my take on this is is that in the give and take this is one i would be willing to give to get some more important modifications from some of the coastal changes doesn't mick you have any input this doesn't seem you know the um i don't see this no i don't think it's obtrusive you know we just had a situation um on the public path along the river about a fence that went all the way to it and uh so i could see those coming up over time you look at depot hill where you have like livermore and sacramento they go and people have their fence line all the way to the bluff that for privacy so but it's not mentioned in here so i think as long as we stick with that i don't really have an issue as long as we remove the annual fees and okay we have looks like we have consensus on that okay now we'll go into topic three and this was from fence the fences and public views so in the fence um chapter h 60-3 under um coast under g coastal access and public views to the coast the additions were fences and or walls shall not prevent or obstruct public access to coastal shoreline and that would be in in compliance with the maps from the um lcp land use plan and also that fences and or walls shall not block obscure it originally um or so not block obscure otherwise adversely impact significant public views and i thought it was essential to add as identified within the lcp land use plan so that we don't have the anyone calling out new areas of coastal access or um or public views because anyone's private window may seem like their public so just to to identify that it's tied to the land use plan or support for those changes is that controversial as far as the coastal commission is concerned or you don't i mean it seems no we uh we pretty emphatically do not protect private views and uh so how long before the fence comes down on depot hill on the pathway i'm looking at uk it's a city staff thing it's not a yeah we have a fence blocking a public path now so we can work on that one long grand avenue yeah okay move on good yep let me see oh yeah go ahead i'm sorry are we good with that yes okay isha so topic four so this is the environmentally sensitive habitat area um this was uh i think it's come a long way and then it's revisions since working with coastal commission staff actually kevin do you want to do a little overview of isha and before we are on our maps we had a very well i'll go there we this is our original map showing isha's the the original map was the light green and the dark green areas and through our revisions and hiring a biologist to revise the maps we've brought it down to this level of these are our truly environmentally sensitive habitat areas and in working with the coastal commission they emphasize to me that it's really the habitat areas they're interested in protecting and not just placing isha over any tree in any area it's so better defining it and then um working when when a parcel does it is within the isha that they hire a biologist to define exactly where the isha ends and the setbacks begin from there so but really fine tuning it it was yeah just the maps are for you know illustrative for reference for information but then right site specific um a site specific analysis demarketing exactly where it would be um is is important and would dictate on the resources on the ground and we do have a request from the coastal commission to remove isha from the beaches the beach areas as they're not habitat area right the reason so um about crabs we seagulls the reason we we typically don't consider beaches to be um environmentally sensitive habitat areas under the coastal act that's a very restrictive designation uh and restrictive meaning there's very few uses that can be allowed within such designation and so typically we don't want to preclude beaches from you know ordinary public access and recreational opportunities things and heavy use areas particularly an area like capitol it's one thing to maybe call a very rural beach but capitol beach we wouldn't want to necessarily designate it as isha and then have arguments potentially in the future about certain uses not being allowed on it so leading from there um the allowable development within a sensitive habitat area is specifically listed uh limited to those uses dependent on resources so such as low intensity public access and recreation nature study restoration so that's all that would be allowed in the actual once the biologist has done the work and identifies those areas um and then from there the setbacks are established um so it's interesting on our on the so cal creek on the east side you know it's heavily developed and the isha limit ends where the water ends at the um it's measured from the bank of the so cal creek and then there's a 35 foot setback on the west side of the so cal creek it's wherever the riparian corridor ends identified by a biologist and then we do the 35 foot setback from there so in reviewing this um the 35 foot setback to the outer edge they're in reviewing the land use plan actually that setback on the heavily developed east side of the lagoon used to be 25 feet and when i went back on to gis and was saying what what is this you know what is the difference between the 25 foot setback that was established in the land use plan it didn't since isha's been in the zoning code it's been at 35 feet in that area but 25 feet is where the majority of the homes have developed along the bank um at the setback and the 35 foot almost makes the majority of the homes non-conforming so i wanted to bring that to you as planning commissioners to see if you it's on the heavily developed side there really isn't that much of a natural area between the riverbank and the homes and to possibly decrease the setback area on that side to 25 feet because it would make more of the homes conforming so we wouldn't be running into as many non-conforming issues on that portion this is not something i brought to coastal commission at this point because it was discovered more recently so um so the land use plan says 25 feet and it's it's specific to that side yeah so it'd be consistent with the land use plan it looks like and it referenced the old general plan so i think that's how things were developed was with the 25 feet so that's one change that i'd like to suggest and then um a second change is a waiver of a biological study um there's some discussion in there of a waiver for certain setback standards in um isha for these heavily developed areas um this what i put together was the city may waive their requirement of a biological study on a developed lot if the project is proposed in a previously developed area of the lot and the project will not degrade the isha or habitat value and the example of this would be here's a property on riverview on the back side you know any any development that would happen between well it wouldn't meet the setback requirements there probably wouldn't be much development on the back side of the home but fronting riverview drive if somebody wanted to put a small addition off the front and it was right within a driveway it would seem to me that a biological study shouldn't be required so building in an exception for when it it doesn't make that we know that there's clearly no impacts to isha or biological so is that a staff or a planning commission decision that would be um that's a good question we should build that in so it could be planning commission or staff i was thinking staff because we could make that decision before it comes to planning commission because they'd have to invest in that early seems like most of them would require a variance i don't know if there's very many places to have room for but yeah you may have an area that's in there that you could add an addition i think it should be staffed too because i mean i don't think it's we're gonna get neighbors on both sides of that or not much room and you could always request it when it comes to you if there's concern okay i i have a question that um our definition of development is is something that i have a little bit of an issue with so maybe you could explain that and because it seems to me to be too um too broad allows um for too much room i like to see it maybe narrowed down a little bit okay i could put that on for the next meeting agenda with that work so i can look at some options okay very good um so would you like to that concludes my um presentation on isha but i think it's at a better place now where it's much more understandable i have one more question about that which is that um i i initially had trouble understanding that the language uses dependent on the resource are the only ones allowed and then maybe that means that likes going in and studying the habitat but is that the only kind of thing that i mean then it talks about some kind of recreational uses yeah so when i was saying about an asha determination is a it's a very strict once it's determined that you have asha on your property that's a very strict determination there's there's not very many uses that can allow on it the the resource dependent the language about only uses dependent on the resource that comes directly from the coastal act and we've interpret staff and courts and precedent has interpreted over the years what exactly does that mean and it's generally speaking it's kind of those three uses certain public access recreational uses paths and things like that can be allowed in it restoration purposes scientific research those are those are things so um anyway that that's why we don't want to call capitol beach for example asha but it is a strict limit that's a term of art and i guess that is a term of art yeah and so i guess the only concern i had with this really and i can't think of a specific examples where it is on private property so now you've identified through your biological survey this new area now it's impacting on private property so how do i guess you're you're saying that isha is very strict in that and so a person has private property that now this boundary maybe they've had obviously maybe the property years before isha came in in fact what do they have to battle to to do any type of work on that property private property or is your isha only on public lands no it it would be public and private i mean i i don't know how many cases it this would necessarily come up most of capitol is already urbanized and developed so there's already uses allowed and so if there's a residence with you know on a property that abut say so cal creek um you know there there's already residents there so we wouldn't consider necessarily the house to be in the habitat area so um there would still be you know ways to have economic uses for sure okay but it could for example would it affect people putting in a stair or a boat dock to the creek on their property potentially i mean if those are allowable for even the first place i don't i i don't have to top my head i don't remember that but potentially would seem like those wouldn't be environmentally sensitive uses well it seems like on the east side we said that that line is right at the creek so is that what's 25 feet 25 feet oh 25 feet you know this maybe is maybe we're missing something here that's my concern is if if you want to improve that area there i mean times have changed i grew up in that creek as a kid wondering it's like now we've identified these areas where homeowners can't even have the luxury of having a dock and enjoying the creek on their own property seems a little bit of that and that's really my concern and yeah and i don't know where this uh how far it goes to allowing them to have input on in that or do they ever get a chance to have input just as a temporary use in december yeah you grew up along there right i grew up there my wife did your wife did so yeah how do you i mean i know there's a number of docks along there already people but they're usually no more i mean basically that's what this is well that's what i'm saying and if that's the case and this ought to be you know people should have more input because that's one of the great things about living on the river is be able to throw your canoe or your kayak in and your stand-up paddle board or whatever it is and enjoy the creek so so um under let me pull up the section of code but under on page 64-3 under f setback exceptions i'm developed a lot i get my eyes to focus here another it's just oh i talk about the old f for the new f um the new f the new f and you i know you can see some battles because a new state on ad use allows a little more discretion with setbacks so now i guess we're going to talk about that later but i could see over that's going to be a an issue so under uh f it says the city may grant an exception to the minimum setbacks in section e minimum setbacks for the following project on developed lots an addition or modification to an existing single family home or an accessory structure so i think an accessory structure would qualify for the um that does not extend closer to the environmentally sensitive habitat area and provided the addition or modification or accessory structure is compatible with um and will not significantly degrade the isha or its habitat value so i see it says compatible with the continuance of habitat and recreation activities within the environmentally sensitive habitat area so within that i think some you know you could make you could make findings that if enough room there is enough room there to okay very good i just have one question on on the gallino property yep you know which one the gallino property yes that would be on the other side of it now there's there's a structure in there doesn't have i believe the 35 foot setback but it's in an i'm sure that area would qualify as an isha area yeah so what rules apply to that other than the 35 foot setback so this is the the home that's really low west side though on the west side it's on the west side between shadowbrook and the little park so that one is a developed lot um it's really low it's right by the creek on the by the shadowbrook so there's there's also under um e there's e2 that says to allow for minimum level of development on a physically constrained lot the city may allow a reduction to the required minimum setbacks provided a biological study just determines that the reduced setbacks does not have a significant adverse effect on isha or its habitat value so i think in that scenario we'd have a biological study and whatever they're proposing we'd have a biologist review and make sure there's no further impacts but they're not going to comply with the 35 foot setback so they they would have a reduced setback requirement yeah so would that protect the uh katie would that also protect the bluff from development for example you know the house we have that was built next to shadowbrook their tramway is there anything in this that would other than environmentally sensitive guidelines and stuff that would prevent another house to be built stepping down that uh that bluff so that home there was a biological study that was done and the riparian corridor was identified and it does have the 35 foot setback so if there are additional lots i think there's a really i could look at that but i don't think there's much more room for development along beyond that to the left but i can well it's a it's a steep bluff but it is i don't think there's lots there okay very good are we is there um direction on the 25 foot setback so that we prevent i think too many non-conforming structures are we all in favor i think we're all in favor yeah specifically on that one side in the developed area yes on the east side moving right along expansion so i'm skipping over topic seven i have lots of slides on that if we have time but otherwise we can kick that off at the next meeting um topic eight is expansion of the residential parking program so the parking program we have in place has been in place since the coastal permit was issued for the you know the amount of the roads that are identified as as as residential parking within the coastal zone so first i'll start broad that within the land use plan it's the first policy policy one one states to maintain and enhance access to the capitol beach village and wharf while maintaining and enhancing existing character of the character of the capitol village and surrounding residential neighborhoods so really talking about that balance between residents and visitor serving uses and then it goes on to and this is where it's talking about access and protect adjacent residential neighborhoods from parking intrusions while providing access to viewpoints and recreational areas the residential parking program must include it has specific provisions one of those provisions is that any changes to the parking program area or conditions will require an amendment to the lcp oh it's not supposed to be lp so sorry about that so in this the coastal commission wanted to add reference to we didn't have it in there our residential parking program so they added number three which and we've been working together at first so the original for the second revision provided by the coastal commission was expansions of any existing legally established residential parking programs and or new residential parking programs are highly discouraged and after identifying in the land use plan exactly i think that the zoning code is a tool to tell people how to go through a process and it outlines the process for our public so rather than saying highly discouraged i think it's better to state that in the coastal zone it requires an amendment to the specific coastal commission coastal development permit which has never been amended is my understanding from rainy today but 38742 and is consistent with the lcp land use plan so it kind of outlines exactly what the process is to amend that when these conversations come up there's a lot of work that would have to be done to amend a residential parking program to really understand what the impacts would be to the overall public parking as well as the residential parking but i think it's important to keep reference in the code of how you would go about doing that so that's what this change is all about it's outlining a process any questions or discussion i have a comment on the next sub paragraph four okay i think that sentence is complicated it needs to be rewritten that's coming from an attorney so yes it says something it's kind of one of these sentences that wraps around and kind of strangles itself a couple times and so i'll just toss that out this is more style i'm not opposed to the substance of it and i just had a little bit of a question or comment both so since i believe since our current plan was adopted the local coast plan we've added parking lots to the city and have met the criteria of what our parking need is for the city and so as you know now we just eliminated the traffic and parking commission i guess the city council did but having been a member of that for a while we often get questions about the impact and i think katie on your first slide where identified 1.1 where it talks about the balance between not impacting the community maintain the residential and what's the next slide you had there after that one protect adjacent residential neighbors from parking intrusion so we often get people that want to have park permit parking only for their neighborhoods and there is a balance there and i i understand the goal of the coastal commission but it seems like sometimes we let it impact our ability to protect our neighborhood so because we have a huge amount of intrusion regardless of what our policy statement says right now so and i don't really see it in here but how do we find that as a better balance and i called long before i was on the planning commission because i had this concern i called the coastal commission office and i talked to a young lady who at what point does the resources the state resource or the beach become overutilized in other words you come down here on a warm weekend on any summer day you can't find a place to put your towel on the beach and then we have the impact of trash and public works and everything else coming so it seems to me we've reached a cap on and this is tj talking on what we can allow for public parking here and we've reached a point where it's intruded into our neighborhoods and that resource becomes so overdeveloped you can't even walk down the sidewalks hardly on a on a given weekend so as we go move forward and we we come up with our new local coastal plan adoption is that room for i mean it's going to have to be changed because we've added parking since it since i was adopted but where's the balance there i guess i'm asking kevin is there some point you look at and say yeah there's enough public parking for the resources that are in the city of capitol or is it just like no bring on more we need more parking no we're certainly you know cognizant of that and it's built into the coastal act about understanding overuse and trying to prevent those type of things so that's that's definitely on our minds we also certainly understand you know trying to make that balance between residential neighborhoods and and public access as it pertains to parking and other uses i think generally speaking where the the commission has come down on um specifically to residential parking programs and what what we were envisioning in terms of park residential parking programs are things that um basically programs that do only allow for residents to park on certain public streets um the commission hasn't has been pretty emphatically not supportive of those of late so we are certainly willing enable and absolutely um agree that certain provisions should be made to address overuse and overcrowding and and traffic flow and public and private parking residential parking programs are not one of them kind of striking that balance and in the the commission's mind that's too far um that specific way to address the issue was too far swung to the the the residential neighborhood side yeah i guess that's where we disagree on the balance because i i think we allow for enough public parking to take advantage of the the public resources so much so that now it impacts those those private neighborhoods where they can't even park in front of their own house because we overutilize the resource and that's just my perspective on it but it's obviously an issue here and it's it doesn't affect my house but sitting on the traffic and parking commission i'm sure others could talk about that's a gj at least 25 years ago i argue that the village has a finite holding capacity and the beach included and you can see how far that went well and i guess that's where i'm asking the coastal commission to work with this it's like maybe we should be a little more lenient if we can identify the fact that we have enough public parking for public access to the point that it overwhelms that public resource and and allow some of these homeowners to be able to park in front of their own house and instead of having to hike and maybe move their car later that's that's my only concern so the um we will review that number four and it looks like there's consensus to move forward with the changes as suggested um topic nine is government signs so in updating the code there was a very clear path on the through staff of wanting to make sure we build in the allowance for the city to be able to put up speeding speed limit signs and just typical government signs without having to have planning commission sign off on it or if it's in the coastal zone have have it to require a coastal development permit we built this into our regulations and we did receive feedback from the coastal commission that they would like if it if it's in the coastal zone to have the the statement that if it's in the coastal zone it requires a coastal it may require a coastal development permit pursuant to 17.44 we're really writing this in so that no we don't you know we don't want to have to take all of these to our planning commission for a coastal permit um and there is a good catch on behalf of the coastal commission was to add other government installed signs because there are other agencies out there that put up signs through you know with our approval but for public health safety in general welfare and those should also have that ability to be an administrative sign off at the city hall rather than going before the planning commission and possibly a coastal development permit and the expense and time that's required for that you know it just seems to address the installation of signs what about the removal of signs because one of the things i'd like to see the city do is embark on a policy to consolidate and reduce the number of signs we have there was a time when we tried to do that and now we're just signs proliferate everywhere it'd be nice if we could consolidate remove some of the signs and if there was language in here also about removal that we wouldn't have to go to the coastal commission so to remove a sign there's you can remove you know the city can go in and remove a sign or an individual can remove a sign from their building without any type of permit so it is only for new signs and installation of signs but to to that point though if if there is an issue there we could talk to public works about you know that further and the city council could direct staff so in in this review of these changes staff's recommendation is not to accept the change and just wanted to bring up that right after that section on the city the the exception for the city signs and non-governmental signs that there is a section about signs in the coastal zone it's very explicit referencing that if you're in the coastal zone and you're you know your sign in conjunction with your development or just the sign alone needs a coastal development permit that it has to comply with chapter 17.44 and then under two I think this is actually a really good improvement to our code that really clarifies that notwithstanding all the applicable standards in this chapter any sign that could reduce public coastal access or including signs limiting public parking or restricting use of existing lateral and vertical access ways requires a coastal development permit and that you know that's a great middle ground for if the city were going to put a sign in that was going to impact one of the public views or coastal access then yes we are subject to the same regulations and would have to get a coastal development permit under that standard and I think that's why the reference kept being put in as a catchall phrase but I think this does a better job and is more appropriate under number two rather than building it in under every time we say it's not required. I'm surprised that the coastal staff and our staff couldn't work this out it's you know I mean it's not so much a planning commission city council. Yeah this is I think there was preference on the side of the coastal commission to keep it in and I said you know this is one that we'll probably have to debate because I'd like to see it out so if I have your support I think the the edits will be removed and we'll submit it without those changes but I do want to point out I think that E2 does exactly what they're trying to achieve. So we've just applied to the signs of Venetian Court. Which sign Venetian Court is city sign? The new ones. The replace the old ones Yeah the prohibit each access. Yeah. I'm not aware of the signs. Well they've been there what a year the new ones have been there at least a year the old ones have been there for 20 or 30 years. Which is interesting because one of your your examples in another comment is talking about using Venetian as a private public right-of-way. It's on the gate. Yeah each gate each each end of Venetian Court. I need to read the signs more often. Yeah so that would have been applicable to this. If that sign went up and it came to our attention we would bring it forth for coastal development from it. Yep. So there's consensus on that change? Well I'm not opposed to supporting you because we have to work with you every week. Thank you. So I think that actually concludes my presentation for this evening unless you'd like me to get into the accessory dwelling units but we're about two and a half hours into this. I'm wearing actually personally. And if you could send your comments any items you'd like me to include the sooner the better because I can prep. And then we can consolidate them maybe it's because yeah very good and Kevin thank you for coming in. Thank you. Taking the each. Yeah thank you. That wasn't too painful actually. Okay so if there's no other questions for staff and any other commissioner comments I guess I could look at my agenda. We're not doing a director's report I take it. No I was going to let you know that I believe the mall may come to our next meeting. The new the expanded owners of the mall and present it's not 100 sure but we're hopefully looking forward to that. We'll have a shortened agenda and we'll be able to refocus on this again. We should keep these booklets now. Keep your booklets. And Kevin are you going to be at the next meeting? Potentially if you want to see my face again. We do. Actually I don't know how we could have carried on this meeting without having that dialogue it would have been pretty difficult to have. Well no and I appreciate it too. It's helpful for us to get feedback on some of our language and vice versa. One thing you know I do just want to just highlight and that's why it is helpful to be here. Oftentimes we do kind of send staff to staff edits and there isn't that face or that kind of explanation about why certain edits are made and there's certainly there's lots of ways to do something and write something and get at the intent of what we're trying to accomplish and so just kind of explaining that dialogue of where we're coming from where we're coming from I think was really helpful so I appreciate that as well. Thank you with that I guess I'll adjourn our meeting till March 7th at 7 p.m. All right thank you.