just take it away. At that point I don't know why they wouldn't they wouldn't just that's a tiny home to me though yeah I mean that's the reason you bought it if by nature you can't take it away let's what about if we hear commissioners Dan notion we'll at least have a motion to work on all right that sounds good okay um I will move the staff recommendation with the following modifications that the tiny home on wheels can be considered an ADU not the primary dwelling and not a JADU that tiny home on wheels not be allowed to be sited in driveways that tiny home on wheels are only allowed where a single family home is allowed in those own districts that a tiny home on wheels must go through a permit renewal process every three years that in section H2 we remove the word permanent that tiny home on wheels are not allowed to rely on generators within the urban services line and the rural services line and in excuse me and in rural areas tiny home on wheels if they are to rely on solar must have adequate solar access that before this item goes to the board of supervisors that staff look at annual fee options for tiny home on wheels and that staff also look at options into self-certifying for purposes of the permit process and that staff also determine when appropriate for this ordinance to come back to the planning commission after an adequate number of tiny homes on wheels have been permitted so that the commission can review this ordinance and make possible modifications I would second that but I would like to ask commissioner Dan if she would include in the comments on generators that in the rural areas not only does they need to make sure that there is adequate solar access but if a generator is installed it be I guess the term is built in as opposed to portable absolutely yes so with that amendment that slight change I would like to second that motion which is like to say I appreciate commissioner Dan kind of compiling all of our comments and absolutely ideas and I support the motion you've put before I say I think you really aggregated everything that we've discussed here and particular strong motions and thank you can I ask for I think this time or let me ask for a clarification on just one item and just the verbiage with it the solar access it and I was trying to catch all that if allowed to be on solar must have solar access I think is what you stated yes yes I think that was based on mr. Carlson's comments earlier because he said the site plan you do the verify solar access I assume that's where her language came from yeah and that's the language I should have articulated commissioner be allowed to thank you well I could offer a I could offer a friendly amendment that it use that language if you'd like that it say the site plan needs to verify solar access if you'd like I could make that friendly amendment I would accept that I would accept that so it has to provide solar verified solar access and if there is going to be a generator it has to be built in yes okay do you do you mean not necessarily built into the unit but stationary on the ground yes yeah could I ask for another clarification I'm wondering if the commission would add in one more item for me here just you mentioned that we would bring this back here a certain amount of time to review kind of how it's going and to I'm really passionate about making these work in other areas especially single family homes and as you've heard multi-family and I'd like to ask if we can include or could be possible that when it comes back if we can ever review of those things as options again and put a timeline of you know whatever feels comfortable for Miss Hansen a year from now kind of like the idea of a certain number of permits rather than a timeline and the reason for that is that while we're allowing a new type of housing unit there are you know significant utility challenges that are in the other parts of our ordinances and requirements so hooking up to septic or um having a electrical source and water source that we think may temper the rush of tiny homes permits that could have occurred um so I'd rather say after say 25 permits are issued than we could return about so I also think it's and let me know Stephanie if you agree that it would be maybe six months after that 25 so that we have some time to see how things are going yeah that that'd be even better okay so does that would that satisfy what you're looking at Tim I mean because I agree it's it'd be helpful to come back and take a look at this again yeah I appreciate that that would be that would be great so so I'll specify in my motion that we come back um six months after at least 25 tiny home on wheels permits have been issued that's fine with me as a second and could we include that we would look at this as single family homes and multifamily properties at that time I I I don't think that Stephanie indicated that sounds like a lot of staff work and thinking about it I know I wouldn't support that how about look at all aspects of the ordinance and what's functioning what's not functioning sure that's a little more open-ended and doesn't tie us in so there's no reason not to look at all aspects of the ordinance at this point at that point you want to bring that up again we could bring that up again then but we at least have some experience and granting some permits and having some installed so I agree okay um thank you I there's one other item that I'd like to just see if we can get it in or not see what you both think about it um it's really simple but to me it's just like sticking in my head and not allowing mechanical equipment on a roof of one of these units really is like such a limiting factor for not much benefit is what I'm seeing like a roof fan from a bathroom has to have somewhere to go this code specifically says you cannot do that the roof fan has to come out the side and it's just like one of those little nitpicky things but for me as a person that deals with code a lot you know it's and if I'm getting stuck to an objective standard that becomes really challenging so would you would you allow an amendment to eliminate code section f point f3 requirement of not allowing mechanical equipment on the roof well I'd like to ask mr. Carlson what other you said fans what what is the definition of what did you call it mechanical equipment mechanical equipment that's what are we talking about beside fans mr. Carlson what does that term refer to um air conditioners generators fans anything anything mechanical well alternatively if if it's allowed on the roof like allowed on the roof but then you know use the screening element like you mentioned you know which is already standard in every other type of development this is what I would say so let me just say I'm not really in favor of that within the urban and rural services line because we're talking about something that's going to be four feet away from the fence line of your neighbor and so I think that 14 foot height limit must be adhered to I'd be open to it if it were you know in the rural areas on parcel size an acre or larger but not within the urban or rural services line understood thank you for the consideration and that's just because you know for neighborhood compatibility if I have one of these you know right next door to me it should it should follow the 14 foot height limit like everyone else I just hate to just make hasty decisions I mean I live in the rural community I there is an acre you know they're in acres when my when my neighbor turns on their gas generator I hear it loud and clear maybe even more so so I'm a little confused by what we're doing here it should be I agree about all plus screening I have screening for my built-in generator that works quite well so how about a screening requirement at a minimum insulated and screened it can make a big difference I don't know I just leave it as is and you know we could we could make a staff can note to the board that this was something discussed and if the board you know wants to do something different they can do something different at this point I'm not really willing to we're basically saying well go over it again Tim you don't want to see things on the roof no no Tim wants wants mechanical equipment to be allowed on the roof well I don't know if it makes any sense to put a generator on the roof we're not talking about generators talking about a vent for a ceiling fan I mean you go by these you go by tiny I didn't understand I have I know what you mean there are fans that evaporate hot air on roofs of and I expect tiny homes would want one to have a fan on the top to get rid of hot air is that what you mean yeah that's exactly it's that simple and the reality is you go by these things off a shelf right they're not custom built typically to know our specific zone and so that's why there's this challenge presents like limiting factor for an unnecessary reason in my in that case I understand better now and I would agree I wonder if an exemption you know just everything all mechanical equipment except fans wouldn't be allowed in that way you at least get that fan feature because I can kind of imagine that you know a lot of these are going to be somewhat vertical and you'll have a sleeping loft it could get warm up there and as you also mentioned bathroom fan so maybe just a clause in there that it exempts fans out of there would that help well the maker of the motion said at this time she's not open to it and she recommended that a note be made to the board so unless Miss Dan has changed her mind right I think that at this time you should mislead and be raised her hand so I mean Miss Dan unless you I believe I mean I'm ready to move on from this topic I'm happy to hear from Commissioner Lazenby yeah well I I was just going to point out that we have gone well past where we normally have a break and we still have 42 participants online so we need to kind of move this along I think don't we yeah well if you don't have any more comments as Miss Dan has said she's not open to any more amendment so I believe we've probably already did so yeah so thanks so where are we on this last thing can we just add an exemption for fans and call it a it's up to commission just fans but I'm concerned about increasing the height beyond 14 feet so that's that's my and without going into how much does that increase the height blah blah blah I don't want to get into a 15 minute discussion about an exemption for just fans I would I'd rather staff look into this and make a recommendation to the board to this effect since we are not the final decision makers on this so you're saying we are and we're asking David when he takes it to the board to say that we discussed adding an exemption for things like fans we want the board to act on that yes keeping in mind the 14 foot limit inside there but I would agree with Dan on that as well okay I would be in full I think people in tiny home when it gets real hot are going to need a ceiling fan so I would probably agree with that let's the word can we move on to a vote I think so and I and I am trusting that Mr Carlson is and we've all kind of taken our own notes is a little messy are you clear Mr Carlson on what this is entirely you're muted David sorry yes I'm I'm pretty clear I'm clear I'm clear enough for now and to tell you the truth I can always come back and listen to this whole discussion and tighten everything up thank you sir appreciate it okay then great at this point we can close our discussion and move on to a vote Ms Drake can we please have a roll call vote on this item all right Commissioner Villalante yes Commissioner Shepard yes Commissioner Lazenby yes Commissioner Dan yes and Chair Gordon no and I would like to specify that I really appreciate where everyone's coming from I think there's a couple key things that are really important for me in here that I'd really like to clean up a little more although where it's at is is a moving in the right direction and I appreciate that so the motion passes Ms Drake great thank you at this time I reiterate how thankful I am for everyone's time and especially Mr Carlson for hanging on and walking us through that item and again this through it it was you know it's challenging new territory so we appreciate it appreciate the public hanging on we do need to address taking a break and typically we have a lunch at 11 30 especially for CTV staff Ms Drake are we at a point where we should take a 30 minute lunch can you help me clarify that yes okay okay great thank you so much I appreciate it so we will it is what time is it 12 25 or reconvene at 12 55 can we just make it one o'clock yeah I would agree one o'clock it is 35 minutes thank you everyone see you soon thank you Mr Carlson and chair okay great Ms Drake are we all refreshed a little break there you go for the next round yes maybe we should take a roll call really quick to please everybody's here okay thank you uh-huh all right I see Commissioner Villalante and Commissioner Shepard looks like Renee's with us Renee are you with us yes thank you all right and Commissioner Lazenby yes and Chair Gordon yes all right great chair chair I'm sorry I have a question about the last session we had a resolution that we did not sign or approve last session I'm not following I'm sorry okay it was on page it was page seven the resolution from the planning commission with recommending adoption the notice of exemption I believe Commissioner Dan recommended move to recommended action did you not Commissioner Dan which would have included that I believe my language said to move the staff recommendation with the following modifications okay so then you you would be the the one that made the motion okay and I it was Commissioner Shepard that second correct okay I apologize I should have restated that for clarity although that's okay okay so we're clear on that and so coming back to things here just to recap we are now on agenda item number seven which is a study session for the sustainability policy update excuse me item number eight agenda item number eight my notes are not updated and so at this time Miss Drake do we have staff available for a report and you could start it on the study session um yes I Annie I just saw Stephanie raised her hand and I just promoted her so we have as Stephanie Hansen and Annie Murphy in the policy section with us today to present great hello everybody again I'm going to share my screen to get us started are you seeing the presentation yes right okay thank you okay everybody uh Stephanie Hansen assistant director community development and infrastructure department presenting with me today is Annie Murphy senior planner um I haven't looked at the attendee list just now but um we're also scheduled to have two other planners who've worked on the project Daisy Allen and Anais shank to help with questions and answers uh today we're going to focus on the code modernization part of the sustainability update as well as agriculture and resources and um do an overview of the draft environmental impact report uh we'll begin today by discussing uh how the proposed updates uh fit into the framework of sustainability um then we'll go over some key changes in agriculture and the conservation of natural cultural resources um I think we'll have an opportunity for a break at that point if the commission wants it um then we'll get into the details of code modernization highlighting the new permit system and this will be followed by a review of the EIR and the potential significant impacts associated with the project as analyzed in that document we'll conclude with the project schedule and next steps and then take uh comments and questions from the commission and the public um chair can I ask a quick question right here um Stephanie how long is the staff's presentation portion about a half an hour if the commission likes we if we go through the whole presentation then do discussion it might go a little quicker than dividing it up but I'll leave that up to you I'm all for that all right I'm turn it over to Annie is going to talk a little bit about agricultural resources thank you Stephanie and good afternoon commissioners the county's existing general plan local coastal program was adopted in 1994 with a focus on preserving agricultural land natural resources open space and rural character and limiting urban expansion outside of the urban and rural services lines the usl rsl concept remains at the core of the county's development framework and the county's environmental protections remain intact with this project the sustainability update includes a partial update of general plan chapter five the agriculture natural resources and conservation element formally titled conservation and open space this chapter provides a framework for the conservation and management of cultural natural resources including agricultural land timber minerals water biotic resources and open space substantive updates focus on amending policies to support commercial agriculture as well as other updates to ensure consistency with state law in the county code policy language has been streamlined and reorganized for clarity county code chapter 1310 the zoning ordinance includes updated regulations for agricultural zone districts to implement these updated policies and chapter 1650 agricultural land preservation incorporates updates related to public facility uses on ag land as the majority of change is proposed to natural cultural resources are focused on reorganizing and updating general plan policies and reflecting current practices no updates are proposed to other chapters in the county code title 16 environmental and resource protection will begin by reviewing agricultural resources agricultural is essential to our community and contributes significantly to the local economy and rural character commercial agricultural land consists of lands best suited for commercial production of food and livestock and includes agricultural resource soils these lands are zoned commercial agriculture or ca the agriculture or a zone district includes land in rural areas that does not contain agricultural resource soils and support agricultural uses and is also appropriate for low density residential use land within an agricultural preserve is identified by the ag preserve combining district or p combining district and can be zoned either ca dash p or a dash p the county code currently also includes the agricultural preserve or ap zone district however all parcels previously zone ap have been rezoned in prior years to the p combining district therefore as part of this update the ap zone district would be deleted since the general plan was adopted in 1994 the local agricultural economy has evolved in 2014 and 2015 the planning department met with the farming community to better understand how policies and regulations might be updated to support modern farming practices planning staff also met with local winery and brewery owners really drowsy the updated regulations for agricultural land and for wineries and breweries were reviewed in 2015 with the farm bureau the agricultural policy advisory commission and the board of supervisors planning staff also held several community meetings the updated draft regulations for agricultural land and for wineries and breweries was reviewed by apac again in may of this year who recommended approval moving on now to review agricultural support uses to support modern farming practices and address the needs of local farmers the general plan and county cone are being amended to allow new and expanded agricultural support uses on ca and a land these changes will help ensure that commercial agriculture remains viable in the long term the updated code would allow agricultural areas for equipment storage in addition to storage buildings already allowed in the code agricultural service establishments such as farm equipment repair or retail sales of farm equipment currently allowed in the a is a district but now also be allowed in the ca district agricultural research and development facilities would be recognized as a new use that would be allowed in the ca and a districts the updated code expands agritourism to include events such as farm dinners educational activities school field trips and farmstays these uses are especially important to the viability of smaller farms streamline reviews would also be provided for greenhouses changes are also proposed to allow the extension of water or sewer district boundaries to include commercial agricultural parcels were necessary to address public health and environmental issues policies would also allow the placement of water and sewer lines on ag land in the coastal zone to serve farm worker housing and for irrigation this project also expands expands the list of public facility uses allowed on ca to add a general category of essential public facilities these facilities could be considered on ca land where a compelling need exists and where other locations are not available for these essential uses limited subdivisions of ca land would be allowed access to water distribution and wastewater treatment for these uses would also be allowed where no other location is feasible with access to these services and no other options exist for wastewater or water wastewater treatment on the site while allowing new and expanded ag support uses the county code would continue to protect agricultural land for these ag support uses discretionary review will still be required the code requires that these uses be cited off the farmable land where possible to cluster development and to not adversely impact farming in the area these standards would also apply to public public facility uses existing ag buffer set by requirements and limits on residential development are being retained to further protect the viability of ca land new concept of development area would apply which is the total area on a site that is covered by structures or any material that affects the viability of the agricultural soil projects that would result in a total development area on a ca parcel that exceeds 35 000 square feet be required to be redesigned to reduce the total development area below the threshold or consider alternative sites where these options are not feasible the code requires a property owner to place farmable land in a permanent agricultural easement in addition the development area limitations will be extended to also apply to public facilities wineries and breweries are currently allowed in the ca and a zone district as well as the residential agriculture and rural residential zones updated regulations allow for expanded indoor and outdoor tastings and marketing events such as tours the code limits hours for events and tastings the number of guests and amplified music to protect residential neighborhoods from impacts distilleries would also be allowed subject to the same regulations areas used for outdoor events would be required to be buffered from adjacent residential sites and to comply with noise standards development applications would include conditions as needed to further limit impacts on ca sites wineries and breweries would be required to be ancillary to an agricultural use incited to protect ag land and now I will turn back to Stephanie to review natural and cultural resources thanks sanny like many communities in california water in santa cruz county is severely limited the county staff worked with water agencies and groundwater management districts to protect water quality and plan for future water use the 2014 sustainable groundwater management act requires water agencies to prepare 20 year plans to protect and provide sustainable groundwater supplies a new strategy in the general plan supports this effort and brings the general plan into consistency with this act the county also coordinates with water districts and developing urban water management plans these plans require the districts to forecast their existing water use and their future water use and to ensure that they have enough water to provide for future populations and then when a new development is proposed water agencies are required to approve the water service an issue will serve letters if the proposed development is in accordance with forecasts provided in these plans uh existing requirements in the county code and the county um design criteria provide for development standards that protect water quality habitats control pollutants and support groundwater recharge policies and regulations also require water conservation primary change in the general plan is to update policies to be consistent with low impact design strategies that are already required in the county design criteria these strategies require new developments to maintain the capacity of the site to retain storm water and recharge groundwater low impact design strategies also include things like bioswales um that utilize landscaping to filter water and screen pollutants um the sustainability's update uh sustainability updates focus on infill development will also help with more efficient water use existing policies and regulations protect biotic timber mineral resources and these will remain in place with this update the sustainability update also introduce introduces a new open space plan which is required by state law and includes an inventory that identifies the categories of land um with open space values policies and regulations that protect open space um will remain in um in effect in the visual resources section uh the policy protecting scenic assets such as ocean views and ridge tops that have not yet been mapped has been added to strengthen the design review for development on sites that have these resources the visual resource policies in the general plan also protect scenic corridors and roads um there's a long list of scenic roads that are in the existing and the proposed general plan um and these include the entirety of highway one within the county um since it was originally adopted in 1994 much of the tree cover in the urban area um has been lost analysis by planning staff determined that the urban corridor of highway one between western drive and sienna cruise to the west and bay avenue in capitola to the east no longer meet the general plan criteria for designation as a scenic corridor so this portion the urbanized portion only would no longer be considered locally scenic uh photo on the bottom of this screen shows um highway one along mission street which is in the portion that would be removed in the photo on the right shows highway one near real demar which is more forested would be uh retain its local scenic designation the updated general plan includes new policies that um recognize tribal cultural resources um policies are added requiring the county to work with affected tribes and identify and protect their resources policies has have also been updated to implement best practices for archaeological sites and for historic resources new policy encourages the maintenance and upkeep of historic resources to reduce the risk of demolition through neglect fire or natural disaster a new strategy also clarifies that a historic evaluation is required prior to demolition of any structure over 50 years old um that may qualify it as a historic resource um i think this was where we had a moment in the presentation to offer a break but i think we'll just continue going so um i will turn it back over to any to do an overview of the code mod changes thank you Stephanie the Santa Cruz county code was first adopted in the 1950s and has been amended in a piecemeal fashion in the decade since as a result land use regulations have become increasingly complex and challenging to navigate recognizing the need to make county code regulations more user friendly county staff begin engaging with the community in 2013 and after meeting with the board of supervisors in 2015 to review code drafts included the code mod in the sustainability update project for today's meeting we are focusing on the new permit framework new regulations for weddings and community events other amendments to moderate modernize and reorganize the code key goals for the code modernization include creating an efficient permit review process clarifying and updating regulations while continuing to protect the neighborhood and environmental quality the most significant change to modernize the code is the introduction of the new permit framework currently planning permits or approvals are categorized by processing levels for minor development and use changes that only require administrative approvals processed at levels one through four two more substantial projects that require a public hearing processed at levels five through seven the new permit framework replaces the process levels with more descriptive terms that are commonly used in other communities a crosswalk of bold to new permit types types is provided in chapter 1810 of the county code and is also summarized on this slide first the new permit framework introduces two types of planning permits use permits for projects related to land use such as the establishment of a new restaurant and site development permits for projects that propose physical development of a site such as the construction of a new building secondly the framework now includes descriptive terms for permit and processes based on the intensity of the proposed project zoning and environmental clearances provide a new ministerial over the canon review to identify relevant standards and verify that no additional review is required before the applicant can apply for a building permit these clearances are generally equivalent to level one and two approvals currently in place minor use and site development permits are discretionary permits approved administratively without a public hearing or public notice similar to level three projects in the current system administrative use and site development permits are discretionary permits for projects that may impact neighborhoods and so would require public notice but are still approved administratively by staff without a public hearing like a level four permit additional use and site development permits are required for projects that propose more substantial change to the existing land use and require public notice and a public hearing additional use permits and conditional site development permits are equivalent to existing levels five through seven updates to the new permit system also includes streamlining reviews where appropriate and allowing some uses to be approved administratively where a public hearing was previously required more uses that are compatible with the zone district are now permitted by right to provide a more efficient permit process a site development permit may still be required for uses that are permitted by right where physical development is proposed additional use and site development permits generally would be reviewed by the zoning administrator while many projects previously approved by the board of supervisors would now be brought to the planning commission as a key decision maker such as large mixed use projects requirements for commercial weddings and community events on private residential and rural properties have been clarified with this update a new code section regulates commercial weddings and similar events on rural and agricultural properties located outside of the urban and rural service lines these regulations would not apply to private family events or other non-commercial celebrations the primary goal of these new regulations is to accommodate these types of events eliminating impacts to the surrounding neighborhood as well as to preserve the primary use of these rural parcels the code allows commercial weddings is a secondary use on properties where the primary use is either residential or a winery or brewery or vineyard with approval of a c up new approval procedures and standards require permit conditions appropriate for the neighborhood context specifying the maximum number of guests allowed the number of events per year limits on amplified music and parking requirements new regulations for community events and fundraisers establish similar requirements for events on private residential or agricultural property new regulations would allow one event per year without amplified music and up to two events per year that can include amplified music with approval of a minor use permit community event organizers would also be required to notify owners and occupants within 500 feet of the event 10 days prior to the event responding to comments from your commission staff is proposing to extend the noticing requirements for community events and fundraisers in increments of 50 feet were needed until owners of at least 10 properties have been notified by mail this update would be consistent with existing noticing requirements for discretionary projects other changes are proposed to the county code to update regulations and make the code easier to navigate the code has been reorganized in and consolidated where appropriate including moving procedural requirements such as general plan and county code amendment requirements to title 18 which is procedures the list of uses allowed in the zone districts have also been updated obsolete standards such as local solar access and gas station requirements have been removed to ensure consistency with state law use charts are also updated to include modern uses such as new research and development uses in urban industrial and commercial districts or a variety of uses including residential care facilities visit accommodations and animal keeping amendments update terms clarify standards and consolidate regulations outdoor storage regulations include new requirements for the location and amount of firewood storage and prohibit commercial firewood operations on residential sites definitions in county code section 13 10 700 were also updated to be consistent with new regulations state law and the general plan today's presentation highlights the most significant code modernization drafts of all county code sections we reviewed today are available on the sustainability update project website are also linked as exhibit e in your staff report now I will turn the presentation back to Stephanie to review the eir thank sanny sequa requires local governments to local governments to analyze proposed projects to determine any environmental impacts and how to reduce them the county determined that an eir was the appropriate level of analysis for this project and the eir for this project is a program eir which means it's relatively high level countywide analysis of environmental impacts and it does not analyze specific project impacts which makes sense because no specific development projects are proposed for this project all non-exempt future developments that occur would still need to analyze their impacts under sequa and some projects will benefit from tearing off of this eir but still may need supplemental analysis to fully understand any impacts because the general plan is a 20-year plan the eir does analyze the indirect impacts associated with growth in that timeline for the purpose of the eir it's assumed that approximately 4,500 dwelling units would be developed and about 6 million square feet of commercial building square footage over the 20 year would be developed over the 20-year planning horizon the draft eir was released on April 14th and had a 45-day comment period as required by law a community meeting was held on the eir on May 9th and 14 timely comments were received from the public and agencies and those are included in the staff report starting on page 55 responses to the comments are being prepared and will be addressed in the final eir which is scheduled for release on august 12th and staff will report on the final eir including the responses to comments at the public hearing on august 24th as part of the project adoption process the planning commission will be requested to recommend certification of the eir as a part of this project so the eir analyzed all environmental resources as required by sequa basically comparing what the impacts of the new policies and future growth would be when you compared them to baseline situation baseline is basically our current situation with the current general plan and current regulatory codes that are in effect now while the eir found that there would be less and significant impacts to most resources in the county a conservative analysis of potential future growth could have some significant and unavoidable impacts as explained in the eir eir identifies these impacts along with proposed mitigation just talk a little bit about the impacts first and then we'll talk about the mitigation the first resource area would be in agricultural resources the new policies that allowed ancillary uses support uses and utilities and essential public facilities could result in the conversion of prime unique or farmland of statewide importance and conversion of agricultural uses in the area of biological resources the the project includes the redesignation and rezoning of 23 parcels and one of these parcels is the six acre site at thurber lane and soquel avenue and that would change from commercial zoning to a mix of residential flex and c2 commercial zoning this site is a key opportunity site but also has a stream that bisects the property from north to south and future development could impact the stream especially if it's piped or moved to the prop to the perimeter of the site which would be a permanent impact to riparian habitat and cultural resources although it's unknown at this time it's possible that future development could affect undocumented historical built resources particularly if preservation or avoidance of the resource is not feasible and again this is a very conservative approach there are some codes in place that would protect these resources but mitigation is offered to further strengthen those codes in transportation sequo requires that we analyze transportation impacts in terms of vehicle miles traveled or vmt vmt is the number of miles generated by vehicles so in other words one mile traveled by one vehicle is one vmt in this way transportation impacts are more closely tied to the statewide goals of reducing greenhouse gases and the county has adopted as required by law has adopted at vmt thresholds for new development although the urbanized development pattern policies and programs in the sustainability update will reduce vmt when compared to current conditions the eir found that it would not be reduced enough in order to meet our threshold of 15 reduction especially in the areas of residential and non-retail in addition when these projects are considered along with cumulative projects which are projects that are in the permitting pipeline or projects that are in neighboring jurisdictions there would also be a cumulative impact the last area was in the was the effect on water resources the draft eir analyzed future potential development and found that the potential development and growth appears to be within the growth projections developed by each of the six major water districts serving the unincorporated urban areas however depending on the timing of development there are two districts where there could be not enough water compared to their forecast and it also has to do with the fact that some of that growth is in city of santa cruz and some is in the city of capitol us it's a little hard to tell the timing of it the eir found that the project and our forecasted growth may result in an exceedance or approach the limit of the city of santa cruz's forecasted growth and the soquel creek water districts forecasted growth for the communities that it serves these impacts are considered again conservative but it's important to acknowledge the the issues with water supplies and again like transportation the project could contribute to a cumulative water supply problem when or impacts when compared or when considered with development in other communities so the eir has several mitigation measures that it offers in agriculture we would amend the code to add public and quasi public facilities to the types of projects that require special findings in order to address the conversion of ag land in biological resources mitigation measure would require a preparation of a mitigation plan that details the replacement of habitat areas on that parcel at thurburn soquel it would also require maintenance and monitoring for the establishment of the mitigation in cultural resources there are two mitigation measures one is a preparation of a historical resources evaluation to avoid impacts for any properties that may be over 50 years old and of historic value and the second mitigation measure would require that historic that a historic building proposed for major alteration or demolition be thoroughly documented with with video pictures recordings etc according to industry standards and transportation there are also two mitigation measures mitigation measure tera dash one would develop a regional mitigation banking program to start to create a mechanism for funding transit active transportation and multimodal transportation improvements private development would offset their vmt impacts by contributing to the mitigation program a second mitigation measure would add additional implementation strategy in the general plan to start to evaluate additional parking related measures such as paid parking and the use of parking fees to fund transit and finally in water while the policies in the general plan and other documents encourage conservation and water demand has been flat and decreasing within several of the districts and there are policies that require that development only be allowed where adequate water supplies are available and all water purveyors have to approve new connections with those things in place the eir doesn't didn't find any other mitigation measures that could be implemented to offset water impacts i just wanted to spend a little time talking about level of service because i know that this continues to be an important issue that the community expects in the cqa document and although level of service is no longer an impact under cqa the draft vir does include an analysis um level of service analysis measures the amount of traffic congestion at intersections and along roadway segments um level of service is measured on a scale from a to f with a being free flowing traffic and f representing congested conditions where traffic can be described as stop and go and vehicles have to wait more than one traffic cycle to get through an intersection the sustainability update does include a list of future transportation projects that can be considered in the future and would be candidates to be included on our capital improvement program when funding is available on this is appendix j of the general plan so in the analysis that's contained in the eir eight intersections were found not to meet the county's level of service standard of d under future conditions um these include um about five intersections along sokel drive and a couple of other intersections um at seventh and eaten and capitol road and 17th and portola drive and 41st um and so additional improvements would be needed in those um at those intersections to improve conditions and and meet the county's level of service standards um as required by the board of supervisors operations along portola drive were also analyzed if the portola drive streetscape concepts were implemented the concepts and vision a transition between 26th and 41st avenues from four lanes to three lanes uh three lanes being two lanes plus a center lane in order to accommodate a more pedestrian and bicycle friendly streetscape in that area the level of service analysis revealed a decline in the operations of major intersections at 30th and 38th and 41st um and actually at 41st that intersection would operate at a level of service f whether the sustainable um excuse me whether the portola drive streetscape concepts were in place or not so signalization improvements are therefore recommended at these intersections which would improve operations back up to a level of service a um in addition if a roundabout were to be considered at 41st um avenue the peak uh level of service would actually be a little lower at level of service speed for these improvements additional analysis engineering programming funding sources would have to be um secured before they could go into effect and I think there would be other opportunities for further input for instance when you know such a project were to be incorporated into the capital uh improvement program which happens once a year um also as required by law the EIR analyzes several alternatives for the project the first one is the no project alternative um that's where none of the new documents would be adopted and and uh future growth would occur as it would occur under the current general plan alternative to had reduced growth um so we didn't grow as many um get as many housing units and as much commercial development um instead we met ambags um current adopted regional housing and employee employment growth projections so a little bit lower um and then the third alternative was a reduced project this would mean that uh some components of the sustainability update didn't go into effect and we would eliminate the zoning map changes on the 10 parcels to residential flex um and um the existing zoning designations on these parcels would be retained the second component would be to eliminate the um regulations that allow public and quasi-public um uses on ag lands as required under CEQA um we had to identify an environmentally superior alternative and that was alternative two with the reduced growth um that comes closest to meeting the goals of the project while reducing the most uh environmental impacts um and lastly the AIR also studies the significant irreversible impacts of growth and found that no irreversible impacts were identified that could be not that couldn't be mitigated and the project would not directly or indirectly result in unplanned growth or projects that would remove obstacles to growth so we wanted to just take a moment to review the timeline for this project as you know the draft amendments have been out since February and the draft documents are still available for public comment there's a series of community meetings this spring and we also met with several of the commissions including your commission the agricultural policy advisory commission the latino affairs commission and the historic resource commission um just recently on july 29th um staff is analyzing comments from previous planning commission meetings at this time and also comments from agencies that have been collected either as part of comments in the project or part of comments on the EIR including comments from the coastal commission and these questions and comments from these study sessions and the public comments will be reviewed for you again on august 24th and we'll also talk about the final EIR um at that meeting we'll return to the planning commission for a second public hearing on september 14th um and then we'll be asking at that at that meeting for recommendation to the board of supervisors board of supervisors with an intern had public meetings hearings from october through december after the board adopts amendments they would need to go to the coastal commission for certification and with that we'll end today's um presentation with our recommended action which is to hold a study session on the sustainability update focused on agricultural natural resources um code modernization and the EIR and that includes our presentation all of our this is a group effort uh this project so uh there's four of staff available to help answer any questions that the commission may have thank you very much great thank you so much miss hanson and um for everyone who helped and looking forward to digging in and i appreciate the presentation um we can go one or two ways i'd like to hear the commission other commissioners ideas here but um i would suggest that maybe we let the public have their time to comment before we dig in too much um yeah miss sure gordon i agree with that can i just ask how many members of the public are here to to address the commission on this matter um i'm not seeing a long list to be honest to maybe a handful small handful okay great i i would agree that we should um hear from the public first uh before commission comments okay thank you let's go ahead and do that we can open the public comment for this at this time all right so this is the time to remotely raise your hand if you're calling in by pressing star nine or raising the hand icon on the team or the zoom app and i will call on folks you'll have three minutes to speak um let's see if we have any i'm seeing a hand raised by patricia brady good afternoon patricia will you please restate your name for the record patty brady i'd like to just um reemphasize the um residents concern about the uh residential flex increases on portola and encourage the planning commissioners to really recognize the beach area differentials from other parts of the county from the standpoint of both our weekend and daily um visitors residences etc the um changes in upgrading or changing zoning to up to 45 units plus density bonuses if they are allowed would really create major impacts on both portola and within you know the pleasure point community so we've already had discussions on this since you we've sent an opinion paper there have been two articles in the newspaper about neighborhood concerns and we very much appreciate your attention to the residents knowledge of our neighborhood and the issues that um this impact this increase would um how it would impact the neighborhood and just the commercial area we totally support a downgrade of the 30 units we're not against growth but we are against an overage of density so thank you very much for your time your efforts and certainly the hours you put in on this it's very much appreciated thanks patty all right um are there any additional members of the public who wish to comment on this item the sustainability update i'm not seeing any chair um if i see a hand pop up i'll let you know great thank you so much i appreciate that um so then for now we can go ahead and close the public comment and bring it back to us through the commission for discussion anybody want to start with any questions or comments i'll just say i have uh quite a large number of comments and questions so i'm happy to go first or last whichever um whatever the commissioner commission um would prefer i think it'd be great if you went first perhaps i would save some of the duplication actually okay i'll do that um so i'm going to start with the general plan and then hit the zoning code second and you know because i'm toggling back and forth um online um i just be patient with me um so starting with the general plan and i'll just start by saying um you know goes without saying that um i appreciate the enormous amount of work that staff has put into this um this is also from my perspective one of the most important parts of of this project and i really appreciate staff moving this uh study session at a time when i could be here and i know that that wasn't easy and so i just want to acknowledge that and thank you for that um and i think you'll see um when i dig into this why it's so important um i don't also just say that um a lot of reading is a lot of the changes and what's been put in here was like a a blast from the past because so many of these issues are in here because they originally came up um as you know areas of conflict that the supervisors offices had to deal with and i see commissioner vialanti nodding her head because i believe that she's um had to deal with a lot of the same stuff and uh so um well most of my questions are asking you know because there's quite a few changes that are being proposed in the ag section and a lot of them i'm just kind of like what's the reasoning behind this and so most of the questions are going to be asking for your thought process and what specific situations where you are you thinking about you're trying to address with this change in the language because some of the changes are quite significant in my view um so starting with the um the types of the definitions of the types of ag land um type 2d um is proposed to be uh eliminated and this is land suitable for commercial ag use but with limiting factors including pressure from residential use um just so why is this why is this being proposed to be eliminated um let's see um i am looking at policy arc 1.1.2 is that where you're looking types of yeah land right um okay um yeah so why i so in the draft that i'm looking at i wonder if there's a mix up in the draft but in the draft i'm looking at type 2b is not eliminated um i'm sorry yeah i i didn't mean to say that um so but it's being added oh right it's underlined in mine um so so the intent mainly of of these um this update to this policy is just to clarify what and add more detailed descriptions about these um types based on language and the glossary so so type 2d is an existing um ag land resource type and it the land added language is just intended to clarify based on the glossary definitions a little give a little more information about these land use types in the policy okay um okay so um the next one i have is um 1.1.9 let me get down to that one myself um and that is about coastal access through ag land yes um oh i'm sorry did you have a further question or i do i'm just i'm just scrolling down to it myself okay so i believe this is so what is added is um protect coastal access and agricultural land use is in the coastal zone by minimizing coastal access ways through an adjacent agricultural land and then follow well um so i well let me just ask what was the thinking of adding this specificity in here um so this policy was so part of what we did was like reorganize and try and put policies where they made the most sense so this policy was actually it's not it it summarizes a policy that was actually in chapter seven of the jano farm previously so we thought it made more sense to put it in with the section of the code for um agricultural land so it doesn't really change and then there are implements patient strategies in the section that also implement the policy but it doesn't really change the language it's just sort of consolidating and putting it where it seems easier more logical to find it okay thank you that clarifies that um the reason why it flagged for me is that um there are situations where um coastal access is necessary like on an existing road or a trail through ag land to access another uh like a state park or another public some other public land that is used by the public um so i just want to make sure that this policy wouldn't prohibit um wouldn't prohibit that it would not yes it's it's read as minimizing but i think that the intention is that if you know you minimize it but if you need to have access there to provide access to you know a park or other land that it would be allowed okay great jules you go on could you say what page you're on um yes i so when i started my notes i didn't put the page number but um as i move on i i did um right now i'm going to be on page 33 this is the online version 33 of 146 and so the next one i'm looking at is a is a is a significant one and that's the utility district expansion and that's policy 1.1.13 on page 33 um so this is quite it's from my perspective this is um a substantial and significant change and um the i had some concerns about it reading it and then i read the letter from the coastal commission and they um have similar concerns so i just would like to know from staff's perspective what the thought process was in modifying this section um yes so um so one thing i want to clarify that the intention is to serve um existing development where um there may be a failing um septic system or um a well water where it's not meeting minimum state health standards for drinking water so so the intention is really to address these sort of limited safety concerns on existing development um we did um discuss this with um environment of health with john ricker as well and he kind of brought up these concerns um there are a couple of sites um and of course there's it would also need to be consistent with the um the w combining district the utility combining district in san andreas area that prohibits extensions of um water and sewer lines from the city of watsonville to cross that to to the south to serve the san andreas planning area so they have to be consistent with that but its intention is really just to be able to identify sites where there are filling systems where there isn't really another option to allow water and sewer lines in those cases and then there would be um it would be required to be located below the tillable soil depths to protect the farmland um and then further on a policy also um requires that um service fees only be um charged to the policy to the property that's receiving the service to minimize um you know additional fees for ag land so i i see that um i think that though there could be some additional language to more specifically identify the specific circumstances that you're identifying here and but i'm not sure that expanding an entire district is the right way to go about it and i have some ideas about some language that might um satisfy my concerns instead of the coastal commission that i i can offer um on the 24th or the september 14th whenever the data's were making recommendations but um this is a significant one for me and um and i as i've seen for the coastal commission as well but thank you for that um okay so the next couple i had were related to to the water and sewer lines um okay the next one oh gosh okay um was on page 39 i don't say so page 39 when you say the online version yeah the online version um 1.1.3d okay that won't work if we're not looking at it online so maybe you could just say what it's about it's the only version i have i wish i understand but maybe you just tell us what yeah i will read it so um this is um proposed policy 1.3.1d small letter d and it's regarding the conversion of commercial agriculture lands which as you commissioner shepherd know we have really really tight policies about the conversion of commercial ag lands and so um this is speaking to that issue and d from what looks like to me is a new proposed policy which is talking about an exception to the findings of a and b um applies to the conversion of agricultural land to accommodate so this is speaking to the public quasi public use where necessary to address the compelling public health and safety or environmental concern subject to the findings of bubble box so this is one that i i'd like some explanation why this is being added um i'd like to hear some suggestions of what you would consider something with overwhelming need too yeah thank you yeah so i think the intention here is to be able to provide um a public facility use in an area where it's needed um the social dresses concerns with the board supervisors that public facility uses be able to be provided where needed um and like what kind of public facility we're talking about a park we're talking about a wastewater treatment i mean that public facilities can be anything a county building i mean i think that a prison a prison if we're talking about converting ag land um i think we need to be really specific yeah i mean it must if you saw the need to do this there must have been something that raised well we really need to have an axe but this is wide open do you want to add to that Stephanie yeah like maybe i can help um i any can confirm but i believe this in part came up from the um necessary changes at the Buena Vista landfill that facility is coming to a close um and they're going to need to build a transfer station they're doing some other work um and having no no policy that allowed um our ability to locate a facility in a place that really you know needed facility in a place that made sense like makes makes much more sense to build a transfer station at this site than to find another site in the county to build a transfer station because you already have similar facilities there the landfill will then be transferred to another facility landfill contents would be transferred to another facility in Monterey county um and so there are times when you have a facility and there really isn't another place where you can locate it and i think it was the concept that we provide some very limited circumstances where if you have to have a public facility and there's nowhere else you can locate it um that there be provision for that okay that makes sense i understand now why this was put in here um if it's for the Buena Vista facility though i don't think that um if it's just specifically for that facility i don't even think it's worth it because um i doubt so first of all i don't think that it um it squares with the coastal act um and i i mean i don't think that the coastal commission would agree to converting ag land for that purpose um so anyway i'll just say this this um addition um is makes me very uncomfortable and i'm not sure i i support it and then i actually don't know that it will um it will actually meet the goal that it's intended to meet if it's for the uh transfer station um so the next one i have i believe is let's see okay okay it's uh it's skipping quite ahead to uh 3.1.14 which i'll give you the page number in just a second if somebody can has a good for me feel free to yell it out 3.1.14 it's about harkin slew road i'm looking at a different version than you have i'm looking at the um the i have the same document she has it's page 64 3.4 you said 3.1.14 right it's the online version for me it's like the if you go to the sustainability update website i mean i i'm using the same version she is i would just if richa could just say what it's about i don't want to go i only have one screen i can't look at another screen and look at you guys so totally agree i am i'm getting there it's the okay here we go 3.1.14 can i just give a little background of this before you dive in okay i have background but go for it yeah well so so the coastal commission what are their comments was there they're adamantly opposed to changing this so i could just tell you that what we're proposing for the when we come back with the final draft is basically to keep the policies as they are now consolidate them in another section and just not mess with it so that's the that's right thank you any if it in the vibe yeah we saved a whole bunch of time right yeah like 20 your history with that yeah all right okay that was the great compromise okay um the next one is on page 91 this is where i started getting smart and putting in my own page numbers and it has to do with septic issues and which policy is this i forgot to write down the policy okay some reason i'm looking at the online version but i'd have it different page numbers i'm not sure why so okay um so annie it's not the page number at the bottom it's like the page number of the pdf so it's 91 of 146 versus the bottom it's page 85 you're saying oh gotcha okay thank you i took me a minute to realize that clarifies okay like wait why am i not seeing the same pages yeah no it's page 91 uh for it 146 that's really quick just to be really clear because we have a you know a handout that probably people in the public are following and that's what i'm following and i'm not seeing exactly where you guys are at either so that's because i'm on the website are you i can't see either so she's in the general plan itself so it's it's it's not part of the staff document it's it's thank you then you then you gotta tell us what you're talking about i am going to i'm so sorry but so i actually i'm reading the entire general plan on this section because that's where the the money is the meat is um so right now um i am referring to page 91 of the online version of the the ag portion of the general plan um and there's a whole bunch of and for now you might be very interested in this because there is a whole bunch of septic requirements that are being proposed to be deleted um and so i wanted to understand what the thinking was behind that um yes so are you saying that we didn't have this i i am a little confused as to i thought i read the big documents i got the call and the staff report is this something else yes they did not provide us the entire general plan in our staff report well of course they just provided a summary which didn't go over you know of course it didn't go over all the changes so to really see every single change in addition that's being proposed you have to go on to the sustainability website and and click on the actual chapters of the general plan well i have to say as a district that you know being the district has all septic tanks i really need to look at this and i i have not but we got another crack at it later this month so can i uh stephanie could you help me find that section i don't want to have to read wasn't planning to read the entire general plan if you can help me out by saying just sending any email and maybe anybody else who wants it too with some direction and how to find that certainly we can provide the direction um these all of these documents are on the project website and you know the general plan is quite large and when you um taken in all of the underlying strike-through changes it gets even larger um so i i'm very happy to point out the policies that commissioner dan is um is picking up on and i can i can help you you find them well thank you i would appreciate just some guidance on anything that particularly applies to fifth district which is all septic tanks for example that would be anything that you know from new york's sense of knowledge is particularly pertinent to this district which has different constraints and different realities than the rest of the more urbanized districts i would appreciate that help i i think when we have a chance to hear the comment and respond i think that might help with the concerns so go ahead commissioner yeah i'll just say before you tell me your thinking behind this that i actually would encourage all of us even though it is extensive but we all have to read the general plan i mean that's the only way we're going to know what's happening here is if we go into it and read those strikeouts and additions otherwise um you know staff's well attention staff report is not going to give you what you need to know to make a thoughtful recommendation to the board um so anyway um so yeah could you explain what's going on here um right so we worked with john ricker on this section um and so many of these deletions he um just felt that it was more detail one of the goals of you know the updated general plans to try and streamline policies and sort of keep them at a higher policy level so so these aren't um these most of these aren't really substantive changes in terms of the county's process and requirements but a lot of these um are are referencing the uh septic disposal ordinance entitled seven of the county code um so um so yeah for the most part we're not really changing our um existing um sewage disposal requirements that um john ricker will be bringing ordinance to um you may have already come to the planning commission for for septic so um this will also be brought in line with with that um amendments so there may be additional policies will be added to that um as part of his update to the sustainability update but generally it's not changing existing practice it's just trying to consolidate and reference the code okay okay that makes sense i figured it had to be something like that yeah maybe at our next hearing we could ask him to attend and give explain it why he made those changes he's usually very succinct and to the point or i can also if he's not available i can also see if i can give you a little more detail about each policy if that'll be helpful yeah okay um so the next section is on visual resources um and it's five point five point one point one and now i'm lost on the online version i have to say okay so i'm just gonna go by my notes because somehow i i'm not going in order here so this is a designation of visual resources um yeah and i can um if people are looking at the online version this is page 104 of the pdf thank you i'm definitely gonna be writing down online page numbers in my next go of things so i apologize for being so confusing okay you said one of okay there it is yes thank you okay so actually the one i'm more concerned about is five point one point five preserving ag vistas so i think it actually five point one point one i have some language some real kind of um easy language that i can um suggest when the time is appropriate but the one i'm more concerned about is five point one point five which changes some language from yes it takes out shall be and ads are considered which to me seems to weaken this policy what's the what was why why was that modified in that way um to be the the previous planning director felt that general plan policy should not use the word shall for the most part i don't necessarily agree with that personally to be honest but that that's the reasoning for it i think she thought it was more appropriate to okay not use that type of words in a kind of policy so okay why not the other thing to add to that stephanie i don't oh you're muted all right um just that this is a policy document not a code and a lot of the language cleanup tries to keep the policies consolidate them keep them at a higher level policy so that when like the septic ones we were just talking about so that when you go to the code you have the actual requirements in in the code and so that's part of what's happening here not to remove um any regulatory power at at at all um but just to distinguish between a policy document versus a you know a code of regulations that actually that actually helps a lot to understand a lot of the language changes actually so um i appreciate that and um so this that may actually be the explanation for the next one which is open beaches and bluff tops which is 5.1.7 page 106 and the issue i have here is the sentence that says um do not permit the placement of new permanent structures to be developed in a manner that would be adversely visible from a public beach so the word that sticks out for me is adversely because there's a lot of subjectivity to that um so i'm just i guess i'm wondering what staff thinks about that i think part of it is clarified somewhat in the next um underlined sentence that some development may be permissible but should be appropriately designed to to minimize visual impacts and versus used again but honestly i don't i don't think it's possible like just thinking about you know development you know along the coast of bluff on the beach like i think it's impossible to if they're if they're replacing a house with a new house i think it would be impossible but not to be visible so i think maybe part of it's just acknowledging what's what's possible you know on certain sites but i mean it stuck out to me because you guys know we have bad issues that's come up um so the next one is ridge tops okay and the similar issue here um different adjective so that is 5.1.8 let's see protect ridge tops where am i here this is hard i have to say having to do it this way okay i'm actually page 106 right at the bottom protect ridge tops and prominent natural land farms such as cliffs left students rocks blah blah blah from inappropriate development and impacts on visual resources public vista scenic assets so i like the second underlined section inappropriate development why not just say development that has impacts um if it's interfering with a public vista wouldn't that by definition mean it's inappropriate um yeah i think the original language read protect ridge tops and prominent natural land forms such as cliffs plus etc from development so i think that language in itself probably is doesn't quite work but i think you know if you if you wanted to reword it um i think what you're saying is other significant features from development that impacts visual resources right is that kind of what you're thinking pretty much yeah that that could work and it speaks to um sea of that section which i actually have all of these feel like is the one that is weakens the policy the most as modified i i like the language that was crossed out which just says prohibit the creation of new parcels which would require structures to project above the ridge line tree line or along the edge of prominent natural land forms and that was replaced with restrict the height and placement of buildings instructors to prevent their projection above the ridge line restrict structures and structural projections adjacent to prominent natural land forms to me prohibit is better than restrict though i mean i guess we're parsing language here though it seems like a weakening to me unless i'm missing something i just want to say that i think commissioner dance making good points because these things she's bringing out are the ones we spend hours on and planning commissions with people who want to do just that so it is worth picking picking nits on language and i would support what she said so far it just brings back endless conversation from people who want to do whatever they want to do on the bluffs yeah thank you um a lot of this is from uh many years of uh dealing with stuff here um so yeah i'll just put that that was just you know food for thought first step when this comes back um the next one is about timber um so this is page moving on to 117 and there's some significant proposed changes about how we deal with timber harvest plans so let me get to the item so i can remember what i was thinking okay so so this is speaking to when a timber management plan should be required and when a timber harvest plan is required i guess i just wanted to know where this was did this come from discussions with um foresters or farm bureau or big creek um what it's actually doing is is making sure there are some inconsistencies between the general plan and between the county code so it's actually the code is what we've been following so it's actually bringing the general plan policies into alignment with the code aha okay yeah in terms of when we're required a timber management plan great okay well that um that satisfies that um then let's see i think that might be it for my questions on the general plan and then so i have a couple on the zoning code um um so i'm going to start with community events let me see if i can find that section here oh yeah here we go um so this is the zoning code now so we're in a different online document and from my online um version of the chapter 1310 it's page 10 community events and fundraisers on private residential or agricultural property yeah this code is um the section of the code is 1310 six many events six 14 six 14 yeah six 14 yes yeah i know it's two um so this one um i just so my understanding for this one is that uh as you said in your uh introduction to what this is proposing is to allow up to two events per year with no noticing and uh no public hearing which is a it's a quite a big change so i just want to make sure i'm understanding that correctly if that's what's being proposed with it so it's being proposed with a minor use permit which would be no noticing no public hearing um that's correct these do require a a mailed notice prior to the event but there is not um there's not so i guess that's similar but there's not notice of that like the permit approval but there is notice required to be sent out um if you look at um e e1a on the top of page um page 11 um neighborhood notice for each event a notice is required to be mailed to all property owners and occupants within 500 feet of the subject property at least 10 days in advance of the event right okay yeah um okay so i'm this this one i um can be thinking about quite a bit i mean this i think this one and then the next item i'm gonna move on to which is commercial weddings on private property is probably one of the most contentious um issues that have come up in my time here um and so i think it's it's worth um worth really thinking about and in general i guess i'll just ask a general comment in general it seems that um the the great the the need for public hearings is being reduced and so i guess i wanted to know given how contentious these these have been um with neighbors and how many times are usually appealed um what was the thinking behind reducing the amount of um um public hearing requirements are you speaking generally yeah just generally i mean i'm speaking towards um you know community events but also the proposed regulations for um weddings and commercial events on private property um well so so in terms of specifically the community events um the idea was that um you know if they're just limited in number and that they help sort of serve a community purpose and fundraise from organizations and there's you know one event without amplified music or a couple events with amplified music where the conditions can be applied that it made sense to provide sort of a streamlined process for that um or for weddings and um commercial events for weddings where they have like a you know a site that's used for regular weddings um that would require a notice of a hearing so for that there is a conditional use permit that would be required um and i don't know if you want to speak Stephanie to the general um you know move towards fewer public hearings in general yeah well i i think there are um some conditions where events are going to be limited and i think the thought process is that those just may not require the same level so it's you know depending on how intensive it uses in other words how many times per year they're going to do it um that that you know if it's a lot that requires a higher level of um scrutiny so it's it's a matter of just trying to not put the little guys through the same big processes you know the the events areas that are having a lot of events and so i think it's it's just finding the right process level um so can you um clarify for me then somebody applying for commercial uses on their property a wedding an event um center on say an 11 acre site they want to do 12 a year what would that be what what would that be an a up or would that be a c up um all of the wedding so community events are are sort of regulated separately they have one or two community events that's so much easier but i get community events now right yeah okay yeah so for any wedding venue any any number of weddings at all would require a c up so that's always uh notice public hearing yeah c up right yeah sorry that's a these are new terms so you don't know i'm trying to use them i mean i the only way i'm gonna get to know them is if i try to use them so yeah a c up means a notice public hearing before the planning commission doesn't um it's for the zoning administrator unless they're unless it specifies in the code that it would go to the planning commission so for this one it would be proposed to go to the zoning administrator and that would mean it that would mean a notice to neighbors within more than 500 feet um let's see the standard that's a lot of weddings in and i would share with commissioner done this we've heard a lot about people just feel really betrayed when someone has 12 weddings a year because wedding guests don't take don't tend to place any attention on where they're supposed to park and stop especially in body doing that's been very contentious right um yeah so for the weddings another um thing that is required is to hold a neighborhood meeting prior to um issuing the permit so i think the idea there is also to understand neighborhood concerns and have the permit conditions you know address the most important thing from my perspective about it needing a c up is that that's appealable so even if it's a zea hearing it's appealable so um so that that's so that's good um so because i'm seeing i'm already taking up too much time i i just i'm gonna move on and i just had a couple of questions from the staff presentation and one was about the scenic designations and i think that i heard us stephanie say that because of the loss of tree cover along certain areas of highway one um and there was a photo of mission street in santa cruz that those that certain streets are being removed from scenic designation was that did i hear that correctly just just along highway one um so the areas that are um still have trees where it is more scenic in the county those continue to be a scenic corridor and the more urban areas where there's been a loss of trees i understand there was a disease that a lot of them um trees are lost now you're seeing buildings and development that really doesn't qualify as scenic so just in that area along highway one um we would remove the the designation okay i understand that that it is um troubling to me that we can lose a scenic designated um areas because of of tree loss um i would kind of rather that if there's a tree loss we would have policies and code to replace the trees so that we could retain uh not just the scenic designation but just retain that the canopy cover and the tree cover um so i'm going to think about for when we come back um and then for um for administrative use permits and administrative site development permit permits will the same signage requirements um be in place you know will a development that just needs an a up still have to put up the big sign that says notice the plan development on the site yes we're not proposing any changes to the signage requirements including that new that new signage requirement that came into effect a few years ago about the large sign okay um and then um one last question and this is with regard to um a letter from the sierra club that indicated that monarchs were taken off of the species list can you speak to that i can speak to that um so the uh eir uh the biologists who helped with that section with our consultant did a um did did the normal research in which they find um species of special concern and um endangered species and federally listed species and they kind of do their regular research and then they look at them and see um which have a propensity to locate in a certain area and it's kind of how they decide if there's going to be biological resources um the monarch butterfly is a candidate species it was not included in those lists because the us fish and wildlife um or um yeah us fish and wildlife has a lot of species they look at and so it remains a candidate and so it fell off the list um and when we saw the letter we hadn't realized that that that loss had occurred so the will be replacing that um list both in the eir and in the general plan with a new list that um includes not only the monarch species but also includes several other uh candidate species that had been lost so it was unintentional right okay that's that's great um and then the last thing is just a process um question so we have a meeting on the 24th of this month and a meeting on September 14th I originally thought that those two meetings were both for us to take action um is that still the plan or is it the meeting on the 24th I have something else and our day for action is the 14th of September yeah you know um there there's so many ways to go about this right um uh but what we figured is we'll start the public hearing on August 24th um we'll do the presentation you can take public comment um you can uh we were thinking if you have direction that you want to give to staff that you know these changes that you want to make you could do that then then we'll continue the public hearing on the next meeting at September 14th and you wouldn't actually take action until the end of that meeting so that would be um when we thought we would get motions for changes and um and what you actually want to send on to the um the board okay that makes sense okay so if that is the case I would make a strong plea to have no other items on September 14th because I see this taking quite a long time and I see us having to take each section of the general plan by chapter this is what we want to change in this chapter this chapter each chapter separately and same with the changes for the zoning code so I see in that seems to me the most organized way to provide recommendations to the board so that I think will take up a full day potentially and if there's any way to just have that be our only item that would be that'd be great I would I'd like to second that because I do not see daylight today this is one of the most important things we'll do on our service to the planning commission I really want the extra time and I'd like also ask that items be postponed until after we do these very important upgrades just as Jocelyn if there is anything coming up on that September 14th meeting that could get would there be a problem pushing um we I think we do have some items at least one on that date um I will take a look at the schedule after the meeting today and check in with the planning commission I'm wondering if we could potentially look at adding a a special hearing date um so that we can keep our other work on track as well but I I'll I will email I'll email everyone and and work that out afterwards I I understand the request for sure well I would be willing to do a special meeting but I'm not I just don't see how we can do it justice if we try to pack it all in one day it'd be worth postponing someone's project they're gonna get a lot better fair hearing if we're not got this in front of us it won't sit around all day either I'll follow up my email I just wanted to note Commissioner Dan that we also are looking at the Postal Commission comments regarding policies for ag lands so we may be proposing some amendments for the final the public hearing draft in addition to the the changes that I already mentioned for the the MOU policies okay um yeah maybe we yeah I don't know how appropriate this is but I actually had some ideas that I thought probably could satisfy um their concerns um that would also kind of meet the needs of what I think we're trying to achieve here too so so I appreciate that and thank you thank you so much for all the work that went into this I mean I only had to read this through I can't imagine the amount of time and thinking and analysis it took to think through every single piece of one of these policies and change the language and and all that so I mean so I really appreciate it and I hope you see my appreciation and that actually read it all so yeah thank you Chair Gordon I'll go next if that's okay sure please go um thankfully um Mr. Dan you go over several of mine I just I have some clarifying questions even on some of the ones she brought up if that's okay um I'm gonna go through it the way I think that Chair Gordon would prefer which is using the the staff report as for my page reference number although sometimes I do reference the way I often read it is like like Commissioner Dan I read the staff report and then kind of reference the the the code or the the general plan as appropriate which makes it really back and forth when I read this document um I don't know if that makes it harder or easier um one of the questions I had which was you know Chris your shepherd brought up as well which is this question about on page 10 when we were talking about the the quasi public use it's both in the general plan but it's also in county code section 1310 315 um which is this when it's appropriate to minimize the loss of agricultural land as possible when that talks about so it talks about subdivisions and lot line adjustments and I I would just share Commissioner Dan's concern and then my question had been and I don't know if we need to answer it so much as like when would that be necessary for public use we don't really know that that question got answered if it's if it's specifically if the only concept we're even considering is this one isolated use I'm curious if that's our answer if we're talking about things like cell powers if we're talking about you know county public buildings I'm just I'm I don't know that I was satisfied with the answer of are we are we really contemplating the singular option of because it's both in like I said the general plan and the county code of this idea of reducing and doing a lot line adjustments of of ag parcels because we have these minimum standards of ag and I'm just curious is that is that really the only time we're contemplating it because it seems like it seems like a really big change for a single instance um uh let's see I'm are you I want to make sure I understand your question are you asking specifically regarding subdivision of CA land when that's appropriate well so in in this part of the it's it's the part that Commissioner Dan referenced she just did it with with regard to the the general plan but it's also in the county code change as well as the staff report it talks about these subdivisions or lot line adjustments on county code specifically for the establishment of public use or quasi-public uses and I just wanted more clarity of if the sole reason that staff put this in there was because of the landfill um no so it's I think the landfill that Stephanie mentioned as an example of like a facility use that's that's in this case it's already on CA land but the county did like an extensive search and couldn't find alternative sites so so that's sort of an example but I think the idea is that you know where where there might be a similar example where they did like an alternative analysis they couldn't find another location um where there's some reason maybe where there's some nexus to ag land where it needed to be provided I know already in the code they allow I think recycled water facilities but that's sort of an example where it's sort of needed in that location um but the yeah so so where where there would be an essential public quasi-public use that the county determines would be appropriate on on CA land where they did that analysis showing they weren't all the other alternative sites then for that there could be a land division considered for that use an idea really would be to um in in a sense to like be able to protect to subdivide that part of the parcel often necessary for the public facility use in order to protect the viability of the remaining parcel which would remain in CA so it's intended to facilitate a public facility use but also protect the ag land okay and then I if you don't mind I'm just going to come back to this one too so if we'll go could we would you consider Commissioner Valenti if I'm going to address the same thing maybe I could ask my questions about that one at the same time because otherwise I got this we have to go back and forth I would I just don't want to make sure we don't get distracted and I only have a few to go through um I I just want if that's okay um on page 14 of the staff report um we so I'm going to back up because I just um I will be a tiny commissioner Dan and I have many of the same but I just want to get some more clarifying questions on places I didn't feel got answered when we're talking about the scenic corridor um the project for highway one when it got constructed for the auxiliary lanes and they did all those tree installations were part of the reason that Caltrans did all of that was that part because of the scenic designation that they did so much vegetation restoration I don't think so the scenic designation is a local designation it's not a state designation so the highway is not designated by Caltrans um but I think that they recognize that as appropriate mitigation for for that type of project um like they would do a noise wall for some or okay I just I thank you for that I I agree with commissioner Dan's concerns about that we simply because we lost ground on keeping something scenic I worry that we would be seeding um and instead I I'll contemplate that as well um yeah and I would I would just add that it was you know disease as I understand it that really took out that whole kind of area worth the trees it wasn't attrition by development um so much and at one point when it was fully vegetated it was a you know a nice area to drive through now it's really more of an urban area so that was the point and then on page 18 of this AF report on the very top of the page it talks about um more efficient permitting process and it says for instance attached single-family dwelling units are now allowed um are now are now and allowed use permitted by right in the single-family zone districts um can you there's no code attached for me to know exactly where in the the code this is being changed referenced and so I was hoping maybe you could further elaborate on what this is in reference to because I understand on obviously multi-residential on on our flex zoning but if we're having a parcel that's done single-family dwelling I'm just wondering if you could and what what an attached single-family dwelling would look like on a parcel that's all in zone for one unit obviously we have ADUs and we have JADUs but since there wasn't somewhere for me to reference this can you explain yeah I you're contemplating here and what your yeah I think so this will be over in the residential code and um I think I'll ask Daisy Allen if she might be able to help us with that sure happy to help hi there um well sorry about me um yeah so when we say attached a single-family um we're generally talking about you know townhome style development and uh we're clarifying in the code that we allow um townhome style development in single-family zones um with uh as a common area development or um if you have uh two two single-family zone properties next to each other you could have uh two townhomes that share uh the property line um in that scenario so that that's that's sort of what's meant there um if that clarifies yeah I know the fact that they would be able to share property lines that's because I was trying to be trouble kind of visualizing if you had a single-family home how you'd have an attached style so that makes sense you we allow it now with an attached property line it sounds like that's what we're extending to allow right exactly okay um I also I could clarify a little bit also additionally on this the scenic corridor um one of the issues that comes up sometimes in development review um along highway one uh specifically in the urban area along like the Soquel Ave um frontage road and that area is that um with your um in that scenic area you are required to um meet certain uh design requirements um related to like whether the property can can be seen from the highway and it's not really possible to meet those requirements given the existing situation without vegetation on highway one um so that designation is sometimes problematic for approving development that might otherwise appear to be you know appropriate in that that urban area especially where we are proposing to enhance our you know medical office building type of development in the future thank you and then the next one I have is I I know Mr. Dan asked about these two but I I'd like to touch on them a bit which is the community events and then the weddings I'll take the community events first which I just would like clarity on this um which is in the staff report it very specifically talks about community and non-profit events with 100 um or more guests um and so I would really like to touch on this because I I one would like I couldn't find anything in the in the code this was a thickly referenced 100 guests and I want to know the other question is I would like you to specify for me if someone's having community events with 75 guests are we having no limitation on the number of events whether or not they have as long as they're having acoustic music are we okay with that versus obviously or do we have different do they not have to get permitting for the event component if they have amplified music obviously perhaps they need an amplified music permit but could you I know it's like a lot of questions at once but if you could maybe speak to the things I just spoke to that'd be helpful because like I said the staff report specifically references 100 people or more I couldn't find that reference in the code and then could you clarify for for if they having less than 100 events are we not being bothered um with requiring permitting or tracking or anything like that because that would that would be helpful for me um and understanding what the direction the staff is kind of making this recommendation um yes I I would like to verify that in the code so I can maybe I can get back to that question in a moment but um but it certainly I mean I believe that's correct that it only if it's fewer than a hundred guests and it wouldn't be regulated but um it still would be subject to our noise ordinance for example so so that would affect you know the ability to have amplified music um and that sort of thing but it's generally intended for those larger events where they would be regulated okay thank you for that I'll ask you my next questions about kind of the what we're calling commercial events I know that we often think of them as weddings but they can be commercial events as a whole they could be um concerts for example and things are like that as long as they're paying they come into this category of commercial events I know we just usually say commercial weddings um as I kind of paintbrush to deal with them but I I'd like to touch on these because what I what I didn't find when I read 1310 um 615 was the standard um I what I found is it kept saying that we were limiting the number of guests hours of operation hours of operation amplified music and number of annual events permitted that they'll be established for the condition and use permit but I found no regulation no regulatory framework and I'm wondering if I missed it or how this will be structured moving forward because although we had minimum standards on the parcel size I basically found nothing else in fact when reading the staff report I mean you're allowing them on r a and r r I mean a rural residential parcel um is a residential parcel and while the the the code says it needs to be secondary to a winery and a brewery and residential and um residential ad parcels it also says it just has to be secondary to residential use so you're to me I I don't know how some parcel couldn't meet that standard right um and so I'm I'm a little if you could clarify for me what framework you're asking us to build around these commercial event on these residential parcels they are rural residential parcels and and rural agricultural parcels um that would be helpful for me because I think these parameters are important um this is something as commissioner jan mentioned we dealt with quite extensively in 2014 which is what led to this and I think it's important that we talk about um are we allowing 300 events a year are we allowing 30 events a year um and how many guests are we saying 250 um is that only allowed on parcel sizes of 25 acres to 25 acres um and I just didn't see anything in here it's very possible I missed it I did try to read all of the code and I tried to read all the the um everything but you know a lot of work um yes okay so um so let's see in terms of um where there would be allowed um you know you're correct in terms of the zone districts that you um identified and the minimum parcel size would apply so the idea with that um minimum parcel size is that there should be enough area to you know provide a buffer to adjacent land uses um and um in terms of um there is not a absolute limit specified in the code um for the number of guests per event um or events per year um the the idea is that um through through this neighborhood meeting and um that parameters be established that that are appropriate based on the the site um neighboring parcels and that sort of thing but there's not a limit specific limit on the number maximum number um for for weddings commercial at the similar events in the code but I guess my question miss murphy then is how are those standards set so if it's not in the code when someone comes to the planning department or if the permit comes before sorry check checking checking which level it's a c up right when it comes before the z a what standards will be used to determine the framework under like it seems very sub sorry it seems very subjective if it's not in our code how will how other I mean you're saying that conditions on the ground are essentially going to decide the the the conditions that like the the the conditions of approval for this permit what I'm hearing at least me and let's tell me I'm wrong but I'm hearing from you my reflexive hearing is that you're telling me that there are not any parameters in the code that says max like let's take cannabis for example different permit parcel sizes have different you know square foot footage they have a different um all all these different things are based on parameters that are in the codified and what I'm hearing is that those framework doesn't exist for this am I correct am I hearing you correctly that those aren't codified they aren't here in the code yes that's correct the code does not have like this is the maximum number events per year that could be loud or maximum number of guests it doesn't okay okay okay thank you I appreciate that clear clarity um thank you I appreciate that um okay um sorry to harp on that one it's just it's a really big one because in these rural communities it's something we just as I just want to make sure I wasn't missing um I think that might have been my last question of clarity because like I said thankfully commissioner Dan got a lot of them out of the way I just those were the couple pieces I wanted to um make sure I didn't misunderstand so I really appreciate you walking me through once again um since I touched on the ones commissioner Dan did some of those pieces so I I appreciate that thank you so much actually great thank you commissioner Rialante um commissioner the liaison be your shepherd and either one of you want to go ahead with some comments or questions well I have um I have a comment and commissioner Dan may remember these two cases we had one was the brewery that wanted to have concerts and and gatherings in the sort of in the courtyard there that wasn't that in near Davenport or do you remember that then there was the other one that was at the winery and it was at a very narrow road it wasn't so kill it was um Paradise Valley or something and the biggest complaint was the traffic trying to get there but they worked it out so each the winery had uh got a license to have onsite sails and then they had a very large piece of land but there were some there were some meetings where the neighbors were very upset but I don't know how to tell you to find those there's been several um I don't remember one in Davenport though I there was a big brouhaha up in uh bony dune the sovereign kaya property there was a um yeah but right yeah I don't even want to mention them all there's too much PTSD but yes it has um it has come up quite often and so I appreciate the attention we're giving to this this particular item um just because uh uh Commissioner Lazenby you mentioned the road there is a specific language regarding road capacity use permits for weddings exceeding 50 guests will be reviewed by the public works department as necessary to assess road capacity and infrastructure so we are trying to make sure that that's addressed for these states um thank you there was also one about a uh wedding shop and then she wanted to become commercial and have weddings onsite and that that's in a case somewhere it's actually a case uh precedent I guess but my memory is not that good yesterday I I know this is a controversial issue I think the general the general intention is to provide a lot of opportunity with the free development neighborhood meeting there'd also be a person that would need to be onsite available for questions or concerns the permit also for weddings expires in three years and requires renewal so there is some intention built in the ordinance to try and address neighbor concerns and make sure that these are operated in a way that's compatible with the neighborhood thanks yes that's all I have okay great thank you um Commissioner Lazenby Commissioner Shepard did you have any other comments or questions are you there Commissioner Shepard uh thank you I am now unmuted um I would agree that the wedding venue issue has been fraught but I would hope that with these more ways of guiding the path to getting a successful permit um that it'll work a little better public works commenting on the roads neighborhood meetings and so on I think a lot of it happened because neighbors didn't know it was going to be there and all of a sudden one peaceful sunday their neighborhood was usually disrupted but I think that you know can try these and see how they work out um however what I wanted to ask about was um going back to the two items that have been touched on before loss of urban trees um I understand the trees are gone and they were set but isn't there somewhere in the general plan that we talk about a policy of trying to replace trees that have been lost to disease in other words if you lose the trees because oak trees got oak disease it'd be nice that the policy was not oh well there's no more trees so we don't need trees there but uh you know if we ever get an urban tree planting ordinance or many other communities have an active policy of planting uh street trees and it's part of how they see their huge you know that what the municipality does so can we get some language in there if we're going to take that designation that that's a scenic border if somewhere else or in that saying you know policy would be to plant more trees of a different kind that are not susceptible to disease there's not trees well I just do we have to just concede that the trees are gone and therefore not hail the trees I mean wouldn't we suggest that more trees should be considered um question mark and there any can help me out with this I'm sure but there there are lots of policies that encourage um uh replacement trees and protection of resources um and require tree plantings in the code so so there's a variety of mechanisms where trees are are protected and um uh and uh there's a significant tree ordinance that's in the coastal zone for instance so so there's a variety of ways but I I'm wondering if you're asking if we shouldn't have a policy in the general plan that speaks to restoring vegetation in that area um because they don't think that there's something specific in this proposal for a policy like that um and I I will also note that um uh Highway 1 is largely in Caltrans's jurisdiction and it it does limit what we can require or achieve but a policy or an implementation strategy could be added to the general plan that speaks to working with Caltrans for you know restoration of trees in in in the area I think that would be useful to add to the general plan we've lived in a county for a hundred years or more where we had plenty of trees but as you know with fires and urbanization and so on we no longer may be in that position I'm sure it will be more of the case as time goes on most other communities have such policy you can go to places like Chicago and other cities Pittsburgh they have an active policy of planting lots of trees we have a needed one but maybe it's time to at least put the policy language in there so yes that's specifically what I am proposing okay the other thing on the allowing some development in ag land I think this is widening a crack that could be just burst open I agree with the other commissions why not list more specific uses that the amendment could be applied for and otherwise if for example a major concern was moving the waste disposal maybe you can mention that and then say that allow for some otherwise they got to come back for a general plan amendment which is costly and time consuming but not impossible right I think this language is still too general and with the right political agenda you could use it to different times different people I think either we're going to protect agricultural land has been a good policy and I think you can craft this a little more carefully and make it less general and more specific to the kinds of project that would be considered I think I don't think everything here is done very carefully very well very thoroughly but this is one area I think you could be tightened up because you're kind of writing policy case things happen so maybe you could make some specific suggestions of the kind of things that would be allowed otherwise it can always come back for a general plan amendment if it's that big and that important and then on the changes to the level three and level permit proposals you mentioned in your introduction that some things that have not come to the planning commission and then thing proposals that have come first the planning commission and then gone to the board with the final decision would now rest at the planning commission level can you give me some examples I mean that's a big change I want to know what we're in for Daisy do you think you might be able to speak to some residential examples of that I'm sure I'll have to give me a minute though because I need to pull up the code and take a look at it yeah I can do the same as well well I have another specific one in the code not about that but about something else you know that I can go to a few right or we can just wait a minute while you look that up I really want to know what this change means in terms of month-to-month planning commission meetings and you know we have there are very few things right now that don't end up in the board of supervisors if that's going to change I'd like to know what kinds of things it's fine I'm not objecting but I want to know what we mean and does that also mean that proposals that have in the past come to us will just go to the zoning administrator and if so they continue to be appealable I am sure yes and I'm just looking through the residential code and this is section 1310 321 sorry 322 and there's a text box that precedes that section on page three of that document that explains the changes to the residential uses chart so that's that's what I'm taking a look at and one change example is that congregate senior housing has been updated to senior rental housing and now requires a cp at the zoning administrator rather than a level six or seven so the planning commission would not be seeing applications for senior rental housing so that's that's one example um is it your sense that this that these will be more isolated examples like that is there's not a whole class of items that we once reviewed that we no longer will or is there a whole class of items that always went to the board that will no longer go to the board so the so there are very few items that would now go to the board the highest level that we have in our updated use charts is c up pc so an item would only go to the development project would only go to the board on appeal and so that that is a fundamental change here in terms of how the levels are working and then some items that the planning commission had looked at in the past would would now be looked at at the zoning administrator level and some items that were looked at at the board level would be looked at would be the planning commission would be the final decision maker I know I know that large subdivisions will continue to go to the planning commission we know in our subsequent hearings this is pretty important I'd like to get more detail you can use past projects if you want but I'd like to our job is going to change word shops going to change the zoning administrators jobs going to change I'd like more than a paragraph on what that means in terms of what kind of projects I mean first of all I don't work for the county so I don't go around the new names easily so just looking at a chart once and say well it sounds fine I can't do that but and I'm not asking you to a lot of work but you must know what kind of projects you mean and you could use a little you know projects that have come before the planning commission in the last six months or five months that no longer would and things that have gone to the board that no longer will go there I just want to know what this means and then I want to think about it too the planning commission exists to give the board and the zoning you know the whole county government ability for outside individuals that are not employees county you know not elected officials to have some say and represent the community at large and that's got to be carefully thought about that in terms of what projects come to them so I'm very interested I'm not saying I post I just don't think that you explained it enough for me to have a useful comment on it and it is a big change I think I don't know maybe it's not a big change I I can't address it yeah got commissioner shepherd we we can start to address that but I will say that you know all of the use charts have been reviewed and uses have been modernized and staff has looked at each of the uses and said is this the appropriate level you know are there times where we're overdoing the public process where it's not necessary and then there were other times where we thought well this really needs noticing it needs a public hearing it's legislative it really needs to go to the board so all of the use charts have those levels and I'd be happy to show you online where where they all are we'll we'll do our best to summarize what might not come to the planning commission in our in our next hearing well just a general summary would be would be in fact quite useful because I think I think it is important that the public we represent the public at large have some input to what we think needs overview all of these new designations would be appealable continue to have appeal right yeah okay well all right so I really like to know a little bit more about the actual effect of that okay maybe I can show you where they're located in the code as well but I'd like to know if you can just some specific types of project because the charts just saying this will go here but doesn't say what they're talking about um the other thing I wanted to talk about that I wanted to get into was specific to the code if we can move to that and I wanted to talk about and I think I've mentioned this to Stephanie before about a month ago if we go to the code on animal regulations which is 15.3.645-16648 on the um in the zoning code pages it's page I guess page two in uh animal in chapter 13.10 where I've identified enough it's table 13.10.645-1 so it defines requirements for small animals and large animals so on small animals um I just wanted to say uh I wonder if it would not be reasonable to not allow people in Ari zones because in Ari zones I know people in the urban section think that means huge acres just but it were large parts of the valley Ari zones are houses next to each other it's just the way the zoning falls out I think we ought to limit roosters to four per acre instead of I think roosters should be limited where people live not that would be minimum parcel size for roosters peacocks tom turkeys loud loud birds peacocks etc there's there's no limit on them now and that can be very annoying and I'd like to suggest a limitation in terms of quantity be added because you don't need roosters to get eggs then the other changes I think a misunderstanding because I did meet with some of the folks from the horseman's association and this Stephanie you and I talk right now uh for large animals there is an minimum setback for stabbling or paddocks and I believe when we talk you thought a paddock was a structure of some kind and a paddock will person who keeps large animals means the fence line so they're very different things and for example many many people existing horn horses or llamas or donkeys the fence line is the paddock that a paddock doesn't mean a structure so therefore I think 25 feet from side in their property lines preventing the paddock from extending that way would mean almost everybody now keeps a horse or a donkey or a large animal will have to change their fence line I don't think that's what you meant because I think you were defining paddock as some kind of disable yeah we did have that discussion maybe we can talk about the small animals first and then talk about the paddocks and the fencing okay and then on the subject of paddock the old language said the minimum lot area upon which a horse may be kept is the gross acre two horses by kept in one acre and then it said for additional an additional horse may be kept reached 20 000 gross square feet by which the parcel land exceeds one acre I think that should be kept because it reflects common practice of the two three thousand horsekeepers here in the county I just think you drop that it's a small item but it's important because it it really doesn't affect horse care at all and welfare or public interaction and the other thing is I think there should be some mention of a manure control plan the boarding facilities are worth more than some minimum number animals say six to ten the county has good documentation on how to control manure and you mentioned erosion control I think manure control should be something that is mentioned as required for beyond a certain minimum number of horses maybe six to ten so those are very specific but I actually thought this was important enough to meet with people who carry who keep such animals Annie could you clarify the small animal requirements for the commission and then we can talk about the setbacks on paddocks okay yes so we do have a table as commissioner shepard mentioned on page two of that code section and so there is a minimum density of two small animals per thousand square feet so that's obviously much higher I think than what you were recommending commissioner shepard for roosters but that is the minimum density that as proposed would apply for small animals the way it says in r a on the chart I'm reading help me out here is this on in the public draft page two requirements for small animals minimum parcel size minimum maximum density minimum parcel size for loud noisy animals that's what I'm reading for right so that maximum density above that line that specifically mentions roosters that applies as well and that's where you find the number of animals per this is per thousand square feet yeah so in other words for for those noisy for roosters another noisy fowl the minimum parcel size is one acre and the maximum density is two roosters per thousand square feet so that would allow how many roosters in an acre um a lot so that's exactly what I'm addressing right there's 40 000 square feet in acre you could have 40 roosters that would be awful and we'll probably exceed the you know roosters in fact if you have to live around them don't crow it down they crawl the time and peacocks are even worse if you could have 40 peacocks you'd have a real nuisance problem so I am suggesting that this code be changed I think it's appropriate a lot more people live in the rural areas now and I think I just think it's out of day so I think we should limit the number of roosters okay you have to have it you have to have for r a r a can be quite dense in a good deal of the valley because it's already zoning but they're actually the houses are pretty close together are you making a suggestion for what that density should be I believe that you said four four loud birds per acre on r a is that very generous I was going to go for two but oh okay I misunderstood okay two okay two to four but I mean two to one who lived I you had so give if you wanted fertilized you'd still have let's put it down so four loud birds per acre and then we can talk about paddocks what they are and how they apply because I think I think language is just plain wrong on what a paddock is and I think there should be something about manure control yes I I think your suggestion about manure control is there's a good one and we can also check with varmilla health if they have specific recommendations so I am not saying that there has to be regulation of someone in care cups here keeps a couple of horses but we have some sizable stables all of them are pretty good neighbors but the county has developed manure control recommendations they're good ones and it's kind of the gold sander so why not just have some general language that there should be a manure control plan in place for you know boarding stables at board more than I don't know six horses well also look at other sections of the code that may apply here like in title seven we can report back on on that or and what environmental health says yes they have experience with it but the other than the other thing there's 600 people along the horsements association so I know the other members are starting to roll their eyes but what a paddock is matters yes so I I did want to clarify about paddocks what we did is we combined paddocks and stable requirements so there are some adjustments to the setbacks but currently if you look at like this the strike through language on page three of that code section um 13 10 6 4 1 is struck out animal enclosures stable and paddock so we do have existing paddock requirements um number three there paddock shall be located on the rear half of the lot and not closer than 20 feet to any property lines not closer than I understand I am saying that when I um when I talked to Stephanie she said well a paddocks like you know stable they are different things is my point a paddock is a fenced area it's not a stable or or any kind of place that the horse goes into it's just the fence line a paddock is a horseman's term for a fence lot yeah so if you drive up to the valley or any place of horses there's a completely new big facility on say any road actually and the fence line is the paddock line this does not reflect reality of how horses are kept as my point and yes I know the whole one it's just a it's just a wrong definition as my point um we had we we did discuss this with our planners on over in the development review side who specialize in more in agricultural projects and um they suggested that it was really appropriate to have some kind of setback for either paddocks or uh stables um specifically for erosion control and manure control as you were mentioning so um if if this goes in the books then we've got not going to dwell on it but then almost 90 percent of horse owners are out of compliance so we have rules that nobody complies with is that a very good idea um so these regulations would be for those who are getting permitted you don't need a permit to keep horses or goats or llamas or whatever as long as you're in the as long as you have two per acre etc except I'd like that one exception there's no permit involved I mean people put up a fence line usually you know within two feet of their property line that's come up you go around and look at a horse facility because you want to have the most space for your animals you can so I I don't want to take up endless you and I can talk about this but I I've gotten lectured on it quite extensively um nobody wants to make things less or more restrictive we just think that animal keeping should reflect what our best practice is and this doesn't reflect that okay well um we uh I think what we would ask is if you have better recommendation for how the code should be changed that um during probably the second hearing there are motions for um what you think those standards should be okay I won't take up any more time and yes I didn't say well I said that doesn't seem appropriate but I didn't say well how about this so I'll come back yeah with a considered how about this where I have also talked to people who keep the animals the small animals with the noisy with the noisy birds you already got the recommendation that that doesn't need any more analysis okay thank you and thank you that we have more time on all these I I have to agree there's an awful lot to take in and I have not read the whole general plan Rachel says I need to then I will but I couldn't do it in one week that's for day I'm sure if the chair please I really have to leave I'm sorry but I have another obligation understood thank you thank you all for all that hard work I'm glad you're doing it and I'm not and I like everyone else apologize for having my own special interest in particular concerns but I guess if we're going to do it this is the time so we won't do it all the time therefore I'm sorry Tim you must have a lot of stuff you know it's good I appreciate it um yeah well then I'll go ahead I actually don't have a lot of other comments I think a lot of what I had questions on was already talked about um but I do have some so um in regards to the EIR I'm a little confused about process with the EIR and how we are increasing density but maybe not I'm not clear how we're specifying like where it goes since we don't have what I understand is that we don't have a zoning map yet to see applicability and so or maybe we do and I missed it and I didn't know if that was a process that needed to happen or is this just like saying this EIR says like if you change the zoning to what we're saying we want to do the impacts could be these things and then each new project that gets you know that applies for development would need to do their own EIR or similar you know go through that process right so the um the sustainability update is largely a policy update right we're creating policies and regulations much more than any kind of a mapping but there are policies and regulations that talk about or policies that talk about for instance the residential flex should be located along our multimodal corridor so it gives direction on where you might locate that um we have we have a zoning map but we don't um we are not proposing a lot of change to it as you know the project includes zoning changes or general plan changes to only 23 parcels in the whole county and 13 of those are corrections that won't result in additional growth 10 of them are are starting to look at areas where we have underutilized parcels or vacant parcels where we might be able to utilize that land for the new residential flex zoning um the the EIR not only looks at that at those 10 parcels but we also went through a um a very detailed exercise of understanding how the county could grow in 20 years right it's not parcel specific but it does project a certain amount of growth and I talked about um while it doesn't say parcel specific a