breakout session and lunch. We're gonna have another keynote talk before we report back on the breakouts and we're really excited to have Albert Slap come and talk to us about work he's been doing and coastal risk and flood modeling and it needs. Well thank you Beth and thank you all for coming back after lunch and not going out and enjoying the beautiful scenery here in Boulder. So first of all I'm very honored to be asked to speak today and I want to thank Albert and Guy and NASA for including me.  I'm not a scientist. I have scientists that work for me and so I'm gonna give you more of an entrepreneurial overview perspective of how we use data and also how we may use EO or remote sensing data in the future. Mostly in the United States we don't we don't really do that right now. So I want to just first give you a little bit of background on myself because I'm probably the least qualified person in the room to be talking about science. For 40 years I was an environmental trial lawyer. I mostly represented environmental groups like Sierra Club and Water Keeper in anti-pollution cases. Most of you are too young to remember Three Mile Island case, the meltdown of a nuclear reactor near Harrisburg Pennsylvania, but I represented the environmental groups to keep the radioactive water out of the Susquehanna River case. That was the only case I had that went up to the United States Supreme Court. We won that case and we kept the radioactive water out of the river. But I retired actually in 2014 for about two weeks and then some scientists Dr. Leonard Berry and Dr. Brian Sodin. I think some of you know about Dr. Sodin. He's at University of Miami's Rosensteel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. He's a world-renowned climatologist and shared the Nobel Prize with Vice President Al Gore and some others. They called me about two weeks after I had retired and they said we had this really great idea and the idea would be to take flood and climate risk modeling and try to downscale it to the individual parcel level and then to make it available to people because we have people here who do a great job for the insurance companies and do a great job for trying to set premiums at a correct price, but there really hadn't been a consumer product, a product that you could go online and you could get this high quality information about your risk. So that's what we set out to do pretty much in 2015-2016 and then in early 2016 we launched floodscores.com and our mission was to save lives and protect property and increase resilience. And so in this talk and if there's a burning question go ahead and interrupt me. I don't mind that. We're going to describe what COSIRIS does, what data sets we rely on. We're going to discuss the challenges to take our system global and we're going to discuss how new technologies like IoT real-time will benefit from pre-event modeling. One of the first things that I want to say which is my opinion is that the bad news isn't good enough and I kind of said this in the answer to you know it's a discussion we were having earlier and that is that we have a lot of bad news and not every property has bad news. I mean some property that we model is very good from flood and natural hazard risks and climate risks and sea level rise and even properties next door to one another might have different risks and that depends on elevation and a lot of other factors. But you could have a company that comes along and says oh that bad news isn't good enough bad news. We have better bad news or we have the best damn bad news that money can buy.  They're going to get resilient. They're going to invest money. People will raise their homes out of the flood plain and you know God's in his heaven and all is right with the world and that's not true. We all know that's not true because people have good enough bad news in the United States right now to make reasonable decisions about buying insurance which they don't. I'll say it again because I think it's funny and probably true that most people in the United States spend more money on lottery tickets than flood insurance. So why? Why is that? Is it just a matter of getting the best bad news? And then there's another thing and that is if we provide the best damn bad news to the top down the politicians, the county commissioners that they're going to create flood barriers and giant pumping systems and and they're going to save everybody and Boston's going to have a $20 billion storm surge barrier and we're going to have a big U in the base of Manhattan and implicit in this is the sense that a hotel, an office building, a townhouse, hey, why should we spend our money when the town, the city, the county, certainly not the federal government, but is going to save us? Why should we spend our money when they're going to save us? And that's not true either. And we're located in Fort Lauderdale. We work for the city of Miami. We work for the city of Miami Beach and they've spent hundreds of millions of dollars to begin to raise the roads in Miami Beach and put these giant seawater pumps in the stormwater pumps, but it's really not because every time there's a storm, you know, the electricity goes out from FPNL and most of the pumps don't have backup generators. But when the sea levels rise in the king tides and we're going to be talking about that a little bit, they don't save everybody and people do get flooded. So we're we're talking about personal responsibility. Bottom up. Yes, we work for local governments and we give them our thoughts about adaptation and where they can make cost effective investments. But I personally believe in my scientists, Dr. Barry, Dr. Sodin and others believe that to have resiliency, we have to have both top down and bottom up. We have to have all the above. We can't just have top down. We're going to save everybody. It's going to be wonderful. And bottom up alone because individual property owners don't control the streets. They don't control the stormwater system. And so we have to have them both together. So what did we create? We created a modeling and risk communication engine. And you can see our reports on floodscores.com. And why do I say modeling and risk communication? Because we're a bit like car fax. I don't know how many of you know what car fax is, but you've ever bought a used car when I bought a used car. I'm looking around the lot and the salesperson comes running out, holding a piece of paper. It's not a platform. It's not a website. It's a piece of paper that tells me what the insurance claims have been on a used car based on the VIN number. So we're sort of like car fax or flood fax for individual properties around the United States. And we do that because most people who need a professional grade report to buy a property to sell a property to ensure a property to protect a property, want something more than, well, I saw that on my phone. Wait, let me get my phone app. You know, no, this is a report. It's very highly visual. And so we produce these both. And I'll just go to this for it. Okay, so we produce spreadsheets based on properties. Customers give us a list of properties in a spreadsheet. And then we fill in columns of risk. And in this case, there's six columns of risk, which I'll go over. But I want to just go back here for a second. So we started with the tides and sea level rise and riverine and heavy precipitation and storm surge. This particular image, we had done a model for this hotel on Brickle Avenue in Miami. And this was just a visual of our CAT1 modeling. And it shows 3.3 feet maximum inundation above the ground level. And that's the model down there. And this is a news crew during Irma that was standing across from the hotel there with four feet of water. We modeled 3.3 feet. And it was four feet of water for two days. In a CAT1 hurricane. And that doesn't say a lot about the resilience of the city of Miami. If a CAT1 hurricane, just a CAT1 can push four feet of water down Brickle Avenue for two days, it's not a resilient city. Notwithstanding, they're a member of the Rockefeller 100 Resilient Cities. So we've added natural hazards, wind, tornado, wildfire, earthquake and tsunamis and we're adding extreme heat stress, cooling degree days and drought. So what is the fuel that runs this engine? The fuel is big data. In the United States, we really don't need a lot of remote sensing and satellite data because we have a lot of free data sets. But when, as I say, when we're going to go global, then we're going to need additional data. We pretty much sold in all the coastal areas and beginning to go inland. We do this. And then we do these reports, which you see at floodscores.com, which are highly visual. And really, you know, most people, when they get our reports, they're like, I see my house. Yeah, that's where the water accumulates. That's during the last storm. That was what it looked like. How did you guys know that? You've never been out there. And we use Esri Arcview tools to really get down into the weeds. This is a NOAA facility on Virginia Key, just next to the city of Miami, between Miami and Kibis Cain. And we've done about 12 NOAA facilities. And people say, no, NOAA is a customer. Why would NOAA use you guys? Can't they do the same thing? Don't you use NOAA data in the answers? Of course we do. But we do these reports in seconds. And we charge, when we charge for a commercial facility $499. And they can't do it in seconds for $499. So what does NOAA do with our report? They dimension the the flood barriers that they need to protect the site, they staple the cost estimate with our report, and they put it in the budget. Nothing to do with insurance has to do with protection and resilience. Our engine also will produce damaged loss estimates. So that we're giving the hazard output, we're giving the output to this part of the model of inundation and frequency. And then we have a has this type model that will model damage and loss and business interruption at the individual property level. This was an article the insurance thought leadership I had published a couple weeks ago. And it talks about why FEMA flood maps aren't good enough. They don't include heavy rainfall, they don't they're not adjusted for tidal flood and sea level rise. The riverine model is not really doesn't look at LIDAR, it just has 1% across a very large area or 0.2%, 100 year or 500 years. And we use the NOAA slash model, which we add some some value to using LIDAR and using tide gauges local tide gauges. But typically, and I think in the majority of cases, a NOAA slash height is higher than the FEMA base flood elevation. And they kind of know that. But yet from a consumer standpoint from the insured standpoint, from the commercial property owner standpoint, you know, engineers and architects, you know, we're just going to go with the FEMA base flood elevation. You know, that's what the code requires. So they never see that the slash height is much higher than the BFE. But we show that and that's we want people to be to be educated in that regard. I know there's a lot of text on here, but let me just summarize it. The challenges to going global, where here in the US, we've built our system on a billion plus dollars of federal government data, free data, FEMA models, slash models, other data from USGS, groundwater data, soils data. And we're very fortunate. I understand that we are very fortunate, because we were able to incorporate all these data sets into this engine that we created. And we don't have that in in foreign countries. And we're now looking in South America. So, you know, we need to get in the US, we either use one meter resolution LiDAR or USGS three meter resolution DEMs. But to get that in foreign countries, it's going to be very expensive. And we have to figure out who's willing to pay for that to build out our system globally. And here's sort of an example of Peru, we're going to be doing some work in Peru, to try to prove out whether we can make our system work. So we have LiDAR, where you know, Airbus property boundary data, the local jurisdictions, we've got to get that. Riverine models will start with a European Commission data. tide gauge UNESCO storm surge is not applicable sea level rise. We're going to do that ourselves from tide gauges and the literature, soils and groundwater, and then Peru specific modeling and data collection and peer review and universities, what have you. So how do you go global when there's no FEMA flood map equivalent? How do you get that the inundation that we we have from a FEMA map, and the frequencies, which, you know, are are not totally unreasonable in the riverine context. They are they don't do, obviously, the the Pluvial and the X zone has created with especially with Harvey type rainfalls has created, you know, very, very serious problems. But how are we going to do that? And we're looking at river track and hydro bid and the GIS flood tool and others that may be rapidly rolled out and scaled up. And I just would say, first of all, if you see anything that I've said or hear anything that I've said or anything up here, and you want to come up to me afterwards and say, I've got a great idea of how you can do this faster and more cost effectively believe me, we are absolutely open to anybody that wants to wants to help out. So, so we currently have a four cylinder model under the hood that is generating these reports at floodscourse.com. And the first cylinder will call it the riverine cylinder. We show the customer two frames. And the top frame is the FEMA flood zones for your property. This is Muskegee, Oklahoma. This is a river. This is called the port of Muskegee who knew that they had a port. These are the FEMA flood zones, the base flood elevation. But then using lidar, we recast the the the frequencies of flooding based on a reinterpretation lidar reinterpretation. So what you see here within the polygon of the customer's site is yes, there's some 1% there's even some point 2%, which is similar. But as you get down to the water, and then you look on the other side of the river here, you go, Oh, my, that's not 1%. That's 20% annual frequency, 80%, 30%, whatever. And we know that because the this on the right side of the river on the east side is much lower than the subject property. And when you go out and you talk to people, they go, Yeah, floods every year, because we're much lower than our, our colleagues on the other side of the river. So this is one of the problems with FEMA flood zone, which is they they'll have an a zone. And it's all 1% across the a zone. But we all most of you as scientists and people who do fieldwork know that's just not true. So we're reinterpreting in the United States through lidar. The storm surge model I mentioned, we're using the slosh grids, we're using lidar or the DM, for example, in Miami Dade County, we have one one meter resolution. Other places we have three, three meter resolution. We use the not we actually put the slosh model on top of the highest non storm tides in the last 10 years. So we're using a mom.  And the engine does this in seconds for any property in America. We're taking a mom approach and putting it on top of the highest of the high tides in the closest tide gauge and interpolation. Whoops, I'm sorry. We're showing the storm surge, both in NABD 88. So you can compare it to the elevation certificate and AGL above the ground level because we want people to know. And then we show the annual strike frequency from that category storm from the National Hurricane Center.  No, but, but the slosh model is used to evacuate millions of people every year that are that are in the way of an incoming hurricane. It's good enough to give the homeowner who's paying $99 for this and all the other information to give them a sense whether they're a homeowner or a home buyer of what I'm looking at. If I buy this property, should I buy it? Yes or no? Should I sell it now? Yes or no? Should I protect it? Yes or no? And how would I protect it? And then should I insure it? And again, I get back to, well, this isn't as technically sophisticated as cat risk modeling. But the point is that most people don't have flood insurance. So if the cat modeling, not saying anything bad about them, they're great. But if that was all that we needed to get people to wake up and buy flood insurance, then everybody would have because nobody would be so irrational as to be in an A zone or in a VE zone or near, you know, in a hurricane slosh area and not have flood insurance, but they do not have flood insurance. Most people don't. So what do you say about that? Is it just the quality of the data? No. But the risk communication is a very important piece of this. Cylinder three, tidal sea level rise, not included in FEMA flood maps. This is where the Miami Beach City Hall have a zero flood days in 2018. Using the NOAA regional sea level rise model, we have 70 days, 71 days of tide flooding plus 15 years and almost every day plus 30 years. I didn't make it up. I'm envisioning this so that this is let's just say this is not City Hall. This is an office building. This is somebody's home and not every property in Miami Beach or Miami or Savannah or Charleston or Norfolk or the Jersey Shore, not every property shows this. In fact, most of the properties that we modeled don't show this kind of severe king tide or tidal sea level rise flooding. But what does this mean? What it means is, and they do have pumps there, by the way, and those pumps have backup power Miami Beach. But what if they don't?  What is that going to mean for the economy of that particular town? That's very important. Then we've developed and called the X zone flood model, the precipitation using flow flow direction sink watershed zonal fill modeling DEM property boundary drainage layers soil type soil runoff groundwater and proprietary algorithms. And in seconds, we're modeling every property in America for heavy rainfall flooding right now. This was a property in Houston before Harvey at the edge of Attic's reservoir. It was a neighborhood. You can see this is a stream. This is our model that this area was lower and was going to get flooded. And you can see in the drone footage right here, this black area right here is where the flooding occurred and in the in the in the roadway of this little neighborhood. And you can see flooding in the in the same western part of the polygon and a little bit of flooding in in the street. Now, this was a model we did for a REIT that wanted to put a pet smart in here. They didn't. This was our groundwater heavy rainfall modeling. This is what happened in Kingwood, Texas drone footage after Harvey. We need this. The commercial real estate sector needs it homeowners need it. Insurance needs it. They don't have it. They don't have this kind of modeling. Now, I mean, when we think of EO and we think of remote sensing, this type of stuff, which is going to become more and more available is so important because we can actually, at some time in the future, automate the, you know, showing people the last 10 years of flooding on on and around a property they want to buy. And in and Brandon's, you know, in the group we were just out, we talked a little bit about blockchain. I'm not going to steal his thunder, but you know, to me and someone said, I'm recovering lawyer, but somebody said, well, there could be privacy issues. Not if it's obvious from the street that someone could see something flood. It's there's no privacy. There's no search and seizure. There's no you don't need a warrant. If you if you happen to be there, and you would see the flooding from the street, there is no privacy issues. But we can get that from satellite data, whether it's Airbus or whether it's government satellite data. And we can actually have consumers, we can balance the scales of justice. Right now, buyers of property, even though we have in many states, caveat emptor me here, for example, here in Colorado, and I live in Colorado, even though my business is in, my business is in Fort Lauderdale, we have rate on disclosure, you have to have rate on testing, you have to disclose that it's a requirement of the law. But in many other states, whether it's rate on or asbestos or lead paint or lead pipe or mold, you it's buyer beware. So what are we what can we do with this type of information to balance the scales of justice to give consumers this type of information? King tides, a threat multiplier. So this is a couple million dollar property in Fort Lauderdale on a sunny day. Fish swimming in the yard. King tides. And you know, when I first started raising this with the insurance companies, they were in King tides, Ming tides, why do we need to we don't need to know about that. But water's not coming in the front door. Don't tell me about King tides. But now everybody's jumping on the King tide barrier, you know, bandwagon, because if this is happening, this is astronomy, this is what we have predicted based on tide gauges in South Florida, that these new moons and full moons and the highest of the high tides for 2018, this is astronomy, everybody, is going to be on October 9. So the highest King tide in South Florida is going to be on October 9. We know it because it's the sun and the moon and earth has nothing to do with storms. Nothing to do anything. So this property is going to look like this on October 9. We know that. But what is October 9? It's the height of the Atlantic hurricane season. And if the storm comes in and rides on top of this, what's happening to this $2 million home? Why does an insurance company want to know every King tide affected property in the coast of the United States in the world that's affected by tropical storms because it's a threat multiplier. We need to give this information. We are giving this information. So here's an example of a hotel in Miami Beach, a very nice Art Deco hotel, historic hotel. This red line is the FEMA base base flood elevation. These are category four and five hurricanes. And this is the current and future King tide for business interruption. And what this shows you is, and I will guarantee this, without a pump, this will be a ghost building long before it would be taken down by any hurricane because who is going to want to get out of their car and walk through saltwater to get into the restaurant at the Alden hotel, not my wife with her Manola Blonix or Jimmy choose. She's not getting out of the car and taking her $1,000 or whatever was on sale at Nordstroms Rack or whatever. No, she's not going to do that. And neither would your girlfriend or significant other wife want to get out of the car and go into the Alden hotel. So pumps are going to be critical in the future given sea level rise. So the blue area here, so I want to check on my time, the blue area is insured. And the red zone is uninsured, unless you have business interruptions. Hurricane Florence, this is what happened in New Bern. You probably all read the article of the, you know, the low, you know, the low income housing there and the poor people that got flooded out, our modeling of cat one and heavy rainfall and there are synergies, including natural hazards, heat stress, cooling degree days and droughts, automating for additional fee, the damage ratio, economic laws. But this is I want to focus on this, because I want to sort of transition in the few minutes that we have left. My co founders and I, about a year, year and a half ago decided that we're not in the bad news business, we're not the bad news bears. We're in the resilience business. And what that means is, it's not enough to say, here's your bad news, have a nice life, don't let the door hit you on the way out. I didn't get into this after I retired to do that. I got in this to help people to save property and save lives. So we developed a piece of code that you can, we can with the client, propose a hypothetical barrier, this polygon here, this is Miami city hall, hypothetical barrier of whatever height, and then model instantaneously before and after return on investment of any barrier, assuming that barrier is effective, what we don't, we're not, you know, warranting barrier systems. We're just saying, if you want to envision a barrier system, we can model that instantaneously for any type of flooding. And then of course, if it's heavy rainfall flooding, you got to put a pump on the inside and pump the water out. So we have a help desk, and we call it flood protection as a service. We do the vulnerability. We do engineering evaluations, financing, implementation, annual maintenance and certification.  And so we're not in the bad news business. We're matching flood defense systems with the risk. And you know, this is a picture I took in New Orleans during a very heavy rainstorm, but no, not a tropical storm. And there was a pizza parlor and the guys out there throwing sandbags. And that may be perfectly appropriate for his circumstances and his financial bandwidth. But somebody else might want to put in a European self-closing flood barrier, or somebody else might want to put in to their home to block an area off that is had flooding, or the port of dam system, or the mega secure that's been FM approved. So we have risk consultants that are on the phone with our clients trying to help them save lives and save property. So new technologies like IOT, crowdsourcing, AI, real-time weather, and augmented reality will help, and they will be the wave of the future. But you have to have that grounded in modeling of where the high risk areas are. You have to understand where to put a sensor. Where am I going to put that sensor? Well, you're going to put it where the models tell you to. And then there's a feedback loop that says, oh, yeah, that you modeled that. And then the sensors showed there was a whole bunch of flooding there, and it feeds back, and it gets better and better. Satellite data in the future, you guys know a lot more about this, but combine AI and machine learning, remote sense data to produce intelligence, individualized property data, it can help with the insurance underwriting, cost to rebuild, damage loss estimates, residential and commercial due diligence, which I talked about, image recognition, value estimate of buildings and cost to rebuild that's sort of redundant, and vegetation analysis with wildfire risks. So this is a mall that floods all the time in South Florida. Cars float away, they haven't done anything with the parking lot, and yet if we have modeling and we have some sensors and if we have alarm systems that tell the ladies shopping in the mall at noon time, hey, you know what, we got a storm coming in, we think it's of a certain type of rainfall, you really need to get your cars out of here or else they're going to be floating away, or we're going to close the barriers, which we don't have now, but we could have in the future. So there's a lot to be done with the IoT and with incoming real-time weather, but again, I think it's based on modeling, and then, you know, our modeling, we can model every property in the United States, and with augmented reality, somebody with a GPS-enabled smartphone could take a picture of their home, upload it to our app, which doesn't exist yet, it could be modeled, and then as weather's coming in, if it fits a certain profile of a certain storm surge, of a certain rainfall event, then we'll come back to them and show them what it's going to look like on their property, and then they can decide, am I going to evacuate, I'm not going to evacuate, I'm going to lower some shutters or raise a barrier or do whatever is appropriate. So I'm pretty much run out of time now, I mean I can go through a bunch of cases, this is going to be available, the slide deck, and there's a whole bunch of other slides, but I'm pretty much, you know, going to open it for any questions now, and thank you very much for your time, appreciate it. Thanks Albert, questions? Yaggy, or Jim? I think that's true, this happened, that happened to be a heavy rainfall situation in the Sawgrass Mills Mall, which is outside of the surge zone in South Florida, but I think your point is very well taken. I agree with that, if someone had a slide, I think it may have been Laurie, that a picture's worth a thousand actions, I really like that, I mean because I always say a picture's worth a thousand words, but I really like, and I'm going to probably, you know, plagiarize that and use that, that a picture's worth a thousand actions, because we're trying to knock people off the fence, I mean we're not an advocacy group, so we have nothing to do with climate mitigation, I, you know, know Al Gore quite well, law school friend of mine Kenny Berlin runs Climate Reality, I spoke at Climate Reality in Miami, in front of 1200 people, and in three days I was the only person that said the word adaptation, and when he introduced me the vice president said, because I'm Albert and he's Albert and this is Albert, he said, five years ago I said that adaptation is laziness and I really regret that and I want to introduce somebody who has a new startup who's trying to help, you know, with technology to do adaptation, but the point that I'm trying to make is that we do want people to take action to become more resilient, so if we're advocating anything, it's resiliency, not CO2 mitigation. I think it's, again, this is more of the science team, but we wanted to get free things, free data, that was readily accessible, that could kind of plug and play with the modeling engine and the report generating engine, and I think what we've seen very, very clearly is when we go into South America, we can't do that anymore, so we're going to have to go to satellite data and and remote sensing right now, I mean I'm talking about in the next couple of weeks, when we have this pilot project in Peru, so we're there, you know, we're, this is US, done, works, reasonably accurate for the purposes that people use it for, and now we're going to other places in the world where we're going to have to immediately go to all the available databases that are satellite and remote sensing. You know, I would have to, you know, we have a team, they have a whole QAQC, peer-reviewing, field-true thing, going in after the events, and trying to look at data, which includes drone data, which includes information from local governments, and then we do have a program to to make sure that our stuff is accurate, and that's an ongoing process, I'm not going to, you know, lie, you know, it's an ongoing process. To answer your question, what's an acceptable error rate, I can't really answer that, I'd have to refer you to Dr. Sodin, but I would just say that in my, and I know this is anecdotal, and I'm not a scientist, but it's creepy how every time we talk to a customer and they see the report, they're going, how did you know that that's where it floods on all of the different areas of flooding, and so we've never had anybody get a report and say, this is crap, it has nothing to do with my property, because we do it for, I mean we do it for buyers, but we also do it for owners, so people who have lived there for 30 years and go, that's exactly the corner, and now I'm going to have to do something about that before I sell this, or I'm getting it ready for sale, and I know I've got to do something over there, whether level it out, or raise it, or do something, put a wall around it, so it's a good point, we do have a process and we have, I feel very confident of our science team that they have created a system that is, I say, bad enough or good enough, you know, the information is bad, is the bad news is good enough to make not design decisions, we're not at a design level, so when we bring in architects and engineers to look at our modeling and our reports, and they're now going to design, and I didn't really, let me just see if I can flip through here for one second, no, I don't have it in this one, but I will take just this one, this house was built up from five, from three and a half feet to six feet, based on our modeling, this is an actual home in Fort Lauderdale in one of the floodiest areas, and this gentleman, Stanley Young, bought a 1923 mansion that was owned by the billionaire Wayne Hizenga, who was a blockbuster video and auto nation and waste management, and he knocked down the mansion and he was going to build this spec home, and he came to us and he said, how high do I have to raise it for it to be safe? And we said, it's three and a half feet, NavD88, you have to go to six feet. So he brought in millions of dollars of fill, and then built this unbelievable home, and sold it, it's a, you know, I don't know, 10 million, 8 million, it's a very expensive home. So we don't, we didn't do the final design, we, you know, his engineers and architects do that, but most of the architects and engineers are going like, FEMA BFE is good enough for me, I've been using it for the last 30 years, and that's what's in the code of Fort Lauderdale, is you got to do it to the BFE, or above the B, no, that's not science. So we know that our science, to get back to your point of accuracy, we know that it's good science, and that it can form the basis of resilience decisions. I don't know if that's satisfying, but that's my response. It's called round day venture capital. When we get our round day venture capital, then we can develop the augmented reality. We know how to do it. I mean, we actually know how to do that, that smartphone augmented reality app, and it really would cost a lot less money than you think. So if anybody here knows any venture capitalists, you can send them my way. I'm shameless, I mean, by the way I'm saying. No, it's anybody who's a customer, there's a privacy policy, we keep everything under lock and key, and try to prevent hackers. I mean, it's just like any company, we take credit cards, we have a privacy data and privacy policy. No, but for a government building, yes, if we do work for a government building, then we can release that data, because at least under Florida laws, under open records, it's anything that you give to a local government, to a government agency in Florida is not private. No, no, no, either way, if you're a customer, whether you're on one side or the other side, or you're just an interested observer, if you buy it, then it's private to you, and you could share it, you bought it, you can't publicly share it. We have certain terms and conditions that prohibit you. It's for your personal use, but if you wanted to show it to your brother, I mean, we're not going to come and sue you, but you can't post it on Facebook or something. That happens every day. That's why we carry $2 million worth of professional liability insurance. We've never been sued, but as is everybody else, I mean, whether you're an engineering firm and you were doing this by hand, or you're a coastal engineering firm, you're doing it by hand, or whether you're doing it in an automated process, it's the same thing that if you have errors in emissions or negligence, which I'm not saying is impossible, but I'm just saying that we take all the right precautions that our modeling is not in error, and then we carry insurance like everybody else does to protect ourselves and to pay claims if in fact something did go wrong. Oh, yeah. We've sold thousands of them to date, and we sell them to, as I say, to NOAA. We sell them to the military. We've sold it to buyers. We've sold it to sellers. We've sold it to people who live from paycheck to paycheck, and we tell them when they call for their complimentary advice, go down to Walmarts and buy this barrier in a bag. It's got a four-star review on Amazon, and it's $50. And then we represent billionaires who, this one particular case, he wanted our advice about buying a $4 million home in Palm Beach to tear it down and build an $8 million home that's higher. And am I going to get to the bike path and how's my wife going to get into Palm Beach to shop? And am I going to take my Rolls-Royce through saltwater? And what do you think Palm Beach is going to do about pumps and seawalls? And so it starts with a report, but then it goes into, for us, a fee-for-service help desk. The help desk isn't free. The initial call is free, but then the help desk is consulting. And so right now we're doing a hotel acquisition in Miami, a beach that started with a $499 report and now has $30,000 of consulting fees because they want to know how long is the beach going to last. And with king tides and sea level rise, how many hours a day in today and the years to come will we have enough beach for people to enjoy themselves on? So our modeling goes from the technology, here's your report instantaneously, to how can we help you make decisions and get more resilient. All right, last question and then... You know, I mean it's sort of a good point, but typically what we'll do is we do have a QA, QC process. So we get an address online and we send out an little aerial photograph and we confirm that it's what the customer, it's the customer's property. Then we push a button and the report comes out and then it goes around to whoever's on call on the science team. But if we have any questions about it, then we will redo it using, we'll go into other databases, we'll see if there's a closer tide gauge data, a tide gauge will... I'm trying to think of examples, but there are occasions where we would feel uncomfortable because it might be in a blank zone or it might, but I haven't seen a situation, I've seen situations where we've done more work and we just lose money on the sale, but I've never seen a situation where the team came back and said, I just can't do a report here. Yes, we currently are doing a human QA, two-part QA, QC, immediately send the aerial photograph with the property boundary. Is that your home? Is that your property? Yes, push a button and then the report comes out and it goes to whoever on the science team is on call. And I just wanted that because I didn't want a web app fully automated, whatever, because I don't believe in that as far as having a professional quality report. Well, thank you very much. So much, Albert.


no further discussion, the motion is to continue the project for redesign. Nelson, did you want to speak before we vote on this? Yeah, I just have a question. I mean, in terms of how this motion is put before us right now is, I mean, if the continuance to redesign, but there have no, but we don't, but there's no direction attached to this motion. So I don't like, you just brought up that you would like to see this project designed as two-story, but honestly, I don't see this coming, but I don't see this being able to be designed a two-story. I don't see it's feasible to design a two-story. So if that's the direction that is going to be given to the applicant or, yeah, to the applicant as part of this motion, I don't support that. I just don't, we didn't, it hasn't been given, there's no direction given yet in terms of what they are like within this motion, exactly what they're designing to. So I don't know exactly what I'm voting on. Well, I think we can make some additions to this motion. Chair, is it okay to speak? Sorry, I jumped. Okay. So I'm happy to take amendments, but what some of the things that I would like to see attached to this motion explored specifically in the redesign. I think the suggestion of flipping the design and moving the driveway should be included and there should be analysis of why that can or can't happen on the redesign. The balconies, if it isn't going to be flopped, then moving the balconies to the south side where they can actually be in the sun. In addition, I would like the developer to show the analysis of why the square footage couldn't be changed and the height decreased. I think the suggestion of dropping a bedroom and potentially dropping ceiling height should also be explored. And I think I would stop there and ask if any other commissioners would like to add more specific guidance for the redesign continuance. Commissioner Dawson, can you just clarify what you mean by dropping a bedroom? So the current design has three bedrooms on the third floor. So changing the square footage or doing whatever they needed to do to take a bedroom off the third floor and drop it down to the second floor. It could potentially change the massing and then also just looking at ceiling heights throughout the development that could potentially drop the height overall. That would need to be. The other commissioners have talked about massing. I'm looking at the elevation now and it just is like one long block of housing. And I think trying to reduce the massing of it would definitely be helpful. There are no further comments and we can just... Commissioner Conway and then Mr. Marlowe. I'd like to hear what Mr. Marlowe has to say, please. Okay, Mr. Marlowe. Thank you. I know we've already heard from the applicant once, but that was before more specific discussion ensued over potential changes to the design. I'd recommend that you call the applicant up once again to discuss willingness to pursue one or more of these options. If they choose not to pursue any of these, then a continuance really isn't going to be useful because we're just kicking the can down the road for another two weeks or so. So I'd recommend you bring the applicant back. Thanks. Okay, although let me say if the commission votes to continue it, that sends a message to the applicant as well. Go ahead. I'm happy to hear from the applicant. You've heard some of the changes. We're here. Yes, you can hear it. Hi, thank you for the opportunity to jump back in. I really appreciate it. So just briefly, I want to address the option of flipping the project so that the driveway would be on the north side of the site. It's not possible given that we need a 15 foot wide driveway. It would require demolition of the front house almost in its entirety. If we were to do that, that is something that we looked at fairly extensively early days. So I think that's a non-starter and hopefully I've answered that question right now. I'd like to let me answer that a little bit there, Dan. We actually just have another little point of history there. We started with it on the other side. Fire code would not allow us to keep it over there. So it's a fire code related item. Okay, Dan, go ahead. And then as far as the other possible revisions that we would be amenable to that we're happy to explore, or if you could condition and approval with us, we would be happy to make the floor-to-floor height go to, it would be 8 foot 6 inches? Nine. Nine would give us an 8 foot ceiling height. Nine foot floor-to-floor height on all floors would give us an 8 foot ceiling height, which would allow us to meet the CBC minimum height requirement. And we could drop the height of the thing probably by about a foot or so across the board. And we are also would be happy to either enclose or relocate the balconies on the north side of the project. So if those concessions help us, we'd be well pleased to provide them. Thank you, Commissioner Calmer. Yeah, I am going to be voting against the continuance myself. I don't think that, and for all of the reasons I've already said, I don't think it's appropriate for us to be providing the kind of direction on a complex project like this. I think we provided the applicant with a lot of feedback that we, you know, have quite a lot of agreement on. And I just wanted to make a pitch for we have a way to address some of our concerns and move the project along tonight. And I think it's the only appropriate move that we can make. Any other commissioner comments? Mr. Creer, I think we do have an independent, we have a job to exercise our independent judgment. But let's vote on the motion. This is a motion to continue based on making the changes to the design. Can we have a roll call vote, please? Commissioner Conway. No. Greenberg. No. Nielsen. Dawson. Yes. Spelman. No. Maxwell. Yes. Schifrin. Hi. The motion fails four to three. Does anybody else want to make a motion? Yes, I would make a motion to approve the project with conditions that we just outlined and that applicant seems willing to address. One is flipping the balconies to the south side of the building and reducing the floor-to-floor height so that the overall height of the building comes down. So we're at nine foot floor-to-floor for all levels. I'm sorry, was there anything else? That's it. That's it. Thank you. Is there a second to the motion? Second. Second by Commissioner Nielsen. Is there any further discussion? We have a roll call vote, please. Commissioner Conway. Aye. Greenberg. Aye. Nielsen. Aye. Dawson. No. Spelman. Aye. Maxwell. Schifrin. No. The motion passes four to three. I want to thank staff and all the members of the public and the applicant for their patience, testimony, and particularly their patience. It's been going on for quite a while and we've even got a late start. So thank you all very much and we are ready to, I think we need to talk about what we're going to do because it's kind of late and we're going to be able to get through everything on the agenda. You know, we're supposed to stop our meetings at 11. I wonder my own recommendation. I don't know how long the staff report would be on item number three, the housing requirements. I have a number of concerns with proposed ordinance, but of course I have a number of concerns with the objective standards as well. I think my fewest concerns are with the objective development standards community engagement strategy. So what do commissioners want to do? Commissioner Conway, do you have a suggestion? You're muted. Commissioner Conway, you're muted. You're muted. I'm sorry to hear you, Julie. No, I was dropped three times and I'm concerned that perhaps commissioner Conway has been dropped if she's not able to join. I think I'm back. Yes, okay, good. You're back. Okay. I apologize for that technology. What I was going to say, I was going to suggest that we continue the inclusionary housing item to a later meeting because I do think that we want to hear all of the concerns on it and I think that the community engagement process and the objective standards item can be handled tonight and I think it should be because that timeline is pressing. That would be my suggestion. Would somebody like to make a motion to continue the inclusionary housing requirements ordinance for the next meeting? So moved. Is there any discussion? Can we have a roll call vote, please? Commissioner Conway. Sorry, that was me. That was my fault. Commissioner Conway. Aye. Greenberg. Aye. Nielsen. Aye. Dawson. Spellman. Aye. Maxwell. Schifrin. Aye. So I don't remember three. Continue to our next meeting. We now will go on to the objective standards. The complex item. Let's see if we were able to get through it or not. Do we have a staff report, please? We do. I would like to just start briefly with a minor administrative note. There are two items tonight related to the objective standards work. Do we, is this a commission's desire to try to hear both of those items tonight given the hour? And if not, would the commission prefer to select one to hear tonight and one perhaps to continue to a special meeting? I would like to get both of these items turned before that you're next hearing on the 17th. So if we are continuing one, staff would be requesting that we find time for a special meeting next week. And given, you know, like the complexity and the depth of each of them, it seems like that may, it may be kind of an act to get through all of that this evening. Well, my own preference would be to continue the number of items that fit. And one of the reasons is I had a concern about a number of sort of detail concerns. My major concern was with the examples. And it seemed like the examples were all based on the underlying zoning instead of what would be allowed under the mixed use identity zone and identity bonuses. I was hoping to see examples based on what was actually allowed general plan. I'm sorry for doing the hearing. Maybe if we can give it a little bit. So I mean, I could respond to that. Do you want to get in? I mean, we could have just a brief conversation perhaps. So the tests that are not going to examine density bonus, there are more variables than we can accommodate in a test fit scenario. The test fits evaluate all the existing objective development standards that are currently part of the city's landscape. So those are the standards in the general plan and the standards in the zoning code. So that's what those tests will do whether we hear them tonight or next week. Based on what density? I'm sorry. I'm not sure I understand your question. Maybe it would be better to wait on that because based on the densities that are defined in the general plan, based on the FAR, based on the unit count, based on the way that we count units, all of those things, based on the way that we apply density in mixed use projects and residential projects, we took all of that into account. Well, because the discussion on item number four, our five is, I think, more complex in my mind in item number six. And given the hour, I would suggest that we, at a brief staff report on item number six, and act on that and continue the objective development standard test fits to a special meeting next week, as recommended by staff, if that's what is necessary. And maybe I'll provide staff with some comments, some of my concerns, and sometimes I misunderstand what the staff report is really doing. We can definitely make time for that during daylight hours. Happy to do that. So is that acceptable for the commissioners that we put off? Do we really need to have a special meeting since we're going to be meeting in two weeks, rather than just put it on a regular agenda? I'm not sure why. Because the test fits are going to the city council and we are trying to, and the recommendation that the commission makes relative to the test fit, we'll be going to the city council, and we are doing everything that we can to have that happen at the first meeting in January, due to some other scheduling issues that are happening on the city council agenda. So that's, you know, that's sort of the reason for the time pressure on that item. Is it enough time if we heard it on our next meeting? Isn't that next meeting? Do we have another meeting in December? I guess that's a question. Maybe Matt or Lee could jump in on that in terms of the timing for the noticing and the deadline for the staff report. Looks like 12.17 would be okay, according to Mr. C. Matt, did you have something you wanted to say? Yeah, I was just saying that we could move the test fits to 12.17. It would just require moving the city council meeting out further. So we'd have to move to the 126 meeting versus the 112. That's okay. We can do that. Okay, great. We're not having an additional meeting. So if there's no objection from other commissioners? I'm so sorry. I just, the consultant isn't available on the 17th at your next meeting. And that is a pretty significant component of the test fit. So the consultant is available next Thursday? Yes. Tuesday or next Thursday would work for our team. All right. I guess we do want to have the consultant there. There's no objection from the other commissioners will continue item number five through a special meeting next Thursday at seven o'clock. Commissioner Maxwell. Yeah, I will be unavailable next Thursday, but I will be available the Tuesday. Councilman, same for me. Always the most fun thing we have to do. There's always something out the chambers. So we can't do Tuesday. We can't do Tuesday at all. So Thursday is the only day and we can't, and then we only have five commissioners. Oh goodness. Tuesday the 15th, there is no city council could push the test fits to January. That would be another option. They're really less time sensitive, I think. You know, if we're not going to make it to the first meeting on January, that was really the only time pressure that I was personally aware of relative to the project that we're doing. The feedback on the test fits and the decision of the planning commission chooses to recommend about them won't affect the rest of the timeline for that project. So conceivably we could push to January and then just go to the city council in February. I certainly would prefer doing it at a regular meeting the whole commission there. Yeah, okay. So let's, we'll find a meeting in January. So continue the item number whatever it is. Five, I think. Five to the first meeting in January. Okay, so let's move to the objective standards community engagement strategy and have a brief staff report please. Making sure everyone has the dates. Okay, so there's a lot of communication flying around right now. Standards, we have heard a lot this evening already about the need for objective standards and why we are, you know, finding ourselves in this position of suddenly talking about objective standards very much. And let me get this slide show going and then share my screen. This project that we're working on about objective standards these are, we're developing objective standards for mixed use and multi-family housing. This project falls under a broader umbrella of direction that we got from the city council in the summer of 2019 to any work the department might have been doing on what was known as the quarter plan and begin a new effort to reconcile differences between the general plan and the zoning code. The initial outreach that we did following that direction sort of indicated that really broad outreach was going to be necessary. It was sort of clear that, you know, the community was really not of one mind about what, how to understand and how they interpreted the direction that we had gotten from the city council that involves direction to preserve existing neighborhoods and existing city businesses as a top priority and look for increasing opportunities for affordable housing in appropriate locations. The SC2 grant came available around this, you know, as part of a package of funding from the state that was intended to promote the creation of new housing, affordable housing, market rate housing, all housing. Objective, creating objective standards for development was one of the project types that was guaranteed funding under this umbrella of reconciling these differences. We took advantage of this funding source to provide us some funding so we can hire a consultant to help us through this process of updating our zoning code and evaluating through that process of updating our zoning code sort of evaluating the utility and need for perhaps the general plan amendment. You know, we got into this situation because there had been quite a lot of community concern around the prior effort to implement the general plan, which that effort was called the corridor plan. The development capacities that were used in the corridor plan are defined in the general plan.  And when we talk about the test bits, we'll get our first taste of that. And how can we write standards that really capture what Santa Cruz is in an objective, measurable way? So, an objective standard is something that has to be measurable to an outside standard that is commonly understood. It's part of the definition in the state law. So, that'd be two grants. It's going to allow us to develop objective zoning standards for housing, multi-family and mixed-use zoning for land use designations. These exist at really key, visible sites and properties around the city. And so, the development standards and guidance that we provide for developers on those sites really are going to shape the public realm. And they're going to shape the built environment moving forward. So, it's really important that our engagement, that the community that we reach with this is really a representative community. So, when we were reviewing proposals, the proposal from UPP really stood out to us because they have a focus on equity and social justice. So, they're really looking to reach out and include voices and communities who have previously not been part of our processes, either through, you know, sort of lack of feeling welcome, lack of being informed about how to access government. And, you know, and honestly, also, sort of a history of exclusion and not being welcomed in these spaces. So, that was really appealing to us. They're focusing on having well-informed participation so people, participants, really understand what it is that they're contributing to, what the outcomes of the project are going to be, and how they will look to see that their contributions are being reflected in the final product. They are using proven tools for bringing in new participants that we haven't had engagement with before, and the proposal that they've brought forward is one that we think can be really effective during COVID, which is, of course, you know, a consideration as we move through this process over the coming year. So, just to highlight, the areas of the city that we're going to be, that this project about objective zoning standards, mixed-use and multi-family, the areas of the city that that will affect, just for a little bit of context, it's everything on this map that is shown in orange, in this lighter pink color, and in this dark brown color. Those are our mixed-use and multi-family zone districts. So, you know, the yellow is single-family, the green is parks, the deeper pink, one of these deeper pinks is public facilities and different types of commercial that aren't as likely to develop with mixed-use housing, although most commercial zone districts can develop with mixed-use housing. It's most common in the CC zone district, which is this lighter pink color. So, just kind of gives you a sense of the portion of the city that's affected by these standards. So, with that, I'm going to introduce our consultant Meredith Ruff from Urban Planning Partners who is going to walk you through their approach to community engagement. So, Meredith, I think, are you there? Can you hear me? Yes, there you are. Okay. Thank you, Sarah. Good evening, commissioners. Thanks for hanging with us this late evening. I'm Meredith Ruff, and I'm the project manager for the Objective Standards Project on the consultant side. I'm also joined tonight by Lynette Diaz, the principal in charge of this effort, also with Urban Planning Partners, and Lisa Aboud from Inter-Ethnica Multicultural Marketing and Community Engagement Firm who's helping us with the strategy and implementing all the Spanish language engagement. We were really energized by the city's commitment to equity for this process, and look forward to learning from you all tonight some other things to consider and hear what you think about our approach. So, when we formed this approach, we really considered what voices have been missing in the city's past engagement processes, and we came up with three groups, the Latinx community, which includes those who live and or work in Santa Cruz, low- and moderate-income households, and university students. And we thought participation from these groups would be really important to the success of this project, and so when considering how to get these groups involved, we have kind of refined our approach to include more smaller meetings and make sure the meetings are in convenient locations or in convenient digital medium, as it is now, that they're culturally appropriate, that we use stipends if needed to encourage engagement, and that we really work with partner organizations that are already doing great work in these arenas. Like Sarah mentioned, there's a pretty robust information-sharing part of our approach, and I'm sure the community is well-informed on state laws connected to this, but also the non-aesthetic elements of this project. It's certainly about heights, but it's also about what makes Santa Cruz Santa Cruz in terms of community building, and so we really wanted to add this new lens to the housing discussion, which I will talk about a little bit further in our next slide. We have three phases to our approach here. The first being inform, listen, and understand, and this is where we really want the community to come away knowing what objective standards are and why they're necessary. Anyone who was on the call earlier probably sees that now, and we want to share that with the community. We also want them to see the connection to state law, and we want to start hearing their concerns. An example of an event that would occur during this phase is our diversity, equity, and inclusion event linking housing to a practice of exclusion and seeing how this project is one way to rewrite past wrong. Our second phase is called define and measure community character, and here's where we try to remove some of the subjective meaning of community character and try to measure it. And one example of an activity during this phase is a targeted discussion with one of the groups that we identified and trying to really have a rich discussion about the community, the aesthetic element stand, like I said, the non-aesthetic ones. In the third phase, shape and refine objective standards, we would preview our work to the community and then be able to tweak it upon hearing back from them. And an example of this is our online kickoff event showing visualizations of our draft development standard, walking the community through what we've come up with and answering questions and getting feedback from them. And a fourth thing to note is that throughout all this we would, of course, have a website consistent with the city's community engagement strategy and this would be a hub for resources and project updates throughout our timeline. If we are successful in these phases and in our approach, we have four outcomes that we hope to achieve. Number one, the discussion on housing in Santa Cruz connects the project, the state housing legislation, systemic racism, and non-aesthetic elements of what makes Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz. Two, the voices of underrepresented populations have been heard. And three, the community understands what an objective standard is and why they are important. Four, perhaps most important, the community sees their input in the final objective standard. And with that, I'll pass it back to Sarah and I guess potentially the commissioner's feedback in question. Thank you. Thanks, Sarah. Yeah, so our staff recommendation is that your commission review the report, provide comment on the proposed community engagement strategy for the project to develop objective development standards for multi-family mixed-use housing.  Oh, you're muted. Chair Schifrin. Chair, we can't hear you. There you are. Oh, we're still not hearing you. I think your computer might be muted now. So the phone in the computer. There you go. Okay. Someday this will all be over. There you go. All right. Thank you for the staff report. And hearing from the consultant, do the commissioners have any questions or comments they'd like to make on the outreach strategy? I have, let me just say, since I'm not saying anybody is just jumping up, I have a question on commission economy in a minute. And I think it's great that the focus, there's going to be a real focus on lower income communities that have not participated very much. The only question I would ask is in one of the objective standards that the city has is an inclusionary housing requirement. And I'm just wondering if one of the options that's going to be made available to these communities, given our affordable housing crisis, is the possibility of increasing that, going to be a desire to increase that requirement? That's an interesting, interesting question. So I guess my first response would be, you know, we are, we are definitely accepting any and all feedback that we get from all of these groups. There may be certain standards that folks are really interested in that may fall slightly outside the scope of this project. And we may come to a place where we make recommendations for future work, because really the end product that we're going to be getting to is a set of zoning and development standards. We haven't scoped doing some yet more work and revisiting the inclusionary ordinance, which has just been updated. So I'm not going to say no, it's impossible that that would be a recommendation that would come out of this process. I am also going to just acknowledge that we're not currently scoped to do the level of analysis that would be required to really do a full investigation of a different inclusionary requirement. Right. I'm not recommending a change. I'm just sort of saying that giving, you know, the need for such housing and particularly among lower income members of the community, I think that is a development standard. Yeah. It's a standard and it should be with other standards, which I think are important as well. I'm not minimizing them. I think it's important to acknowledge that particularly in talking to communities that have traditionally been excluded, I think that would not surprise me if that's a concern that they have. And I think that that needs to be incorporated in the process. That's good. Yeah. Good.  Did you call on me? I'm sorry. Commissioner Conway, I did. Oh, okay. All right. Thank you. And thanks for that staff report and also to the consultant for hanging in here through a long night. And I really just want to say I'm really excited about this process. I'm really pleased to be leading with inclusion and equity. It gives me so much hope. And I just wanted to say, you know, welcome and I'm excited. I look forward to all of our discussions. Thank you. Commissioner Dawson and then Commissioner Greenberg and then Commissioner Spellman. Yeah. I just wanted to thank you so much staff and the consultants again for hanging in there. I also want to just build a little bit on what commissioner Schifrin said that I just want to reemphasize the need, especially to groups who haven't been traditional participants in sort of these processes that we need to lay out the full gamut of options for them. And that includes understanding that what they can convey to decision makers includes the need for affordability and how that affects their day to day lives, not just the height of the building or how building looks or the other potential standards that we should be talking about. And so I just want to again reemphasize that this needs to include the whole suite. And I know that there could be a tendency because there's timelines of things to become a little bit myopic, but I want to just encourage the consultants to take the time to lay out the entire suite because again, some of these folks have not been part of the process at all. And so it needs to be time woven in to allow them to have the full set of options on the table to provide feedback. And I'll leave it there. And thank you again. Look forward to working together. Thank you, Commissioner Greenberg. Yeah. Can you hear me? Okay. Thank you so much. And I'm very excited about the participation of the consultants and the focus on diversity, equity and inclusion and on the history of exclusion that has been so much a part of the history of this town and the reason why we're in the situation that we are in terms of the affordability crisis. And I would say that one thing that undercuts the, you know, the groups that we've been talking about that unites the, you know, low income, moderate income and Latino communities and students is that their majority renters and renters have historically been very underrepresented at planning commission meetings and so forth and meetings relating to these standards. And so the degree that you consider the needs of renters along with homeowners and the idea that, you know, renters, there's kind of a popular conception that renters are not as specifically engaged as homeowners and, you know, that's been proven true. It's just that renters are often more precarious and don't have as much time often in a community if they're getting priced out to get engaged. And so how we can include tenure in that, in that understanding would be one thing. And in addition, the points that Commissioner Dawson and Shifrin are making, I agree how we can, in addition to their exclusion, making it clear, but I think that sometimes people don't get involved because they don't see the material relevance of getting involved. And so the non-aesthetic category, what is meant by that to what degree could these decisions about a protective standard really make a different point when it comes to affordability as well as, you know, the mixture of housing types and other things, and how that can be translated and presented clearly, I think will be really valuable. So I really applaud your efforts and really appreciate that we get to be part of this process as well. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Spellman. Yeah, thank you for that. I think those comments are all really astute, you know, observations of this process.  I don't think we would be this far along this quickly, so I'm incredibly encouraged by the team that's in place and the potential for, you know, just opening up the dialogue to the, you know, less fortunate folks in our community that are, you know, underrepresented. So yes, on board and ready to contribute where we can. Thank you. Thank you. Let me just say that under our rules, if I remember correctly, we're a little after 11 if we want to continue. We have to make a motion to end the meeting. I'm not sure if commission, we're really not, there's not a recommendation to take action, but to sort of provide our comments. If there are other commissioners who would like to make comments, we can extend the meeting. If there are comments of brief, you can just make them. And then we can finish this item for this evening. So do any other commissioners want to make comments? No, none. Yes, Mr. Commissioner Maxwell, go ahead. It's really brief. I'm also going to just concur with everybody tonight. It's exciting. So that's it. Okay. Thank you very much. Seeing no other comments. I want to thank the staff and consultants again for their work and for their presentation. We'll be seeing you again in the future. If there's no other discussion on this item, we will move to information items. I see you have joined us. Please share your wisdom. I think you're muted. Sorry about that very quickly because I know that it's late. The work master plan was approved by council at the last meeting and the last set of inclusionary housing updates that you all did related to section eight. The first reading was approved at their last meeting and the second reading is coming up at their next meeting, the first meeting in December this coming Tuesday. I understand that 418 Riverfront is coming back on Tuesday as well to the council. That item is going to be continued on the 12th, excuse me, on December 8th. That will be continued to January 12th. Okay. I saw it was on the agenda. Have a nice chance to read the agenda. Thank you. Any other information items? Nope. Not here. Usually we get a preview. Maybe, Mr. Marl, it would like to give us a preview. I can say it. I'm happy to say. I'm happy to say that. You've got some. At the next meeting, there'll be the discussion about the. The commissioner comments in advance of hearings. And then there's one project. I don't know if Eric. Knows the project. I can pull it up. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'm happy to have the requirement ordinance. Mr. Marl, did you want to add something here? Yes, there's a, there's going to be an application that involves a general plan amendment, rezoning local coastal plan amendment to. Reconfigure the interface of a couple of downtown parcels for an upcoming affordable housing project that's, that's on the horizon. So that'll be on your, your next meeting agenda. Okay. Yes. Commissioner Conway. Question about, we continue the inclusionary item. I wondered if we needed to name a date certain in order to avoid renoticing. I meant to ask that earlier. Just a question. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There are next meeting. Yes. That's what I heard. The next meeting, which I. Okay. 17th. That's good. Thank you for that clarification. Okay. Are there any reports or advisory body reports? Are there any items to be referred to future agenda? Agendas. Seeing none. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. We're now adjourned. So I'll see you on the 17th. Thank you. See you soon. Goodbye.


There's always concern about, you know, you're bringing in gaming and what could potentially happen with that. And so you could have, you know, other types of crime coming in or something revolving around that, some type of underworld figures involved. Gamings have a very regulated industry at this point. And so I don't think that concerns, those are really founded. But I did like, you know, the questions coming in. Individuals saying, you know, how can we help? What can we do? What's the project?


Game Engine Unity announced that it will follow other games such as Unreal Engine charging a runtime fee starting January 1st, 2024. What did Unity do that had everyone so up in arms? Not every game, but many that use the Unity engine. They'll charge a fee to the developer every time the game is installed. And that means reinstalled, removed. I got a new computer today. I got to put all my games back on it. I install those games again. The dev gets dinged. I know a number of indie developers personally who have reached out or I reached out to and they wrote back and said, I won't be able to talk long. I am now in the 24th hour or whatever it is of us trying to convert our engine to Unreal before any of this takes place. What you're telling me is Unreal, or excuse me, Unity's engine has a way of telling when I install it again or later or whenever. That sounds like malware to me. I'm not buying games with Unity in them.


Marines, today we celebrate our 246th birthday. As we do each year, it's appropriate that we take time to pause and think on our roots and our history. Marines in and out of the Corps, no matter where they are or what they are doing, always find one another and wish each other a happy birthday. Take a moment to think about what brought you into our Marine Corps family. Remember all the Marines that have gone before us and that their service and sacrifices made us what we are today. I value the sacrifices and efforts of every Marine and Sailor here at the Combat Center as well of our family members. Without your support, we would not be able to accomplish our mission. The team here continues to provide the Corps leadership with trained, deployable Marines that are ready to fix the enemy and close the 300-meter gap to do what we do best, win the fight on the ground. It is customary at Marine Corps birthday celebrations worldwide for Marines to cut a traditional cake in celebration of the birth of our illustrious Corps. The pieces are given to the oldest and youngest Marines present, symbolizing the experience and youthful spirit that are hallmarks of our Corps. The oldest Marine present is Colonel Henry Centeno Jr. He was born on November 5, 1969 in Linwood, California. The passing of the cake from the oldest to the youngest Marine symbolizes the passing of history and traditions to the next generation. The youngest Marine present is Private First Class Jaden Bloom. He was born on April 24, 2003 in Brattleboro, Vermont. This is our day, Marines. Make it special. There's no place I'd rather be than right here in 29 Palms where warriors come to train. Thank you for all you do and will continue to do the uphold the legacy of our Marine Corps. God bless you all, Semper Fidelis, and happy birthday, Marines.


I think people make this mistake a lot where they're on one side, they're not tracking, they don't care anything. And then all of a sudden it's like, ah, like full on, you know, it's really crazy cause I never did it that way. It was always like, okay, Michael's get shredded, but I'm like, I make incremental changes weeks over week or month over a month. And you're already going to see traction over the week over week. Well, there's two points to make with this. One is in terms of sustainability, behavior change is less likely to stick when it's, you know, massive change all at once and rarely ever works. And I think people understand it. I don't think I need to make the case. If I tell people you're going to make huge changes in a very short period of time, what are the odds that you're going to maintain those changes? Think the average person will say, well, there's also this, you know, low, there's also this, that like us building muscle, us burning body fat, us at school, right? This is all a part of the adaptation process.  That's the other part is it's not just the psychological aspect of sustainability. It's also physiologically, your body will respond faster and better if you take this approach as well.


Well, talent is distributed equally around the world and we cannot really live up to our name Soka Global without having a truly global representation. We love being able to surprise people that think that, oh, they're coming to Soka, maybe I know each other. We love to be able to surprise those people by saying, hey, have you met so-and-so and if they have never met this incredible expert that comes from Western Africa or these other incredible entrepreneur that comes from northern Brazil and just surprise people with the amount of talent that there is out there, the amount of potential there is to partner and collaborate and co-create for impact, then we've done our job.


Felly, y cyfrifol siwrnaf yw'r cyfrifolau i'w grwypariaid. Fy fryd i rywion, dwy、 dyligol ac yn brou. Felly, mae'r lleol eich ddechrau am eich bryd yng ngharraffau i'r gwybrwyr fydd, beth oedd eich bryd i'w rhesilient o'r gwbl ddechrau'r gwybrwyr yn yngei. Mae yna'r gwyl ar y cael y gwybrwyr, mae'r gwybrwyr i'w ddwy. Mae'r lwyddo â'r 150 yma, ond iddo yr ytwbl yn gwneud â'r gweithredu. a cyd-i'r gweithio, i glywodraeth tworio'r llyfe cysylltu groes yma i gyd, a gweithio'r llyfe cyd-i, ac mae cyfynodd gyrsfyrdd agor! Dyma'r gwaith eich bod yn gwneud o fail y fylir. Mae'r cyfynodd gyrsfyrdd yn galon o gyd-i! Felly mae'n gwybod o gair i gyrsfyrdd, mae'n cyd-i. Ond roedd yn cymdeithio dreflai eich 90 ydych chi gael mewn ei ddeithas. Mae bethau sy'n gweithio caelchain o hyn i wyly ni, First, it is a number of existing materials. The periodic table is only a small part of the whole vast material's map that's available to us. There's a lot more. We believe that you can combine these elements together to produce at least 100 times more new materials. New smart materials, new composite materials but also unknown materials, the unknown unknowns, where we don't even know what the properties will be. is a vast materials universe to explore and it will take about a billion lifetimes to really go through it properly. The need to identify new materials has never been a greater resource for the human beings. Sooner rather than later we're going to run out of the sort of elements that we need to make the right tools that we have at the moment and add to resource scarcity also the issues of climate change, population increase and energy problems. So some of the materials that are those right jobs are going to not be available. They're going to be too scarce, too expensive or too resource intensive. We need to need new materials that are going to be made with cheaper energy and also with available resources. But what about those materials that we don't know of, those unknown unknowns? We need a way to find those efficiently without relying just on experiment and that's where computer simulation comes from. You can actually start to predict these new materials, even those ones that we haven't anticipated yet. We're already using computers, high performance computers to do lots of interesting jobs for us. We're losing it to look at climate change. We're looking at the human genome and we're even starting to understand some of the complexities of the brain and yes we're also getting better weather forecasts as well, well at least slowly. However what we really want to do with the computer simulation is not just getting these materials faster but also understanding the interconnectivity of those properties. Computer simulation allows us to understand a set of different properties. Small compositional changes to these materials make very great differences to their properties. And when you add on to that the way that materials behave at the atomic scale well actually that gets really interesting indeed. Understanding the dynamic properties of materials using the power of computer simulation that's the focus of my research group at Imperial College and dynamics really matter. They alter the properties of materials and they alter their performance and you've heard a little bit about that already. One of the areas that I work in here was seeing radiation damage to a specific material. This is a material inside a nuclear reactor whose properties degrade with time due to that radiation damage. We've been able to understand the atomic scale processes that go on in this material and thus design new materials which are better at the atomic scale in terms of things like nuclear waste. But those atomic scale processes are only part of the story. We need to understand what they do to properties and then scale that up to the whole material and in fact actually to the whole product. Usually we've been doing those sorts of predictions separately. What we need is to bring that together. Furthermore, we need to bring that together with experiment. Experiments great at testing the predictions of the model. It's also great at challenging us to have greater more fidelity in our computer simulations and the computer simulations can also help to lead and understand where the experimental data is going. So computer simulation is giving us already benefits but we've got a long way to go. To predict the materials at the atomic scale we also need to understand those macroscopic properties properly. Experimental work tells us if your computer is right but in the end we have to be able to test them. So it's more about resilience. It's about the way we adapt to our changing world. It's about re-engineering industry and addressing resource scarcity. That's what computer simulation in partnership with experiment can do. So my question to you is how should policy makers, material scientists and industry work together to ensure that we have the materials that we need and the materials options for the future we really want. Thank you.