Is our speaker ready? Yes. Thank you. Welcome to the 10 30 AM public portion of the closed session of the March 22, 2022 meeting of the city council. If you would like to comment on a closed session item, now is the time to call in the instructions on your screen. In this part of the meeting, the council will receive public testimony. Thereafter, the public line will be closed and inaccessible. Please mute your television or streaming device once you call in and listen through the phone. Please note there is a delay in streaming. So if you continue to listen on your television or streaming device, you may miss your opportunity to speak. I would like to ask the parker to please call the roll. Mayor, council members, Callentary Jones. Currently at... Coming? Here. Vice mayor Watkins. Here. Mayor Brunner. Present. Thank you. At this time, are there any members of the public who would like to speak? Any items listed on the closed session agenda items one and two, please raise your hands either by dialing star nine on your phone or select the raise hand or in the webinar polls on your computer. When it's your time to speak, you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted. The timer will then be set to a minute. You may hang up once you have commented on your item of interest. Okay, let's go out to attendees. I am not seeing any hands. Looks like there is no one on any of the closed session items. Seeing none, this meeting will be adjourned and council will go into the closed session. We are best about to begin our afternoon session. Just returning from closed session and it looks like the clerk, are you ready to begin? Okay, so let's begin. Good afternoon. Welcome to the 12th session of the March 22, 2020 meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council. I would like to ask the clerk to please call roll. I'm sorry, Johnston. Present. It's Mayor Watson. Here. I. Okay, thank you. Now we will end with presentations and the first one, presentation, mayoral proclamation declaring March, 2020, this red cross month, the city of Santa Cruz and our, have Anita, Clarice and Dan with us as well. Hi, I'm here. We're here. Welcome. Mayor, Anita's having. Okay. I will go ahead and present the proclamation. Whereas in times of crisis when Santa Cruz come together there for one another, this humanitarian spirit is part of the foundation of our community and it's exemplified by American Red Cross Volunteers and donors. And whereas in 1881 Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross running her step-fast dedication for helping others into a bold mission of preventing and alleviating suffering. And whereas day more than 140 years later we honor the kindness that are us Red Cross volunteers here in Santa Cruz who continue to carry out Clara Barton's life-saving legacy joining the millions of people across the United States who volunteer, give blood, donate financially or learn vital life-serving skills through the Red Cross. And whereas contributions of local Red Cross volunteers, 189 in the county give hope the most vulnerable their darkest hours, last year in Santa Cruz County volunteers helped 33 houses affected by 24 home fires by addressing their urgent like food and lodging as well as providing recovery support collecting over 3,900 blood donation provided first aid in our training to over 1,400 residents, helped families of over 500 students prepare for disasters through pillowcase project and assisted over 40 families of our armed forces. And whereas this work that it alleviates and suffering is vital thanks to our resilience. And he dedicated this month of March all those against the noble legacy of American Red Cross founder Clara Barton lived by her words, quote, you must never have anything except the need and how to meet it, quote, and ask others joining this commitment to give back to Park. Now, therefore, I, Sonia Brunner, Mayor of the city of Santa Cruz, hereby proclaim the month of March, 2020 as Red Cross Month, the city of Santa Cruz and encourage all citizens to reach out to the American Red Cross. And I'd like to invite and first year we'd like to say any words as a board member of the American Red Cross. Yes, good afternoon. I believe Ida's doing this as well. Hi, yes, good afternoon. Welcome, Anita. Well, go ahead and start, Anita. Yeah, I'll kick it off. Thank you for having us. So yeah, my name's Anita Clarice and I'm with the central post chapter of the American Red Cross. And as you see, joining me is Dan Ripley. I'm the vice chair of the chapter. So it's a great honor to accept this special promotion declaring March as Red Cross Month. Thank you very much. Our mission wouldn't be possible without community heroes who are Red Cross volunteers. During our annual Red Cross Month celebration in March, we honor their commitment to support individuals and families in need. And on someone's darkest day be that because this tradition began nearly 80 years ago when President Franklin Roosevelt issued the first National Red Cross Month proclamation. And each president has followed ever since. Today our work is powered by 90%, is powered 90% by volunteers along with generous financial and blood donors, community partners, people trained, vital, home, and people. And we are always looking to add additional volunteers. I'm incredibly, incredibly proud to share a few highlights of what we've accomplished together over the past year. We've responded to the worst fire disaster our area has ever experienced as door of blood is shorted and are now looking at how we can take care of climate change. I believe what may be at the top of our minds right now is the prices and you can, I would like to share an update with our Red Cross and National Red Cross support. International Red Cross teams are on the ground in Ukraine delivering urgent assistance. For the past eight years, the National Red Cross have provided food, fuel, feeding, medical supplies, support for housing those living close to or on the line contact, which is the Eastern border of Ukraine with. As conflict spreads, Red Cross teams are increasing their support across the country, providing first aid and medical supplies. When help can't wait during emergencies, American Red Cross volunteers and blood donors set up to ensure, step up to ensure people in need receive relief care. Your local Red Cross alongside county partners has provided sheltering, feeding, and recovery to those affected by the recent wildfires degree flow evacuees from Santa Cruz and Monterey County and those residents displaced after the Tongan tsunami that hit Santa Cruz. And for the recovery effort after the CZU, River Dolan and Carmel Fire Files 2020, the Red Cross have provided over 2.5 million in grant support to local organizations for assistance with recovery in the building. In terms of support directly to those residents affected by the 2020 wildfires, the Red Cross supported 17 cases for 55 people in Monterey County and 244,591 people in Santa Cruz County providing immediate assistance and resources for long-term recovery. Your Red Cross set up a shelter at Carmel Middle School in response to the Colorado fire in January, proving that our fire seasons have no quote, quote, season and we need for our communities to care for another cold, dry summer and high fire. Dan's gonna take over and share some more information on our services at Carmel Center. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Anita. And again, thank you, community for inviting us and for acknowledging Red Cross Month. Every two seconds, someone in the United States needs and one donation by you can help over three or help save up to three lives. Red Cross hold blood drives across the country today. We're volunteer blood donors, we'll obviously help those in need. Over the past year, our blood supply has been diminished to a critical level in the number of factors including COVID. And we ask you to please support the efforts to bring the capacity and support of the blood drive soon. It's simple to make an appointment at Red Cross, redcrossblood.org and redcrossblood.org and find a convenient drive. In addition, the Red Cross provides service to the armed forces and international services. The Red Cross volunteers provide 24-7 global support to help military families including many of who have experienced multiple deployments over the past year. In addition, as part of the world's largest humanitarian network, Red Cross workers respond to international disasters and help communities prepare for emergencies around the globe. Locally, we've assisted over 130 active service members and their families with their emergency situations including financial assistance and emergency communication services. We were also able to provide comfort kits, veterans and National Guard members and made masks for VA facilities. Training and service at Red Cross provides training service staff quickly adapting local communities to the COVID restrictions and continuing to trade and recertified people in a modified environment enabling our first responders to remain current by some extreme requirements and able to continue to do their work and interact. In response to climate change, Red Cross and Connecticut explained our part of the current humanitarian impact climate. We will build the resilience of our organization as well as the resilience of communities and the people we serve by adapting our mission delivery and growing our operational capacity to address the heightened impacts and quickening pace of disaster. We will further invest in the environmental sustainability to the reduction of our carbon footprint by providing our learnings through community climate education and advocacy for those who bear the disproportionate effects of climate change. Happy to share that our Santa Cruz office has just received certification as a green business and will be included on the National Green Business Direct. Volunteer position. Every day, people in our community rely on the Red Cross volunteers for support. There are many ways you can help neighbors in need who are most needed positions. That's the response volunteers needed. Every eight minutes, Red Cross responds to disasters across the United States. Most of these are in the form of local home fires. When a home fire leave, families stranded in the street, local Red Cross volunteers provide emergency financial assistance, emotional support, and recovery help in their next steps 24 hours. If you are interested in volunteering for, please visit redcross.org slash volunteer today for your most needed positions in local office. Again, let me reread that to you, redcross.org slash volunteer today. I like to use the quote, they decide tomorrow, you would like volunteer tomorrow, ask that please sign up for volunteer today. We do need to get you into our systems to be able to provide you with vital training. Again, redcross.org slash volunteer today. On behalf of the American Red Cross, we thank you for this proclamation. Most of all, we would like to thank you and the many of your city staff members who worked closely with the American Red Cross over the years to be a better prepared city for all types of emergency. Well, it's a good disaster. Thank you so much. We appreciate you sharing that information. Thank you. Any council members have any questions? Okay. Moving on to our next presentation, we have Bonnie Lipscomb Economic Development Department with a presentation and update on the library housing parking development. Thank you mayor and good afternoon council members. I'm Bonnie Lipscomb, director of economic development and I'm going to share my screen. So this is our regular quarterly update and it is on the downtown library project. We are planning a more robust update one month at those two council meetings now and I'll give you a little preview of what we'll talk about at the next meeting but really wanted to give you an update today and specifically just talk about some of our highlight efforts since our last, an update of where we are at a time progress talk a little bit about the grant we just did give you an update of our overall schedule and then talk briefly about it. Oh, recent efforts to date. So since our last council meeting and just for 14th our council approved the updated conceptual design and site programming. We've really gotten started on the overall we're not here, but site survey and we're getting the exact site for that as ready to be turned it's a applicant planning that everything is squared away that we actually know how we talented on the site. We also started the environmental analysis. We do have an arborist study that's underway and I'm hoping to be able to send that to you and at a second meeting in April. We also have underway of uncultured resources and regulatory report as well as Oracle evaluation and then we just submitted on Monday are submitted with a library at California building for the library and I'll give you a little bit more background on that. So just briefly an update on the time process you all will recognize by to this actually slide of where we started on the far left of what was a year and a half ago of project for that evolution of design that's gone since then to right here of what proved on this report. So as you can see push back push down size of the broad added housing on top really increased the square footage of the library on the ground or added the roof pop garden and roof pop space. I wanted to give you just a preview of where we are right now. These are definitely in progress. These are draft but these are as to what hopefully we'll be refining a little bit more throughout the rest of this month and be able to that fully fine at a kind level drawings concept both for a specific meeting next month as well as we'll come back. So this is a preview as I said this very much draft but this is really focused on what you saw and just the conceptual rendering in this slide earlier into actually more defined with some of the materials actually what it will look like place as it are standing in the Cedar Street parking lot today. You next I'll read for straight across to the mid block library. Where is it from a slightly angle just slightly more to the south still on and looking across the way. As we appear you start to see what it would like on the roof deck which is associated with the library that's 4,500, 5,000 quick. Now briefly I'm just gonna give you an update on the grants that our teams did on Monday. So this is a grant called the Building Forward Library Instruction Grant and it is through the California State Library. It's a credit of grant program. The max grant for library are applying for the maximum library grant of $1,000. For the library project based on the criteria we would like you will be edited for this grant. This will help us fund a number of this including the solar panels, modernized back system and accessibility features among others. The majority portion of the grant close to 8 million will be specifically for construction of the library. So we're pretty excited about this. This will, the warded enable us on these features with the solar panels and the green roof really to our goal of at zero sort of the library project. So we're pretty excited to have this opportunity. We hear there's a lot of interest in our project as far as grant and this grant program. So there's a fairly quick turnaround. We might get it on Monday with the library as well and our project here in economic development and are hoping for back within the next, I'd say within the next few months possibly even a little sooner. So we'll update you next month on if you hear anything back by that. Then just briefly a project schedule update where we are right now is last came forward to you in September. We had just finished the concept conceptual design phase. So that was those sketches that last time concept where we are now is kind of our next phase after probably a couple months ahead will be our line develop and so we'll be forward to that phase. The next step, we have quite a few. We are anticipating by the end of next week to be setting up a gap planning and this is a pre-application for our formal application and opportunity for back planning to the other departments about the project and opportunity to address those for formal application. I said for the end of next week. We're also planning for our next round of outreach and we're anticipating this will be on this attic design phase really focusing on the library at the library design, as well as the library. And so we're looking at mid month, mid April for that update full of having that outreach and coming to council with back from that outreach for the four pieces. We're also have been having ongoing meetings that are very productive with farmers market. We are right now focused on lot seven. This is a lot in the Del Mar that goes between city portion is one parcel in from Soquel and Kathart. So from behind the Del Mar all the way to Kathart and we're doing, we had done some preliminary designs and parking count and they were false overhead structures in design for the farmer's market. We're revisiting those, that's engaged in the and on Kathart as well and orient that on the parking lot and not the farmer's market, but also with the other development in the area that's now titled and going forward. So the idea of really being able to engage in Kathart and really link into that discussion that is planned and that next step to the river walk. So we have some really exciting concepts now with farmers market, we're in a really good place and we're working on a feasibility study of a couple of different layout right now. So that's something that hopefully in the near future in the next few months we can bring forward to you as well. We're also worked on the updated cost model. That's why the app is really important to us. We have some things in there that we need to change, get that into, out to our consultants, they can update and if there are any cost implications before we go forward. So that'll be ongoing rest of the static design phase. Once we get through static design and that first preliminary back on our pre-application really be able to really firm up some of our cost assessment and that information back to you as well. So as I said, our next meeting on 426, I think it's going to be a pretty robust update. It is an off cycle update rather than waiting months. We wanted to come to you here because we think we'll have quite a few things next month to give you updates on on the project. We'll also on 426 be asking you to approve a grant resolution related to the building forward grants medal. And then we are targeting for around May 23rd, give or take a few days, but towards the end of May for the full app. That concludes my update and I'm happy to answer your questions. Thank you so much for that update. Some of my questions for answering that update, I will bring it out for coming and we'll call in to your response. Thanks for that update, Bonnie. I just had a comment. I know, well, I've been talking with the community about this project. And one thing that people get excited about is not just potential for a green roof, but if there's a potential for that green roof space to be used for farming purposes by residents who live in the housing. So that's a very kind of, I don't know the word for it, but when you think about having full income housing with access to education, childcare, and then organic food production for families that people really get excited about that as a possibility. So there's something to consider when thinking about the green roof, it can be something that the residents can actually use for producing food that's a benefit that people have said that they would like. Great, we definitely, we've been talking about what opportunities we might have for that. There are some load issues on top of the library with some of the glass and sort of daylighting. However, we are at, could there be areas where we, that as well as quite a bit of space on the housing as well. And so in some of those, maybe spaces we have delineated areas, children, teens, then the community area, there might be areas for some raised beds as well. So we're looking at all those options. And I guess one other question slash comment I was thinking about within the context of solar is, has there also been considered to potentially put wind turbines on the top? Because I know that they have some that are smaller that can also produce electricity. And so it was just thinking about that. Yeah. I'll pass that on to the design team and those that are really looking at some of the sustainability. Thanks. Thank you, Council Member Cummings. Council Member Calantari-Johnson. Thanks so much for the presentation, Bonnie, that's really awesome to see all the work that's been done. I'm wondering if you could give an update on the discussions, the community engagement and discussions on the current library site and for use of that? Sure. So we completed that process back in June for the existing library site. And we do have, and I can highlight that with a link to the next presentation as well, but we do have recommendations that came out of that process which for the existing library site recommendations are to look at that as housing site, affordable housing site with the Plaza area that potentially could be a future home for the farmers market. So the farmer's market, I will say, is excited about that site. One of their concerns is just the timing. And looking at lot seven could either be an interim use, temporary use, or if they like it there, could end up being a permanent use. They really like to look at what is our next step in recognizing that they could go to that site, the library is completed, and the library moves into a new location. So we were going through a schedule over with them and sort of that need of, they're gonna need to have an interim place. What's the best place for them? It also gives them an opportunity to decide if they like it. So that's our plan with the farmer's market. And for current library site, we have those recommendations. And I do think that ultimately it would be a great site for the housing project and to have that element public Plaza as well. So we're focused on the current project or the new project now, but once we get past this point, we will go back and look on the current, on the current library site or planning for that next. Great, thank you. Do you have a sense of, I mean, I know it's, do you have a sense of like timing of when we would go revisit the recommendations for the current site? I mean, I know one step at a time and one project at a time, we've got our place full, but just a general sense. I think probably it would be some time, I guess would be next year. I think we want to get enough down the path for that, you know, have that plan and that we're entitled for the current proposed site. And then once we know that's on that path and that track, I think we'll go back and start looking at the site. But our current estimates just on the timeline that the move from current site one likely wouldn't happen until late 2025 or, so there is some time before that project couldn't actually start. Yeah, got it. Thank you. That's all. Thank you. Next, I have Council Member Myers and then Council Member Brown. Member Myers, you're muted. Real quick question. You might have answered this, but I'm not sure. What is the projected construction plan in total? The whole thing. It's between 18 and 24 months. Okay. And right now we're looking at going out for tax credits probably January of 2020. So ideally it would bring them next summer before we would start. Okay. And if, so, okay, that makes sense. And we're still envisioning that the city would hold on to affordable, we would still be the manager of the affordable housing, correct? In terms of all the, I mean, we may work with a, with a private entity, but it would still be, we would be recording all those restrictions that are on to those conditions of the. Definitely have the, the covenant on site. And our vision similar to some of our other projects with our affordable housing partners had financial investment is that we have that long-term affordability. So for the grant each housing, they would be managing, managing the project which he involved on the housing monitor. And obviously, you know, we own the site and you know, the library building and the other. So most likely we're still working as a structure, but most likely it would be the developer and they would have air rights. We need to kind of get through that. That's something that will come forward to when we're a little further along in the meeting. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you, Council Member Myers-Brunner. Thank you Mayor Brunner. And thank you Bonnie for the update. And you know, as always, putting together a really clear presentation and giving us a lot of information. I have a couple of questions that are related to the big picture of the site, the building envelope. And I'm just wondering where you're at, discussions about determining what the plan size the library will be. So that's one question that I have too about, Bonnie. I'll just ask that first then. Thank you Council Member Brown. And first I want to acknowledge Brian Bergunno who is the project manager who has been working on this project. He definitely has been jumping in and going deep into the project more. So you will start seeing his face in the future and he's really doing, really getting up to speed and super engaged. So I did want to acknowledge him as well. As far as the library size, you mean the footage of the library? Yeah, we're holding the 35,000 for the indoor programmable space. We actually right now, and so they expanded track a little bit, we're actually larger than that. We're actually looking at putting some of the HVAC mechanical components of the library that typically would be in that footprint. We're actually putting that on the structure side. And while that takes more spaces from evaluating it, it gives us more efficient, more space for the library. So we're working through that right now. But we have committed internally and it is a project team that we don't want to go below the 35,000 if at all possible. And we've been holding to that. So then on top of that, have the library control the additional roof deck space. And we're trying to keep that as flexible as possible. But that is obviously the residential component. Could book that through the library and use that space. But you really are seeing that as controlled by the library, available for booking or community events, but really library programmable space on top of 5,000. Thank you. Okay, so questions on the overall financing. And I recognize that a lot of this is process and you mentioned this grant opportunity and that would be a significant contribution, a million dollars project. But I also am wondering, so what remind us or give us a current estimate on how much of measure S funding is available for the project. And then just more generally or holistically, I guess, the where we're at with the budget costs costing out on the various elements of the project. Sure. So we have 25.5 set aside for the downtown branch out of the total roughly 31.5 a million available for the Santa Cruz branches. They have not complete, I say they, the sort of library countens to work on this haven't completely closed out the branch authority the two other locations of our field. So there may be 100,000 that comes back that we program and increase that amount above the 5.5. But right now we're just that we have 5.5 of measure S. So stay tuned on that. I don't know if those will be closed out end of this fiscal year, but hopefully by July, we'll have better any additional money coming back. Last, last we've heard about a month ago, they weren't at the wimpy sum. They thought they'd be able to close out, but I don't know if we've gotten to all their functions. So to be determined on that where we are on project budget, you know, definitely, that's pretty why we're so excited is an opportunity because then we have a funding course to fund the roof deck to fund the solar panels on a lot of those that are over and beyond what sort of an apple to apples library. So if we get that grant, I think we're gonna really, that's for the 35,000 plus 5,000. The other thing that we're really zoning in on is just efficiency of this building and how we're actually being more public libraries based on this. So even though the library site, that was roughly 40,000, 1,000, give or take, there's about 14,000 that back of house space not open to public and it's pretty innovative. So when you're comparing the library to the previous library, we actually have a net gain of 100 to 2,000 and sort of growing of public space in the library, which is pretty exciting. We just didn't know beforehand how that was going to come out and tell are the library architects based on architecture to really get in there and look at and that's where the survey came in and it was really important. As far as the budget features, definitely as we get part defined, some of the facade features we have right now are full and amazing, but I will say all that glass work is pretty expensive. So right now we're holding to be strong on the budget, but that cost that comes in will be really important for us. There are some there that we can do some value in our budget. Right now we're hopeful that we get all those extra, you know, really stated, they are library there as far as we think we're on a really good track. This grant comes through, I think really good going forward and addition to that, we have those projects of the overall project foundation, sharing coltons, sharing construction management that really comes to and saves us, you know, quite a bit of an overall, the budget, the library, we're just been alone or doing it. So I think we're getting a much bigger, much more state of the art, nicer materials, library than we ever would have with the existing site, just because of all this stuff. So I'm pretty excited about that, but of course, you know, we need to get to this next phase, attic phase, so that we can really have our consultants go deep on the cost of materials, and then we'll be able to come back to the council and really share with you, okay, you know, here's the baseline, here's the cost of these first alternatives, and that's the level of detail that we're really hoping to do in the nut. It's great, it was really helpful when we were able to do that during the subcommittee process, yet how to turn on the features and turn them off and get a sense of what we're looking at. So thank you, get it. Number found, looks like that, it's our question and comments for that presentation. Thank you, Bonnie Lipscomb. Appreciate the update, look forward to the next one, April 26th. Okay, we will now move on to our next presentation item. This is a mayoral proclamation declaring March 22nd, 2020, is Jane Mio Day. Is Jane Mio present? Welcome, Jane. I will go ahead and read the proclamation and then hand it over to you if you have any comment. Jane Mio, a 50-year Santa Cruz president has volunteered with the San Lorenzo River Esquiry Revegetation Project, SLV Native Habitat Restoration Program, Valley Women's Club and served on the city of Santa Cruz, Parks and Recreation since 2008, including serving as vice chair in 2020 and chair in 2021. And whereas, Jane Mio has engaged 100 volunteers in ecological restoration work along the San Lorenzo River through the San Lorenzo River Esquiry Revegetation Project. And whereas, for the past five years, Jane Mio has led long-term efforts along the esquire and reach of the San Lorenzo River. Her efforts brought about the removal of large areas of invasive and the planting and care of hundreds of native plants. Jane has put in many days of hard labor herself and more importantly, has leveraged the source of other organisms. And in the process, that did hundreds of people with the river, the river rock, river walk and ecological restoration. And whereas, Jane has engaged with and brought in groups who work alongside her on the San Lorenzo River, including the Local Valley Women's Club, the AmeriCorps, California Conservation Corp, pool group, Girl Scouts and the Museum of Natural History. And whereas homeless sentiment have been a significant crisis in their impact has been acute along the San Lorenzo River. One of Jane's most notable collaboration has been with the Downtown's Nonprofit Organization that works with people experiencing homeless to provide a pathway to a better life. With them, Jane has run a program introducing speaking members of the San Lorenzo River's native plants and wildlife habitat and has provided training and skills on their maintenance care. And whereas, the Benchland, part of the San Lorenzo River floodplain and previous homeless encampments in the area have damaged riparian habitat at the river's edge and released waste and debris into the river itself. This has been an issue of great concern and with the help of staff, Jane created a program to engage camp residents during that area. Whereas in 2021, Jane Meo created Benchlands Environmental Worship Team, also known as the BEST, care for specific damaged areas of the San Lorenzo Benchland River bank adjacent to the encampments in lower San Lorenzo Park. This program has members of the housed and unhoused communities work side by side, protecting our beautiful riparian habitat of the San Lorenzo River and has better environment and the lives. And whereas, Jane Meo has been selected and newly recognized as champion of this community by California Parks and Recreation Society 2021 Awards Program. And whereas, Jane puts her heart and soul and unpaid work to improve the community and the environment. And now therefore, I, Sonia Brunner, Mayor of the City of Santa Fe declare March 22nd, 1022, as Jane Meo Day in the City of Santa Cruz in recognition of the past five years countless hours has volunteered her time while also engaging with numerous organizations and volunteers to improve the community and the habitat along the lower San Lorenzo River for her ongoing dedication for our environment, our people, and for her work as Parks and Recreation Commissioner and Chair in her special service creating the Benchland Fire Minerals is truly a champion of the community. Jane, welcome. Hi, Mayor. Sorry. I do notice that I received the proclamation of the Jane Meo Day. It's so great to accept the honor in the National Women's History Month by saluting present future women who follow their passion to often gauging their diverse communities, build inclusive environment next to the benefit of all. Also, incredibly proud. Oh God, I hope I don't have to cry. Who made this proclamation as a testimony of their work, support, and courage? I celebrate every single person with all my heart for their contribution, for making this state possible. Person who made the Fiesty Jane Meo Happen. And it looks like as Council Member Myers and Council Member Cummings have. I did. I did that. We have a day named after you this year. You and I have been together for 25 years on that river and we've planted plants and pulled weeds and done all kinds of crazy things. And Friday teaches many people about that river and how special it is as much as possible. And so you just carry this torch every single day when you walk on that river and single person that you teach about the birds and then you talk about the history river and you point out all the special grasses that we both know where they are and that they're natives and they've survived 20 years of pretty much just abuse. So I just, I can't thank the mayor more for recognizing you and you are Fiesty and you are a filmmaker and you do have one of the biggest hearts I've ever known. So congrats to you, my dear. Thank you. We have been added. I'm with that. I'm a member of my Air's Council member team. And I just want to thank you for countless years of work and love that you put into our river and the community. Living in the beach flats, probably don't know this, but I wrote with drive-by you kind of working on the river levee planting. Data plants would want to stop and say hello, but there's not, there's really no way you can stop a lot of it out of the street, but just wanted to recognize I see you out there and I've heard so many good things from people in the community who have gone down to work with you and with the homeless people who are in the benchlands to help, you know, clean up the area down there on the weekends and teach the people down there about the native plants. And I think it's through those kinds of efforts we can actually help, you know, show people there's, they can contribute something to our community and that they can make a difference and help up with people who are in really dark places. So thank you very much for everything you've done and continue to do. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that a lot. Thank you. Council Member Brown. Thank you. Dane, what can I, what to say?  So that vision of, you know, sustainable, well cared for river and environment all around. I just, I love you, Jane. And I'm so glad to see you here and for all you two. Thank you. Thank you, Sandy.  I can figure, I guess I'm unmuted. Yes. Okay. Very good. Thank you. I'm still figuring out Zoom. I really appreciate the opportunity to be celebrating Jane's wins over the last decade, primarily. Dane and I have known each other for about 20 years. Not only has she always been an environmentalist, where it has started out calling cutting trees, but over the last decade, Dane and I have built a huge friendship and contributed not only environmental benefit, but also social benefit. I've watched people fall in, also told me in-house they make those people of value for their projects, make them feel like full to really incorporate them in everything they're doing and teach them about important part of our environment on the river and on the... So, Jane and I, like best friends. So, congratulations, Dane. Such a great day for you. And all of your dedication to the environment. So, thank you so much for allowing me. Leslie, you're an arborist at the Arborist Parks Direct. Yes, she is. I'm the city's urban forest, for some of you, newer council members. I'm a work at Parks Direct under Travis. So much love for you. Oh, you're so welcome. Yeah, she's my lead in the estuary project, got me started. She's my wind under my wing. Wonderful. Well, Jane, it has been an honor to also get to know you and work alongside you. Christmas Day, you were out there with me along the river, just with us in the pouring rain. So, you're wonderful to be able to recognize what you've done so much. Just haven't been in a bin. You'll have a beautiful Jane Mio day. Council Member Calantari Johnson, you announced the proclamation issue honoring Persian New Year and to share with us a scheduled event celebration of the day. Great, thank you, Mayor. First, I wanna thank you, Mayor Brunner, for bringing this proclamation to our city. I think it's the first ever Persian New Year proclamation. So, thank you for your work. Persian New Year happened on Sunday and in Farsi, it's Nouruz, which means new day. It marks the beginning of spring and it's celebrated by over 300 million people around the world. It's really about spring, renewal, rebirth, guvination, celebration of the changing of the season and coming out of the darkness of winter and into the light and the beauty of spring. It's been celebrated for over 3,000 years across the world and I'm really excited. Our community here in Santa Cruz is now honoring and celebrating the Persian New Year. So, we are partnering with the Museum of Art and History and the Society of Iranian Literature and Art and we're hosting an event this Sunday, March 27th, from 12 to three o'clock at the Museum of Art and History. We'll have a half-scene, this table of the seven S's displayed and there'll be a presentation about the half-scene and we have a special, special honored guest that will be there. Her name is Samina Bakhtavan. She's turning 96 and she is gifting the maa a hand-silk woven rendition of the Cooper House, same day.  Happy Persian New Year to all those out there. Nouruz, Nouruz, thanks a lot. Thank you for sharing that. Move on in the agenda and I have a few announcements for we move into our regular meeting. Today's meeting is being broadcast live on the Television Channel 25 and also streaming on the city's website, cityofsantacruz.com. If you wish to comment on an agenda item today, call in at the beginning of the item you are wanting to comment on using the instructions on your screen. Please mute your television or streaming device once you call in and listen through the phone. Please note there is a delay in streaming so if you continue to listen on your television or streaming device, you may miss your opportunity. When it's your time for public comment, raise your hand either by dialing star nine on your phone or selecting raise and webinar.  The items that will be open for public comment bring today's meeting are numbers 32 on our agenda. And our agenda is that cityofsantacruz.com. I'd like to ask council members if there are any statements or just a call. I'd like to ask clerk who announced that there is no solution, none, I'd like to call on the attorney to provide a report on closed session. Yes, good afternoon, Airburner members of the city council this morning at 10 30 a.m. Council met in closed session via Zoom to discuss the following items. Item one was a conference with legal council surrounding liability claims, liability claims of Neil Bernardi, right? And the claim of Armand Joseph Tiano. Those are also listed this afternoon on your consent agenda as item number 18. Council also had a conference with its labor negotiators concerning all bargaining groups as listed on your post agenda. There was no reportable act. Thank you. Council will now review the meeting calendar attached to the agenda and revise it as necessary. I'll call on the city clerk to provide any updates on the calendar. There are no updates. None. Now the time for council members to report out on act at external board bitties and joint powers authority meetings that we have attended. For future meetings, please come prepared, provide an update on any meetings or actions that occurred in the last council meeting so that the council and public form. I will start my left council member, Brown. Mayor, I have a very short report today. First, I wanted to not report out on the County regional transiting if it can items at our last meeting or policy work up. Haven't met regular meetings in my last report, but I did want to highlight for folks who are listening and we all press release about this and I'm sure there will be more and more announcements coming about this, but the city of Santa Cruz along with the regional transmission will be hosting a virtual open house. Discuss segments eight and nine of the coastal rail trail and these are the segments heading east as you go past the boardwalk. So those that will be happening March 1st from five to six thirty PM and public dialogue is really vital. Welcome. Give us your thoughts on the design of rail trail segment. So I just wanted to highlight those. You can find that and it may be on the city's website, but it's announced at our website. And I also wanted to mention that at our last may pay area air resource district board meeting. He got an update about funding for this year's electric vehicle incentive programs for partner, public agents partners in Santa Cruz Monterey and San Benito. So this is funding for electric vehicles also for, I don't remember the technology. Sorry, I'm gonna look it up really quickly. I'm back on the air board, but I'm sort of still trying to go. The Clean Air Management Program. So in the city of Santa Cruz has received funding through the Clean Air Management Program in the past here, it's supporting our work at the main deed for the house parking and bathroom area. And Bill, I imagine our staff will get programs and trying to get some support for our transition to electric vehicles. So that, and that's about $1.6 million total for the reach. So it's not a lot of money, but it has supported our efforts in the past. So things like roundabout adaptive traffic, single controls and helping support public. We're trying to transition for light vehicles. So that was exciting news. And I think I will sit there for a second. Thank you for those updates. Okay, Council Member Meyer. Thank you, Mayor. Liz, let's see. A couple of things to note. We did have a Metro Board meeting last month and there will be some additional items moving forward this month concerning some of the capital investments that are programmed over the next years. Some of those being adding additional electrical buses as well as looking at actual hydrogen fuel cell buses as a possibility as well. There is a need for diversity in the as different carbon reduced types of vehicles come online. So the capital committee, which I sit on, did move a 10 year capital budget investment, excuse me, capital budget just in last week and that will be coming to the board on Friday. This, the Metro Board meeting is Friday at 9 a.m. So there'll be items moving ahead on that. And I believe also there'll be some announced at some time soon regarding the search for the new CEO for Metro as well. The other item that I, the other meeting that I attended this month was the Santa Cruz County Groundwater Agency that body has submitted the Groundwater Sustainability Plan for the haptos property areas for drafted entry by seawater. Those plans have that plan was submitted in January and it adopted budget this past Wednesday evening and also is accepting a $7.6 million grant from the state of California and bringing up projects online for that. During the meeting this month also the, there was an announcement that there was a drought drought advisory that the county required to create and I've seen announcements in the newspaper but they are seeking folks to join that that advisory committee that does need to be convened by state law, state law that was passed in January. So any members of the public may be interested in participating in that. Should look on the website. Limited sites, limited on that committee. Let me, the only other thing I have is the call working group has not met recently but regarding the calls last year and also that will be planning their work at the 10th anniversary of the Santa Cruz World Surfing Reserve, which is going to be hosted at Long Marine Lab. There'll be a community celebration at five to eight o'clock on Friday, 29th. And during the day period before the celebration there'll be a convening of various Marine and Coastal advocates, troopers and hosted by Save the Waves and they'll be doing additional work on creating a new 10 year kind of resource management plan for the World Surfing Reserve. So again, the public event is at five to eight and the celebration anniversary, Santa Cruz was named the fourth World Surfing Reserve. There's 11 now worldwide. And so that's a great celebration and the call working group with any information during that day time, nighttime work. Fortunately, Miss the Downtown Management Corporation meeting, that's my report. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Myers. Council Member Brown, did you have a question? I actually had one more announced and it's very timely announced, sorry, I forgot. Okay, let's switch back and have that announcement. Okay, I'll be real quick. So this week those of you, some of you I know have done this in the past, but Meals on Wheels has reopened at your dining site and we're celebrating this week and they are inviting elected officials to go support for these programs and point them for a delivery route or a dining site. And if there's a schedule that we all receive a mail about this, but if anybody is interested in this week, so you have a few days left, you're able to pass by the meal site at the Nelson or go on a ride along. They are welcoming our participants. I didn't contact them for info, I know. Thank you, Council Member Brown. Okay, Council Member Cummings. Thank you, Mayor. Mine is short. We approved a RFP for a special fire study to produce, sorry, we've approved an RFP for a special fire study that's gonna be related, eventually reorganizing fire protection countywide. At AMBAG, we had an information item that was graphed in 1845 about transportation plan such as sustainable community strategy. For our public safety meeting, there's a conflict that evening. It started a bit late, we didn't get materials. We got some materials kind of late as well and so we decided to postpone the meeting and we'll be meeting this Wednesday. So we'll have an update next time we meet on Public Safety Committee. And I had a conflict with the Climate Action Task Force and the Downtown Management Corp. So I wasn't able to make those, but I do believe we're gonna have a special meeting related to the Climate Action Plan in the next week. So that's my report and I'll pass it back on to you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Member Cummings. Council Member Callan-Tarrie-Johnson. Okay, the member hires gave the update for Metro. I'll just briefly add that we had a pretty extensive state and federal legislative update and discuss the governor's budget, including a significant amount of money that posing this rail, transit and rail infrastructure, zero emission vehicles and active projects and climate resilience and out of projects have all those dollar amounts, but take a long time. And then we talked a little bit about bipartisan infrastructure bill and the how much dollars that would translate to and how much we would get in our local communities. And we also discussed the Build Back Better bill, mainly that there wasn't a ton in there around and that the pieces that were in there, like HUD, affordable housing, 30% of the credit that Congressman Panetta's or would be like add to the Metro update. We met with Santa Cruz City Schools Committee just, hey, I think, yeah, yesterday and discuss the Children's Fund that this fiscal year we're trading a little over 200,000 and that doesn't take into account the additional increase of 12% to 20%. So we'll expect to see funding there and I'll let member or vice mayor, what can say more about that. And then we also got an update from City Schools where they're at their projects. We discussed the fencing of elementary schools due to health and safety concerns and our partnership with Parks and Rec Department schools to explore whether it's have some partially. So those were the main points to talk about in this meeting. Schools, let me see if it's here. We did not, we have not met with the community programs or health and safety studies our last meeting. I am now a representative community action board and had my first meeting with the organization. There were some highlights provided on the programs that implement that they're implementing. And I think the moves that are most relevant to our discussions are their work around rental assistance and just in general of the impacts that seeing on both renters and landlords in the lack of the state's response, writing rental support. And then we also talked about their youth homelessness program, youth homeless demonstration program as well as their transition age youth housing voucher program that's producing some really wonderful outcomes. Finally, the youth action network which I serve as the city representative met recently with all the jurisdictional representatives across the country. It was a youth led meeting, which is always wonderful and had the opportunity to sort of share their vision for this partnership with jurisdictional representatives. We're working directly with the youth action network steering committee to develop a youth liaison that'll work directly with the city and city issues. And I would like to just give a save the day for the city of Santa Cruz youth action network pop-up that'll in partnership with the teen center that happened April 27th at the London Nelson Center. So, lots happen. Thank you. Thank you, council member voluntary Johnson. Vice mayor Watkins. Yeah, thanks mayor. Gosh, I think coming towards the end everybody's pretty much covered a lot of the mutual meetings attended. The only thing I would really add is that, yes, in terms of just building on what Council Member Callentary Johnson brought up with our measure A successfully passed at this point, there's so much potential for a more integrated approach to how to make recommendations to the full council to really support specific populations, early childhood prevention and vulnerable youth and very exciting opportunity to help individuals in our community. So I'm really looking forward to the next iteration of what that looks like. Council Member Callentary Johnson brought up that the health and all policies committee has a meeting coming up soon. So we'll have something to report on there after that meeting. And then in regard to the two by two mayor I'll let you speak to that when I was unable to attend that meeting at this last one we had. And I think Bonnie brought up the farmer's market there is a real interest in wanting to have a permanent location and not be moved many times and just continuing to support the farmer's market any way you can. And lastly, I would say that we did have our orientation meeting for the new MUM of care which is the new iteration of the, it was the happen now it's the housing for health partnership. And really a lot of opportunity to move forward. A lot of ways think about how we're leveraging our various resources and community human services department, various projects underway, outreach as well as coalition buildings. So more to come there as really delve into what that new process will look like. And Council member Cummings brought up that tomorrow we have a public committee meeting that was and so we don't have any support at this point on that. In fact, first of my addition. Right, so let's see, I will add confirming that our visit Santa Cruz our next meeting is next week. So that is upcoming as well as our health and all policy committee meeting that meets every other month. So that will be on Monday. And for the last year, Council member Calentari Johnson and myself and a Council member Myers we've met with the AAPI community group several members and they are planning an event in May and also planned and we were able to support them with a memorial this past weekend at Harvey West Park. So let's see, we also had ad hoc revenue meeting and in that meeting that we followed up on revenue measure at our last Council meeting we had made the recommendation for a sales tax increase and we followed up on some of the action items around that. What next steps are lead up to the June ballot. And then so by two meeting this month there was discussion regarding the county staff that they previewed the report that they have going to their board today, the board of supervisors being the last six months in the next performance measures, COVID shelter and mobilization and rehousing wave update. And there was discussion on the gap between affordability and housing and connection to homelessness plus funding update, free or action plan. And I believe there's sales in their board memo okay and there's also, there was discussion on the city's three year action plan and some of the structural investment and those up as well as this in on the fiction moratorium that is coming up at the end of March and some of the residents of the county that have not have applied for housing is to be the state funding assistance and have not been funding assistance yet. So we spoke about leveraging resources on that. So I'd say that was that those updates I'd also just like announced that there are two public hearings coming up regarding just the election, March 29th, April 19th. And so I just wanted to really make sure that our public was aware March 29th at 4.30 p.m. We assume and or you can call in and that information is on this banner.com slash election website, so much for those that speak. Now we will move to the consent agenda item. These are items eight through 24 on our agenda. For members of the public who are streaming this meeting if you would like to comment on items eight through 24 now it's time to call in. There should be instructions on your screen. Please remember to mute your streaming device and raise your hand by dialing star nine on your phone or selecting raise hand in the webinar calls on your screen. All items will be acted upon in one motion unless an item is pulled by a council member for their decision. Are there any council members who wish to comment on or pull the item? Council member Cummings. Thank you, Mayor. I was gonna pull item number 12 and I comment 15, 16 and 19. Oh, down to 12. Sorry, sorry, 12, 12. Okay. Comment on 15. Okay. 16 and 19. Thank you. Thank you. Council member Brown. I have a. Nice, Mayor Watkins. I just wanted to make a brief comment on item six. Okay. So we have item number 12, hold and comments on 15, 15 and 19. So I will go ahead then and start with comment and we'll begin with item 15 and I will begin with council member Cummings. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to thank the members of the public and working on unionizing at Starbucks in particular union member named Joe Thompson who's leading the effort on 18 year old activists who's making significant progress with joining the unionization effort of the Starbucks workers. And so I wanted to give him a shout out to all the workers that are out there that are working on unionizing and I just want to thank you, Mayor. You and council member Brown for support bringing this forward and council member Brown for your leadership and taking the lead on this. Thank you. Council member Brown. Item number 15. Council member Cummings for your comment on this item. We're out there listening. I just wanted to say a couple of things. So this item is on our agenda today. It's a resolution of support for workers at Starbucks that are part of a growing wave of unionized efforts at Starbucks across the country. And so the union is Starbucks were reminded of data with SCIU conditioning to represent workers at over 100 locations across the US. So this is a growing national movement for workers who have a voice on the job, have a day in indicating what matters to them about work pages, improvements that need to be put in place with a corporation like this and to get made very far away from. So this is a way for workers really to have that voice. And Starbucks has responded by wave of unionization by engaging in really common best tactics firing into workers who are identified as organizers and taking actions nationally or by rail, this effort. And I think because of that, not really not unsurprising but very, very just unreasonable that I'm editorializing bonds on the part of management through this major, major pain. We thought it was important to communicate our support. So I just, and I want to thank Dr. Thompson as well for the efforts to bring this to us along with all of the work. I'll leave it there here in the comments to open. Thank you. Let's see, we had comments for item number six, Vice Mayor Watkins. Great, thank you so much. I just wanted to acknowledge and thank you, Mayor Burner as well as Councilor Cummings. What this item is is about sending our support to our legislators, letting them know that we support that they passed 80, 60, 90, which is the health place solution prevention act. And essentially what that's doing is transitioning California away from unnecessary, non-health affected, single use smoking product and phasing out, will use non rechargeable vaping devices as well as cigarette and cigar filters. The movement for tobacco and tobacco waste is slow and it's always often very responsive but California can move in this direction. I think it really moves the needle significantly within the nation and then beyond. So it starts here and this appreciation and support hopefully will help get this over the phone. Thank you for writing that. Vice Mayor Watkins, Council Member Cummings, I'd also comment on item number 16. Yeah, similarly, I just want to thank you, Mayor and Council Member Watkins for your support on this. And I really want to thank two community members, Taylor Lane and then Judkins. They've been doing a lot of activist work on trying to ban the bud banning cigarette butts and filtered cigarette products. Because what we've seen is that oftentimes when people at the beach if they're smoking these cigarette butts which are made of plastic, the ground and the ocean and are a huge contamination source environment and also costs a lot of money when it comes to trying to clean up cigarette butts whether they're in the ocean or whether they're sidewalks in the community. And so they've been putting forward a huge effort to try to get jurisdiction throughout the country to ban single use filtered tobacco product. And I look forward to continuing work with them as we move forward to see how Santa Cruz can be a leader in this effort as well. Thank you so much, Council Member. And then we had a comment on number 19. I just want to express my appreciation to the staff and the community for bringing this forward. This item is established as a city wide holiday and back in 2020 when after the murder of George Floyd I know that this had come up as a topic of discussion and although really difficult to kind of make it so at that point in time just trying to understand how we can continue to have operations function in the city and also provide people with holiday. This city has worked bringing this forward and I know we've gotten support by council members at previous meetings to move in this direction. And so I know it's just really exciting to see that Juneteenth will be a city holiday for city workers this year. And I hope that other businesses join in and other join in and making this a holiday for their work, paid holiday work as well. Thank you, Council Member. Okay, at this time we move on to public comment. And if there are any members of the public that would like to speak to any item on our consent agenda with the exception of item number 12, which has been pulled. Now is the time, so please raise your hand by dialing star nine or selecting raise hands in the webinar of your, the timer will then be set. Okay, so going out to attendees, I phone number ending in zero nine one.  Yes, this is Sibley Simon. Thank you. I just want to comment briefly on item 20, which relates to Evergreen Cemetery. I know Evergreen Cemetery was started in the 1850s and was very actively used as the first public cemetery in Santa Cruz for decades after that, but then fell into neglect and abandonment and is now owned by Museum of Art and History. While this is just a little encroachment permit, I'm excited to say this really represents the next phase in our decade long now effort by volunteers throughout the community to improve Evergreen Cemetery and not only make it a safe and beautiful place for people to visit, but even more so make it a place people learn about Santa Cruz history and the full diversity of Santa Cruz history from our Chinese immigrant community, Civil War veterans, London, Nelson, family started the first businesses in Santa Cruz and on and on. And really what this is, we got a state grant from the California Museum's grant program, doesn't usually give grants to cemeteries but because of this use by thousands of students who come out to learn local history, are used on D'Ailis Muerto, it's really seen as a cultural site. And so we got this grant to improve accessibility, which will just make it better for everyone visiting Evergreen Cemetery, not only for the older visitors who have trouble navigating our old trip paths, but all of us who have trip paths out there. And so I'm really excited that this is an infrastructure project that's gonna improve the cemetery for decades to come. And, but I also wanna say, I really wanna thank Parks Department because the only way to make this happen was to cooperate with Harvey West Park and to put some accessible parking, Harvey West Park and Tye Cemetery. So we really worked that out with the city. Not easy to figure this out and get permits for it, but Eric Marlitt was really helpful. The city arborist, Leslie Keady was really helpful. And so we're just thrilled to be at this point and really ready to start construction on this project. So I'm excited to see this on your agenda. Hey Simon, our next attendee is Joseph Thompson. Come meet yourself, there you go. Thank you so much. First of all, I'd just like to first off begin by thanking Andy Brown and Justin Cummings for introducing this wonderful resolution in support of the Starbucks workers organizing, not only at the Ocean and Water Street, but also on mission in Dufour. We have gone through a lot of most tactics ever since we launched our unique campaign going back January 21st, 2021 this year, 2022. And since then we've united together and really continuing our work struggle. Since then we've had about eight more source files throughout all of California that have been helping organize those stores. A recent story about this last Friday in Mill Valley where the lead organizer at that store is only 17 years old. And he's just showing that this movement is being yet led by young people who want change. And that's the biggest thing that resolution is fighting for and continuing to fight for is having young people and voices in power that can speak truth to power. So again, thank you for all the council members who decide to go for the resolution. It shows that you stand behind workers who are organizing against a multi-billion dollar corporation who has chosen to place profit over partner. And partners at these locations of workers are the ones who need the most support right now because we're in a fight not only to secure organizing rights for us, but to continue the worker movement and really branch out labor. We've been reaching out other local coffee shops, other national chains as well now and really starting to ignite movement to unionize doors. And we're not gonna back down, we're not gonna stop heading. And it's so great to have the support of union members and union leaders who want change in the world. So thank you all again. And I hope you do pass this resolution to show that Santa Cruz stands with our union strong and go get yourself a union strong cup of coffee. Thank you. Thank you, Joseph Johnson. Our next attendee calling in on consent agenda items except for item 12, I am watching you. Yeah, hi. As to item number 14, the taxpayer-funded leftist project proposal of indoctrination and marriage between radical social justice groups with climate activists, no, no, and blank, though, is not just a harmless gold bell, like Travis Ganz, an example of a gushing A to Z leftist budge's word, peace like climate justice. But it is also quite an alarming self-serving public monetary request intended to morph into a massive potential misappropriation of public monies installing an unelected bureaucrat drawing city salary to head a regional coalition leftist political social justice alliance types beyond the reach of the people focused on the full spectrum of leftist ideological conditioning, power of radical social justice wear agenda with the hope of attract more grants and power to a somewhat unknown, but clearly leftist purpose instead of the singular goal of enhanced regional sustainability. This proposed scope of so-called compensated justice groups and local climate practitioners falls partly outside the petitioners job and diagram. I fail to see how racism, justice, equity, diversity and inclusion training makes for one booger's worth of sustainability effect, but I never got infected by the university post-borderness neo-Marxist conditioning clearly some did. It's critically important to stop the shunting of public tax monies that fund left-wing radicals. My request is inappropriate slide of hands over our full radical leftist agenda request for funds by a massively overpaid SWC bureaucrat. He refused now and set back for a more limited scope rewrite with a sole focus on sustainability. I take sustainability issues seriously, but I don't hijack it to mean anything other than a focus on the depletion or damage of Earth's natural resources, which are simply cannot continue. That the climate change dollars that will mostly also be wasted to know certain just demonstrable climate effect is another aspect that also makes it less desirable. I oppose the controversial items like item 15 and 19, but unless you pull it, I don't have time to discuss it. Thank you. Are there any other items that would like on items 824 with the exception of item 12? Now it's time to raise your hand by pressing star nine on your phone or selecting raised hand in the webinar. We'll then bring it back. Council on call for a vote on the remaining items of sent agenda for moving on to the old item number fund. I see Council Member Myers, Council Member Brown, commuted Council Member Myers. Sorry, I'll make a motion on the remaining. No motion by Council Member Myers. Second by Council Member Brown. I'd like to ask the clerk to take a roll call vote. I'm going to vote aye, but I just want to ask, sorry, I remember I just don't feel like there's enough time in it. So is that a no vote? I guess it's a no vote. I can't abstain. OK. Vice Mayor Watkins. Aye. Mayor Brunner. Aye. Let's see. Motion passes with six guesses, one on all items, one no on items 15, Council Member Golder. We will now come back to item number 12. Council Member Cummings, you pulled this item. Yeah, there was just one. Thank you, Mayor. There was one minor detail that was left out of the friendly amendment in the minutes regarding item number 17.1, homeless response programming, quarterly update, homeless response action plan, homeless staffing, and homeless response funding. And the friendly amendment that was made by the mayor was work with the county for 24-7 nonlaw enforcement alternative emergency response program for better and safe funding opportunities, which accepted in that. But somebody reached out to me because we had mentioned having the word prioritized support supposed to be in there at minute 29. In the video from the last meeting, I brought up whether we can include prioritized. Mayor said yes in a friendly amendment, which was accepted by them. And as a result, but then looking at the minutes of the last council meeting, the prioritized part was left out. So the only thing I was bringing up was just having sort of reflected in the minutes that it said prioritized support. Is that correction was made in an ICC clerk, Bonnie Bush, stand up? Yeah, thank you. Council Member Cummings, after you pointed it out, I've been guessing you maybe have it received email that I sent yesterday to let you guys know that it was made. We did verify in the video and prioritized is reflected in it. Thank you very much. OK, thank you, speaker. That means we will come to a vote on item 12 from the March 8,000 meeting. I don't think we have a motion. Please go to public comment. And we need to go out to vote. I'm keeping ahead of myself. For item 12, we'll bring it out to public comment. And if you would like to comment on item 12, the minute from the March 8 meeting, raise your hand by pressing star 9 on your phone. And I don't need hands raised, so now I will bring it back for a motion on item number 12. I have a motion by Council Member Meyers, seconded. I remember Brown. Now we can roll call vote. Council Member Co-entry Johnson. Aye. That's coming. I hear a motion. I hear a vote. Aye. That motion passes with six ayes, one absent, council member. Thank you. That concludes our event. Consent agenda item moving on into agenda. We will now begin public hearing. And next up is agenda number 25. 25 is a public hearing for 2022, 2023 US Department of Housing and Urban Development, so known as HUD Action Plan. For members of the public who are streaming this meeting, if this is an item you wish to comment on, now is the time to call in, using the instructions on your screen. The order for this item will be a presentation of the item by staff, followed by questions from Council. We will then take public comment, and then return to the Council for Liberation and Action. I would like to now present, I believe it's Tiffany Lake, our principal manager. Thank you. Go ahead and share my screen. This is the CDBG and Home Action Plan and Budget Public Hearing. I'm Tiffany Lake, Housing and Sustainable Management Analyst in Urban Development. Also here today is our Housing and Development Manager. Call today to get funding recommendation from. This will allow us to keep moving forward and hit our remaining fines, commit our annual action. This is the annual action timeline. We've already gone through a lot of steps in that process. Most recently, we brought in the Programs Committee and the initial Council approval will allow us to stay on this timeline and hit our remaining goals and bring it back to second public hearing where the HUD budget is finalized, then a commitment to HUD in May. The recommendations we're going to do today are all based on estimates. Our CDBG and Home Funds fluctuate a lot over the years. But for this upcoming program year, we're estimating we'll have 605,000 CDBG or Community Development Block Grants. And we're estimating 425,000. CDBG, we're also estimating program income or payments on loans made to CDBG funds of 55,000. And prior year funds available to be programming at 60,000, giving us a total available of 720,000. Administration is set by HUD formula, 132,000. We also have rehab administration for loan servicing grants made with CDBG funds of 5,000. So that gives us 583,000 available for programs and projects. This year, we received four applications for CDBG funding programs. Now these are all subject to a 15% HUD activities cap. But Nueva Vista is not subject to this cap because it's a community-based development organization, or CBTO, so the total requests are at 190. CAF is recommending to fund all of the programs last year's funding levels from the Teens Center to Historic Funding Level, lowering it to 35,000. We recommend to not increase funding levels for any of the programs until you know our actual award amounts from HUD to ensure that we don't exceed that 15% public services cap. That's a total of 185,000 for programs. We have some updates for some CDBG-funded programs for the first two quarters of current program year. So that's from July 2021 through December 2021. So the first one is for second harvest food bank. They have provided over 1.4 million pounds of food to Santa Cruz region. Some more updates from the Familia Center. They have provided a lot of valuable services to the community including 350 hours of advocacy work over 700 clients, as well as helping to give 340 households food distribution. For Beachflex Community Center, 36 youths were able to participate in the summer recreational activities and the lunch program. 50 youths had one-on-one homework tutoring for afternoons every week, and 18 parents were provided with clinical assistance to help with remote learning. California Rural Legal Assistance has helped pick three Santa Cruz residents, our 41 households in the first two quarters of the program year, and of those 24 households have received the request. Also received CDBG requests for funding for projects. The Depot Park renovation will be for bathroom renovations, renovations classroom part, the Depot Park building. We also received a request for the Santa Cruz AIDS Project for renovation of its affordable housing for those living with HIV or AIDS in Santa Cruz. And we also had a request for homeless infrastructure that will help support emergency encampment needs for the procurement hygiene units, elective cookups, and other site preparation.  The staff is recommending to fund the Santa Cruz AIDS Project request at their request of $95,000, the Depot Park renovation at $62,000, and that the majority of the funding goes to homeless infrastructure, or all of the remaining, the $242,000. If we do get more than we have estimated, we recommend that all of the remaining funding should all go to homeless infrastructure. That's a total of $398,000 project. On summary, it's 185,000 of the programmable CDBG funds for community programs, and 398,000. Similarly for home, again, we're working with estimates, and our estimate, the upcoming grant, 425,000. Estimating program income of 125,000. And again, administration is set by HUD formula, 5,000. We have a photo set aside for community housing development organizations, 15% of the grant must go to one of these organizations, and we have a new organization certified this year for community housing that will be eligible to use the funds. We have prior years funding of $1.5 million, and a total home budget of $1.5 million. This year we received two applications for home funding. Both are 100% affordable projects. The first natural project is a 20-unit single room occupancy, or SRO project. It just went to planning commission, and still needs to go to council for a plan development permit, to be getting its coastal permit and design permit in the spring. They requested $1.5 million, a little over 20% total project budget of $6.9 million. The other application is for the Metro Pacific Station North project, a 95-unit family project, a majority of two-in-bedroom, a little over 160 bedrooms in total. The project has already received its planning permit and got its state environmental and coastal permits last year. At least 23 of the 95 units will be set aside in designated homeless, and the requested $1.8 million of funding is a little under 2% of the total budget of $103 million. So at the recent CPC meeting in February, staff let CPC Committee know that the Metro Bridges project is still pending eligibility. Part of following up on that, we met with HUD field representatives who advised that we needed competitively ranked applications. And because both projects' organizations had significant development and property management experience, created a ranking matrix, being the main categories of project readiness, funding leveraging, community value, projects' ability to help the city, city, and consolidated projects. These were ranked by three external reviewers that all ranked the Natural Resources Project and the North Project loved the Natural Resources Project. But because there's not adequate funding to fund both projects, staffs were recommending funds that cooperated projects from the North at $1.8 million. It is a HUD-recommended best practice to fund fewer projects at higher levels so that projects can afford and are not stalled. That will leave $182,000 available for free housing. In addition, City staff is also working on the home area which will provide 1.2 million of funds to these unhoused populations. So we are seeking input to help us prioritize the best use of funds. Please feel free to forward surveys or read more of the community. That can be found at cityofsandercrews.com slash HUD programs. So again, based on the initial budget recommended by Council today, we'll be able to draft the 2022 action plan. We'll bring that again for a second public hearing where the HUD budget will be final. And then we will submit the annual action plan on May 15th. The funding will become available as early as my first programs later in the fall project. Now we have time for any questions. Thank you. Thank you, Lake. Do Council members have any questions? Council member Cummings? I did have a question. Particularly related to the HUD funding with report homelessness. Knowing that we're putting $14 million towards that currently. And that oftentimes, you know, we fall short on being able to help support affordable housing project, which is, you know, interlinked with homelessness. I'm just wondering if you could point out specifically what it's supposed to go to. Because, you know, we have a lot of funds that we're putting towards this item. And we want to make sure that we're also putting funding towards, you know, other needs like affordable housing related to homelessness. Thank you for that question. The survey itself, first two questions, lists all of the available uses of the funds. So it is a little bit limited because it's home funds. So similar to the funds that we have every year. This funding has to go for either affordable housing that's specifically targeted for homelessness. It can go for tenant based rental assistance where it is paid directly to landlords. And there's some special housing counseling, housing targeted case management type of services that are allowed. But they all have to have a neck problem with housing and then there's a good amount of restrictions on exactly which types of services are allowed. So we'd love it, but for everyone that it's those four are being used. Can you list those off again? Yeah, so it is affordable housing development targeted specifically for the homeless, tenant based rental assistance, payments are made directly to landlords, specifically for those who are at risk of homelessness. Special housing counseling at homelessness and the housing with special HUD certification. And the other is case management. Thank you. I had a question for the attorney. Thank you. My question, one of the requests in the presentation is an item that came from the housing authority and I am a housing authority commissioner. So I would need to use myself from that. Yes. My recommendation would be that the action that takes on that separate and that as member of the housing authority board that you read. Thank you. So the item Home Funding Natural Bridges SRO from that's the housing authority development at natural bridges. It's an application from the housing authority in partnership on profit. Thank you. We'll take any action separately. Any questions from council members before I bring it out to public? Okay. I will now go out to public comment on this item. A member of the public and wanting to comment on item number 25 on our agenda, the 2022 to 2023 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Action. Now is the time. Please raise your hand and press R9 or raise hand in the webinar post of your computer and once you're time to speak, we'll hear an announcement that you've been unmuted and your approval will be set. And I'm not seeing any hands raised. I will bring it back to council for deliberation and emotion. The council member Meyers and council member Cummings. And they are on booth item. Second. Okay. So we have a motion by member Meyers attended by member Cummings and may we have a roll call vote? Thank you. Mayor Cummings. I'm sorry. Johnson. Coming. Mayor Watkins and Mayor Brunner. I would the exception of the application of the Natural Bridges SRO. I don't want to caution. Reusing myself from that item. Hopefully that's it. Thank you. Okay. So that classes unanimous deal with council member Golder absent. Thank you to any late. For that presentation. We will now vote next item on the agenda which is item number 26. Public hearing for second reading and final adoption of ordinance number thousand twenty dash. Small housing unit. General plan downtown plan. Local coastal plan and zoning ordinance update. For members of the public receiving this meeting if this is an item you would like comment on that was the time to call in use instructions on your screen. Okay. If you are interested. This is a second reading and final adoption of this item. I will bring it over to the attendees for any comment. Our night on your phone is your hand. And Mayor Brunner. Yes. I would just. Hi. The other director planning community development. We typically don't have presentations or second readings. However, we are prepared to make one if you would like one there were a lot of emails that came in. And we could clarify some of that information because not all the emails were hitting the mark. So we do have a few slides. If it pleases you in the council, we're happy to do that. Or if you're that it go out to public comment, we can do that. That would be helpful. So Lee Butler. I do have several questions that have come up. So if you're prepared answer some of those questions, that would be helpful. Absolutely. And then go to public comment. Okay. Great. Thank you for that opportunity. And I'll turn it over to Sarah Noisy, our senior planner. He has put together a few slides to reacquaint the council in the community with Sarah Noisy. As director Butler mentioned, I am a senior planner with the advanced planning division here at the city of Santa Cruz. So first off, I just want to say thank you to all of the community members that wrote in. I am just always so grateful to work for sending a community where the public is so engaged and so thoughtful in our commentary. We've got a lot of really thoughtful, carefully worded comments. And I really appreciate that are a little confusing. And I understand why they're confusing. But hopefully I can clarify those here pretty easily. So let me just share this PowerPoint. See that? Well, density units are going to increase density. We heard that no other cities in the nation do this thing. We heard that this proposal is going to increase the height of buildings that are built, or that this proposal should have full EIR of its own. We also heard concerns about water and not having enough for any new development. And we also just heard a lot of anxiety about the way that laws change and ease about understanding what's coming down the line. So I just want to be really clear that the SROs, which exist now and have existed, the current code was adopted in 1995. So at least those 25 years, we've had exactly SROs that we have them now today. And that remains the densest type of housing that we can allow. And there is no density established for SROs anywhere in the zoning code. And specifically in the general plan, they are exempted from any general density categories. Regarding no other cities, there are lots of places in the U.S. that use a fully space code, where this is very lightly regulated, and density is not considered, but they regulate its form of building on the outside, and then, of course, open space and parking requirements go along with residential development and those kind of push out of building space that can be available. So that is very, that is similar. This move towards flexible density units is sort of a halfway step, a more form-based code. Doing a fully form-based transition is a very big undertaking and something for another time. As far as changing height, this proposal is not doing anything to change that building envelope. We're not talking about increasing heights at all. We're not talking about increasing heights either for standard conforming projects or for density bonus projects. There is no change in height, change in setbacks, no change in the parking requirement, no change in the amount of open space that is required for any one of these units compared to what is allowed today for a small ownership unit. The general plan did contemplate SROs, again, as established as the densest, most intense form of housing that our policy allows when the EIR was conducted, the general plan. So it is our belief that this amount of density was contemplated, this amount of number of units was contemplated. What we're talking about is taking that existing plan capacity and shuffling the way it can be used within that envelope to improve feasibility of projects. So you have for us to say, we think this will increase housing production. We do believe that. We believe this will increase housing production. But this does not change is the total amount of housing capacity that it's planned for in our general plan and studied in the EIR. Relating to water for council had the opportunity to hear the presentation from our water department in November of last year about the urban water management plan and got to see all the numbers. I understand a lot of communities have the opportunity to see that presentation and I really recommend it because it does show that City of Santa Cruz is in a different position around water than a lot of other water districts in our county. We actually have seen dropping demand despite increasing population and the projections from our water department estimate that over the next 25 years through 2035 they're projecting about a 4% increase in demand but that's demanding an 18% increase in population and most of that development I'd say more than 95% of that development is contained within the existing general plan which goes to 2030.  People may not be aware of that so I just want to add that out there. And then in regards to this anxiety about changes from Sacramento I just want to say I share that in a very deep way and the reality of it is state legislator is not standing still about anything related to housing so we are going to see changes coming out of Sacramento there is no day in the next 25 or 30 or 40 years they're going to stand still about housing so if we wait for them to stop that means we stop planning for our city and there may be some folks that would prefer that and that's not what you're going to hear recommended from our department in this that is in front of you so we are proposing to change small ownership units to flexible density units this proposal was recommended by your commission the change would allow that these types of units can be rented or sold whereas small ownership units are only allowed for sale this would remove the current limit on bedrooms but currently small ownership units are limited to one bedroom and a whole sort of negotiation is based on a lounge office and they don't get built to the same safety standards requirements for egress they would have if they actually planned for them to be a bedroom so we're proposing to lift that while keeping that overall size standard in place at 600 feet we are proposing to lower the minimum unit size current standard of 400 square feet down to 220 square feet this kind of bridges the gap between what an SRO can do and what this SOE could do is this funny gap so proposing to lower the minimum size down to 220 so that it matches we are proposing to add, not remove we are adding this to be included in three zone districts in the downtown, the central business district the area south of Laurel, the CBBE district and the RTC which is our residential commercial which is the beach area currently there is no standard that requires residential development in those areas which is allowed to include a commercial use there is no requirement in our zoning that and we are proposing to add one in the BC zone district today you can do a 100% residential development we are not proposing to change that next use would be an option when we come through in a few like two-ish months with the objective standards in the new zone districts that are going to really create next use zones for the first time we are going to have places where you can't do residential only where you have to be incorporating a commercial use that's going to come from our zone districts and that would apply to any projects that want to use this type of unit but that's not something that's in place today and currently in that CC zone district we only allow mixing uses on larger sites that are over 8,000 square feet there are plenty of sites in those zone districts that are 5,000 square feet what we're recommending is that we not in those locations on those sites part of this project the last change that's proposed with this from current SOU ordinance to the proposed flexible density ordinance is this ability to mix with other types of housing this is the only point that your planning commission debated the rest of the ordinance they were on purpose and as you'll call also this was a point of contention among your council as well about whether these should remain in stand-alone structures and projects as currently required for small ownership units or whether they should be allowed to mix with other types of units we are recommending that they be allowed to mix because this was one of the primary impotences for looking at this ordinance was to say these small ownership units aren't really working, they're not being built we're not getting this benefit of having options for people who would prefer to spend buying fewer square feet of housing and allowing them to be mixed in with other unit types we think is a way to encourage and support the development of the small units if you're someone who doesn't believe that small units is the direction that our city should be going in you probably aren't going to like this and that's just where we are regarding single room occupancy there is no change happening there what we are proposing is to codify our existing policy we have three days to the current general plan we just went back and found it in our 1993 general plan and it probably dates back but everything else is not changing I won't redo this slide but basically nothing about height nothing about step back nothing about parking is supposed to change nothing about the inclusionary requirement is supposed to change with this I wanted to give another little example because we talked through this in response to a question last time we have the details of this but it really gets quite tedious quite quickly so I just want to sort of give an example if we look at sort of a 14,000 to 15,000 per foot site about a third of an acre let's talk about what we built there what could be built there today so if we have that site in a zone district that allows up to 30 falling units per acre which is the standard that applies to lots of our PC zone you could get about parking an open space and a three-story height limit you could get to about 10,000 square feet of building space in that building envelope there's some space for circulation and trash enclosures take out a thousand square feet and then you figure you could get at that density you're a third of the acre you can get 10 homes 10 divided by about 9,000 of the homes that could be built on that site would be 900 square homes reserved for low income how change that would come in these flexible density units, this is how we're envisioning it is that the flexible density units could be added on top of those 10 so your density limit is 10 that applies to everything that is over 650 square feet of size so you can get 10 units that are that larger size we're dealing with the same 10,000 square foot building with a thousand feet for circulation 9,000 square feet that we're now giving up among units you could get 10 homes at 700 square feet plus 5 more units in the flexible density unit category at smaller studio size so this would be a total of 15 homes with free low income homes and these projects would look identical on both sides you would see more mailboxes if they have to the extent they have ground floor entries you might see more entries but the form of the building is not changing it's still a three-story structure it still requires parking in fact you can see more parking compare that with an SRO project which is already allowed today in all of these same zone districts so instead of those 10 homes and low income homes with an SRO project so SROs require a little less parking so that building form could be a little bit bigger, that building envelope we're estimating you could fit if your home SRO homes are around 300 square feet you could fit 35 of them on the same parcel and of those seven would be reserved for very low income that's kind of the difference that you'll see between standard size development and an SRO development it's more housing not a more bigger building but it has more density inside of it and I've shown here a picture these are the St. George department on Pacific which is an SRO and now I know people are saying but you're not showing the maximum density so let's look at what you really do if you really wanted to max everything out so what's shown on the top here is what's allowed today so we have our SOUs but we're looking at that same sort of one third of an acre site same kind of building size we're estimating you could fit 22 homes on that site and four of those to be reserved for low income if you're looking at SROs and you really max it out so the smallest SRO that you're allowed to build is 150 square feet and when they're that small they share facilities so they share bathrooms share kitchen facilities then you could fit 70 of them on the same site so you can fit 17 of those to be reserved for very low income households or individuals for our FDU proposal if we look at taking that all the way to the maximum density and taking those units as small as possible we would allow those down to 120 square feet and so that on the same site would let you get to 40 homes of which eight are for low income so you can see that this is somewhere in between the existing SOU ordinance that we have and the existing SRO ordinance that we have and the SRO ordinance is going to provide housing for more households I want to address also this question about SB 35 mentioned in several of the emails that we got and I think this is a really important point I haven't heard of SB 35 just to summarize that SB 35 is a state bill that was passed a few years ago that essentially exempts certain types of development from our public to get exempt from SICO review and then it streamlines the public process that we're accustomed to going through on those the most recent example of that of everyone here may know folks listening may not is the proposal that came in at 831 Water Street currently the city any proposal that comes in and includes more than 50% or more of the units as dedicated affordable housing they're entitled to this streamlined standard review process we are working on objective residential design standards those are going to be coming before the council in the next two months those will help regain some of that design control but essentially when we're reviewing for SB 35 we're really limited in what we do only review for things that are objective standards that can be measured and verified and are available in advance so SB 35 applies to different jurisdictions in different ways based on their progress for meeting their regional housing needs allocation which is the number of housing units assigned to every jurisdiction in the state by the state as a goal for planning for new house construction to meet future needs we're in pretty good shape right now so right now Santa Cruz is only missing our Rina on one category so very low in category we have enough units in the pipeline to potentially meet goals by the end of the time period when we have to build them which is the end of 2023 cycle of Rina is significantly more aggressive this is true of all cycle housing elements across the state everyone is getting much more aggressive housing numbers that they have to plan for and what happens if we don't meet those numbers is that we are subject to SB 35 so market rate housing has an allocation under that regional housing needs allocation and our market rate allocation for the next cycle which starts the beginning of 2024 is that we have to produce by 2031 a minimum of 1600 over 1600 to market rate and they assess us in ways the housing cycle through that state period so we have to have half of that much housing entitled full building permit by the end of 2027 the 803 housing unit by the end of 2027 which is more than we have built in the last 7 years so in order to meet this goal we need to almost double this is if we are able to meet this if we are able to meet this for our market rate production then SB 35 can you supply as it does today and have suppliers and we have one application that provides 50% or more affordable housing if we miss that part we drop to a more stringent category where everything that we approve here in Santa Cruz would be done almost everything almost everything that we do multi-family housing would become eligible for SB 35 because we fall down to a tier where any project that provides 10% affordable housing qualifies for that streamlined review and our inclusionary percentage is 20% so there are a few exclusions but we are concerned about that we are interested in maintaining whatever local control the state allows us to have some of the ways that we do that is by finding ways where we can get units create the reason for bringing this forward and looking for ways that we can support production of these smaller units at least some of the questions you have this is our recommendation it's printed in your staff report I won't read it adopt the ordinance at the second reading and then also adopt the resolution for coming thank you so much Sarah for that clarification on some of those questions that was very helpful go ahead council member thank you and thank you for trying to address those questions that have been coming in because we have been receiving a lot of emails I do want to see if we can address the affordability because it doesn't seem like there's anything that's making these restricted affordable units and there's debate over the affordability by design kind of notion I'm one of the people who don't really agree with that because you have studios that are going $2,800 a month and they're constantly going up price over time shrinking the size of the unit doesn't care about affordability so I'm just wondering if the idea is that we're reducing the size but we're not affordability in terms of making it be restricted then what more could we do to make these units actually affordable and not just affordable concept that's a really good question guarantee affordability and we're talking about for dealing in a market where housing is there's not abundant housing it's not like you have poodles of choices whatever your budget is it's not like you have tons of choices that's the reality of our market so within that kind of constraint without a deep restriction we're always going to be looking at the market setting those prices and so really what we can do to lower cost for households is allow them to purchase what they really want to purchase do they want to purchase 800 square feet or do they only want to purchase 400 square feet do they want to pay for parking or do they not want to pay for parking because they don't have a car looking at the inclusionary component of this is certainly not wasted time an idea that we could dig into and SROs do have a different inclusionary requirement they have to be very low income rather than low income I think there are things that we could talk about but I don't know that there's a concession that we there are concessions we can give that will lower cost and comes to the possibility that lower rents will follow but it's no guarantee the market has always said that and our market has a lot of influences on it and is honestly constrained there's not a bunch of tricky ones please do have something you want to say you covered it with the inclusionary comments inclusionary is applicable to this for 20% at low income which is 80% of the area median income for SROs we do have a different threshold it's 50% of the area median income now that does provide that provides an automatic quality I believe it's a 35% state density bonus SROs qualify for a 50% density bonus out the gate and our other standard inclusionary qualify for a 35% great thank you for that thank you Council Member Brown Mayor to there for the presentation I'll clarify a very complex set of considerations here I guess I wanted to ask as a follow-up what we're hearing is that the inclusionary applies but my understanding is that inclusionary applies only to the base of any project so all of these FDUs with limitless density am I so I think again we're mixing density bonus with our base zoning so FDUs are part of our zoning but they would become part of that base space and inclusionary is absolutely required on those thank you for that I'm explaining them I didn't a scenario with density bonus like a density bonus project scenario with FDUs the scenarios just gave us which were very helpful and I think that is where I've heard the majority of because when you talk about a bonus project where you have essentially a base then that unlimited density the density bonus piece of it then there's nothing that would stop a developer applying for density bonus and then all of those height and setback regulations that you say are in the have the ability to regulate that disappear they're required to provide those so again I'm trying to figure out how we it's very hard to understand what that might so I think it's I guess I'm just trying to understand my understanding is yes we could actually have removal of setback if an FDUs project applies for density bonus so yes okay so how we do a density bonus application because I think this is where a lot of folks get used what we're talking about changing is the base zoning so essentially with an FDU you could get a bonus of density without any waste we would keep our height in place like that example that I showed you where you go from 10 units to 15 units when you add ADUs you're still meeting a three story height limit you know all of the setback providing all the parking that's in our base and so yes you take that and you apply the density bonus it's a 35% density bonus on that so let me just share my screen I have a couple examples that can kind of illustrate this because I just want to be clear that density that doesn't have a specific density limit is not infinite right there's still a constraint and that's exactly how we do FROs so let's look at an FRO project real quick and see how they did that so this one's not an FRO project but this is a project this is Front River Front proposal that went in this shows a 35% density bonus so moving from here this is a proposal that meets all of our zoning requirements this is a requirement for the density bonus application you have to submit a conforming project and then your density bonus proposal has to match that in terms of the unit size if FDUs were included they would be included here so this building would look the same but it would have this inside of it this building would look the same and it would have more units inside of it this is a density bonus application this is 130 Center Street this was an FRO developed so you can see FROs are done exactly the same way as what we're talking about with FDUs and they're more dense you can fit four FROs they have to be no bigger than 345 square feet on average so they're going to be and they can be smaller they could be 150 square feet on average so this has to meet all of the standards that are in the zoning code and in the area plan and we review this to make sure that it meets all of our standards that's the base case and then they apply for the density bonus and you go from this conforming plan to this density bonus proposal so because this is an FRO proposal they are providing 20% of the units at very low income state density bonus law says it entitles them 50% density bonus so this is 50% bonus so it went from 155 units to 233 units and so at this point when only when the density bonus is applied starts to have to waive flight standards like height and floor area ratio and but we do have that yeah I mean that's state law so there's nothing that we're doing here that would circumvent state law or that would prevent state law from applying and so the choice that you're making is about if we go back up to our scenario that we've looked at you put a density bonus on that for 35% you get 13 large homes select 2 that are reserved for low income houses or you can do 15 homes you do a 35% density bonus like calculator out yeah 20 yep so that gives you 5 more bonus units so you get up to 20 units and they still have to meet this like same average size and kind of distribution right so like they wouldn't all become studios right you wouldn't with the density bonus you wouldn't just suddenly all of them be 400 perfect units they still have to match that base state yeah I mean that's what you're looking at that's the reality of the 2 unit project so it's not going to be a fixed rate call right the 20 unit project might go to 4 Council Member Brown did you have any other questions or Council Member questions questions I guess I just from my understand you know we're doing now in the docket for a while definitely meet the housing but this is not required right now there's nothing that's forcing us to adopt this ordinance right now yep that's true but it is I mean your presentation was really helpful today and really what people hear people are afraid of having large developments for this for over 2 years now they're afraid and they have this you know this here and I all did I mean you live in a neighborhood for a long time and you know you kind of think it's all going to look the same over the years and then you know new laws properties that are sold or bought and don't want to make resources out of those investments and so you know you end up with an unexpected 5, 6, 7 building but so much of that expectation part of it part of state law how we are part of it is like SB 35 had we been doing building the kind of units would have been building we actually wouldn't be under and may be able to get out under that's bad law but that is in the community is something that really is creating much denser and taller and higher housing so I guess my question or my comment I guess both is this puts a tool in the toolbox that kind of basically takes the SRO and the SOUs and kind of divides this middle place but your overall design of the building is always going to be guided by those basic or area ratio all those things that we know that are on the books right now how does this where, how does the design how do the objective design standard sort of come to play here right I mean I think we all think objective design standards is a place for a community expression that people would like to see as a little bit more right and this that have any bearing on what we end up seeing in our neighborhoods or how does it relate to that but I'm kind of looking at that timeline of all the things that the planning department is you know and so now here's this other problem and then you don't have to go into a lot of detail but maybe just a few comments on the book we pass our objective standards we can use to move our broader planning set of tools I believe into a place where there's potentially more predictability more understanding around what things will look like in the future provides hopefully more guidance in regards to you know the kinds of standards that we want but we're still not quite there yet right so that true or not true I'm very I'm explaining this very opaquely but I'm hoping it's kind of I'm just trying to help the community understand you know that I'm not going to be 11 stories call buildings next to them you know in the next just trying to kind of put this in context of how you're sort of shifting further defining what aesthetic and any kind of zone in the city how long that will take there will be projects that get through between now and then sorry is that I mean that's okay so the objective standard is like rapid close excuse me we're planning to be at the planning commission on April whatever the second meeting in April 23rd or something like that the Thursday of that third week of April so 21st okay thanks April 21st market calendar what the standards will do is so I've talked a lot about how we have the building envelope and that this ordinance is changing the building envelope those objective standards can push on that building in ways that our zoning ordinance currently doesn't right so we can't reduce the overall like mass that can go in the building we can't reduce that you know the one that people are going to get excited about is the 2.75 per area ratio that's a couple that's in some places on Soquel and Water Street we can't reduce that total floor area ratio but we can dictate how it's positioned on the site and how that per footage is used so one of the things you're going to see are transition zones between taller buildings and you're going to see requirements for articulation on facades and materials and forms we get buildings that while they may be bigger they're going to be bigger I mean that's just the true matter these buildings are going to be bigger than what they're now because you know most of the city is really underbuilt compared to what it's allowed to build but they're going to be more attractive buildings than what we're able to regulate to now at this point so we're going to have and the density bonus can supersede some of those standards you know if there's a physical preclusion from fitting the amount of density bonus on the site then the standards have to be made and it's hard to make that argument for things about materials and articulation and roof form and quality of open space amount of open space you could make that argument parking you could make that argument in height for sure those things strain how much of buildings really get built it's going to make an improvement it's going to make you know we're going to have more control than we have today and the density bonus is a true fact of life and health you know it applies to every jurisdiction in the state in the same way so the piece that we have a little bit of a control over is how subject to SB35 are we right because that law that really really limits our ability to apply any kind of expression and so you know when we look at the objective standards I know that question is going to come up in the density bonus is here today if you're now these sites have this amount of building volume that they're allowed to build and they can come in with the density bonus project right now and we won't be eliminating that option for them we are going to be guiding them about how make that building look like it belongs here that's helpful okay thank you thank you Mayor Meyers I mean Council Member Meyers I just wanted to add one more thing Mayor yes I'm a principal planner for advanced planning I just wanted to add on to Sarah's points too and just reiterate that the small units before you now with the FPUs don't change any building form today that would be built under our current objective standards so in any look and feel of any residential building that was now wouldn't change under this FPU ordinance it's purely about adding density on the inside of that building so nowhere would there be something that would look or feel or be taller nothing would be different than today would just be what's on the inside and potentially just do more smaller thank you thank you Mayor thank you so much at this time I do see the hands raised I also had a request for extra time that was approved by Santa Cruz tomorrow for us at kidney so I will begin with you your hand is raised to go ahead Mayor this is I have just one question prior to the comment okay go ahead I think it was responded to but I just wanted to make sure that in regards to the policy shift that's being proposed there's understanding from staff that the applicability of SP35 would be mitigated potentially significantly and that we wouldn't be subject to SP35 being triggered that this could be maybe a tool for us to have in place in advance really in terms because we don't want to be in the position of having a number of SP35 projects for us how can you just reiterate that is that exactly is that how you see it and this could be a helpful policy shift to kind of avoid SP35 that I can talk about that a little more so SP35 as I mentioned applies to jurisdictions based on how well they're meeting that regional housing allocation and there are two different tiers so some jurisdictions in the state like Santa Cruz are meeting most of their categories of the arena and so in those jurisdictions SP35 only applies projects that provide more than 50% or more as a dedicated affordable unit for low and summer lower another tier for folks that are really not getting any housing built is 10% so in those jurisdictions right now anything that comes in that includes the 10% affordability component is entitled to that streamlined view and circumventing CEQA the slip between those two tiers is based on above moderate sales to meet even your above moderate house production from that 50% tier down to that 10% and in Santa Cruz because of our 20% inclusionary that would qualify every project that comes in almost every project that comes in for that this one ordinance is not going to prevent that from happening and we think this is one tool that we could have in the toolbox that could modestly increase housing production and get us closer to meeting that goal SD9 will help with that if we get SD9 applications I don't know that we've gotten any yet but potentially ADUs help with that anything that we can do to like keep housing production up is going to help us limit the effect of the number of projects that qualify for SD5 streamlines or just sort of more and I think that's consistent with a lot of what we heard when we did the housing tour and listening tour wanting sort of more ADU and smaller and less bigger development so I thank you if you are a member of the public interested in commenting on the second reading and final adoption of ordinance number 1022-02 small housing units general plan downtown plan local coastal plan and zoning zoning ordinance SD9 on your phone to ease your hand if you're trying to speak you will hear an announcement that you have been unmuted timer will be set to three minutes and I will start with our approved group Santa Cruz tomorrow Vera hi welcome thank you we are very concerned about the FDU ordinance and how it would affect our long-term sustainability including our carrying capacity and equitable access to affordable housing in the context of free market real estate I want to thank staff for the update to the housing element in today's agenda it shows remarkable strides in housing production we have more than fulfilled all of our arena permitting goals for the very low-income category which is what currently subjects us to SB35 notably we've permitted more than double the low-income units in our goal we've also permitted almost twice the amount of both our moderate and above moderate income goals there are still two more years left on this arena cycle and we are just starting to see some proposals use these new state housing laws the growth in our housing production will be greatly affected by the laws already enacted and more are being passed and proposed Santa Cruz is one small city among many cities and counties that new state laws were created to affect and we are doing much better than most of them in fulfilling our arena of note the state density bonus law has already increased from a possible 35% density bonus to a 50% density bonus and is set to rise yet again and those bonus units become market rate some of these laws already include tracking regulations for certain residential developments some do so based on proximity to public transit with this pattern it is not out of the question that other local regulations such as open space requirements could also be circulated by proximity to public parks I mention this to illustrate only that we do not know how these new laws will affect our development and ability to enforce our site standards in the coming years the only real control that we have is density maximums in zoning and use are applied this FDU proposal noticeably noticeably reduces the minimum square footage from 400 square foot so used down to 220 square foot FDU this would increase the base density potential used to then calculate these massive density bonuses we are just starting to understand if truly considered at this time the FDU ordinance should go to analyze how it would affect the elements of our sustainability it's important to recognize the hard work and creativity of staff in putting this ordinance together this could have been a really interesting for addressing our affordable housing needs if Santa Cruz were operating outside of the new state laws and this ordinance specifically helped build de-restricted very low income units while not creating the potential of intense density for market rate units which puts affordability even further for working class and students in our highly sought after location we have a very limited carrying capacity for all resources and infrastructure our usable land for housing is one such limitation it is of utmost importance that if we change our little control over land use regulations that we still have it be very specifically to incentivize only very low income this ordinance currently does not but we hope it may thank you thank you for your public comment and we'll now attend these and the first caller is Rafa Sonan Bell good afternoon council members I'm calling in in support of this ordinance I've spoken before I think to keep in mind one of the really useful tools that this ordinance will allow us to have is more option for people whether they're renters or looking to buy one of these smaller condos we already have our SRO code that allows more density than these apartments or condos would create but this is just about giving us more choices and more tools to have more homes for people in our community I also wanted to speak about the affordability aspect of this I've been low income basically my entire adult life and right now the housing authority waitlist get on a section 8 voucher is closed I think there's like 12 thousand people on that waitlist and when you don't have the option to get on section 8 you have limited options to find places that are affordable and even if these were deed restricted low income units which 20% of them will be anyway those units would have to go up on the lotteries and what happens to folks like me who don't get on the lottery who don't have access to those homes would be more for other homes in our community I think the way that it is it's going to provide more options for us we can look at other ways to increase affordability but it's actually counterproductive in terms of getting people who need affordable homes in to create these restrictions and barriers on these types of units that make them harder to pencil out for market rate developers who are building them when we already have other options for affordable housing developers coming to build more affordable units anyway this is not a panacea of affordability but it is about creating more options for market rate housing and creating more affordable market rate thank you our next caller is Bill Kelly thank you mayor, council and staff it was a great presentation I spoke during the first reading but since this came back again I wanted to speak and talk to all of you so these sizes obviously having this increase in sizes this provides a lot of options for people that really don't have much else many people can't afford the current detached homes but I will add have no affordability man we can do shake downs on apartments all we want but it looks really bad if we're shaking down the housing that working class people will live in so I'm at a family of five as a family of four we've lived in units that were as big as these ones four and they were the only options that were available we did not have generational wealth help us get into some other option we didn't have other options that would keep us you know be able to keep in one area we've gone through evictions through in San Jose we've had to move from apartment to apartment I have never lived in any place longer than three years until I got a place in Santa Korea and that's only through the fortunate having the job that I have but I want to create some more options for people where they can get a place they can build equity it doesn't have to be the same way that land appreciates because I don't know if anybody here has looked at how condos work they don't increase in value as much and they really should like you need to separate is this about housing as an investment or housing as a place for people to live and the reality is if you create more flats creating more places for people to live and focusing on creating housing affordability the housing unit itself bringing down the cost of housing not just in purchasing a detached home and that's what I really want people to analyze to look at because in this case for how far we're at now homelessness overcrowdedness commutes I know plenty of you are interested in the rail but it looks like it looks really poor you say people should be able to commute in but we're not going to create more options for them to live here we have to create more options for people to live here if we're going to say immigrants are welcome you need to expand options for them to come and live here so these are providing more options maybe it's not perfect what exactly you want but they'll provide options for a lot more family friends for ourselves for everyone else that we know so thank you for supporting this I really hope to continue to see innovative work out of the client your public comment the next public comment is Jonah Payton I'm Jonah Payton a long time west side Santa Cruz resident I strongly support the FDU proposal because fundamentally I want a place to live currently I study at a college out of town in the city with this own housing crisis which causes me to pay where more than I should for housing to come back to Santa Cruz after I graduate this proposal will make it easier to build smaller and affordable housing that I could live in I wouldn't need to have a lot of roommates as I do now and I wouldn't have to spend as much on rent it would mean more places for housing particularly for young people like me without meaning bigger buildings allowing FDUs would also mean that when people move to Santa Cruz or move out of their parent's house they won't have to displace a family who might be forced by high rents and lower quality of life in Santa Cruz and someone who might even be at risk of becoming homelessness being displaced our current policy of restrictive housing causes devastating crisis and we must address it with policies like FDUs overall a vote for this proposal would give the city more chance at living in a more equitable Santa Cruz and provide more opportunities and for that reason I strongly encourage your support, thank you and our next caller is Elizabeth from Pondland Hi, good afternoon I would like to thank staff Planning Commission Council for identifying a problem low use single occupancy unit and provides a proposal that real