Before we call the meeting to order tonight, there's been quite a bit of last-minute correspondence given to the commission. If folks that are arriving have had a chance to look at it, I'm going to allow a couple minutes for that to happen before we call this to order. Wouldn't mind just giving me a signal if you're ready. Are we without a chair tonight? Yes, Greg is not going to be here this evening. All right, good evening, everyone. Welcome to this evening's session of the Planning Commission's regular meeting for April 18th, 2019. Could we have a roll call, please? Mr. Schifrin. Here. Conway. Here. Spellman. Spellman. Here. Nielsen. Here. Greenberg. Here. Singleton. Here. Pepping. So Greg is out this evening with notice. He's not feeling well, unfortunately. Do we have any statements of disqualification this evening? Seeing none, we'll move on to oral communications. This is a time for anyone in the public who would like to speak on items that are not in our agenda this evening. Is there anyone that would like to speak to anything not on tonight's agenda? If you would like to speak, would you please queue up and we'll allow two minutes each for each speaker. Thank you. It is on the agenda, but since the chair is not here, I'd ask a request for extra time so I don't know what's happening. Yes, we're aware of that. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Anyone else like to speak tonight on items not in our agenda? Okay, moving on, let's go to approval of minutes. We have the approval for minutes for both March 14th and March 21st. Let's take the March 14th minutes first. We have a motion for the approval. Move the minutes. March 14th. Second. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. I was going to abstain also. Two abstentions. Robert and Christian for the 14th. Moving to the March 21st minutes. We have a motion. Move the minutes. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. And no abstentions on March 21st. So we'll move to our public hearing portion of the meeting. The first item up on our agenda is the rail trail phase two of segment seven. Do we have a staff report? I'll give you any commissioners. Mike Ferry with planning. So tonight we're going to mix it up a little bit. I'm going to start off and then I'm going to pass it over to Chris Schneider. He's the assistant public works director. He's going to talk about some of the detailed portions of the plan. We've got Leo Mena from ICF consulting firm that did the environmental work. And after he speaks, we're going to bring it back to me and I'll close it. We also have representative from the police department. And do we have a fire guy? We're hoping for a somebody from the fire department and they're, they just want to give a comment at the end of the presentation. Chris also would like to show a video and that will be after the presentation as well. And then we do have Leslie Keady in case there's any questions on trees, tree protection or tree removal. So I'm going to talk about the exciting policies and history of the rail trail. And then I get to pass it off and Chris does the fun stuff. So the, the rail trails at 32 mile trail extends from Davenport to Watsonville. And it goes on as a primary alignment of the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Trail. That's about 50 miles long regional transportation commission. The RTC prepared a scenic trail network master plan to establish a continuous alignment design standards and guidelines for the coastal rail trail. Is this really loud? Sounds allowed to me. So the RTC adopted a trail master plan after multiple years of public input. The design of that plan was to install a trail in a way that would not have the rails removed. The RTC did a environmental impact report that was approved in 2013 and an addendum to that report that was certified in 2014. And they recently completed the unified corridor study which they ended up protecting the rail right of way for high capacity transit service, freight service and a bike and pedestrian trail. So there's a lot of history to hold on to the rails in this right of way. And I'm going to show you a slide with a lot of general plan policies that also reflect that. So segment seven is 3.1 miles long. It goes from Moore Creek to the roundabout. As many of you commissioners remember we approved phase one of that that went from Moore Creek to California Street in 2017. So this is phase two. As part of the phase two analysis, the early analysis showed the right of way would be on the neary side of the track, the north side of the track. After they looked at that, the amount of tree removal, the potential for erosion and the fact that they would have to build really stout retaining walls to support not just the trail but the rail, the freight train that actually uses the rail, they decided to move it to the south side. The city also looked at going through La Barranca Park and going through La Barranca Park about halfway through the park as you're heading towards the coast, you would have to go basically off of that cliff and then 35 feet down which would end up being an enormous structure. It's probably a visual impact. It would certainly be expensive. On top of that, the original design of that linear park didn't have any kind of facilities for bike paths. It's used by folks for strolling. There's an elderly facility nearby and a lot of those folks use that for just strolling along the California. And it was actually brought to the Parks and Recreation Commission where they did not support that alignment. The city also looked for on-street alignments. They looked at California going down to West Cliff and they also looked, sorry, California going down to West Cliff. I'm sorry, Bay Street going down to West Cliff and then California to Laurel to Pacific Avenue and both of those don't need ADA requirements. They both have high pedestrian and bicycle accident rates. It wouldn't encourage non-bicyclists to start bicycling. So that alternative was not looked at further. And then on the south side of the track, based on input from our emergency services, the ecology action and the bike Santa Cruz County folks, they wanted to look at a 16-foot wide path. And that would have literally chewed into La Barranca Park, requiring a lot of tree removal. It would impact the park. And so the trail was brought down to 12 feet. So the proposed project we're looking at tonight is a 12-foot trail. It's about 10 feet from the center line of the rail, almost all the way through on both the north and south sides. There's a little bit of variation and I think Chris will show you a slide for that. Okay, so we'll look at the pictures. So that's a pretty typical rail trail kind of set up right there. So I won't even go over these. These are all the general plan policies that we have now that encourage us to look as development occurs to try to get things like a depot site or maybe a parking area or a bike area for future transit service. So as development occurs now, we're looking at that. There's a bunch of other general plan policies that talk about transit stops in anticipation of local rail service and et cetera, et cetera. I won't read them all. So a little bit of the background on this whole project in the 90s, SAMFAR champions a task force to foster appreciation and success for the Monterey Bay scenic trail that goes all around the bay. The RTC purchased the line in 2012. It was 32 miles long. It was $14.2 million using state grant funds. The master plan was adopted by the RTC in 2013. And in 2015, the city hired RRM design group to complete the design in the environmental rail of section seven, segment seven. RRM is the same group that we used when we designed the Arana Gulch project. So we had a lot of success with the design and the way it functions today. So in 2016, the Transportation and Public Works Commission approved the final schematic plan for this phase of segment seven. And we separated it into two different phases primarily for timing. So the first phase that we approved is probably going to be completed. Is it really at the end of 2018? Phase one? 2019. Maybe 2020. So we're very close to starting construction on that. Okay. 2020. So this is the entire segment seven. It's a combination of the blue line and the red line. The red line is what we're talking about tonight. That was the previous approved segments, the blue one. Another pretty typical shot of a rail trail. This one's down in San Clemente. And the train goes by there really frequently. It's cool. Past passenger train. This is a simulation of what it'll look like around Depot Park. This is a simulation of what it would look like adjacent to the sewage treatment plant right here. You can see the retaining wall. That's the style of fencing that we're thinking about. And then kind of folded into all of this. And I hope that you guys got the copies. I think I gave you pages 32 through 34. The arts master plan. It's a really robust plan and they specifically have those three or four pages dedicated to just this phase of segment seven. A variety of ideas, wall tiles, kid like scale pieces of art along the wall, a whole variety of stuff. And that'll go through another public process before they choose any kind of art treatment. That's a rendition of what it might look like. And this is by RRM, not by our arts department. And this was part of the arts master plan. There's just some exhibits on some of the art that could be placed there. A lot of people like some of that stuff. Some folks don't. So it'll be a public process. And this is another location, not just the retaining walls, but even the trestle or murals. So one of the reasons we would really like to get the public onto this stretch of right of ways because there's a lot of social issues right now. I would find it hard to believe if a regular family, unless there was a big family, would use that as a shortcut. It's like an obvious shortcut to the beach. We had the same kind of thing happen in Iran, a gulch that when the trail went in and there was eyes on the trail, a lot of this problem, it wasn't as comfortable to camp there. This was taken about nine o'clock this morning. So it's not even nighttime. I can't imagine what it looks like at nighttime, but there's trails that go down into the Neri Lagoon area. There's, it was fenced and there's holes cut in the fences and then really established trails and camps down in the Neri Lagoon area. And that might be one of the things that the police department will be able to highlight. This was another shot of a camp. This was actually up from the trail. This is the La Barranca Park behind. So it's on a really steep slope, a lot of debris, a lot of camping debris down on the bottom there. So the trail will be open from dawn to dusk and that's based on the EIR and the city policy with parks. The city is going to be responsible for maintenance of the trail. There's going to be six heritage trees removed. That'll require 32 replacement trees to be planted and the location and species of those will be under the guidance of our city arborists. The project includes tree protection measures for 13 trees. 11 of those are recognized as heritage trees in municipal code and she too has all the details on the protection and I sent you guys this copy. It's color coded and it tells you which ones are heritage to be removed and to be maintained and protected. Public works walk the alignment after the first initial study was advertised. We were going to remove six trees right around the trestle area. So there was some concern about that. Members of the local chapter of the Sierra Club and I think some other members of the public went on a walk and looked at that based on the response from that meeting public works redesigned the trail on that location and is going to save five of those six trees. The six tree might be able to be saved when they're under construction the city arborists will go out be there. They'll have a root exam and if root pruning can save the tree they'll save the sixth tree. There's also a condition of approval specifically for that and the conditions. So now the exciting part is the policies. So the guiding principle of the general plan I'm going to read in the 2030 general plan one of the guiding principles is to provide an accessible comprehensive effective transportation system that integrates automobile use with sustainable and innovative transportation options including enhanced public transit bicycle and pedestrian networks throughout the community. So that's like a prism that was used to generate all of the other policies in the general plan relating to that. And in your staff report and I won't read them. There's 57 general plan goals policies and actions that support the development of the trail. There's five local coastal plan policies that support the development of the trail and even though this is outside of the nearly lagoon management plan three of the objectives of that plan and one policy of the plan support the project as it's proposed. So I'm going to pass it off to Chris and he's going to discuss the actual trail. Good evening. I also want to just give a couple of just a little clarification on what Mike had noted on the different alternatives we looked at. One of the very beginning was shifting the trail to the south side versus the north side. The north side is much closer to nearly lagoon and adjacent to nearly lagoon. It would have had a huge impact on the vegetation and the construction of retaining walls etc. In that area and that was one important reason we moved it to the other side of the track. The other issue is that it required two crossings of the tracks. And the whole point or one of the purposes of this the design of segment seven is keep it all on the south side so we're not crossing the railroad tracks. People have difficulty crossing railroad tracks on bikes and also they're really difficult to permit. So you have to go through CPUC etc. They're expensive. They take a lot of time. The details of the project. So from California and Bay to the first part we'll call segment F which is along the regional wastewater treatment plant. Starting at bay in California is where segment seven phase one ends or starts however you want to look at it. We're relocating the stops at bay, the other California street to this intersection in order to stop traffic so that when you make the crossing on your bike it's going to or as a pedestrian you're going to be safer. It crosses initially through a little bit of the park and then down into next to the rail. This is what it looks like now to the left. You have near Lagoon Park and the parking area and the entrance to the wastewater treatment plant. And on the right you see the fence that's La Barranca Park. This is what the plan view of what it's going to look like afterwards and you can see that it touches the edge of the park and comes off the stop controlled intersection. The vehicles only authorized access point is because the fire trucks can't make that turn that the bikes and pedestrians use so we're providing that secondary access so that emergency vehicles can access the trail when they need to. You can see some of the street lights up here you know that are along the trail. You can see the fence the edge Mike had noted the edge of the trail has to be 10 feet from the center line of the railroad track. That's the minimum requirement. In some areas you can get to eight and a half but it has to be a very short section. It can't be on a curve. There's a variety of things that regulate that. And then the path itself is 12 feet wide. Here's a section of the beginning of the retaining wall so as you can see down at the bottom there's the 10 foot to the center line which is the area that has to be clear of any vertical obstructions. The 12 foot path which includes 2 foot clear on each side. And essentially this is so a bicyclist don't hit their handlebars on vertical obstructions as well. So minimum 8 foot travel way with 2 foot shoulders. And then the retaining wall here which is a timber lagging wall. A timber lagging wall is you know reminiscent and more the aesthetic of a railroad. It's also easier to construct has fewer impacts related to what's behind it. You need least less width to build a timber lagging wall than say a concrete retaining wall and other methods. This is a typical example of the timber lagging wall. We have some at around a gulch and a variety of other places in town. The other benefit of this type of wall is it's harder to graffiti. It doesn't have the smooth surface. It's usually darker wood. Absorbs paint if it happens. Those kinds of things. The second section is we're calling segment G in the environmental document is where you get further into the deeper part of the trough next to the tracks. The part portion that has been excavated for the railroad track. One thing I want to tell you in the video I'm going to show you is about this is really an active rail line. Warringcamp uses this line on a regular basis. They have track rides that go past into the previous segment at about Liberty Street. So another 300 or 400 feet up from where we have F here. The video will show that in greater detail. We're getting into the deeper, as I said, the deeper section. Again, this is essentially the same design of lighting that is at the minimum wattage and power required. We'll have security cameras. The lights are dark sky compliant and are directed down and shielded. The railing that's required between the railroad and the path is four and a half feet high and it's cable railing. So it just prevents people from going over into the track area. Now it's open at each end, but on the path line it is the required fence. The, as you can see that the retaining wall is taller in here and the retaining wall varies from three and a half to 19 and a half feet tall. The slope that's, you can see this line right here which is just a, which is the current slope at this section. And this is the area that we excavate into to build the wall and the path. And it varies as you go along the line, but that gives you an idea of because of this 10 foot clearance and the width of the path, this is where the wall has to be. We can't move it any closer towards the track. When we first looked at one of the options, which was widening the path another 14, you could see it be way over here and that there would be additional impacts associated more trees removed, the wall would get higher. When this area is being worked up at the top, we are going to have to re-vegetate this area and so there is an opportunity for potentially more trees on the slope for when we do our replanting. In addition, on segment, on phase one, we are replanting some of the trees, the mitigation measure of replanting trees from this project in that area. So there will be about 12 trees required for mitigation here that are going to be planted in phase one. We also are looking at other locations here, but the right away is really constrained. So maybe as we get into construction, we'll see what we can do in here, otherwise we'll see what happens. This path comes with the drainage system, which you can see here, which from time to time there are catch basins that will be captured into it. Currently there is no drainage system out there. There are a few old ones that take the water from that side and direct the water towards Neary Lagoon. What we are going to do is capture the water. We'll have inserts in the catch basins to pick up sediment and trash. The water that goes into the system goes into the pipe down by the Neary Lagoon pump station. That pump station is closed off, which exits to Cal Beach, is closed off during the dry weather season. Anything that goes into that system actually sits there. It backs up and it goes into a sewer bypass pipe and is closed off during the dry weather season. There is usually no during the dry weather season. There is nothing that goes out to Cal Beach. Before that pipe is open for the winter to help to control flooding potentially of the Neary Lagoon area and all the housing around it. The lines are cleaned. All the water that is cleaned and using the lines is captured with the vector truck and put into the system. The water that goes into the system is closed off before it is opened and allowed to go out to Cal Beach during the wet weather season, which is typically October 15th to April 15th. Obviously that can change depending on the season that we are having. This is a segment, which I'll show you on the aerial, where there is a flatter spot where there is no retaining wall required. This is going to be for emergency vehicles and for maintenance vehicles to be able to pull off the trail while they are doing whatever they have to do out there in order to let bikes and pedestrians pass. It is a small area. There is also a wider rail right away in this segment so it is possible that we could plant trees here. That was just outside this view. In this segment H, which is pretty much from the Y, where the train makes its turns to the wharf intersection, which is an old diagram not showing the roundabout. When we designed the roundabout we knew that this project was coming and this crossing at the roundabout was designed with this project in mind. As you can see, we are getting flatter in this area. There is some retaining wall and the reason that we are building a retaining wall and this is in the area of the eucalyptus grove is because we have a large storm drain pipe. There is actually two of them that drain near the lagoon from the pump station. One is a gravity line and one is a force main. We cannot build a retaining wall on top of that pipe. They cannot have the load and we have to be able to dig this up. Hopefully not but in the future somewhere down the road if something happens. We have to accommodate the pipe and it has now been redesigned to accommodate and save five of the six eucalyptus trees that we are intending to remove. The sixth is still under question and that will happen during construction. We will have to excavate around the tree to see where the roots are and whether they impact the construction of the path or not. This is at the parking lot for the other side across from the sanctuary scenic center. There are currently four parallel parking spaces. We are going to shift them towards the perpendicular spaces by a couple of feet. We are not losing any parking or just making a slight change in their location and there is room to do that. In this area we are getting eight and a half feet to the center line of the track. It is a very short section and it is also very straight and very open so it is easier to it is possible to do that. There are a couple of things I wanted to add. The project includes also way finding safety signage and directional signage for the users. As I said the parking is not affected. The slope of the path meets ADA. I know one of the ideas that has been brought up is let's put this back out on the street system. But the street system the way it is configured, beach street and moral street, hill are not ADA and they are difficult for a lot of people to get up and down and traverse. This is going to be a separate path that meets a lot of the goals that we are all trying to strive for which is to encourage bike riding and to provide safety. I think I can give that back to Mike. Good evening everyone. Can you hear me okay? Great. I will provide you with an overview of our CEQA document which is an initial study mitigation. I will be referring to it as an ISMD. We prepared our initial study and published it on July 13, and it was published for public review for a total of 30 days. In that document we identified potentially significant impacts that were then mitigated to a less significant level with mitigation for aesthetics, air quality, biological resources, cultural resources, geology and soils, hazards and hazardous materials, hydrology and water quality, noise and transportation. So one of the key issues that we have identified for this project is impacts on biological resources as it will require the removal of trees on the south side of Neary Lagoon as well as the removal of vegetation. So what we did in that document in our initial study is we identified pre-construction surveys and pre-construction mitigation for impacts to special status species during the process. So that includes mitigation for California red legged frog, western pond turtle, special status birds, special status bats, San Francisco dusky footed wood rat and monarch butterflies, all species which we have identified as being potentially in the area. We also include mitigation in this document for the potential impact on that riparian scrub located on the south side of the track. We have identified a mitigation at a three to one ratio of all of the willow trees that are going to be removed on the site and that mitigation has been identified to be at an off-site location around Antonelli pond. So I also wanted to add that we've identified that the loss of this disturbed riparian area located on the south side of the track represents about 1.5% of the of the entire habitat in the area including Neary Lagoon in the area. So all of that coupled with the fact that we included mitigation measures for off-site led us to the conclusion that this is indeed a less significant impact on the riparian areas. And then just further background on how we got to this. We also had to do NEPA for this project and so we did work with Caltrans biologists and we coordinated with them and prepared a natural environmental study. And so in that document we did a lot of the work that we also have in this initial study where we worked with the Caltrans biologists who in turn consulted with the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife Service. And so all of that communication has resulted in this analysis that we have in this initial study. And so in that document was published on July 13th and now for review for 30 days we did receive comments from the Coastal Commission the Monterey Bay Air Resource District and the Sierra Club and we provided a response to their letters. In addition we also had comments from individuals, 96 of which were in support and 10 of which were in opposition due to the biological impacts, the loss of trees. We reviewed those letters provided a response and the review was concluded that the document should be recirculated in order to identify potential impacts to monarch butterfly which wasn't assessed in the initial study originally. So we prepared that recirculated ISM&D and in that document we included some clarifications we clarified as both Mike and Chris discussed the change to instead of remove six eucalyptus trees to remove just one of them. So we added that as well as we did an analysis that quantified the potential air quality impacts and we included that in there. And then finally we also did include an assessment of the potential impacts to monarch butterfly and I'll just give an overview of what we described in the document. In the document we did identify that during construction and so we included mitigation for pre-construction surveys. In terms of the loss, permanent loss of habitat from the removal of one eucalyptus tree, we had our biologists go to the site and assess the quality of that habitat based on the canopy size, the nectar sources in the area and then we also reached out to the Cersei Society which does a lot of work on monarch butterflies about this specific site and they identified, they did not identify, they identified it as not a significant overwintering site and we also had another personal communication with a biologist who worked in that area and prepared two documents in 2001 that documented that it's not a substantial significant overwintering site, primarily because there aren't the nectar sources in the area. So that information coupled with the fact that we were going to remove potentially one tree, one eucalyptus tree which accounts for 5% of the total growth size, we determined that that impact would in fact be less than significant. So once that document, once we prepared that recirculated ISM&D, we did publish it on January 7th 2019 and that was out for review for another 30 days. We received another round of comments including from the Monterey Bay Air Resources District and the Sierra Club and more individuals, 36 of which were in support and three of which were in opposition. So we provided a response to the Sierra Club their comments were predominantly around aesthetics, biological resources including the monarch butterfly assessment that we had in the recirculated ISM&D impacts on the riparian habitat, hydrological resources, climate change and alternatives. We provided a response to all their comments and we did not identify that any of those questions or comments resulted in any impacts that would be a significant effect. We documented that in our correspondence and that's it for me. Thank you. I just wanted to find one point of clarification in the letter from Gillian Grinside. She sends a picture of a eucalyptus tree that she thought was being removed. That tree is not being removed, was never being removed in the first, even in the original one. So I just wanted to clarify that point. So after I summarize this, we still would like the police and fire representatives come up and make their comment. So the summary is in phase two will be the third section of the scenic sanctuary trail network to be permitted in the city. This project will eliminate one of the missing gaps in that system. The project will reduce transportation related energy use, greenhouse gas generation and it will provide an equitable and sustainable alternative to coastal access for pedestrians, bicyclists and the disabled. So we're recommending that the planning commission adopt the mitigated negative declaration and mitigated mitigation, monitoring and reporting program which is exhibit B in your staff report and approve the coastal design slope mod variants and heritage tree removal permits based on the findings listed in the staff report and the conditions of approval. Since the planning commission advertisement went out, we got 83 additional comments in favor of the project and we got eight comments with concerns or against the project and I think you've probably been forwarded those in batches from tests. So that concludes the presentation. I think our fire and police guys would like to make a comment. I'm Dan Ford with Sergeant Sankers Police and we're just saying that the pass would allow more patrol opportunities in this area. We're responding out there for campsites. In the summer we were responding out there for Parsons that are going up the hillside. It's a hard area to patrol without a path. There's not a lot of vehicle accessibility as well as being able to get bicycles or ATVs into this area and we generally do have campsites have been set up for long term where other places in the city were able to go there and provide other opportunities for these long term campers. We've seen a lot of success with these kind of pass in the rena Gulcheria as well. You know to get people down there and respond to problems in the area. Good evening Jason Hayduk Fire Chief for the San Cruz City Fire Department and the fire department doesn't really have a say in what is going to be put in place but we do want to have input into how it's going to be put in place and for us we're really looking at access if we're going to have a number of people that are going to be traveling through an area we want to be able to have access for medical calls we want to have access for fire calls. Right now that area is problematic for us we cannot get engines into it and obviously it's not having the same amount of use that we'll have when the trail goes in we expect that we can predict that we will have people fall off a bike they will trip they will have a medical event and we would like to be able to not have to walk them out. It's a fairly long section between California and the roundabout and currently right now we're really limited to basically the base of the trestle behind DuPont Park and we don't have any vehicle access right now from California down the railroad tracks we have had a number of incidents specifically this previous year where we were having to come in from up top off of Bay Street or behind 170 West Cliff or from nearly Lagoon and having the ability to drive a vehicle to either where a fire is or drive a vehicle to where a patient is catch down on time and most of our problems are time dependent so we support putting in a surface that we can drive on and we also support putting in lights especially for evening activities and can you answer any questions if you have any? Thank you. Okay I also asked someone from Roaring Camp and I'm not sure if they're here but an opportunity to speak and we have a video of how Roaring Camp uses the why and currently is active so with that I'm going to just play a little bit of it and then why don't you speak first and then I'll show them the video. So I'm Christine I'm an operations manager at Roaring Camp and I was asked to come down here and just read a comment from Milani we at Roaring Camp would like the commission to adopt the rail trail phase 2 segment 7 which includes the coastal permit design permit, slope modification variance and heritage tree removal we feel that it would benefit the community greatly by creating a safe path to travel. Thank you. Thanks. This was flown by a drone last year a drone operator and shows how the why is used and functions and why it's there upon intended it's a little bit slow but everybody loves trains so let's have this is going by the depot building which used to be the former depot which was reconstructed as part of the depot park project and the intent was at some point it could become a station in the field so you see the why in order to get to the boardwalk they go up the why and they go up towards the wastewater treatment plant the distance they travel is further than Neary Lagoon and into the treatment plant approximately where Liberty enters where it enters Main Street you can see the mobile home park that's above the area that's up here that's turquoise this is actually known this area is railroad bobs and there was a fence there and it's a flat area that's the area where the turnoff is and where there's potential some area for replanting of trees the railroad right away actually is pretty wide in that location so as you can see the train goes pretty far up Liberty just missed view of the treatment plant it goes past the mobile home park near Lagoon on the right and then as it comes back I'll stop it just after this little piece so obviously they have to do the switch gear and now they're heading towards the boardwalk and backing towards the boardwalk and then as they exit they use the other part of the why to head back up to Felton I think it's just important to note that this is an active rail it's been active for a long time by a local business and we'll continue to operate with the trail next to it alright thank you for that presentation before we move to public comment do commissioners have any questions of staff I have a couple questions from Mr. Schneider so the roadway it's 12 feet wide but then there's two feet on each side that are is it paved in those two feet or there's a gutter on one side but is it paved all the way to the edge right so it's a total of 12 feet of paving or concrete for the train so then what's the two foot that the two foot clearance on the fence side so the minimum width for a trail bike path or multi-use path is 8 feet with two foot shoulders and so we're showing the overall width but we're also showing the two shoulders of two feet and that essentially is to so people aren't when they're riding their bike they're not riding with their handlebars up against the fence okay that makes sense and then in this same image the cable rail what is the spacing on that cable rail I think it's 16 inches clear from the bottom of the trail to the first railing okay and then after that it's on the order of 6 to 8 inches I believe it's not for fall protection right but does it allow wildlife to go through yes okay and that's a design change we made on phase one so we're using the same rail design here on phase two I remember that does it okay no that's it those are my questions thank you any other comments questions okay so at this time we're going to open it up for public comment there is one group that has requested some extra time this evening so we're going to accommodate that this process essentially the city tonight is the applicant for this project so they will be given some time at the end of public comment to make any additional comments based on the public comment that goes before it so everyone's aware of that can I see a show of hands of how many people would like to speak this evening okay so if you would line up please and sign in before you reach the podium and please state your name as you as you get a chance to speak I'm going to allow for three minutes for each person and the applicant who are group that's asked for additional time I'm willing to entertain do you have a sense for how much time you would like five minutes sure that's fine okay so let's begin thank you Vice Chair Spellman and commissioners my name is Gillian Greenside and I'm representing the Sierra Club this evening I'd like to start by saying that the Sierra Club is in support of the rail trail in general and we also have a charge to look carefully at the environmental impacts of each segment of the rail trail and I'd like just to give a bit of a context that in the north coast area of the rail trail even though the red legged frog habitat will be gone we did not oppose that we did ask for more mitigations for the loss of the red legged frog habitat but we did not oppose it in segment 7 phase 1 even though we lose some heritage trees we did not oppose it and we're not opposing this segment 7 phase 2 however we feel that the environmental review is sorely lacking and alternatives have not been considered that's why we would like you to not approve tonight but to ask for an environmental impact report of this segment which we believe has been understated as a habitat area and the impacts on that habitat area we believe that the alternatives have not been looked at carefully enough which would give a win-win situation for all of us who would like to see the rail trail and also protect the environment the first look at this section and by the way it's a little bit confusing from I believe with all due respect the staff report you wouldn't know that this is a significant habitat area and it was a bit confusing to lump both segments in together this is less than a mile this segment for ten million dollars and it is so far one of the more significant habitat areas in the first look at the habitat area the Monarch butterfly site was not even acknowledged to exist and it was only when the Sierra Club brought that to attention that that was then re-circulated the initial study was a negative declaration and that was studied however even in the re-circulated document the amount of habitat was not studied it was abstract it was vague the bird species were not studied it was all based on hypotheticals and we believe that this project as it is designed will significantly impact that environment that habitat and that the mitigations that are proposed will not be meeting any standard and that there are alternatives the alternatives have not been looked at and they need to be looked at carefully because for example the idea that you couldn't use Bay Street because of the danger at Bay and West Cliff doesn't accommodate the idea that or the plan that that whole intersection is going to be changed and improved so there are many things that will happen here that could make this a much better project saving the habitat and providing a good trail that may not be alongside the rail but would protect everyone's concerns and since time is running out I would just like to say that the idea of that this would be a place where accessible for people in wheelchairs to go into this area I assume you've all walked it and I assume you've all seen what sort of an area it is I think that would be really something to look into more carefully in terms of security, lighting and the idea that that would make it a safe place is very questionable but the end last second is that we feel that this needs a much more careful look at in terms of environmental impact we hope you will do that thank you my name is Barry Scott I live in Aptos but I'm concerned about all progress on all 32 miles of our county owned rail trail you know I'm proud of the work that this commission does and the contractors and the RTC and everyone else over the years to make sure that the very best product is had and that environmental concerns are addressed and I think they've been addressed really well I don't believe that a diversion to Bay Street is acceptable I think it's a non-starter I think it's fair that there are people that are passionate about environmental concerns but I've been back there I go back there from time to time the last time I went a couple of trips in December I saw a fire had taken place on the hillside below the mobile homes and I think that the potential damage to species, plants, critters everything back there may be worse if we do nothing you know as it sits we can call that oh it's a habitat well it'll be a habitat when we build too when we're done building and it might well be a safer habitat there's probably fires every night due to the campers that don't get out of control they might get well out of control and do a lot of damage so I think the project's a winner and I hope that you'll vote unanimously to support the the document thanks good evening commissioners my name is David Van Brink I'm a resident on the west side of Santa Cruz for the last 31 years in response to the Sierra Club's concerns about the impacts of the proposed segment 7 phase 2 trail the Sierra Club serves a valuable watchdog role they scrutinize proposals with respect to their impacts on the environment this is laudable I appreciate the care and attention and thought they put into this in the case of segment 7 phase 2 each of their concerns is when examined not substantive placement of the trail on the south side of the tracks and more importantly along the outer edge of the entire park and next to the wastewater treatment plant and just inward from Bay Street not along the lagoon minimizes the impact to nearly lagoon wildlife has been minimized in your plan and several sites identified for replacement are being considered following best known practices Sierra Club has expressed concern in particular about one eucalyptus tree slated for removal due to its placement other trees in the canopy will compensate habitat wise Sierra Club has expressed concern about various drainage and flooding issues these are all accounted for in the proposed project with best practices lastly climate change I find it surprising that the Sierra Club would object to the relatively minor short-term impacts of a construction project whose specific stated purpose is to provide transportation alternatives the long-term impacts of providing alternatives to fossil fuel transportation surely outweigh the minor short-term localized loss of vegetation and apart from that vegetation will be replaced at a different location at a minimum 2 to 1 ratio if I'm reading correctly Sierra Club have raised a number of concerns in phase 2 trail construction they do provide a valuable counterpoint but in each case they are making much over small and mitigated issues please ignore these comments and approve the trail project thank you you I'm Christine Weir I live on the west side of Santa Cruz as well I live on California Street very near the Bay Street intersection that we're talking about and I want to speak just really briefly to some of the social aspects here because I'm somebody who's kind of an occasional bicyclist I'm also a regular walker of Neary Lagoon and of La Barranca Park and go down to the Wharf all the time either biking or by foot and right now I'll tell you that Hill both Laurel Street and the Hill that goes down by the Dream Inn is a real barrier for somebody like me who is not a spandex biker I struggle on that Hill and sometimes I end up driving because it's just a little too much and I see a lot of other people struggling with those hills to come up toward up Bay Avenue especially if they're heading for Bay School and that's another part of this for me is the social equity part of this is that if we have a gradual ADA compliant path that is easily used by anybody coming from the Beach Flats area and up to the west side and back again to me that's important because I see people struggle to bring their grandchildren up to Bay School every day from down in the Beach Flats area and I think they really deserve to have a safe way to do that so thank you I hope you approve this Thank you Good evening commissioners my name is Steven Slade I am the director of the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County the Land Trust urges you to accept the staff recommendations and approve this project I will say that we're in favor of trails and protecting the environment too and it seems to me that the staff has gone to great lengths to mitigate some clear impacts but I think one of the things that we have a lot of time is some people seem to think you're supposed to have zero impacts and that's not possible if you're touching the earth and so that's why we have less than significant impacts and then you weigh those we do against the most important thing this city is doing to address climate change I mean the biggest contributor to climate change in this county is transportation and the best for impact you will have an impact people will get out of their cars and get around and so this one small segment is one small piece of that larger vision we bought into that vision we're supporting it we put money into it we're going to be the site of some of your mitigation happily and it is not hard to grow willow trees so we encourage you to keep moving on this project I'm Paul Schelhammer there is a steep decline in monarchs across the western US the problem is not overwintering capacity along the California coast given the decline in the monarch population we now have vast amounts of excess capacity for overwintering monarchs are in decline because of changes in the inland landscape through which they migrate hundreds of miles the greatest causes of monarch decline are climate change and changes to farming practices all of which deprive monarchs of necessary food during their long inland migration we are not on that inland migration route but what we can do is reduce our climate emissions rail trail is key to doing that in Santa Cruz our biggest climate change problem is the use of cars we generate more climate change emissions from just the transportation sector than we do from all other sectors combined the city recognizes the seriousness of this problem by its policy goal of reducing in town car trips by at least 30% US DOT estimates that nationally over 40% of car trips are 3 miles or less these are the low hanging fruit for conversion to zero carbon alternatives like walking and biking the climate change benefit comes from providing what today's non-bikers need to get them to do that short errand without the use of their car what it takes to do that as well established provide them gentle slopes and separation from auto traffic that is exactly what a paved path in the rail right of way does and does it better than anything else what is most troubling about the opposition to this project is first that they advocate delay delay delay when the urgency of climate change requires us to move faster not slower and secondly it is increasingly apparent that they are arguing for taking the trail out of the rail right of way and putting it instead on existing streets or heavily trafficked and often steep in some parts exceeding allowable ADA slope and would undo exactly what is needed for the climate change benefits gentle slopes and no cars the city has designed a path in the rail right of way that reduces impacts to an absolute minimum the alternative is to do a very large amount of environmental damage by delaying or giving up of our best tools to reduce climate change emissions I urge you to approve the mitigated NECDEC and get on with this city's best and most popular way to reduce climate change emissions thank you good evening commissioners my name is Corey Coletti I am from the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission I am here to represent our agency and urge your support for the staff recommendation as a reminder to you the city of Santa Cruz has adopted the master plan for the Monterey Bay Sanctuary Scenic Trail which identifies the coastal rail trail as the spine of a 50 mile corridor and network that plan was completed in 2013 we did a programmatic EIR at that time in order to support the combined implementation of future trails we also in 2013 allocated 4.6 million in federal earmarks towards this project which the city of Santa Cruz has also contributed local dollars to subsequently we also contributed measure of D sales tax funds for so in total we've committed over 10 million dollars which includes funding for ongoing maintenance as previous speakers have said this is a project that will provide a continuous corridor for bicyclists and pedestrians a continuous corridors that is off the street network and for new bicyclists and pedestrians we need to keep them safe and separated from fast moving vehicles additionally gradients are really important we need to make it accessible to be able to ride bikes push their strollers wheelchairs the rail corridor is no more than a 3% gradient throughout so it's a very inviting corridor and with the green house gas emission goals that we have for our county as well as the goals to increase but the bicycle and pedestrian mode share this project is vital to our community the city of Santa Cruz prides itself on the bike mode share and this project will help it increase that bicycle mode share as well as the pedestrian mode share we are really pleased to partner with the city of Santa Cruz they've been great champions for this project we as the RTC owned the rail right of way and are the lead agency responsible for its implementation and partnership with the local jurisdictions so we urge for your support of the staff recommendation thank you thank you I want to reiterate with some people already said in terms of green house gas emissions impact of transportation and that in Santa Cruz biking is a big mode split already it's like the second out of the state in terms of second to Davis we can grow that increase to get more people on their bikes and one data point goes back to 2016 and that was when measure D was passed and that measure allocates funds some hundred million dollars to build the rail trail so that was a statewide county wide measure that was passed by two thirds of the voters and so if you take segment by segment and you say well this segment you should put it on the street and that's the line Z reason I mean soon when you go down the corridor then half of your rail trail is in the rail corridor and other speakers said that the importance is to have a gentle grade which the rail corridor provides and to be separated from cars and anybody that's biked up that hill in front of Dream Inn knows that's not a gentle grade and that you know as other speakers said kids can't get up there so keep it in the rail corridor and in that measure D ballot initiative there was a local survey and they surveyed county voters and they said what are the things that you would make you ride your bike more and they said hey I'm able to ride a bicycle but I'm not willing and 60% of the people said that they said what they wanted was separated facilities for cars they didn't feel safe riding in traffic so the rail trail provides that so I reiterate 50% of greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation we have a way to increase the sustainable transportation mode by providing a safe and accessible and flat bike and pedestrian trail so please approve with staff recommendation thank you very much hello good evening my name is Mary Odegaard and I've been happily riding my bike in this county since 1981 and I'm really looking forward to this segment going through sooner than later I also work with children and it's a joy to ride a bicycle with them and walk with them and it's so important when it can be taken away from the automobiles we can walk and ride a bike away from the automobiles I've enjoyed the river levee for that reason so please let's move forward on this project thank you hello my name is Virginia Wright I've been volunteering to gather postcards and since you didn't say them I thought I would just come up and speak for all the people I've been speaking with over the last month or so hundreds of people so I think we've submitted over close to 500 postcards people saying yes please do the rail trail on this segment just this segment alone and I want to just a little bit convey their excitement when you talk to people about this at farmers markets and I said at my little table people are really excited about it so I just wanted to sort of communicate that to you and say please support this because there's a lot of people that would like to use it thank you good evening thanks for this I'm Bill Cook I've lived on the west side for 40 years we have a multi-use path now along west cliff and it's heavily impacted and it's about the same width as this proposed path 8 feet is not wide enough it's obsolete before it's built 10 million dollars it's not going to be 10 million dollars it's going to be 15, 20 we're the first dog out of the gates in this race and there's a lot of problems throughout the corridor that are unaddressed we're going the long way around the teapot looking for the handle where all this effort is in service to retaining an obsolete rail track that's an environmental problem it's if you're a turtle, you can't get over those things we do we do need protected bicycle infrastructure I'm an avid rider it's this is too soon and it's not enough thank you good evening I'm Sally Arnold I'm the chair of the friends of the rail and trail and I urge you to approve segment 7 phase 2 and it's proposed alignment along the tracks of course all the segments of the rail trail are important but there are some that are particularly important because they replace an awkward or dangerous alternative widening the San Lorenzo trestle bridge is one of those segment 7 phase 2 is another the proposed location for this provides a gentle slope connecting the west side and when it's completed it will provide an important alternative to the steep and often slimy climb up Laurel Street or the hill in front of the Dream Inn that has a particularly awkward traffic pattern and is exacerbated by the profusion of confused tourists who stand in the existing two-way bikeway or they drive erratically across the lanes of traffic endangering the cyclists and pedestrians alike I go through there often and I know neither of those routes is anything like ADA compliant the proposal to relocate this section of the trail to Bay Street is problematic cyclists and pedestrians are still faced with the danger of the Dream Inn hill and they will be traveling alongside fast moving cars I remember about 15 years ago when I began to start cycling around town and not using my car so much driving in that bike lane on bay was scary it felt like the cars were passing fast and close and then when I got to the Dream Inn the tourists on foot or in their cars was hair-raising I've become adept at negotiating those challenges now but not everybody is that determined to bicycle, some people are just going to give up the point of the rail trail is to provide a safe place for the timid, the young, the old the new cyclist to get around town without a car sending them down Bay Street does not help I'd also like you to think about the disabled the slope of West Cliff from Bay to the Wharf is steep and if we choose that alignment we're telling our disabled friends and neighbors that they don't deserve to move around our community independently any effort to reduce those challenges is going to be an engineering nightmare I'm not saying it's impossible I'm just saying it's going to take forever and be super expensive why spend that time and money when we already own a gentle car-free right-of-way it is habitat I know that some environmental concerns have been brought up with this right-of-way and I just want to clarify that the exact location of this proposed alignment is not next to neary lagoon it's squeezed between the sewage treatment plant and Bay Street and if you look on the map or those overhead views you can see there are acres of concrete and machinery and roads between the right-of-way and the lagoon that plant is filled with activity and filled with lights and activity along the proposed trail will not be next to the lagoon itself and are going to be insignificant compared to the current level of activity that the sewage treatment plant is so please prove the trail as designed along the right-of-way because we need segment 7B especially thanks thank you good evening my name is Yannica Strauss I'm the executive director of bike Santa Cruz County and bike Santa Cruz County has been advocating for a trail corridor since 1992 and as you can see from the correspondence that is part of tonight's agenda packet the community wants this trail built as soon as possible and to achieve the city's climate action goals and increased bike ridership we must target the members of our community who do not currently ride their bikes the top reason those individuals do not ride bikes is because they feel unsafe to do so the regional association of city transportation officials says that nearly two-thirds of the adult population may be interested in riding more often given better places to ride the rail trail has the potential to drastically increase bike ridership because it provides a direct and flat route for cyclists completely separate from cars the rail trail is a facility that parents will feel comfortable letting their kids ride on by themselves it's a facility that individuals who don't currently feel comfortable riding on the roadway will ride city staff have done an amazing job at delivering truly a world-class project through the design process they've also listened to the community and they've made changes bike Santa Cruz County urges you to move this project forward so that we can start riding on it soon thank you hello my name is Rachel O'Malley I apologize I think it was Mark Dwayne who said I would have written a shorter letter but I didn't have time I know that I filled your packets with a very long letter and I recognize how hard that is for you so sorry that being said I'm a biologist as you know and I got my BA in 1986 and my PhD in 1997 so I've been doing this for a very long time I did review all of the documents that were provided for this project and I was quite alarmed in part because I also teach environmental impact assessment and I was specifically alarmed because there are specific required mitigations in the program EIR for riparian habitat loss that were not in fact incorporated into this project so I see the C is being at some risk for that deficiency but I also wanted to just a couple of important biological impacts that this project will have two bats species were identified in the document that was put out about this in fact Santa Cruz County has potential for 15 bat species and they have to be surveyed acoustically we don't see them we can't just look for them this site is important it would be easy to do if there were other bat species it's actually called out in the FEIR for the rail trail that an acoustic survey will be done there may be one it's not been provided to the public and this is one of my concerns is that the documentation about the effects of this project on the rail trail feels hasty it feels as though on the near lagoon ecosystem it feels like it was foregone conclusion and honestly the impacts for this project because it is right next to the near lagoon which has incredible wildlife species that's just bats we've talked about butterflies which are in the area this was actually on one of the willows that will be removed butterflies are using the nectar from willows they're historic nectar sources that corridor this is in this looks just like the sites that we've seen this is in the gray fox and you can see right here this is Bay Street this is the site of the proposed trail similarly this is a wetland species up and down this is the side the south side of the tracks that will be turned into that vertical corridor when animals come across through the pervious wires they'll hit a steep wall we know what happens on highway 17 when animals come through something and hit a wall they can no longer move around so it will be a trap a trap I wanted to encourage you to look at the document that I've sent and specifically consider moving the this is the kind of a separated trail that could be along not where the path is in but between bay and La Veronca park bay street needs to be calmed anyways we've got projects going on at the bottom of bay so there's a lot of opportunities with the enormous amount of money that's going to be spent removing the fill and removing the cut that money could be spent better for things that benefit the whole community thank you good evening my name is Matt Farrell I live on the east side of Santa Cruz I'd like to speak about the support of staff recommendation and supporting the mitigated negative declaration I think that corridor along the alignment as proposed has significant benefits for circulation and an example of that impact and benefit has been clear in my neighborhood on the east side with the approval and development of the Toronto Gulch bike pathway that provides a separate corridor for transportation for bicyclists and pedestrians aside from the road system and riding along many times in West Cliff I agree that that alignment is problematic for those goals thank you we have anyone else who would like to speak on this issue this evening okay seeing none we're going to close the public comment period and we're going to see if staff has any comments they'd like to make before we open it for deliberations I just like to make just some clarifying comments about how we did do our how we came to our impacts so sorry my name is Leo Mena and so under CEQA the impacts that we have to analyze is whether a project would result in a substantial adverse effect on both species that are considered special status because of they're listed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and in the case of the monarch butterfly listed in the general plan and also for natural communities of concern and riparian habitat so the threshold for an impact under CEQA is whether a project would result in a substantial adverse effect on special status species and sensitive communities when it comes to these biological resources so I'd just like to emphasize that what our document is doing is using that threshold and our conclusions are based on whether or not the project would result in a substantial adverse effect on for example monarch butterfly or the riparian habitat so that's where this document is coming from and that's what we've done in describing the low quality of the habitat in the eucalyptus grove as well as the lack of documentation of it being an overwintering site and the fact that we're just removing in the case of the monarch butterfly habitat 5% of the total grove and in the case of the riparian area 2.5% of the total habitat in the area so I just want to make that clarification thank you so let's bring it back to the commission would you like to start I guess I'm going to go ahead okay yeah thank you and thank you everybody who came to speak and for your thoughtful consideration I just would really like to echo many of the comments that were made tonight and I think it is really exciting to be at this point with this segment I appreciate the consideration of the alternatives but I agree that the chosen design is by far the most accessible and going to achieve the goals of getting more people on their bikes and out of their cars I look forward to it very much myself and I also really appreciate that the city took the time when the Sierra Club raised concerns and found a way to save additional trees I think that speaks well of our community and it did take some extra time I know a lot of us are anxious to see it going get this get going but taking the time to consider that to design to save additional trees I feel like it was respectful of the community process that I appreciate that about Santa Cruz so thank you for that and let's get going this is a difficult decision for me because it really is two decisions one decision is a decision having to do with the minor land mitigate negative declaration and the other is the project of the environmental quality act we're not able to take an action on the project until we take an action on the environmental document and so the question really the first question is is the proposed mitigated negative declaration sufficient and I teach a class in environmental assessment and I tend to be think of myself as a construction list under CEQA because following CEQA over the years and the cases around CEQA is that there is a real difference when under CEQA when a mitigated or a negative declaration is proposed versus when an environmental impact is proposed it may have been talked about before but under CEQA there's something called a fair argument standard and that's the standards that are used to determine whether a negative declaration or mitigated negative declaration is the appropriate environmental document or an EIR needs to be prepared and that fair argument standard which is a very controversial part of CEQA says if there is a fair argument based on substantial evidence in light of the whole record that there may be a significant impact from the project an EIR should be done so that's what confronted me in trying to come to terms with what should be done here because I am a strong supporter of the project and I'm a supporter of this of this segment and the proposal that's before us but I am concerned that we have a legal obligation to follow the requirements of CEQA so there are really two aspects of that one is has the city provided substantial evidence to document their determination that after mitigation there are not potentially significant impacts the other question is has information been presented to the city that those challenging the negative declaration have they provided substantial evidence that there is the potential for a significant impact first letter that was received from the Sierra Club I think raised these kinds of issues argued that there were significant impacts and talked about what the conclusions were that the EIR was required responded to that in detail arguing that the challenge did not really provide substantial evidence what we received tonight a couple of days ago was an expanded letter raising additional potentially significant impacts that that could result from the project the staff has not had a chance to respond to those and I'm concerned about that I want to ask some questions about in response to the letter that we received because I think it's important to have on the record that if there isn't substantial evidence that there's a potential for significant impact then the mitigated negative declaration is appropriate and an EIR isn't necessary but I think there needs to be response from the staff that really justifies that conclusion one question I had had to do with something I hadn't thought of before but was raised a couple of times one in the letter and one in the testimony and that has to do with the role of the programmatic EIR for the trail as a whole the master plan for the rail trail and the concern that mitigations that were in that EIR were not included as mitigations in the in the mitigated negative declaration that's before us so I'd like to sort of have an explanation about why they weren't included or whether they can still be included what is the status of those of those mitigations because the testimony anyway was that they were relevant to the potential impacts of this particular segment so I don't know if you can answer that question I'd appreciate it my name is already my name I'm Leo Mina I will try my best so in the in our ISMND our approach to determining that impact was primarily based on the assessment that was made by the that's where we're coming from where we're assessing that that's an area of low quality and in terms of your question about the mitigation in the programmatic EIR I think the city is the lead agency determined that they were going to implement the mitigation measures for the willow trees and that was primarily a result of that consultation with Caltrans who in turn consulted with the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife Service so that mitigation was really developed as a site-specific thing rather than a programmatic EIR is for a larger idea of a project then we were being more site-specific so I hope that answers your question it really came out of that consultation with Caltrans who in turn consulted with the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife Service so if I'm understanding what you're saying the city decided not to tear its environment off the programmatic EIR having made that decision it was not responsible for including the mitigations from that EIR and the city decided to do an independent analysis of the potential impacts of this project and that's what was looked at. That's correct the document is not teared from the EIR. Okay well don't go away yet because I have a few more questions one of them has to do with this question about the bat species and the lack of acoustical surveys and how many bat species there are in Neri Lagoon what's your response to the testimony that there's a potentially significant impact on the bat species that the city hasn't really done provided substantial evidence that there won't be a significant impact. Now there isn't evidence in the record that there will be a significant impact so I think what it does raise a question is an issue that the city should respond to. Okay I will try to answer your question again so and I'll give you some context about how we got to where we got in terms of our our list of species that were determined to be potentially impacted by the project so the way in which we prepared our ISM&D in determining what species could be impacted was by reviewing established databases that define special status species. I guess I'll remind everyone here that when we're talking about bats we're talking about bats that are considered special status species as as required under CEQA the threshold here is whether a project would have a substantial adverse effect on a species considered sensitive by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or other or the city and so that list was we queried several databases including the CNDDB which is maintained by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife which is the California Natural Diversities database as well as a species list of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that records federally endangered and threatened species so we did that work and that's a part of we cite that in the ISM&D as how we identified which species could potentially be affected so that's how we got to those species because those are the ones that we've identified as being special status that being said our mitigation for pre-construction surveys is for for all bats I believe can I just look at the document real quick? Sure. If I could point you to mitigation measure one sec Bio4 we say identify suitable roosting habitat for bats and implement avoidance and protective measures and I could I can read you what it says essentially it's that the project will require certain pre-construction surveys prior to the construction of the project and if any species are found certain measures will be taken in order to protect those species and that is inclusive of not just the special status species that were identified but which are the pallid bat and the hoary bat but all bats so does that answer your question? So if I'm understanding you what you're saying is that some bat species aren't considered sensitive species and despite that there is a mitigation measure to minimize any potential impact to a less than significant level for any bats species that may be there. Correct. There are a lot of different kinds of birds. Some are considered special status because they are listed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife as endangered, threatened, or species of special concern. Some are classified by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as federally endangered or threatened. So those are the species that we do call out as being that are the special status species that we look into because that's what the secret threshold is. But our mitigation measure includes mitigation for all nesting birds and that's, yeah, so I'll just, it's similar with the bats. I guess I won't go through all of these. I'm concerned though that the letter that we received that Ms. O'Malley gave a brief summary of does raise a number of potentially significant issues just like the original Sierra Club that it did. I don't I'm not going to suggest that we delay this to get a written response to each of them but I think it's important that one, to respond to the person who raised these about what the concerns were and two, if this is a, if our decision is to support the recommendations and it is appealed I think when this goes to the city council there needs to be a written response to all of this because as I said, sequence threshold for requiring an EIR as you know is very low and it's not just that the city has substantial evidence but that the challenges don't have substantial evidence and I my sense is that there isn't a feasible alternative to go through the process of writing an EIR we'll delay this and we'll be right back here the city has agreed to follow the master plan I don't see any evidence that that's going to change I think would be very unfortunate if the city was challenged in this I walk around probably three or four times a week there are always bicyclists that go by me two or three at least each time and they're not sold to a walking but they're certainly not good for the wildlife either banging on the walkway I think this project will have safety benefits I won't repeat a lot of the testimony we received about those benefits I think this is an important project it is an expensive project but to provide these kinds of amenities is expensive and they'll last a long time and I think they could really change people's behavior in a desirable way so despite the fact that concerned about the CEQA implications of the letters that we've received and the potential that they do justify city carrying out an environmental impact report based on the staff recommendation based on your recommendation and based on kind of an understanding that the letter that we receive late when you really didn't have time to respond to it in detail will be responded to I'm prepared to support the staff recommendation thank you Robert I'd just like to say that I'm also inclined to support the staff recommendation I think it's a great project it's been a long time coming years and years if not decades of planning have been before this particular segment as well and while I appreciate the city responding to the initial correspondence with the Sierra Club I'm not very compelled by the additional testimony that's been offered and additional correspondence when I'm inclined to support and move forward to the project plan so thank you I really appreciated all of the testimony this evening and I know that we all did our best to read all of the correspondence and the new report and you know I'd like to learn more I think that I was really appreciative of both that Sierra Club report as well as Leo Menna's response to it and found it interesting that there's a distinction made between special status species that were really studied in terms of the consideration around significant adverse effects or substantial adverse effects and that I find to be an important point in addition to the fact that mitigation efforts are going to be made for all species and then I also think about this project which I'm very impressed by in relation to you know kind of multi-scalar environmental effects so the fact that we will have potentially really quite profound impact on local travel patterns and greenhouse gas emissions at the local scale can also affect travel patterns at larger scales and can mean that we're also preventing adverse effects on habitat at larger scales so it's important to think about containing local travel patterns here through alternative methods in thinking about larger regional effects as well not just our local habitat but our larger regional habitat so I see this entire trail project and this segment of it as enormously significant for non-human and human species for our own travel patterns for also for the environment both in terms of wildlife conservation and in terms of preventing sprawl and containing development here in the city as well as for greenhouse gas emissions and I think it has significant equity implications as we're mentioned in some of the correspondence in terms of connecting for instance the beach flats area to the west side and enabling much more kind of transit between those areas as well as people's ability to bring their children to schools and just speaking personally my daughter goes to Santa Cruz High and she went to Mission Hill and has refused to bike for years as a result of her fear of the traffic and I understand that and I myself, Emma someone mentioned the importance of timid bikers getting on the roads and everything and have had to overcome a lot of my own personal fears and I think this is going to have again a really profound effect socially and for our community in terms of the equity implications for people of different ages, abilities as well as regions of the city so I support the staff recommendations. Thank you. Christian I'd like to I mean I agree with a lot pretty much everything you just said and I would like to thank everybody for coming out as well. It's great to have the public come out and share their thoughts on you know, on things that are in front of us such as this and it's great to hear that actually everybody was somewhat in support, I mean well everyone was in support of the project in some way you know, but it's great to hear everybody's opinions. I would like to just I'd actually like to reiterate some of the things I did here tonight some of the things that kind of hit me and that I that kind of lead me to my position of being in favor of this project. First thing being bicycle safety I think everybody has spoken to that about getting bikes away from vehicular traffic making it more safe making it more safe for young and for old and and with the path and the gradient being what it is it does allow for ADA access and accessibility for all on the path and I think that's important I think that's an important reason why I feel like this is a better option than trying to go down bay and then down west cliff. Emergency vehicle access I think it's I think that's extremely important and for for pedestrian and bicycle safety on the trail and also for fire access as well I think that's also a very important thing and I'm glad that that's planned for in this in this plan and and then and then the social equity component I think is extremely important especially when we look at this plan from a macro level I mean the ability of getting a rail and bike trail down from Davenport down to Watsville I think it's a great thing and this being one small piece in that but it's an important piece and but each one is is going to be an important you know thing to happen so I'm excited about that so I'm fully in support of this thank you yeah I would agree with a lot of that testimony I think I share Commissioner Schifrin's kind of dual analysis of this on some level this could very easily have been a very easily approved project and we miss an opportunity to really dig in and understand what the real impacts of this project are as I read through these documents which were you know quite numerous for this hearing this evening I got the sense that one we had some very engaged citizens on some very important issues but the document and the mitigations that are in place that should be triggered if habitats are disturbed to a level that are problematic that those things are in place in that document and it took quite a bit of reading in those documents to actually get to that understanding and I think it was the interaction with the Sierra Club and the back and forth that happened so it wasn't the one-sided we think there's these impacts and we're not addressing it there were significant design changes that reduced automatically a significant portion of that impact and I think again at the 11th hour we had other correspondence back and forth that showed that the city was still responding and open to those ideas I'm satisfied that the document has some teeth in it and if there are impacts that become unraveled as this thing moves forward we have the vehicle to address that and make the appropriate decisions on the project at that point I was also curious I forgot to ask of staff in the conditions of approval for the project I had never seen a condition worded quite like this but it says if upon exercise of this permit this use is at any time determined by the planning commission to be incompatible with the surrounding neighborhood revocation of or amendment to this permit by the planning commission could occur that's a boiler plate condition with every use permit for every development that we approve okay well that's embarrassing you know the planning department doesn't treat the public works department like anybody else you know from a community standpoint there's so many benefits to this I think even people that are concerned about potential impacts have made those points my concern for the timid is well stated this evening but I'm also concerned about I have a teenager at Santa Cruz High who loves to ride the jump bikes and three people on them and if we can keep them off the streets I think many of us would sleep better at night I don't think that's going to change I think we're going to see more of that hopefully we have better habits and how we use that new form of transportation let's call it but I think it's here to stay based on how the community has really bought into it so this piece the full extent of the trail is going to enhance the quality of life in Santa Cruz significantly so I'm in support I feel there is appropriate mitigation and controls put in the mitigating negative deck and I support the staff's recommendations yes I want to thank the staff for all their work at the Sierra Club for their work on the project I think every concern that was raised is a legitimate concern I think that raising them has had the effect of making this a better project as you said I really agree with your point about that it's a more environmentally sensitive project and I think it's also improved the analysis of the impacts as a city has had to develop better evidence to support the conclusions so I would make a motion that we approve the staff recommendations for this project but I'd like to add a direction that staff provide a detailed response to the late received Sierra Club letters that would go to the writers and if the project is appealed to the city council so that there would be a written response to the written concerns that were raised so that's my motion we have a motion on the floor do we have a second second any further discussion around that point I have just a concern about directing the response we heard staff say earlier that there would be a response I was a little bit concerned about a detailed response being I would like the level of response to be the appropriate one that staff finds so I asked that this be dropped off on all of your desks yeah Mr. Schiffer did you get this yes I did okay so that is the response from the most recent letters this week and for me so what I was going to say is that I appreciate that there was because I think it was a pretty fast piece of work to respond and I felt like that the response was there I myself feel satisfied and I don't I'm not sure what you mean by detailed response I don't know what the staff burden is going to be on that in terms of I certainly would want to have a response that is necessary but I don't feel prepared to know what that is well I thought the staff response to the original Sierra Club letter was exactly what I had in mind where it went through issue by issue and responded to it and talked about why either the evidence wasn't raise a substantial it didn't provide substantial evidence or that the requirements of CEQA justifying a negative declaration in the face of an expert testimony that is detailed and specific to what the potentially significant effects are is of great concern to me I think that under CEQA you know I talked about this in my class I said well why don't they just do the EIR and judges tend to say that it's not like the city is going to turn down the project but if there's the potential of a significant impact there may be one then the judge will say do an EIR and my concern is this is fine as a quick response to a very detailed you know we received 111 page document 14 page letter I think it deserves and needs a more detailed response and the model in my mind is the response to the first letter I thought that was an excellent response on the part of staff to the specific concerns raised in that letter and if this goes forward and I don't know whether it will or not I hope it doesn't but if it does then ultimately and if the council we did and the Sierra Club decides to challenge that we're going to need to have evidence in the record that we took seriously what the concerns were and we and the city really looked at them and responded to them very specifically for some judges to say okay I think the city has adequately shown that the challenges haven't provided substantial evidence of potentially significant effect and I don't think this does it it starts to do it but that's why I'm concerned there wasn't enough time and it needs a more thoughtful response I really do appreciate your concern of course I always appreciate your insights and I also think that we all would want any challenge that should ever come hopefully one won't come because I do think there's been very serious effort to satisfy the community and take a look at it and I don't disagree with response but I think that the response that I would be looking for it really might not be very different from what you're requesting is that staff and consultants take a look and respond appropriately to all concerns that were raised because we do want them to be responded to we would want this to support I don't think we're very different it's more kind of slowing down I guess I'm not sure there's much of a difference between an appropriate response and a detailed response because from my perspective the staff made a very appropriate response to the original letter and if that's what you mean by an appropriate response then I'm happy to change the motion to say appropriate response because that's exactly what I mean good so would you accept a friendly amendment to change to an appropriate if it's acceptable to the second I would change the word to from detail to appropriate that good with you any more discussion so we have a motion and a second on the floor can we have a roll call vote please commissioner shifrin Conway Spellman Nielsen Greenberg so that motion passes unanimously and could I ask that we take a five minute break sure let's do that we do have two more items on our agenda tonight if people are not turned off the mic are we good all right welcome back everyone we do have two items on our general business agenda tonight and the first is the 2018 general plan and housing element annual progress report we have a staff report on that yes we do good evening commissioners and by sure Spellman my name is Sarah Fleming and I'm principal planner overseeing the long range planning and policy team here with the planning department so each year we report to the state on our implementation efforts related to our housing element and our general plan the reports are due to the department of housing and community development or HCD and the office of planning and research or OPR by April 1st of each year the reports must be presented to city council before being submitted and we also provide the report to planning commission after submittal generally for your information and edification reports were presented to council at the March 21st 2019 meeting and then we're scheduled to be provided to planning commission at one of the two April meetings so since this is the first April meeting we're bringing it to you here the only April meeting that's correct the March 21st meeting council directed staff to bring this back which we had planned to do and at that same meeting they also asked us to provide the general plan policies related to corridors and golf club drive to the commission those items are not included as a part of today's report however I do want you to know that they are in the queue our small but mighty team has a number of long-range planning items in the hopper that council has requested of us and in advance of that item and so as we clear those out the next direction in the queue will come up so the PowerPoint presentation given to city council was included as an attachment in your packet and both Catherine Donovan and myself are here to answer any questions that you might have in this standard report thank you do commissioners have questions for staff yes you went pretty fast and I tried to talk slowly let me just clarify you did refer to the corridor policies and the golf club drive policies that's correct they were in the queue that's correct can you talk about what's in the queue and what does that mean in terms of when they're going to come before the commission so it really depends on council direction in terms of anything additional that they add to the queue right now our team is working on a bunch of housing blueprint subcommittee items that were approved at the June 12th meeting of last year and so we have a bunch of that stuff in the hopper we're also working on all the rental housing task force stuff that has come forward after the year of measure M council has asked our team to move forward with convening a well I shouldn't say that we have brought on a consultant to help us do a situation assessment of our rental housing situation and that very likely will turn into a task force in June or something like that and then we also have a host of other initiatives that council has asked us to do since then that are in the hopper before this item and then add to that our general plan implementation items as well we have an LCP update that we're working on a general plan update that we're working on things of that nature what role does the commission have if any in terms of being able to affect the queue is it just a matter of recommending to the council that they give a higher priority to some issue as opposed to another issue that probably would be that would be our role that probably would be the best way to do it I'm concerned about the lack of consistency between the corridor policies and the general plan and the zoning ordinance I think that's a disservice to the community it's a disservice to property owners and potential developers it's been sitting there for quite a while without it being resolved it has what I'm wondering is it may not since you didn't put this on the agenda you decided even though the council asked you to send this to us it's not on the agenda would it be appropriate to ask that it come back so that we could discuss the commission could discuss how important we think it is and whether we would like to ask the council for some direction in terms of giving one or the other concern I have is golf club drive where there's supposed to be an area plan nothing's happening on the area plan and I understand a work program has priorities priorities change over time absolutely the council's change over time so it's a question of council deciding what the priorities are and I think in asking that the corridor policies and the golf club drive policies come to be included in the annual report it's sending a message at least to me that those are priorities for us to talk about so to be told that well we'll talk about them when you get around to being able to have us talk about them doesn't seem to be following the council direction and it doesn't seem to be giving the commission the role that the council wanted the commission to have sure so I have just a couple of responses to make sure that we don't speak too much about this because it hasn't been agendized so I just want us to be the commission to be careful about that that said I do want to clarify there wasn't an indication that the two needed to come together the submission of the htd annual report the housing annual report and general plan annual report and we had already had that in the queue to come to you so we didn't want to delay bringing that to you because of the work to undertake to pull the other items together and we I didn't get a sense from council that the direction was that they needed to come together so we wanted to go ahead and bring this as it was already in the queue and it was ready to come forward and again if either the commission would like to agendize having a conversation about those items or agendize to council to prioritize that I think that's absolutely something that's you know within the realm of possibility we are just responding the best that we can to the multiple demands that we have with the limited resources that we have so please know that we are working very concertedly on a daily basis to do as much as we can but candidly there are me overseeing a team of two full time planners and we have a very very hefty workload so it is not an attempt to not bring it forward it's just that it's in the queue with a litany of other items so I would recommend that I do think it's an important issue I do think there is community interest in understanding where we are with our corridor process and the golf club drive is another specific area that has been out there for quite some time and it would be interesting to know where that stands so I think it's to get an update that's more clarifying for the commission and we could potentially deliberate and make a recommendation I think it would be important to agendize that at a fairly soon meeting if we have a light agenda at some point we can add that to I think that makes sense I could follow up there's no question that the staff works hard and that you're overworked and you have too much and there's always a tendency to have pile on there's more requests than you can meet but it also it all comes down to a prioritization and periodically it makes sense to look at that prioritization and see whether things still should be prioritized the way they have been prioritized that's a very fair point as you know to look at this from my perspective which tends to be a political perspective the there's been a change on the council and whether the priorities of this council are the same as the previous council we'll find out but certainly it's legitimate to talk about that so that's why I think in my sense in the fact that they asked that these be considered as part of the general plan annual report it's kind of raising the flag that this is something they want to see discussed so I agree with our chair tonight that I know we can't really talk about them tonight that's fine they're not on the agenda so I'm happy I would request that they be brought back sooner rather than later just not to resolve because I don't think we should be talking about resolving them but to maybe ask the council what kind of priority do they want to give these to general plan issues yes and then you can tell the council well if you tell us to do this we're not going to be able to do that and that's what and I think I completely agree with you to be very candid the corridors process picking that back up was next in the queue for my team that was pushed back by the rental housing task force work and so they have made it clear to us that that is their priority right now and so the staffer that I had that was going to be working on corridors has been pulled to the rental housing task force efforts so again if council wants to have a conversation and re-prioritize that absolutely within their purview but that is where we're sitting with it right now so until that work is done and on a solid track the staffer who is going to be working on that can't pick it back up the rental housing task force effort is on track so without additional resources it's something that again not to push back but it is in the queue and councils realigned our priorities with the rental housing task force effort and that's what we're focused on right now so I'm not hearing you disagree that this could come back quickly for us to discuss and to ask the council what they want to do how they want to clarify it sure if you want to agendize I think an item to make a recommendation to council for them to clarify I think that can be done relatively quickly but in terms of coming back with the full discussion we're still in the same situation with limited resources and limited staffing and so then they'll need to let us know whether it's the rental housing task force or the corridors item and golf court drive I have a sense that there are other options available as well if they decide to make that of course I mean although they are absolutely we take direction from council and if they have another way they'd like us to pursue it we're absolutely willing to do that okay thank you absolutely thank you are there any more comments on the housing element information I do but I maybe we should hear from the public first let's do that is it a public hearing item it doesn't need to be a public hearing but if you remember from our next item if the public has the right to talk on any item we will do that so if there are folks in the audience that would like to speak on this item please sign in on the right and state your name for us as you speak and we'll give everyone two minutes of peace thank you Mr. Acting Chair and members of the commission Gary Patton I'm here on behalf of Save Santa Cruz I did send in a letter by email I provided okay I didn't know that I know you got a lot of correspondence I heard from the last item your discussion just previously really responds to the concern I wanted to raise Save Santa Cruz has been concerned and is very concerned about this general plan zoning ordinance inconsistency relating to quarters we would like to get it clarified we think general plan policies related to neighborhood integrity and protecting the character of our neighborhoods is important we think we can have a development on our quarters and elsewhere in the city that is consistent with that we don't think that's the current situation but it isn't really being discussed now by anybody including the commission and including the council so we would like you to decide about it at some future meeting and then based on what you decide to do hopefully get the council involved so thank you very much and it sounds like you might do that and I hope that will be what you do thank you Hi my name is Lisa Rose and I'm here on behalf of Common Roots Farm formerly known as Coastanoa Commons Farm and we've had recently we had the name change but our mission is still the same we are an organic urban farm for people with and without disabilities growing healthy food beautiful flowers and building community we have taken out a long term lease because we feel that our mission is very compatible with our landlord we just entered our second year of farming production vegetables fruit, flowers and a wheelchair accessible greenhouse with hydroponics we just hired our very first disabled intern Carson and he takes care of our he comes weekly and he takes care of our chickens and crops and now learning how to work in the greenhouse we are also excited to welcome Santa Cruz City Schools workability students to teach them life and job skills and we just hired an inclusion specialist so that her job mainly is to work with people with disabilities farmers and volunteers working with those without disabilities so that everyone can fully participate in our farm so I'm saying all this because we really plan to be a long term valuable area for the community and so on behalf of our Board of Directors I would like to ask that the city take the lead in an open and transparent process to develop the area plan for Golf Club Drive thank you I'm Philippe Habib and I'm here on behalf of coastal Hayden families we're a group of parents of young adults with developmental disabilities and our mission is to provide quality housing and affordable rent for our children as well as for other people from the greater Santa Cruz community and as part of our desire to use our resources to benefit people with and without disabilities and the greater community we are also supporting the non-profit common roots farm that Lisa just talked about and we'd like to see the continued use of the nearly 125 years history of farming and providing healthy food to Santa Cruz that the land has behind it and we have been able to secure entitlements for the construction portion of our project in spite of the fact that there hasn't been an area plan yet but we would really like to see the area plan get worked on and we'd like to see the city take the lead in having that happen so that we as landowners can have some understanding and certainty about what the future will be for us there so we are requesting that the city take the lead on creating an area plan for the golf club drive area thank you thank you okay let's close item number three on the list so item number three being sorry we had some discussion on golf club drive and the corridor studies and there was some public comment on that I don't think it's appropriate for us to continue deliberations on that but we've noted folks that came out tonight for items that were included I would like to talk a little bit more about the housing element the annual report itself I have one question this annual report is required by state law at the county the annual report goes to the county planning commission before it goes to the board of supervisors and the commission has a chance to kind of weigh in and give if they have any advice I don't know if they have I don't follow the county planning commission very closely so I don't know if they actually have advice but it seems to me as the group that's advising the council on plan issues that it would make sense to run the annual report by the commission before the council gets it in order to be able to make comments to the if the commission has any to make comments to the commission to the council about the progress that's been made on the general plan so I know you talk about it as going to the commission after the council's already sent it off to the state and acted on it but what would be the objection to having it come to the commission prior to it going to the council? if I could address hi I'm Catherine Donovan senior planner with the advanced planning division and I actually write these reports these reports are required by the state the state requires that they be submitted to city council city council doesn't have any input on them to submit them the county in their reporting process they have actually incorporated into their requirements that it go to the planning commission it's not required by state law and it's not a requirement that the city has but the county for whatever reasons did incorporate that requirement that it go first to the planning commission and we have depending on how much time we have before we have to submit it to HDD how long it takes me to get it done and when we can time it sometimes we come to the planning commission first and sometimes we go to it afterwards since the only requirement is that we submit it to council if we're short on time we do that and then come back which is kind of what we did this year and I'll add to I don't think that there's any reason that we couldn't other than the timing again the priorities sometimes things get moved additionally this year the reporting requirements were much more substantial than in previous years and so Catherine worked on this until right up until the last minute possible to get it to council we usually try to get it to council a little sooner than that but this year it was just a lot more work it's not something that we couldn't do I think it just depends on the reporting requirements if they change in other scheduling other scheduling items so thank you and I appreciate that it seems a little ironic to me in a way that state imposes this requirement theoretically to have the localities annually look at their general plan and see how they're doing and so it seems to me it provides an opportunity for the city through the planning commission and the council to sort of take a look at okay how are we doing with the general plan and we get a lot of the state requirement focuses on the housing but there are a lot of other elements of the general plan that also could and the city does I think in the plan it talks about the other things that the city is doing that are related to carrying out the general plan policies I think that's what's really worthwhile in terms of having these annual reports I just think that it would really if I understand that you can be under the gun and it's not possible to do it beforehand but I think it does it does help the commission and does help the council to get that kind of annual review and to the extent that that's an opportunity for the commission to talk about you know what we're doing on housing or what's happening with various projects or what other parts of the general plan we should be emphasizing it seems to me that's the intent of the state law to have the jurisdictions look at that so I hear that you're not opposed to it it's all timing I would hope that we could recommend that if at all possible that the commission receive the annual report first I wanted to talk about the what's happening with our rena numbers is that the correct way to deal with the acronym I have the I guess the PowerPoint slides that were presented to the city let me just say I was a little annoyed by one statement in the report itself where it talks about the inclusionary ordinance on page 2 of the general plan annual progress report where it says these changes in the ordinance were aimed at maximizing the percentage of affordable units in a project while recognizing market economics in the downtown versus elsewhere in the city because from my perspective that gets close to double speak those changes reduce the amount of affordable housing that the city is requiring by going from 15% to 10% outside of the downtown and by allowing this hardship exemption or reduction in affordability requirements which were which were really the substantial changes in the ordinance it really doesn't seem to me to be a good argument to say that the city was maximizing the percentage of affordable units I know the logic is well we got to respond to the market economics but I think that's debatable whether reducing the inclusionary requirement or allowing for it to potentially be eliminated is really a great way to maximize affordable housing so I wanted to point out on the development pipeline table A2 that we're that's not the right one because that doesn't say table 1 where it talks about meeting 7% of the very low percentage of affordable units that were the rena targets low 75% moderate 142% and above moderate 8% we're meeting our moderate income and we're meeting our moderate percentage and in fact once you get into what's in the pipeline it's mostly above moderate I mean that's where it is and I would also one question I wanted to ask had to do with the determination about ADUs where it's somewhere along here it talks about how ADUs used to be considered low I think but based on what's some survey that was done the new ones are considered moderate I think well I guess my question is why just the new ones is it is there any evidence that the existing ones haven't also seen their rents rise how do we know that actually all the accessory dwelling units haven't really become moderate income because like other rental units they reflect the market so I just was wondering the basis for that determination this is something that we discussed with HCD when we originally well I shouldn't say when we originally I came on this process that's been going on for many years since 2000 watch somebody else do it in 2013 did it with somebody looking over my shoulder in 2014 and took over in 2015 and when I first started our ADUs actually counted as low when I took over in 2015 we did another survey and determined that we really couldn't justify calling them moderate so we called them moderate and then this year we did another survey I actually do a survey each year and this year I couldn't justify calling them moderate anymore and so now they're going to be of moderate now we discussed this with HCD because it seems your point seems totally logical that if the new ones are not moderate or that they're above moderate then the old other ones are too and they said you don't have to go back and change your numbers that was the gist of it that you can do this by the informal survey that is an appropriate method and you don't have to go back later and change the numbers that said we when I do the survey it's not that 100% of those units that I surveyed came in at a price that was above moderate but it was something like 85% and this of course is a point in time I'm not surveying every day for a year so there definitely are ADUs in the city that are probably still being rented at low rates and at moderate rates but I don't feel that we can justify calling them that going forward unless next year prices suddenly drop which I'm not anticipating so is your survey only of the new ADUs or is your survey of all the ADUs? it's a what I do is I go online and I look at all the rental databases and I look at what ADUs are renting for at that point in time and it usually takes me a few days to pull up the data and what I can find and I usually find between 15 and 20 different ADUs and this year there was one of them that was a real outlier that was below $1,000 and the rest of them were between $2,000 and $3,500 which is so you're looking at the survey of those ADUs that are for rent that are on the market at the moment and they could be new ones or they could be old ones so essentially the state has let the city off the hook of really in terms of determining where the various category targets are being met you're not familiar with the reports that we've done in the past but this year the housing element was founded and that one table the table A2 one of the categories that they ask for in there is whether the affordability has a deed restriction or other covenant that is and you have a choice of saying yes or no and there's two columns one is yes and the other is no this is the first time that's happened but to me that reflects that they recognize that this is a legitimate thing that communities are doing this is a statewide report and what happens in Santa Cruz is not going to be the same as what happens in you know Bakersfield or trying to think of some other place capital I don't know capital is probably pretty similar so I think in some communities they're going to have very very different results but for us we struggle to come anywhere near those numbers and if I if we can come to those numbers in a way that the state recognizes as justified I'm going to do it I appreciate that and I'm sorry to take time and sort of the trying to understand the basis I mean the real concern from table one is that we need a lot more affordable housing and when you look also with A2 in terms of what's in the pipeline there are seven low very low income 69 I don't know which project that is it's probably some project I'm one of the ocean street projects or water street projects but then there are 440 above moderate income unit center in the pipeline I agree that the city needs housing but the city really needs more affordable housing and that takes me to what I'm going to ask next is that we look again we ask to look again I know we can't tonight but at what the inclusionary ordinance requires in terms of affordable units I think 15% is low but I think it's the most that can reasonably but I think it should be required throughout the city whether it's a rental project or it's an ownership project and I think it's important that developers know that they need to provide that inclusionary housing because if the city allows ways like this showing hardship as a way of avoiding the 15% requirement every developer is going to be able to show hardship because just like paying the traffic impact fees or meeting the energy efficiency standards it costs money and it's I think affordable housing is an important enough public policy that it needs to be considered a cost of doing business for multi-family developers in the city so I don't know if the commission will be willing to agendize the inclusionary ordinance so we can talk about those I know the council is considering initiating changes to the ordinance along these lines but I think it's really critical that we do that in order to try to increase the number of affordable units. May I make a clarifying point as well so just so the planning commissioners are aware in May the council will be working on a six month goal setting policy that will kind of direct our work for the next six months and then they are working on a larger three year plan so this I think is relevant both to this topic as well as the topic that we spoke about previously in terms of the prioritization of work so do know that that is coming as well. Thank you. Julie? Yeah I'd like to make a couple of comments and the first one is I mean we'll take direction from the council they will send it to us and we'll discuss it when it comes to us and I look forward to that. My concern when I look at these numbers, the rena numbers and it may be obvious but I'm going to say it anyway our greatest deficit by far and away are the very low in the low income categories of housing that are produced through inclusionary construction or inclusionary zoning those are the units that we know can only be built with a significant public investment I'm of course deeply concerned about those also and I know that the city is anticipating a couple of big things one of them is having the RDA bond money freed up and having it available to make those public investments which is just tremendously important and I understand I was in Sacramento this week that we are anticipating that soon so that's one thing and the other thing that is important to point out that of course our inclusionary zoning is incredibly important but one of the very important tools that we have in order to deeply target affordable housing is through strategies such as land donation that it is you know on occasion and we've had a recent example where it is very clearly of greater benefit to the city and to furthering affordable housing to get a land donation that enables a significant development that deeply targets affordability and I think that that combination of those two strategies are going to I think allow the city to actually I'm hoping address the very low and low income categories so looking forward to that piece but I think that deficit is worth pointing out thank you two things one my concern is meeting a 15% requirement it doesn't have to be within the project so I don't have an objection to land donations I think they need to be tied to projects that are actually going to happen within somebody's foreseeable future rather than something that's pie in the sky I've been at the county there was a an Aptos county allowed a land donation and 30 years later so there's that the other thing is there is the potential of having what are called project based vouchers and those are section 8 vouchers that can be tied to a market rate project up to 25% of the units in a market rate project can have project based vouchers and those are section 8 vouchers which allow for very low income people to be able to live in the units most of them are they go with people and they go out and they try to find a land lawyer to rent to them but the authority has the ability to attach them to a project so from that perspective it is possible through an inclusionary mostly market rate project to include some housing for low income low income families but I think in addition there is a great need for what I think of as workforce housing housing for people who don't have low enough incomes that they can qualify for these subsidized programs but the need is great and so their only chance now of having units that they can afford is through the inclusionary requirement and that's why I think that's maybe not the very low it's more low maybe low moderate but it's working families who are not able to afford even ADUs anymore if ADUs are in the above moderate category that's pretty scary because the whole point of ADUs was creating a supply of lower rent housing for people and so that's it's a disturbing trend I think because it sort of undercuts the whole logic of essentially converting single family neighborhoods into two family neighborhoods by allowing second units on every lot anyway I think I hope that the commission soon will be talking about this and will be open to supporting some changes that would strengthen the commitment to a 15% inclusionary requirement thank you I appreciate this conversation greatly and I was also I mean I've seen these numbers before but it's very concerning when you see the extremely low and low numbers and when you also consider the fact that even the moderate are shifting into the above moderate category and reinforcing the idea that we just kind of need an all hands on deck approach that is multi-dimensional and that includes at least 15% inclusionary it seems to me as well as these other kinds of strategies from and I'm thinking about strategies that are being adopted in the Bay Area now like a public land for housing kind of strategy like that cities are really starting to look at their public lands that are available and coming up with a strategy for making those of giving priority to affordable housing in as much as possible for all of those lands so I appreciate that comment as well I'm just going to open being two leaders in that effort but I think we should keep in mind also that in the same way that we talk about environmental impact reports or environmental impacts for a negative effects of particular developments that when we have this excessive amount of moderate development it also has effects so it's not just that we're behind in developing affordable housing by developing so much unaffordable housing it's having all kinds of effects on the market as we'll see with the you know the rental task force so it's you know their equity effects their economic effects of having market that's completely kind of suffused with luxury you know market rate luxury housing we're pushing out people to a point that it's very hard to dial back if we don't act soon I just like to clarify that generally we just list things as above moderate if they have no if we have no method for ensuring that they are not above moderate it doesn't necessarily mean that each and every one of those units is going to be an above moderate unit it simply means that it doesn't have an affordability requirement the ADUs are a little bit of a special case because as Commissioner Schifrin said we originally opened that opened our zoning up to allow ADUs because the state required us to and also because we were anticipating that those smaller units would be affordable but you know not every unit that is listed as an above moderate unit is necessarily going to actually be above moderate that said the housing prices in Santa Cruz are just nuts and we all know that and that's what I'm kind of going on here is that whatever is getting built is competing with what's been being built and so it's going to have arms race of increasing increasing numbers and so you know whatever we can do to turn that around I think and not assume there's going to be some kind of you know filtering effect or trickle down of housing that's being built at this high level that we just need more housing to be built and that's going to affect you know affordability down the road in 20, 30, 40 years by that point all the low income people will no longer be able to afford to live here yeah any other commissioners well I think I mean just to what you just brought up I think that I mean I think there is part of that that housing needs to be built I mean just more units do need to be built and it's I don't necessarily think that we have to I think it's a discussion we'll have eventually if that comes to us about 15% inclusionary I mean it was a discussion we've had in the past and we arrived at the numbers that were arrived at and but I do think that you know we are in a housing crisis and it just you know part of it is needing to build more units entirely and that's so I do believe that that's part of it and so I mean I don't know what the in terms of in terms of table one like if exactly where we you know if where we rank against other communities within this but you know or even what historically we what it's been the past you know however many years to be able to look at that to compare year to year or against other communities but I think we all know that we're in a housing crisis and I think it's throughout California entirely and so it's just a matter of is it the corridor came up I mean you know in terms of being able to build more units you know we have discussed needing to build in density and you know the corridor you know plan was you know a thought for that and you know maybe that's going to be something we'll be discussing in the near future as well but that's you know seems to me you know more units if and if it can happen on the corridor if that is what happens and you know we can get inclusionary to be 15% maybe that's a maybe that's a win-win all around and you know but you know those are discussions we'll have to have thank you Robert since throwing out policies generally related to the rena numbers in the pork back period and the imbalance towards affordable housing versus the above market rate or moderate above housing numbers if we're just throwing out discussions that are related to that I'd love to discuss bring back to this commission the potential of drastically increasing the density bonus allowable and city limits much in the same way the county has done to stimulate affordable housing development density bonus unlike an inclusionary you know you got a discount 15% of whatever inventory you're making to be restricted to affordability in poems doesn't provide any money or subsidy to help achieve that and thus the other units have to be offset that cost density bonus says you can actually go above and beyond with local zoning requires if you go even deeper on affordability so it's all about drastically creating the economic incentives to increase the number affordable units and you can even tier it so that you get more density bonus if you go deeply low income or low income and so you can create a policy that's based upon the economic incentives based upon the fundamental tool that local governments have which is our zoning right and so I think it's a much more effective policy both numerically in terms of generating more affordable units of all income levels based upon reading numbers and we can look case studies in San Diego or other deeply urban areas where it's been effective but I think overall we've talked about the inclusionary ordinance as this commission through an entire exhaustive two-year process and we arrived the numbers we did I believe they were approved unanimously by this commission and by about a significant majority of council when they were first adopted so you know as much as I would love to revisit inclusionary I think there are other policies that have been demonstrably better at reaching the same policy outcomes with less capital from the city's perspective that we have more control over that are more relevant to the discussion about the imbalance of the different reading numbers that we're seeing in this report so I'd love if we're going to go ahead and just revisit topics related to those numbers if we could bring back some other ones as well that are being revisited by jurisdictions you know right in our own backyard. Thank you for that. So state law requires the city to have a density bonus ordinance and so although the state law is unbelievably confusing to understand from my perspective the city already has a density of provisions and this acting consistent with state law so it's not like density bonus doesn't exist I'm certainly happy to talk about talk more about it what I'm getting the sense is that since the council is talking about these issues the inclusionary levels the inclusionary ordinance rather than just initiating it on our own initiate on our own we should wait to see what the council does but I would like to make a motion that we ask staff to return as soon as possible to agendize as soon as possible a discussion of the corridor plan and the goth club drive area plan yes we have a motion on the floor do we have a second second that we have a second and let me say that in terms of the corridor plan kind of responding to your concern about the points that you made about density and along the corridor is that the corridor plan was adopted in the general plan and there was a lot of opposition when projects started to come through