And Chair Weeks looks like we have a full house tonight, so I think we are ready to start when you are at 4.30. Great. Thanks, Mike. We'll start right at 4.30, which is in about a minute. If everybody would start putting their cameras on, that would be great. Some reason my camera has been disabled. Maybe you guys are just jealous. I think we are, Commissioner Holton. I think we always were having a meeting there. I got to say, this is the best place I've ever had a meeting. Now we see you. Oh, my gosh. Look at that view. Yep. That's my face, isn't it? That's real, right? Oh, yeah. Best place for a meeting I can possibly imagine, so. That's great. I was so happy. My plane looked like I figured it out. Because the last time we had a commission meeting and I was in Hawaii, I ended up missing it because my plane landed late. This time I was like, I'm getting early. Well, thank you for your dedication. Thank you. So with that, if that's ready, I think we'll go ahead and start the meeting. So with that, I'd like to call to order the January 27, 2022 meeting of the Center for Planning Commission. And before we start, I'll read the statement that I've been reading now for almost a year. And before that, I think Commissioner Sisco was reading the statement. So due to the provisions of the governor's executive orders, N-25-20 and N-29-20, which has been certain requirements of the Brown Act and the order of the health officer of the County of Sonoma to Shelter in Place to minimize the spread of COVID-19, the planning commissioners will be conducting today's meeting in a virtual setting using Zoom webinar. Commissioners and staff are participating from remote locations and are practicing appropriate social distancing, some more remote than others. Members of the public may view and listen to the meeting as noted on the city's website and as noted on the agenda. Members of the public wishing to speak during item four, public comment or during our public hearing tonight will be able to do so by raising their hand and will be given the ability to address the commission. So with that, I'd like to call for the roll. Thank you, Chair Weeks. The record reflect that all commissioners are present. Thank you. And with that, item two is approval of minutes. We have one set of minutes from December 9th. Were there any changes or corrections? Okay, seeing none, those that will stand as approved. And then item three is our public comment period and I will now open the public comment for any item that is not included in this meeting's agenda. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please select the raise hand button. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand and each speaker will have three minutes. The countdown timer will appear for the convenience of the speaker and the viewers and please make sure to unmute yourself when you're invited to do so. And then your microphone will be muted at the end of the countdown. Mr. Maloney, do you see Ms. Buckhite? Do you see anybody with hands raised tonight? No one is raising their hands at this time, Chair Weeks. Thank you. Okay, and I just, okay, they put it back down. So this is for the public hearing. This is for comments for items not on the agenda. Okay, so I don't see any raised hands. So with that, I'll go ahead and close the public comment period and we'll move on to commissioner's report and I'll read our statement of purpose. The planning commission is charged with carrying out the California planning and zoning laws in the city of Santa Rosa. Duties include implementing of plans, ordinances and policies relating to land use matters, assisting in writing and implementing the general plan and area plans, holding public hearings and acting on proposed changes to the zoning code, zoning map, general plan, and to the subdivision maps that entertain taking special planning studies as needed. So are there any committee reports from either subdivision or waterways? Commissioner Carter. Yes, thank you, Chair Weeks. This morning, the waterways advisory committee did meet, we had one project before us. It was a proposal for the Hyatt to relocate their security fencing adjacent to Prince Memorial Parkway. In general, the committee was supportive of the project. There's a real security concern there, but there were reservations about the height of the fence, which is proposed at eight feet and how that might set a dangerous precedent along the parkway and needed some clarification about the maintenance of the landscape elements that are on the Hyatt property, but are part of the parkway and therefore were maintained by the city. So we asked for additional information, which I assume we'll receive in advance of it going to the zoning administrator for its minor design review. And that's all we had. So Commissioner Carter is zoning administrator and then the final step in this. Yes, it is. Can you see it again? Okay, great. It wasn't clear to me whether it'll come back to us as a formal item or whether the summary of our concerns that will go to the zoning administrator is what we'll see. Great, thank you. Any questions of Commissioner Carter? And I don't believe there was a subdivision meeting. Okay, so with that, we'll move to, are there any commissioners? Is there anything that commissioners would like to report out on at this time? Okay, seeing shaking heads, we'll go to department reports. So Ms. Jones. Yes, good afternoon everybody. Jessica Jones, Staff Liaison and Supervising Planner. So yes, I've got a very brief update for you guys and just quickly to answer the question about the Waterways Advisory Committee meeting item that was just mentioned by Commissioner Carter. My understanding is that that item will be returning to the Waterways Advisory Committee with some additional information and clarification. So you should be seeing that again. So the items that I have for you today are just to, oh, it looks like, I'm sorry, we've got, I'm seeing notes from some of our staff here that we need to make sure that we do the Vice Chair election. So I think we might have missed that item on the agenda. So. I actually, I saw it and thought it and ignored it. I should have called. It was a mistake. Yes, so why don't we go ahead and do that and then we can come back to my report. Okay. So with that, are there any nominations for the Vice Chair? I'd like to nominate current Vice Chair Peterson. Great, thank you. Is there a second? Commissioner Holton seconds. So that was moved by Commissioner Cisco, seconded by Commissioner Holton, Vice Chair Peterson. Do you accept? I do. Great, thank you. So with that. The beard, he can't lose the position. Chair, we do have a vote afterwards. Okay, so Mr. Maloney, do you call roll? I do. Okay. So that was moved by Commissioner Cisco, seconded by Commissioner Holton. Thank you. First, Commissioner Cardin. Aye. Commissioner Duggan. Aye. Commissioner Holton. Aye. Commissioner Oprechti. Aye. Commissioner Cisco. Yeah, that's what I thought. I went out of order because it looked like she had frozen. Yeah. Vice Chair Peterson. Aye. Chair Weeks. Aye. Now we can wait for Commissioner Cisco. Oh, there you go. She was the mover. I'm here, I keep freezing up. I'm sorry, but I'm an aye. Okay, thank you. So that passes with seven ayes. Welcome to another year, Vice Chair Peterson. Thank you for being willing to serve. And now back to Ms. Jones. Thank you. Congratulations, Vice Chair Peterson. Look forward to working with you over this next year. So just a couple of quick things for the commission. The first one being just to let you all know that we do not have any items for your regular February 10th Plenty Commission meeting. So that meeting will be canceled. And then two quick reminders for you. The first is just a friendly reminder if you have either an absence or you need to abstain from an item. If you just let us know ahead of time so that we can be prepared and make sure that we've got a form for items. It's very much appreciated. And then another friendly reminder to check your city emails at least, I would say at least once a week if not more when we send communications it is to your city email address. And so usually we're hoping for, you know somewhat quick responses. So if you could just check those regularly that would be great. And that is all that I have for tonight. Okay, thank you. So with that, we'll move on to statement of abstentions by commissioners. Commissioner Krepke. Yeah, I will be abstaining from item 8.1 due to financial relationship with one of the applicant team. Great, thank you. And we don't have any consent items tonight. So we'll move on to our scheduled item, which is item 8.1, public hearing, Penstemon Place, 59 lots, small lot subdivision including a mitigated negative declaration, hillside development permit, conditional use permit and tentative map 2574 2842 and 2862 Linwood Avenue file number PRJ16-032. This is an exparte disclosure. So we'll start with commissioner Cisco. I visited the site and I have no new information to disclose. Thank you. Commissioner Duggan. I visited the site and have no new information to disclose. Commissioner Carter, sorry I went out of, I don't know my alphabet tonight. It's quite all right. I also visited the site and have nothing further to disclose. Thank you. And commissioner Holton. I also visited the site yesterday and I have nothing further to disclose. Thank you. And by Sheriff Peterson. I also visited the sites and I have no additional information to disclose. Thank you. And I also visited the site and have nothing further to disclose. So I believe Ms. Murray is the planner on this? You are correct. Good evening chair weeks and members of the commission.  Let me share my screen here. Was I successful? Yes, you are. And there we go. So the project before you this evening is Penstemon Place and the address 2574 2842 and 2862 Linwood Avenue. Sorry, Susie. I don't see the full screen. I don't know if other people are just have a little bit of it cut off or if it's just, oh, that's much better. Okay. A little more to the, whatever, the left. I don't know. I've got it on full screen and I don't know if it's not in the right place. That's okay. Sorry. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Sorry for interrupting. No, no problem. Can everybody see it okay though? That's real important. It looks like yes. Okay. Thank you. So the project proposes 59 lot single family residential subdivision. Two of the lots would be constructed with accessory dwelling units and four more will be constructed with the option to include accessory dwelling units. The development plan includes six different floor plans. Six different floor plans made up of both single and two-story units. 13 lots will be, we used to, I'm gonna give a little bit of history here. We used to require during a small lot subdivision that applicants provide architecture. This plan has been in for quite a while and initially the applicant did provide all of that information, gave us all the architecture when those plan sets were provided to you as part of your packet. But the only lots that they're committing to those plans on are those that have some slopes. And I'll talk to you about that a little bit further into the presentation and the reason why. So there again, there are 13 lots that will commit to certain architecture. The other 46 will have a little bit of flexibility but we don't anticipate a whole lot of deviation from the proposed development plan. The project will have two access points, one off Linwood Avenue, actually three access points, two off Linwood, both West and South, Linwood and Verbina Drive to the North. So here's the site plan that is part of the project. As you can see at the top of the screen, that's where Verbina comes down. Point set of place extends from the West side of the development towards East, towards the Farmers Lane extension and Taylor Mountain. And then there'll be a new street introduced off Linwood that will extend into Verbina. These two red symbols delineate where the proposed accessory dwelling units will be constructed. And the four symbols or the four other blue symbols show where they will be optional. Making the assumption that none of the four additional ADUs will be built, a total of 62 dwelling units will be constructed. 59 of those will be market rate and represent 2.3% of our five year goal through the end of this year. The other two represent a quarter of the percent for those moderate or second, moderately priced or second unit households. The project requires a mitigated negative decoration. The draft document was circulated back in June of 2020. The required entitlements include a hillside development permit to do construct housing on slopes greater than 10%. Conditional use permit for a small lot subdivision and a tentative map to subdivide the 9.73 acre site into 59 individual lots. Here's an aerial view of the site now. There are six homes on the site and I believe four of them are occupied and as I understand it, two of them are boarded up. Don't quote me on those numbers, but I know that there was a question raised about how the occupants of those that are occupied will be, how they will exit the homes. The people that live in those homes are either related to employees or are employees of the applicants. They're fully aware of the project that's underway and they've been in there long enough. So at the very least, at the very least, they'll get a 60-day notice from the developer. However, as I said, that 60-day notice, they're fully anticipating it now. So here is kind of backing off a little bit. The development site again in the surrounding neighborhood and as you can see this kind of like fits in, fills in a piece of the puzzle there. Just to give you some context of the surrounding neighborhood, we have these residential uses all, surrounding to the Northwest and South and very similar residential development. We also have parks in the neighborhood and one of the common comments that we received, I think one of the petition comments that we received was about the Linwood HOA private space areas. Those are private space. They are maintained by the Linwood HOA but above to the north of the project, to the Down and Hour Park is public. And there's also, of course, beautiful Taylor Mountain off to the east. There was also some late correspondence included today from our deputy director of our parks department and she outlined several other parks that are currently in the works at some point. Some are planned, some are not and I can provide the detail when I have that in front of me, but I don't and I'm hoping everybody had an opportunity to read that. When we get to the point of public comments, I'm happy to pull that information up. I'm guessing that the applicant may also bring it up in their presentation. So this project has a really long history. It started back in 2016, April with a neighborhood meeting and then we received the applications for the project in December. Back in those days, in the olden days, as my former supervisor used to say, we had development advisory meetings. Those are pretty much the equivalent of what we do today with the development, the pre-application meeting with staff where we would look at the plans and identify issues. And then in June of 2020, as I said before, the initial study of mitigated negative declaration were circulated for a 30 day public review period. So I wanna make two comments right now and first I wanna thank all of the people who called in on those or who reviewed that mitigated negative declaration. The mitigated negative declaration is better today because of those comments. We corrected the biological section with regard to trees. There were some comments about the number of ADUs. Just to clarify the accessory dwelling units, there are two proposed and a possibility of four more being added. The other thing that I'd like to do is I would like to call out to the applicant team and say thank you very much for your patience through this process because they have been extremely patient and I am grateful for that. There were some other events that added to the delays, which I think we all know about, which is the Tubbs and Nunes Firestorm and the applicant has also been very busy himself in helping with the rebuild there. And then of course the response to COVID-19 pandemic, which is really kind of put a stick in the spokes on processing some of these larger projects. So the general plan land use designation is low density residential. In the image on the left, you can see where the lighter yellow and the kind of almost a light sage green color separated, the lighter yellow, in that area, the general plan anticipates development at a density between two and eight units per acre. The graphic to the left is the zoning and this isn't a plan development. It's a very old, the Southeast plan development is a very old PD and we'll discuss it a little bit more as we go through, but basically we relate it to the R16, single family residential zoning district. So the project requires the hillside development permit. There are nine required findings which were drafted on the draft resolution. Just to summarize, the site plan minimizes the visual prominence of the hillside development. Site development minimizes alteration of topography and drainage patterns. Site development does not alter slopes greater than 25% except is allowed by the zoning code. The project grading respects natural features and visibly blends with adjacent properties. The building pad location and design avoids large areas of flat pads. Both project, the proposed project complies with the requirements of the hillside development chapter, zoning code chapter 2032. The proposed project is consistent with the general plan and any applicable specific plan. There is no applicable specific plan in this area and the establishment maintenance or operation of use would not, under circumstances of the particularly use would not be detrimental to the public health safety or general welfare. And then there's a required finding in the hillside development section that the project be reviewed in compliance with the city's design guidelines. I talked about the policy statement earlier. In the policy statement, it requires this new development in these areas or in this area to go through the design review process. However, subsequently the city has decided that single family residential development does not go through that process. So, but because the hillside ordinance requires that finding, we have gone through the analysis, although the project is not required to get a design review entitlement. So it will not be going to the design review board. So I talked earlier about the homes that are on sloped areas. The graphic here on the right shows you where the slopes, where there's a higher concentration of slopes greater than 10% throughout the site. As I mentioned in my staff report, there are several, it's kind of littered with little areas of greater than 10%. That's, you know, if you look on a per site average or a per law average, it's not enough to require really the hillside development permit. I think we see, you know, if you look at a flat land, there's always some sort of little slopes, but the real sloped areas really concentrated up in the northeast corner of this site. Those, the black symbols there, those denote the 13 parcels where the applicant has chosen to lock in the architecture. And in doing so, they won't require another hillside development permit when they go to develop these sites. So the four images on the left are the four models that will be distributed intermittently throughout those 13 parcels. So I said that we reviewed the project in compliance with the design guidelines. Here are several goals that the project helps implement, including providing an interconnected street network, creating an environment that encourages pedestrian friendly activity, sidewalks, bicycle routes. It includes a variety of single story and two story, one and two story homes and some of which also include the ADUs, which attract a different tenant, if you will, or occupant, let's say, and it does not silhouette above ridge lines. The conditional use permit is another required entitlement. And there are six findings that need to be made for the conditional use permit. I think I've already demonstrated that the project is consistent with the general plan and the zoning. The design, location, and operating characteristics that are very compatible with the surrounding neighborhood. It's, as I said, it's surrounded on three sides by very similar development, different architecture, but the same type of development. The density is appropriate for the location. It includes the required access, all utilities are available. Granting the permit would not constitute a nuisance or be injurious or detrimental to the public health. Interest safety, convenience, or welfare, or materially injurious to person's property or improvements in the vicinity and zoning district in which the property is located. This area has been designated for a very long time since I've worked for the city for exactly this type of development. So we're just filling in that puzzle piece now. And of course the project has to be found in compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act, which I'll touch on later in the presentation as well. So then the final entitlement is the tentative map. And I think maybe on this document, it's a little bit easier to see where the connections of Poinsettia extend east from the western side of the project area, where Verbena drops down from the north and then the new street is added from the south side of Lindwood. Excuse me. The project, the initial study and mitigated negative declaration again were circulated back in June of 2020. Because of public comments, and again, I'll say thank you, it's a better document today. We have corrected many errors that were pointed out to us, but none of those errors created significant edits. They didn't change any conditions of approval, anything. So the document was not recirculated. The Environmental Quality Act does not require that. Mitigation measures that are in the mitigation monitoring and reporting program, which if I slip and call it the MMRP, you all know what I'm talking about. And we have mitigation measures relating to air quality, biological resources, hazard and hazardous waste, noise, transportation and traffic. I did see a question in the late correspondence today and I apologize to the person who sent it. This was sent to us, to me several months ago and I along with probably a couple of hundred other emails, I didn't see this. So, but there was a question about the biological resources when the tree, I'm sorry, when the burden bat surveys are done, will there be postings for that? There will not be postings that I'm aware of, but they have to provide evidence that these reports were done prior to getting their permits issued. So I hope that answers that question if the individual is listening. During staff's review, there were several issues, hurdles that we had to get over, including tree removal and replacement, stormwater compliance, the site and area drainage really, and the circulation and area improvements. There are no unresolved issues at this point. So we did receive a lot of public comments and commissioners, I apologize for duplicates. We got these public comments towards the beginning of the COVID shutdown and they came to us by email, by a courier and via US mail, US mail got scanned by staff that was inside and forwarded. So I did my best to eliminate duplicates and I understand that there are still quite a few duplicates but I think you get the gist of it, the triggering events. Again, the triggering events for a lot of that that public correspondence was the circulation of the draft MND or mitigated negative declaration. But the neighborhood meeting that was held back in 2016 was also a really well attended and I think a good meeting all in all. One of the things that came out of that meeting, there were all two story units and one of the neighbors brought that up. That was an issue. And when the project was submitted, it included one and two story units. So that was great. I've touched on the parks already. So to the west of this project, the Lindwood parks, those are private parks. There's concern about new residents of this subdivision using those parks. And I live on a private street. I'm gonna use that analogy. If there's limited parking, if somebody is going out to eat and they're going across the street and they park here, I asked that point out that it's private and asked them to move the car. And I think that that's probably the same way that one would handle somebody using the park just ask them, tell them it's private property and ask them to go. Tree removal, we've talked about tree removal. There will be four significant oak trees retained. There will be four more oak trees that the developer wants to retain, but given their location, they may not be able to. The tree mitigation includes mitigation for all but four oak trees that will remain. We may get, fingers crossed, the four other oak trees as well as additional mitigation for those. They will plant the mitigation trees regardless of whether those additional four are saved or not. Grading and drainage, I think that I'm, what I'm just gonna say because I am not the engineer that reviewed this is that it has been reviewed in compliance with all our regulations. And if you have questions, I'm gonna call on Jesus McKay in the applicant to answer them. I'm gonna give another plug right here for our general plan update process that's going on right now. One of the comments that was said to me is brought up the fairness or not fairness of the development review process stating that the project was already approved when it came in. Well, what was approved when the project came in was the land use and that's designated through the general plan process. We are upgrading the general plan right now. So please, anybody that's out there, please get involved. This is the time to do it, not when developments are proposed, but when we're doing the general plan update because that's when we designate land uses. So you can reach out to me, I will share the contact name for the planner that spearheading that process, Amy Nicholson. If you're familiar with her, she's a champ. So please, please get involved now. Yes, did that sound like a plea? We really want you to be involved. So sound barriers for farmers lane extension also came up. It is not the burden of this project to provide those sound barriers. And if they're required when that project moves forward, they will be installed. Excuse me one sec. Okay, I already addressed the single story and two story homes, energy efficiency. So by waiting five years, we now have a plan that when these building permits are submitted, they will not be allowed to add any gas appliances. When the initial study was first drafted and when the plan was first submitted, that was not the case. But since then, the all electric building code has been adopted, these units will, none of them will have gas, any gas fixtures and all of them will have photovoltaic panels. And area circulation, I'm gonna move down here. There's a couple of things that have come up. As part of the project, the project, there's a couple of improvements that'll happen where the point set of lane is being extended to the west and the Linwood extension, or the Linwood Avenue there at the top red arrow. There'll be a four-way or all-way stop put in that location. And then down closer to Aston for Linwood Avenue, they will be paying their fair share to a road widening project there. Now that area right there that's shown with the lower red arrow is relevant to this next slide.  Is it there or isn't it there? And the general plan is really not clear. The general plan land use diagram available online eliminates that dotted line, which is a conceptual, it says local street, but I think it is more of a collector street. And I'm happy local street is something that just serves that area. And a collector street is something that serves people from outside the area going through the area and kind of like I'll let Rob and Nancy address that a little bit more if you have questions. But so this little dotted line conceptual, it's kind of, it's vanished on some documents and it's still on others. So the hard copy document in the library, it's still there. That's where this picture was taken. The one up online, it's vanished. So, but the other thing that we are looking at as part of the general plan update is that just to the west of this possible extension here is that Linwood, I'm sorry, Neeta, Brookwood, Aston and Fairground, funky little intersection right there. And I admit it's a challenge sometimes getting through there. And we're looking at the possibility of a roundabout there, which actually makes a lot of sense. But all that will be done as part of the general plan update that we're currently working on. Oh, and can I just say again, members of the public, please get involved. So that all public noticing for this hearing was done in compliance with chapter 2066 of the zoning code. That included a mailed notice to property owners within 600 feet, I'm sorry, property owners and occupants within 600 feet of the site, publication of the press demographic, three signs that were posted on the project site. I wanna point out that there was a mix up when the signs were posted. They were initially posted on one frontage of Linwood, I believe the western side of the property, western edge of the property. We heard from several residents, thank you very much for speaking up. And last Friday, I believe the signs were relocated so that there is one on the southern side of the property site along Linwood Avenue, one was left on the western side and one was added at the dead end street of Verbena at the north end of the property. There were also notices posted down at city hall, email lists and a virtual notice posted up online. So with that, it is recommended by the Planning and Economic Development Department that the Planning Commission approved the Penstemon Place subdivision by adopting four resolutions, a mitigated negative declaration as edited, which will be attached to the resolution, a hillside development permit to allow development on slopes greater than 10%, a conditional use permit for small lot subdivision and a tentative map to subdivide in approximately 9.73 acre area into 59 residential lots. And that concludes my presentation and in case there are people calling in and you cannot see this screen, my name again is Susie Murray. My telephone number is<PHONE_NUMBER> and my email address is smuray at srcity.org. And that concludes my presentation and I know that the applicant has one that they would like to share but I'll wait for your go. Chair Weeks. Thank you, Ms. Murray. Any questions of Ms. Murray before we hear from the applicant? Okay, not seeing any then if we could go ahead and promote the applicant and we can hear from them. Thank you Chair, we have quite a large team of applicants and they have a list of order that we've got in which they'd like to speak. Mike, those five are members of the public in the order. The ones that I requested that they be allowed to speak in order. Those are members of the public. Oh, understandable. Okay. The public team is Kurt Nichols if you could promote him and I think he's the only one that needs to be promoted at this time although, oh, finally it opened. It's a big file. My computer was hesitating. So Kurt can, as soon as I get this up, Kurt just go ahead and tell me when to flip it. It's gonna be one moment. We have to do some re-gaming, give us like 30 seconds. Sorry about that you guys. And I just did want to mention for the public commenters I do have that list of the public who would like to speak in order. So we will go with that. And that was our confusion. Sorry, it's very... Okay, I think I'm... I think we can hear you. Okay, good. I just wanted to make sure you could hear me.  Whoops. Sorry, I brought it up on my screen. Hold on one second. Oh, embarrassing. I'm gonna get used to this one of these days. Okay. Okay, let me get it in presentation mode. There we go. Okay. Great, thanks. So we can go to the next slide. So Chair Weeks and commissioners, appreciate the opportunity to bring this new housing project to you. As Ms. Murray indicated, we've been looking forward to this for a while. I'd like to introduce our team that's here this evening. So others are mainly here for questions and things should they come up. But again, I'm Kurt Nichols with Carlisle Macy. And also with me from Carlisle Macy is Breonna Morrison. And also our client, the owner and developer of this project, Aaron Matz. And then not listed on the slide here, but also available is our traffic engineer, Dailene Whitlock with WTrans and our arborist, Becky Duckles. Next slide, please. So I'm gonna try to not duplicate too much that Ms. Murray went over, but just for orientation again, here's the location of the project site surrounded by existing development and as an infill site as was previously indicated. Next slide, please. So what I mainly wanna do is walk you through our approach to the design of this project. Our goal has been to create a new neighborhood that would fit into the site and the surrounding adjacent neighborhoods and also to seek a balance between preserving significant site features and providing new homes. So we started with a review of the site, existing conditions, opportunities and constraints. Has been previously mentioned, there are six existing homes on the site, four of which are currently occupied, all of which will be removed prior to construction. The site, as you can see right now is primarily grassland with a number of trees primarily along the west and south edges. There are actually 53 trees total on site and one immediately adjacent to the north property line kind of up near the northwest corner, the upper left of, you can see here, yeah, you can kind of see it there. That's a significant oak tree that is actually on that neighboring property and we'll talk about that a little bit more. Of the 53 trees and the one adjacent, that would be 54 total, including the offsite one. There are 34 of those are oaks, 16 valley oaks and 18 coast live oaks. Also within that count, there are 13 trees that have been planted around these existing homes that are actually of species that are exempt from the city's tree ordinance. Next slide, please. So as part of our initial site review, we kind of synthesize the data that we gather and impressions of the site and try to fit that with our goals. So this kind of illustrates some of the main points. We identified the three largest oak trees on the site. There's a 34 and a 30 inch valley oak near the upper right in the image here. So that would be near the northerly property line kind of on the east side that are real significant. I'm sure you all noticed as you drove by the site, those are very prominent and lend a lot of, a lot of the site's character and sense of place. There's also another one kind of down more toward within the main part of the site toward the southwest corner. That would be the lower right on the screen here. And then in addition, there's several others along the edge of Linwood Avenue, both where Linwood Avenue is along the southerly edge of the site and the easterly edge. And some of those aren't unfortunately highlighted on this image, but there's a number of trees there. And I think as was previously indicated, we've identified four of these that we're gonna try to save. And again, the consideration for selecting those had to do with their location in relation to Linwood Avenue and the required widening of that street. But as well a consideration for a desire to seek a balance with the layout of the home sites that we're trying to provide and the grading that will be associated with those which the trees have no tolerance for. So there's a number of factors that go into that, but the four along the edges that we've identified, we think there's a good chance in working with our arborists that we can save those. Another important consideration to the development of this site and the design of it is the fact that the Farmers Lane extension has already an approved design and adjoins the site on the east. And I'm not sure if you can see very well on here, but there's a number of kind of fine parallel lines that the arrows that says future Farmers Lane extension plan calls for extensive grading. That shows the grading that's associated with the already approved design of Farmers Lane. So there's a fair amount of grading that's already going on there. So in looking at that, we view that as both an opportunity and a constraint. The constraint of having Farmers Lane there is the fact that it would be a future source of noise. However, the opportunity is that the fact that there's already grading going on there gives us the opportunity to place the homes below the elevation of Farmers Lane, which will do two things. One is that it will drop them out of the line of fire of the future noise so that we wouldn't need, there won't be sound walls needed as was described in the noise study. And the other thing that it does is to get the homes lower overall so that the visual profile is lower as well. Next slide, please. So again, this is showing the proposed plan for the project in the context of the surrounding neighborhood. And as was previously mentioned and was actually was a goal of ours all along, maybe some of the design guidelines still stick with me, but the goal of our design was to have interconnected streets without dead ends so that they would be walkable and connected to the adjacent neighborhoods. So I think this illustrates that Verbena Drive being extended into the site as well as Poinsettia from the west. In particular, Verbena Drive provides direct access to the Downhower neighborhood park that exists in the north of the site. And from the north property line to that neighborhood park is about 1,100 feet. So it's a little less than a quarter of a mile from there. Obviously if you go from the southern part of the site, it's longer, it's about, I think six or 700 feet longer, but anyway, it's a very walkable distance. I think if you saw the communication from city's deputy parks director, I think she indicated a half-mile walking distance is a standard they use. Let's see. Oh, I wanna also just mention something here in the, at the beginning of the process, we had, as we went to the neighborhood meeting, we actually had a different layout from the one that we're bringing before you tonight. And that, in that first one, we didn't, Poinsettia Lane didn't extend into the site and instead the kind of the new street A that comes up from Linwood goes north, it heads over and connects with Verbena, actually went through Verbena and then headed further to the west and intersected with Linwood. And we heard from some folks at that first meeting, particularly the ones that had homes on Linwood right across from that, that could we please find another location for that street that was pointed at them? So we took that into consideration and made that change as we went forward. Let's see, next slide please. This is just the slope analysis. I think Ms. Murray pretty much went over this, the main things to come from this, which is really determination of which sites are considered hillside by virtue of their slope. So in this, the areas, the yellow area makes up about 80% of the site and those are all areas of slopes less than 10%. The bright green is between 10 and 25 and the little specks of dark green or the 25, but the affected lots and so forth, I think she already covered. So next slide please. Okay, so this is the development plan that shows the layout of homes proposed. And as was previously indicated, we started off with kind of different requirements that we conform to, which got into a lot of detail about how the project and actually the homes would be laid out and constructed. And so this even gets into what plans in the mix of them. So there were actually six homes each with two different elevations. So that's kind of, that's 12 different looks, if you will, that were designed specifically for this project. The ones in blue to the upper left are on auto court lots where there are basically clusters of four that share a common driveway. And this was done primarily to introduce some additional variety into the types of residential units that would be provided with the project. So these auto court lots, they make up 12 of the total 59. Let's see. Oh, the other thing I wanna point out here, unfortunately our graphics didn't turn out the way I wanted. There's a section I wanna show you through the site grading on the next slide. And the location of that section, if you can see looking over at Linwood Avenue right above where it says Avenue, you can see a line across there and it's got a little arrow pointing up and an A there. And if you also look over on the farmer's lane extension side, yeah, thank you. So again, then over on the farmer's lane extension side, yeah, you can see it there. And then we're across the street A, there's kind of an angle point in that line. So that section is that we're gonna look at in just a second is taken through lots seven, eight, 19, 26, 33, and 39. So next slide, please. So here's the section and this is to illustrate the proposed grading and in particular how we would be setting the homes, particularly those adjacent to farmer's lane below the grade of farmer's lane. So if you look to the very far left on the slide, you can see at the top, the elevation of farmer's lane as per the approved design. The dashed line that you see through here, that's the existing grade right now. And then the proposed grade is the solid dark line. And then these are the actual homes that you were just looking at on the development plan to scale with the heights and everything. So it's giving you a real view of what that looks like. But that is to illustrate the intent to drop things down so as to reduce the visual impact and also to eliminate the potential noise impact from the future farmer's lane. Next slide, please. So this is a view into the project, looking east from Linwood Avenue. And this particular view is looking at the most southerly of the four unit auto courts. So that would be, and so what we're looking at here, going from left to right, the house on lot nine, and then you see the homes on lots 11 and 12 next. So those are all the auto court lots. And then moving to the right, the house that's kind of a brown green in color is on the corner of Poinsettia and Linwood. And then next to that, when the next one, the one story White House would be on, also on the corner of Poinsettia and Linwood. And then just behind that White House would be the lot, I'm sorry, the portion of, you can see of the home on lot 51, that's on Poinsettia there too.  Next slide, please. So here we're looking at the tentative map. And this shows across the top the typical street sections. And you can see there's three of them along Linwood because there's a lot of different things going on with Linwood, particularly along the west side. Some of it's been widened and improved. You can see a place in the middle where there's a lot that the previous development kind of worked around it didn't include. And so the street hasn't been widened there. And in general, I guess what I wanted to point out here was that the typical, the city standard for the street will have us widen it to 18 feet from the center line, which is kind of the faint, long and short dashed line that you see in the middle of the street. So moving over 18 feet out from that would be what the standard is. In order to save those trees that we identified or try to save them again, we're not gonna really know until we get way far down the line down to the point of even seeing where the roots are and exactly what we're gonna run into with the grading when we get there and so forth. It's something that is pretty common when we get into areas that have not been previously developed and have oak trees. I can give you another example that was done in recent years over in Northwest Santa Rosa, just south of Coddingtown along Jennings Avenue was a very similar situation where there were existing oak trees along there. And we did a similar thing. We tried to save the ones that we could. There were some that we weren't able to save. But I think overall in that case, it turned out pretty well and that's what we're hoping for here. But in any case, the minimum widening is to have a 12 foot travel lane from the center line. So in the areas where we're trying to save the trees, that's what we're proposing. And you can see if you look there kind of by lot three up near the northwest corner, you can see the dark line that's the curb line kind of moving out and back. And that's an area where one of the four trees are. Also, if you go further south on Linwood down to between lots 52 and 53, there's another area where the curb bulbs out. And that's an area where there's two more trees. Again, all of these are oaks that we would be trying to save.  Let's see, next slide please. So this is the tentative map sheet that shows the utilities and grading. So it has a storm drainage and sewer water and so forth. The one thing I wanted to point out in particular on this one is that, so the tray mentioned earlier that's actually not technically on the site but immediately adjacent to it. So virtually anything that we do close to it, would have an effect on it. So, and that is a large double trunk coast live oak. It's got a 12 and 18 inch trunk and pretty significant. So during the course of working on the project, we've also modified this area a fair amount. And we've had a few meetings with the property owner on site with myself and Becky Duckles, Arborus to review what we could do to save the tree and best provide for it. Originally we had retaining walls and drainage and other things that were closer to that tree. We've now pulled all that back 10 feet away from that tree and the drainage even further. So it's a little hard to see on here. I'm hoping you can see the drip line of that tree is kind of outlined in kind of a squiggly gray line. And you can see the drainage structures are well outside of that. And the retaining wall that's in that area is 10 feet away from the trunk. So we went over all of that so that we could make sure that we would save that tree and have kind of the best conform between this project and the neighboring property as we could come up with. Next slide, please. This is the preliminary landscape plan that shows both the trees proposed to be planted with the project. It also shows the trees that we're proposing to save. They're in kind of a darker forest green color. Yeah, thank you, Suzy. And if you could, yeah, that last one that you pointed at right there with the arrow, yeah, thank you. That's one of the three that we identified before that we want to save. I want to point out that it wasn't just, let's just save the tree, but save it in a way that it would contribute to and be part of the neighborhood going forward. And in order to do that, it needs to have some street frontage and not just be buried behind a house somewhere, which sometimes happens. And so similarly, the other two near the north, yeah, those two right there, as you can see that, again, there's street frontage there. If you remember back to the slope map, that's also an area that's sloping. And so, there's kind of several considerations there, but the main one, in order to save those, we had to make sure that we didn't do any grating around them. So we're keeping everything just as it is right there. The only grating happens kind of well outside, where they are to either side. You can see the lots up above that share a common driveway that we'll all kind of look out on those, but they also are clearly visible from the street. And then you can also see the ones around the perimeter highlighted better on this one as the existing trees, the ones I just mentioned that we're trying to save along the frontage. In addition to that, this shows the trees that we're proposing to plant. So the bright green ones are the primary street tree, which we had originally selected to be similar to one of the three trees planted in the surrounding neighborhoods. But one of the public comments suggested that there were a lot of oaks on this site, we're removing a number of them, and why weren't we planting more of them instead of the non-native ones, which we thought was a legitimate comment. So this has been modified to make those valley oaks. And I've been, again, in consulting with Becky Duckles, our arborist, that we believe that is a viable solution. I think that another comment that came in later, questioned whether that was viable because the oaks are really big and do they have enough room to grow. The new standard since some of the surrounding neighborhoods were built is that the planter area between the sidewalk and the curb here is actually six feet wide. So it's better than what it used to be before. We believe that's gonna work. So anyway, our proposal is to make all of those now be oaks. So with that, what we're looking at here is planting 71 valley oaks. And then the darker kind of olive green trees where you can see the branches, those are coast live oaks. And we're proposing 20 of those that would be as part of the kind of the front yard landscaping for the homes as they got built. Next slide, please. And then this is a preliminary plan of what would the front yard landscaping might look like, but essentially they're all low water use plants, some of which are native, but all of which are low water use. So I believe that concludes my presentation at this point. Oh, can you go to the next slide, Susie? We do have renderings of elevations of all the homes if you'd like to go through those, but just to look at, they're available. So other than that, I think that concludes my presentation. So thank you for your attention. Thank you for the opportunity to bring this before you. Thank you, Mr. Nichols. Are there any questions of the applicant before we go to the public hearing? No? Okay. So with that, I will go ahead and open the public hearing. If you wish to make a comment via Zoom, please select the raised hand button. If you're dialing in via telephone, please dial star nine to raise your hand. Each speaker will have three minutes. A countdown timer will appear for the convenience of the speaker and viewers, and please make sure to unmute yourself when you're invited to do so. Your microphone will be muted at the end of the countdown. And as I indicated before the applicant made their presentation, we will, members of the public had requested that we follow a certain order for their comments. So with that, I will ask Kim Roberts if you could raise your hand so you can be promoted. Good evening, can you hear me okay? Yes, thank you. All right, thank you for the opportunity to offer a few comments on the Urban Forest, the opportunity that this project creates to contribute to the Urban Forest of Santa Rosa. For the U.S. Department of Forestry, healthy forests are the most efficient, inexpensive and natural system to combat climate change. Urban Forest sequester and store atmospheric carbon, buffer wind, control erosion, provide habitat, decrease drought, reduce the heat island effect by an estimated six to 10 degrees and create more livable, desirable places to live, work and play. I really appreciate the comments about the trees on this project. This project property is fortunate to have a number of large oak trees as it has been described, a third of which are heritage trees per the city's ordinance. Well, some will be retained, 75% of those heritage trees are slated to be removed. Overall, we'll lose about 90% of the total existing oaks on the site. On the face of it, the landscape plan offsets this loss by planning numerous oaks, which suggests a three-fold net increase in the number of oak trees. Or however, the majority of those oaks do look like they're proposed to be planted in the, quote, hell strips, the narrow planting strip between the sidewalk and the street. Even if that is six feet, that seems a little small for a valley oak as an example, which can grow up to 70 feet high and wide with a trunk girth that can be several feet. That is if the tree survives. Key to the health of any plant is right plant, right place, and the trees may not survive in these narrow hell strips. This plan also proposes including two moderate water use species, maple and aginko, which will require increasing care as a climate warms. The city of Santa Rosa sustainability team is collaborating with UC master gardeners on a climate forward tree project, which will update the recommended city street tree list to only include trees that are likely to withstand drought in the warming climate. There are much better choices for this project, frankly. Trees in our urban forests are really critically important. And I would just request that the commission consider how to retain more of the current trees, as well as require a landscape plan that focuses on sustainability and advances Santa Rosa's urban forest. Thank you. Thank you. And next we have Chris Roberts. There we go. Thank you. I'd like to speak on the fire mitigation issues for this site. The pencil on place initial MMD states, the site is designated as a non-fire hazard according to a Cal Fire 2008 study. However, according to the Sonoma County wildfire risk index, which is a more recent study from 2021, the pencil on place is in a level three out of five wildfire risk index. This is a moderate level. For reference, this is the same level as a large portion of Fountain Grove and higher than Coffee Park. In the same study, the properties just to the east of the Penstemon Place are rated even higher on the wildfire risk index. Additionally, a term the average ember load for the Penstemon Place is in the moderate category and the eastern areas adjacent are even higher levels. The Penstemon Place project is on the edge of the wildland urban interface. And given the prevailing easterly winds during the previous catastrophic fires is in the direct path of future wildfire. Another risk not mentioned is that the Penstemon Place is a possible source of wildfire ignition. Winds from the West can carry flame from unsupervised children, inattentive adults and illegal fireworks, which we've all seem to have observed. I'm sorry, observed. Finally, the statement is made that the site development will not interfere with any adopted emergency response or evacuation plan and will have no impacts related to emergency response impairment. This statement is incorrect as related to the evacuation plan. There isn't an evacuation plan. According to the Santa Rosa City website, there are evacuation zones and the plan is to deal with it as the situation, deal with the situation as it occurs. The Penstemon Place project is slated for 65 residences and an average of two cars per residence. That is 130 cars. Given bumper to bumper traffic and the average length of cars, this works out to about a half a mile of cars. I think we all have memories of the evacuations with their associated traffic problems from the recent past. Penstemon Place is in the Southeast too. Evacuation zone and given the wildfires coming from an easterly direction, there would be an additional half mile of cars that will be the last in line. And this half mile of cars could impair emergency response to the area. Thank you so much for the time. Thank you, Mr. Roberts. The next person if they would raise their hand is Renata Breff. And then after that is Judy Kalbfell and then Steve Osburn. If you could please raise your hand. Thank you, Chair Weeks. I don't appear to see her, Renata Breff. Okay. And then Judy Kalbfell. I'm probably not pronouncing your name right. Sorry. Judy was just on and she seems to have disappeared. Yeah. Sorry there for a moment, but she's... She's down. She's down. Okay, great. So Judy Kalbfell. Thank you. My concern is pedestrian safety on Linwood. There's always been a problem at the blind corner for honeysuckle joins Linwood and there'll be more traffic with the extra houses, the new houses coming in. So what I would like is a marked pedestrian crossing with a flashing orange slice that pedestrians can activate before crossing the street. The speed limit could also be lowered at that corner as well. There's a lot of foot traffic on Linwood because of the nice parks we have in the neighborhood. And there's not a safe place to cross because there's no sidewalks on the opposite side of Linwood. So I think flashing lights would be a big help to people who walk there. And also where Brookwood comes into Linwood is a bit of a problem because a lot of the people on Brookwood think we're gonna be turning on Brookwood and they pull out in front of us, around about instead, but I'm still voting for the Brookwood to be connected. So that's all. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. The next is Steve Osborne. I think he had his hand raised a minute ago. Hello, I'm here with my wife, Renata Bress, who was, you asked to comment earlier. So if I could defer to her and then I'll make my presentation after that. All right. Thank you for letting me comment. We are in the neighborhood of the Pensimon Place and of course, we have been aware of the development or the future development for almost 25 years. And about 25 years ago, even more, we were told that as the development comes closer to the county line, where there is a minimum of 1.5 to five acres per house, the development would not be as dense as it now occurs because the development says that the density is about two to eight units per acre. Well, there's only one larger unit in that development and that happens to be right there where the beautiful two trees are that would make an ideal little park or a park for the neighborhoods. And there's already quite a lot. Somebody talking while my wife is presenting. I'm sorry, Mr. Maloney, could you mute yourself, please? Thank you. Thank you. Can you hear her time back, please? Sorry about that, Chewicks. So I was saying that the density is not what we were told years ago at the close to the border of the county line. And if you look at the map, you can see that on all three sides, actually on all four sides, the density is lower. Even in the high-density areas is lower than Pencimon Place itself. The two heritage trees would make a great neighborhood pocket park. You wouldn't have to have anything other than a few benches there. And people could with a stroller go there and not having to walk half a mile from the end all the way to the Dauenhower Park. It's a suggestion, but the density is definitely higher than all the surrounding areas. And especially close to our neighborhood, which is the rural residential density. Thank you. Thank you. Once the timers reset, Mr. Osborne, you can go. Okay, thank you. Thank you. This is Steve Osborne. The staff report on Pencimon Place includes 300 pages of public comments. About 100 of those comments say that more trees should be preserved. Another 100 say that the traffic needs more study. And the final 100 are about parks, fire, and other concerns. Despite these hundreds of pages of comments, the staff report devotes less than two pages to responses. And many of those responses don't even address the writer's concerns. For example, the staff's response to the 100 comments about tree preservations consists of only three sentences. Quote, the draft MND misstated that 16 heritage oak trees would be removed. As shown in the final version of the MND, that number has been increased to 20 heritage oaks. Tree mitigation was calculated in compliance with city code chapter 17-24. In other words, the staff response to the public outcry about preserving trees is to proclaim that the number of heritage to be removed has actually increased. There's not a single word about tree preservation. The public comments included many ideas for preserving oak trees. But I would like staff to respond to just one of those ideas at this meeting. That idea is to preserve 10 oak trees along the edge of the property and six oak trees that would be in the yards of the new houses. I gave staff all the details of this idea in writing more than a year and a half ago. As to the 100 comments about traffic, it seems clear that a new traffic study which includes the Brookwood extension will answer many of the questions that were raised. As staff is well aware, the Southeast Area Plan of 1994 included the Brookwood extension which would connect the northern and southern ends of Brookwood and would eliminate the traffic bottleneck at Linwood and Aston. The expansion appears in both the 2020 and 2035 general plans, but it somehow wasn't considered in the planning for Penceman Place which would be directly affected by the extension. Now is the time to correct that oversight by conducting a new traffic study. Now is also the time for staff and developers to respond to the hundreds of public comments by modifying Penceman Place to make it more environmentally sound, more feasible in terms of traffic and more sensitive to the needs of the local community. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Augborn. Is there anybody else who would like to make a public comment at this time on this item? Thank you, Chair Weeks. No one else is raising their hand at this time, but I do want to remind any callers if you press star nine, it'll raise your hand for me. Thank you. Don't see anyone else. So with that, we'll go ahead and bring it back to the commission. Chair Weeks, if you can officially close the public hearing. Oh, I'm sorry, thank you. Yes, I now officially close the public hearing. Thank you for the reminder. So we'll bring it back. And if we could maybe address some of the questions that were raised by the public. So I'm not sure which of the team would answer some of these questions. And please fellow commissioners, interrupt me if there are other questions. So we'll go ahead and there was a question on fire mitigation and level three wild fire risk index and how that had changed. I'm going to ask Paul Lowenthal if you're available, if you could chime in please. Mr. Lowenthal and talk about that, the fire concerns. First of all, I would like to congratulate Mr. Lowenthal. Didn't you recently become our new fire marshal? I did, thank you Chairman Weeks. Chair. Yes, so thank you for the question. It is a good question and actually that's one of the other meetings that I'm sitting on tonight is actually the fifth community meeting for the county CWPP. And there is a little bit of confusion that it's being raised because of the difference between the county's community wildfire protection plan and the city's community wildfire protection plan. So we are aware of the ratings and the GIS components that have been released through the county's plan. The city actually did mapping through the development of our plan and we're working right now to address potentially some of the discrepancies. Our evaluation was very specific to the city and the area immediately around it whereas the county's was a little bit more global and I'm not and we are working to figure out how accurate it is regarding the different classification. So again, we are aware of the counties and in fact that is still under draft form and is getting public comment and public feedback. The cities we've looked at two different ways of rating it right now both through our risk assessment map and our wildfire hazard rating map. So for that area, it does fall in areas that we identify as both low and moderate for the actual wildfire risk. And then for the hazard rating map, it's actually based on flame length. It is primarily also low and moderate. And the reason it has kind of that lower end of the spectrum is because of the fuels in that specific topography. It's mostly oak and grass woodlands on the hill whereas other areas in our community to our north and northeast part of Santa Rosa are a different type of fuel and at a much greater risk to our community for what we refer to as that northeast wind event that we've typically experienced now several times more notably since 2017. So really the greatest risk to Santa Rosa from our work that we've done is really fires, large scale fires that develop from our north to northeast. That's not to say there isn't some level of risk throughout our community. We've seen fires throughout Santa Rosa in both our densely and more rural settings of Santa Rosa. But a lot has changed to work to mitigate those risks. And some of those questions kind of came up and some of the comments that came out regarding evacuations, how we respond to emergencies and really the difference in how our department is reacting to development both in and around our wild end urban interface. It is to note that this area is actually not included in what we're referred to as our WOOI or our wild end urban interface but we still respond and treat it just like it would have been. From an evacuation standpoint we have changed how we respond to fires. When there's comments about whether or not we have an evacuation plan we have changed how we plan for evacuations and how we implement them. And we have come a long way from where we were in 2017 to where we are today. Those plans were utilized during the glass fire much differently than they were in 17. We have changed how we monitor fires, how we respond to fires and how we implement our plans to actually effectively evacuate our populations. In an area like that it is more susceptible to a fire developing in the Benavali Road or Holland Heights area and then potentially pushing down into that community. That's a much different risk than we would experience in our wild end urban interface that has more room to grow and would constitute more of a threat to our community. Our typical winds in Santa Rosa probably 95% of the season are actually out of the West. So really the threat of a fire in that specific area is actually more likely to occur from the home spreading into the wildland. Linwood is obviously a concern of ours because of the traffic it's had with a lot of the undeveloped areas. So in a roundabout way actually developing a long Linwood actually mitigate some of that roadside threat. And then we've become more concerned about the actual weed evapement efforts that would need to take place on the backside of that development to the East which would then provide for a buffer zone for many grass fire that does develop to the East and would spread to the West. And as you know, I can talk a lot. So feel free to ask any other questions and happy to jump in. Thank you. While we have our fire marshal here do anybody else have questions for him? Okay. Thank you. Sorry. Another question had to do with marked pedestrian crossing and if that was- I believe Mr. Duggan has a question. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He came in late but he wants to ask something. Sorry. Yeah, this is for the fire marshal. Just if the draft plan does come back and that area that we're talking about, Penstemon Place does end up being rated at a higher risk as the neighbors say the county is in the draft plan as it's at a higher risk than the city has classified it currently. Did that change anything about the development plan as far as the materials used or the codes they go by or anything like that? You muted? It would not. Okay. All right, thank you. Correct, yeah, no. And we are, like I said, we not to minimize the plan by any means I've been very involved in it but I've run some different tests around our community and have found some anomalies on how their data is filling over into well into the city and some of the hazards. So that is part of some of my follow up and some of my comments that I'll be making on behalf of the city back to the developer of the actual county wide plan just to make sure that that information is good and solid. Thank you. Any other questions for Mr. Lumpol? Okay. So then the question I, there was a question on marked pedestrian crossing and if that was possible, I'm not sure who that would be for. I think actually that may be something that we may want the traffic engineer. The Rob is Rob is on right now. Oh, okay. Good evening, commissioner. So we evaluate crosswalks all the time and at the city center rows and our traffic engineering division. So this would be nothing out of the ordinary for us to go out and evaluate. It wouldn't be necessarily related directly to this project but if it's an existing condition that needs to be evaluated we're absolutely happy to do that. And if the current neighbors wanted that they would reach out to you or to somebody in TPW and request that. Yeah, they absolutely would. But I wrote down the comments. So I will put it in our log to go out and evaluate. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Let's see. There was questions around the trees. And let me go ahead and ask other commissioners to ask if they have any questions that they heard in the public comments portion that they would like to see addressed. Commissioner Carter. Mr. Sparkle's sprinkle is still available. I'm curious as to what the status of the Linwood widening is I know this project has been dinged for 14% of it. Where, what is the total cost and how far are we into that? And the secondary question would be either the roundabout it asked in Linwood or the extension of Brookwood, the connection of Brookwood. Are those, is it necessary for those to be taken up in the general plan update for them to become projects? Or what's the status of either of those projects? It sounds like they're not planned at any detail level. Correct. So they currently aren't planned as part of this project is that it was identified that Linwood does need to be improved and widened to help facilitate a level of service of better than F for that northbound approach at Linwood and Aston. The Brookwood extension was in the general plan and then as Suzie mentioned, it has been dropped out and would need to be put back into the general plan. Well, actually, I don't think it's ever left the general plan. I think it was left off of the map. But what we would like to do is evaluate both that and the roundabout in conjunction with a farmer's lane extension being added because really the traffic issues related in this area, in my opinion, are related to the lack of farmer's lane extension being implemented at this time. All the neighborhood traffic and traffic that's going across town and using Brookwood as a cut through is not the ultimate design of what Brookwood is intended to be. Brookwood's intended to basically serve that neighborhood and disperse the traffic within those neighborhood out to the other arterial streets. And right now it's acting more as a cut through in addition to doing that function because farmer's lane extension has not been constructed at this point. So we need to look at this holistically. I believe this traffic study looked at the worst case scenario at this intersection with this traffic added, what is it going to look like in the future if nothing else was constructed? And we would need to add that right turn pocket to help facilitate that traffic. So definitely as part of this general plan we need to make sure we're looking at this holistically and that may or may not necessitate any further modifications at this intersection. And just a follow-up is who would be the sponsor of the farmer's lane extension project? Is it the city project? The city center. In conjunction with, actually in conjunction with, I believe that there are SCTA measure M funds available also for that project. Yeah, this is me, I'm Rob's colleague. So the funding for farmer's lane extension it has a very long history. It's one of our measure M projects. And it's been a project that we're trying to build but it's falling way short of the available funds through measure M. So really it's a project that our city council I think really needs to weigh in on in terms of the prioritization for moving forward with that project and it is a city project. Thank you. Are there other questions from the public comments or to be addressed by staff at this time before we enter a resolution for their discussion? Chair Weeks, could you return to the issue of the tree preservation and potential landscape changes for sustainability of trees? Sure. I think we didn't get that one done yet. No, thank you. So that was, there was a preservation of the tree issue and the preservation issue that Mr. Osborn mentioned. Could somebody in the applicant team or staff talk about that? This is Susie and I'm actually gonna ask Kurt Nichols to respond to that because I think that he can explain better why some of those trees are maybe survivors and maybe not and but outside the ones that are proposed to be saved. So thank you. Okay, can you hear me now? Yes, thank you. Okay. Yeah, I'm not exactly, well, let me give it a try. I'm not exactly sure how to respond because I think there were a lot of opinions expressed that I don't necessarily agree with but on the factual side, I think the statement was made that a number of the trees that are, that the commenters would like to have remain that they are located in areas that could be easily saved because they're not where houses are and they would be in the yard areas and so forth. And believe me, if that was the case, we would preserve them. I'll preserve every tree I can along with what else we're trying to do. The reality is that there's grading associated with that. If we go back to the section that I showed you, I kind of focused on what we were cutting, how we were cutting the area down by Farmer's Lane where there are no trees. But the other part I didn't really focus on that might be looking at is, as you get closer to Linwood, there's actually a low area there that is getting filled as part of that. And so it's not just a matter of placing the homes on the existing terrain to make all the grading and utilities and everything work. There's grading involved in that and that affects the ability to save all the trees. So, you know, I'm not sure if there's more specifics that commissioners would like to get into. I'm happy to. I'm just, I'm afraid I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to take that on totally. I'm back on and I'd also like to chime in a little bit. The project is, and a lot of times we see residential development, we see development in general in conflict with tree removal. And we do have these conflicts right now. We need housing and we love trees. The project has been found in compliance with the tree ordinance and actually exceeds the required mitigation because they're mitigating for trees that they may very well save. So, I mean, at the very least, we've mitigated the ones that will be removed. And in the worst case scenario, we've mitigated for the ones that are removed. In a best case scenario, we'll save some and still get those additional trees in. As far as the varietals of trees that are gonna be planted, that is something that the final landscape plan will come in, the number of trees won't change. The varietal may, there's a certain amount of valley oak trees. And I think it was close live oak that are required pursuant to our tree ordinance. But there may be some changes in the other trees if they're determined to be more appropriate for those locations. So I think it depends not just what's in that sidewalk area, but what's to the side of the sidewalk area as well where those roots can establish themselves and work their way to. But we have people that are qualified to review those plans when each individual house comes in. And then of course the street trees with the improvement plans. So. Thank you, Ms. Murray and Mr. Nichols, are there other questions that I missed from the public comments, Commissioner Siscoe. It might just be helpful for Renata's benefit to have Ms. Murray go over again how the density is set in the general plan, how that evolves over time. And then I do have a question of Mr. Nichols when we get that done. Thank you. Back. So yeah, so the general plan land use diagram designates what types of land uses will go where and with residential in this area, it's low density residential. And the low density, it allows residential development anywhere, anywhere between two and eight units per acre. Now it doesn't mean that we have to clone what's next door. We just have to get our residential densities within that figure. And this project is developing within between two and six units per acre. I'm happy to do the calculation if I can look away from the screen for a moment. But, and I also really want to point out to you that accessory dwelling units do not count towards density. And that's something they haven't, they don't now, they haven't since I've been here, I don't think they ever have. And I don't see them considering the housing crisis in the state of California. I don't see that changing anytime in the near future. But yeah, so. Thank you. To Mr. Siscoe, do you want to ask Mr. Nichols the question now? Yeah, that would be great. Mr. Nichols, good to hear you if not see you. And my question is we don't often get a chance to comment on design and architecture. But what I noticed was that there are all plan ones in a row on Linwood. And your streetscape kind of was below that where it showed one of the plan ones and then the rest. Can you kind of help me understand how you're going to have a more varied streetscape with those plans all being exactly the same so that we don't end up with them and not in the streetscape along Linwood as it starts there? Yeah, that's a good question. I might preface the whole thing by saying kind of my understanding of the requirements now is that when we started this, we needed to get into that level of design and we did. And I think as Marie indicated, we don't actually now. However, I think that, I think the applicant has demonstrated that he really wants to do a good project here. And so even starting out, getting all the architecture design, which person that I think these are nice with respect to the individual plans while they're all the same plan, each one has two different elevations. So it's not exactly the same one. And they're a little bit different. And I don't know, Susie might be able to bring those back up, but there's a plan A and B. So at least there would be two different ones. I mean, if that was an issue, I suppose there could be a modification of that. That kind of the unit that faces Linwood is the floor plan of it at any rate is designed specifically for that location such that it has a wraparound. We can get to, we have plan one, I think we're looking for which, let's see. We only have plan four, five and six. Susie, in your presentation, didn't you have plan one there somewhere? Well, or we could go to the, or we could actually go to the streetscape that we were talking about that shows a couple of plan ones there. But I guess what I was trying to point out is that the floor, the plan one plan is designed specifically to front Linwood with a wraparound front porch that you can see there and also to have the garage tucked behind in the back there. So I think that's an important consideration to how it's gonna look. And then there's also, as it is right now, they have at least two elevations, perhaps a third elevation on the same plan could help that. But I think that, personally, I think that it has Merrick to keep the wraparound front porch and the garage is tucked back as it's done in that plan. That's helpful to understand that you have different variations of elevations. It just wasn't clear in the presentation. So thank you for that. You bet. Are there other questions before I ask somebody to enter the first resolution for discussion? Okay, so not seeing anybody. Would somebody like to enter the first resolution, which is the mitigated negative declaration and MMRP? Vice Chair Peterson. I'd like to move the resolution of the Planning Commission of the city of Santa Rosa adopting a mitigated negative declaration and mitigation monitoring and reporting program for the Pennstamon Place subdivision at 2574, 2842 and 2862 Linwood Avenue, Assessors' Parcel Numbers 044-200-027, 044-2000-029 and 044-2000-040, file number PRJ16-032 and wait for the reading. Thank you. Is there a second, Commissioner Carter? And I think what we could do is talk about the project as a whole and then read each resolution into the record if that is all right with Mr. Burke. So with that, we'll start with Commissioner Carter. And as you talk about the project, don't forget to make the required findings at that point. So we're considering all the resolutions, even though one's read into the record. I'm generally in support of the project and believe I can make all of the necessary findings. I think the MNND did in fact benefit from public circulation and we've had heard from the resource agencies that are gonna be involved in that program and I can support staff's recommendations relative to the MNND and the process that we followed there. I'm not gonna address each and every one of the findings. I think the findings for the use permit are apparent and fairly easy to make. And I don't see any discrepancies with the tentative map and the city's design guidelines and requirements and zoning. Therefore, I'm generally in support of the project and the various resolutions that are before us. Thank you. Commissioner Siscoe. I'm also in support of the project and find the MNND MMRP adequate and can make all the findings for the subsequent resolutions. I think like what Ms. Murray indicated, this is a project that fills in a puzzle piece of that area of the Southeast. It's adding important infrastructure. So I think it's in keeping with the neighborhood. I think it'll finish the neighborhood off nice. It's nice to see a development occurring where there's actually already a park. So I'm happy about that. And also was pleased to see in the DAC report the policy that there will be signs and phone numbers for the neighbors to contact the contractors directly with any kind of construction questions or issues. So I appreciate that being included in the DAC. And with that, I'm in front of the project. Thank you. Commissioner Dagan. I'm also in support of the project. I can make all the required findings for the mitigation, the mitigated negative declaration and MMRP, the hillside development permit findings, the conditional use permit findings and the tentative map. And I think Commissioner Siscoe said everything I was going to say, so I won't repeat it, but I'm in support of the project. Thank you. Mr. Holton. And that's why I love going after the two of you because you've got always pretty much say exactly what I'm going to say. So I'm going to keep this as concise as possible because my mobile hotspot is actually about to die. So I'd like to get my two cents in. So I'm also an approval of this mitigated negative declaration and MMRP. I'd also like to say too, that the discrepancy in number of trees or the uncertainty. You just, we lost your audio. Oh, sorry about that. I'll just basically say this. Some of these things we're going to have to just wait and see. I'll leave it at that. Thank you very much. Thank you. And Vice Chair Peterson. I'll also echo my fellow commissioners here. I can make all of the required findings for the mitigated negative declaration, the hillside development permit, the conditional use permit and the tentative map. I do, you want to take a moment. I mean, as Commissioner Siscoe said, the end was in the presentation. You know, getting the public feedback made the report better. I think we've gotten some very thoughtful feedback from the public tonight. The concerns that were raised were addressed. I think particularly about fire, the perpetual farmer's lane extension, I guess fingers crossed that project keeps moving along and the money is there at some point to do that because I think it is a key to addressing the issues that the public raise. So, you know, some of this stuff is a little outside the scope of land use. So not really in our purview, but I do, I get the sense from the developer and from what we heard from Ms. Murray that they're willing to listen to feedback. And I think as the issues with trees and drought tolerance and all that sort of thing moves along that, you know, they're able to work productively with the neighbors as any issues may arise. So with that, again, I'm in favor of the project and I can make all the required findings. Thank you. And first of all, I'd like to give shout out to Ms. Murray and her shout out to the general plan process and how important that is. So hopefully people will get involved with that. I also can make all the required findings on the four different resolutions. I think I do also wanna appreciate the public feedback both that was during the whole process and tonight also. And I think, well, that's all I'll say about that. So with that, Mr. Maloney, it was the resolution. The first resolution was entered by Vice Chair Peterson and seconded by Commissioner Carter. Will you call roll or call for the vote rather? Thank you, Chair Weeks. Commissioner Carter. Aye. Commissioner Siscoe. Aye. Commissioner Duggan. Aye. Commissioner Holden. Aye. Vice Chair Peterson. Aye. Chair Weeks. Aye. So that passes with six ayes, Commissioner Krepke abstaining. And so we have the second resolution, which is for the hillside development permit. I would somebody like to, Vice Chair Peterson. I'd like to move the resolution of the Planning Commission of the City of Santa Rosa, approving a hillside development permit for the Pentagon Place subdivision, which will allow development on slopes greater than 10% and secure architecture for lots 27, 29, 31 through 38, 41 and 55 at 2574-2842 and 2862 Linwood Avenue, file number PRJ16-032 and waive for the reading. Thank you. Is there a second? Commissioner Holden seconds. Any other comments on this? Okay, not seeing any. That was moved by Vice Chair Peterson and seconded by Commissioner Holden. Mr. Maloney, you call for the vote. Commissioner Carter. Aye. Commissioner Siscoe. Aye. Commissioner Duggan. Aye. Commissioner Holden. Aye. Vice Chair Peterson. Aye. Is that an ayes aye? Yes, that was an ayes. Just wanted to make sure. Chair Weeks. Aye. So that passes with six ayes, Commissioner O'Crepki abstaining and we have, we'll go to our third resolution, which is the CUP Vice Chair Peterson. Why, why stop a good thing? I know. Resolution, I'd like to move resolution of the planning commission of the city of Santa Rosa, making findings and determinations and approving a conditional use permit for Pencimon Place, a small lot subdivision at 2574-2842 and 2862 Linwood Avenue, file number PRJ16-032 and waive further reading. Thank you. Second, Commissioner Carter. So that was moved by Vice Chair Peterson and seconded by Commissioner Carter. Mr. Maloney. Thank you, Commissioner Carter. Aye. Commissioner Siscoe. Aye. Commissioner Duggan. Aye. Commissioner Holton. Aye. Vice Chair Peterson. Aye. Chair Weeks. Aye. So that passes with six ayes, Commissioner O'Crepki abstaining and the fourth resolution tentative map. Vice Chair Peterson. I'd like to move resolution of the planning commission of the city of Santa Rosa, approving the Pencimon Place tentative map at 2574-2842 and 2862 Linwood Avenue, file number PRJ16-032 and waive further reading. Thank you. Is there a second? Commissioner Holton. Thank you. So that was moved by Vice Chair Peterson, seconded by Commissioner Holton. Mr. Maloney. Commissioner Carter. Aye. Commissioner Siscoe. Aye. Commissioner Duggan. Aye. Commissioner Holton. Aye. Vice Chair Peterson. Aye. And Chair Weeks. Aye. So that passes with six ayes, Commissioner O'Crepki abstaining and with that, unless Ms. Jones has anything else for us, I think that ends, okay. So with that, we'll see you all sometime in February, hopefully. So thank you all. Good night. Apologies, I have to move the camera. No.


Distinguished guests, let me thank the Swedish presidency and international idea. Your report on the EU's external democracy action comes at a crucial time. Around the world, democracy is under attack. The EU will not stand by and watch this happen. We will guard democracy in Europe and beyond. Defend and nurture it. And we will do so united as Team Europe. Our Team Europe Democracy Initiative ensures a coordinated response to counter-rising authoritarianism in three priority areas. First, accountability and rule of law. Second, political and civic participation. And third, media and digital. We also fully support the US Summit for Democracy. Ahead of the second summit for democracy, we lead a cohort to promote youth political and civic participation. With our first-ever Youth Action Plan in external relations, the EU puts young people at the centre. To give them a voice and to engage with them in new ways. Youth are agents of change. They lead the advocating for climate change, for social justice and for human rights and accountability.  I look forward to continuing to work with IDEA, Sweden, Member States and other democracy champions. Because together, we can advance the cause of democracy in Europe and beyond.