Capitola first I'm going to read this meeting is being cablecast live on charter communications cable TV channel 8 and AT&T Uverse channel 99 and is being recorded to be replayed on the following Monday and Friday at 1 p.m. on charter channel 71 and Comcast channel 25 meetings can also be viewed from the city's website at www.cityofcapitola.org our technician tonight is Kingston and as a reminder if you just please turn your cell phones to vibrate and order silence we appreciate it and if you come to speak tonight if when you come to the podium we just ask that you sign in this sheet so we have your name for our records with that I'm going to ask for a roll call Commissioner Ruth here Commissioner Newman here Commissioner Christensen Commissioner Wilk here Chair Welch here and we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance now okay thank you so we'll move on to oral communications and we'll start off with additions and deletions to the agenda thank you we've had a couple additions and additions to the agenda there was additional public comment for email to you this late this afternoon regarding 115 San Jose so items 5c and 5d there was also an additional public email today sent for item 5b 3744 Capitola Road the sign application and 5e for 523 Burlingame Avenue okay great did everyone get a chance to look at those I apologize I sent mine late so no okay after that I guess now we'll move on to public comments and the public comment section now is for items that are not on tonight's agenda so if there's someone in the public tonight that would like to speak to the Planning Commission about an item not on the agenda this is your opportunity to come forward and I don't see anyone moving so we'll move on past that we'll go back we'll go down to Commission comments do we have any Commission comments we did get an item from the city regarding the social media yes yes so they're one of the projects was posted on social media on the next door application on the platform and the city at this time does not have a policy for this and as we're at this point I'd like to suggest that the city we have an internal policy for staff we do not have a policy for boards and commissions so we'd like to take the opportunity to draft a policy and put that together in the coming month we'll take that to city council for review and ask at this juncture that the Planning Commission not agreed and not post projects on the platforms until we have such a process in place okay and social media is a great tool to use out there but understanding what the process that go through until we get a policy maybe we just have a consensus amongst us that would we'll refrain from using it for gathering public input is that something we can always find but I think you need to hear from Katie on what the city attorney said what his interpretation was okay so the city attorney in this in this instance of publishing on next door said that the posting was we've handled it correctly the posting did not show any bias towards the application it it was open because it was on next door and open to any Capitola residents any Capitola residents that are on the platform were are able to make comment and because those comments were shared to the Planning Commissioners within two separate emails and then the post was closed up to the the last comments that were made so the Planning Commission has seen all of the posts that were made and it was submitted actually as it's similar to an ex parte communication so other commissioners that received emails regarding other projects they took you forward them on to me and I distribute or you can forward it to the Planning Commission for distribution so because this has been distributed distributed to all Planning Commissioners and everyone has the same information it has followed the public process okay yeah and I I think that's fine so I think it's great to explore what other jurisdictions are doing with this and come up with some kind of policy but I wasn't clear from what you said whether it was going to come back for input from the Planning Commission before I went to City Council if you would like that I'm happy to bring it back I mean we're the ones that are on the firing line here so I think that the City Council could possibly benefit from our input on that issue great I'll plan if we have it we should have it drafted by the next meeting so I'll bring it back during that meeting so yeah and and there is no you know you'll will towards any of this that I see I think the option to use social media has a process but I was just going to ask until we do have a process that maybe we just agree that we'll refrain until we get that process that's fine I hope a policy though would at least reflect that we are in the 21st century in the age of technology that's why we should see what I mean I'm sure we're not the first one to run across this issue no doubt great any other Commission comments fine with that as well okay now we're to staff comments no comments this evening okay with that we're going to move into a presentation regarding the new mall and so this presentation really it's just that it's a presentation we're not taking action on this tonight and I'm assuming some of you here to see what is going to go on in the mall so with that we have Steven Logan he's the with the Malone guy or he's the vice president of development and he's going to give us a presentation and we'll have some discussion after that and I'm going to I'm going to kick it off actually so I'm going to take a step back and talk about what the Planning Commission and City Council and the City of Capitola residents have done since 2011 on this project so in 2011 during the general plan update there were stakeholder meetings focused on 41st Avenue and the Capitola Mall and the outcome of those stakeholder meetings and I think there are three different concepts that were reviewed during those meetings is the Capitola Mall Revisioning Plan which is available on our website following that effort a lot of the it really looked back and understood what was going on in the in the area and put together the starting point for the general plan on the 41st Avenue so for that area so in 2014 the general plan was adopted within the general plan there are numerous goals and policies geared towards the Capitola Mall I'm going to highlight a few of them first is to support the long-term transfer transformation of the Capitola Mall into more pedestrian friendly commercial district with high-quality architecture outdoor amenities attractive to shoppers and families and within that policies for the parking lot redevelopment suggesting that commercial and mixed-use structures would be appropriate within the parking lots of the Capitola Mall again words about enhanced design and character next public gathering spaces talk about encouraging the outdoor dining and courtyards spaces for people to meet new interior streets the description says new interior streets within the mall property lined with sidewalk oriented retail outdoor dining pedestrian amenities and then the next goal of land use goal 9 to encourage high-quality development within 41st Avenue corridor that creates an active and inviting public realm and that's what we're hearing for the future retail if you make it active and inviting people will come out and shop so again policy for public amenities to enhance the vitality of the corridor so having outdoor dining courtyards public art publicly accessible semi-public gathering spaces bicycles pedestrian friendly also focus on entertainment uses so bringing in new entertainment and commercial recreational uses into the area and one last goal is for economic development so provide businesses and jobs that create a healthy and state stable local economy so again looking at this is a regional center with local retail a mix of local and and regional retail entertainment and becoming a dining destination so after adoption of the general plan in 2014 your implementation plan is your zoning code so in 2018 the city the city worked from the time the general plan was adopted and we continue to work on our update to the zoning code but in the 2018 zoning code we really took that language that was in our general plan and created an avenue for in which to incentivize redevelopment of the mall so chapter 17.88 is incentives for community benefits and I always think of this chapter as the given the guests so within the within the regional commercial zone there's a 40-foot height limit and a floor a ratio of 1.5 in under this specific chapter if the mall there's a list of gives that a developer can provide but specific to the mall the gives were listed as a mall block pattern surface parking lot redevelopment transit center and affordable housing in addition to that there's open space public art and the list goes on in return the developer we get an increased floor a ratio of two and a building height of five 50 feet so it's an extra 10 feet so an extra floor so with that I think Capitola through its general plan and its zoning code update it has been anticipating mall redevelopment and looking forward to it and with that we have Steven Logan the vice president of development from our lone guyer and I welcome you Steven. Thank you chair commissioners thank you it's a pleasure to be here tonight and we know that this mall has been there for a long time and and we're very proud to present to you finding or talk about what my lone guyer is about first we want to show you about you know a couple projects that we are currently constructing and developing want to talk about the purchase of the mall our community survey and meetings that we've had and then obviously our new acquisition of the Sears parcel and go through some of our community survey results and then open it up for questions you know we're not showing any plans tonight we don't for community we're gonna have a community meeting here June 11th so with that I just start off and no more alone guyer has been around for 24 years we're a private equity firm we we raise our money through endowments through Yale and Stanford and some of the largest school endowments through through the country we've currently raised over four and a half billion dollars over the last 24 years we're currently in our 12th fund we're fully integrated firm we do all of our own property management development construction asset management leasing all in-house we own you know our strategy is buying grocery anchor shopping centers and regional malls up and down the west coast from San Diego all the way up to Seattle basically take the i-5 corridor all the way up up the coast and that's pretty much our bread and butter and so with that I want to talk about a couple of developments so this is an old Macy's that was in North Hollywood it was it's called Laurel Plaza there was a mall that was attached to this and in 1993 the mall was basically destroyed as part of the Northridge earthquake Macy's own this was a 25 acre site and so we bought this from from Macy's back in 2014 and are currently under construction basically what you can see is we took the Macy's building and we cut windows in it we're gonna make about 235,000 square feet of office we're putting in a roughly 320,000 feet of retail and we're we just sold the residential seven and a half acres of 642 units and so this is the site plan the residential is in the yellow in about seven and a half acres and then the retail in the parking is is next to the 170 freeway in Hollywood and this is a rendering of what that potential look like we're currently under construction today this project will open to the public in April of 2020 to the left you can see where it says creative force that is the office building in which you just saw the old Macy's building no windows total barricade cutting in windows making creative office and we're bringing in grocery stores you know fashion quick service restaurants local restaurants and national restaurants and this just goes to show you of the type of quality of development that that we you know tend to bring here to Capitola next is this is a mountain view which is over the hill why was told today that's what hi how you call it here so this is this was an old Sears site that we purchased back in 2011 was about 10 acres we took the site and basically built some retail and 330 apartments and so here's a site plan to the right shows the apartment and the retail and to the left you can see we built office this was roughly 450,000 square feet was it was originally leased to LinkedIn LinkedIn bought was bought up by Microsoft and it's currently occupied by Facebook so this so this is actually built it's open it's been open for a couple of years this is pictures of a park and it shows how retail can be mixed in with residential above it and so this is another picture of the apartments above retail and how how it shows pedestrian friendly access walkability you know parking and outdoor space which I think is very very key here for our future at Capitola so just wanted to go through a project background you know we purchased them all from Mace Rich back in April of 2016 and you know the original ownership we have about 21 acres we basically had the heart of them all there's there's multiple owners on this and we'll walk through that in a second the entire property is roughly 46 acres and so we were owned about 45 percent of it and through this you know anchors Target Macy's and Sears have site plan control and through so the light blue area shows what we purchase and what we own the yellow obviously was Sears targets in the pink bases in the blue all of the garden up to the upper right the Ross parcel city bank Bank of America so you can see what the challenge was when we first purchased this property of what to do with it because the way that these regional shopping centers work is every time you want to change something or want to do something you have to go ask for permission from Sears Macy's and Target and there's an underlying document that allows you to do certain things that you can develop certain uses that you can use and so when we went out to the community we this is what we're working with and so we wanted to reach out to the community and see what their thought process was on us just to redevelop them all so in January of last year I said it says 19 but it's actually 18 so that's a mistake on my part but we went out to the community we and we held a forum in which about 120 people showed up and we basically showed what we're going to do to the interior of the mall and people were pretty much underwhelmed because they're like hey you're just going to redo the mall and great we're gonna have an interior mall and you're not going to push retail to the street and you're not going to bring in restaurants and you're not going to be pedestrian friendly and bike friendly and what are you going to do and and it was really underwhelming in their mind although the architecture was great it was just underwhelming and we we heard that people why don't you just redevelop the whole site and so we had to explain to everybody about the site plan control and and we have been talking to all all of the anchors we've talked to Sears we talked to Target we talked to Macy's on an ongoing basis they're very well aware of of that and so what we heard too is we want retail to the street we want local and national restaurants we want some housing we want relevant retail there's not relevant retail there today it's just average retail and we want some place that we can shop that we can go hang out get a cup of coffee grab a glass of wine and be able to be someplace for some some period of time and so with that we went out to the community for a survey and so we'll walk through some of those those survey comments here in a second so then in our ongoing discussions with Sears we've purchased roughly around 10 Sears over our last 20 years and so we've been having an ongoing conversation with Sears and Sarataj about their site even right when we bought them all we asked if they were interested in in letting go of Sears and so finally in December of last year we finally got that piece taken care of and so with that with the Sears purchase out of 10 acres to the mall so now the mall is 31 acres and now we own 67% of the mall it doesn't mean now that we own the majority of the mall that we can do anything we want we still have site plan controls with Target and Sears and we're currently under negotiation with them on on a bunch of things but talking to them about potentially what what could happen at Capitola so this now shows how much more site control we have we now obviously now have some frontage around Capitola Road we have frontage around 41st Avenue and going from their coals on this they're a lease so they have a long-term lease with us we have talked to them about their viability they really love this location and they're going to be here for a long term so with this we now can finally unlock pieces of the puzzle and now hopefully take some feedback from the community survey and now we go together and start implementing a plan so we created a mall survey called create tomorrow together and what this was is basically we reached out to the community about a 10 mile radius got a bunch of feedback 30,000 people we sent cards out to to get a feedback online survey there were 12 questions and so with that we received 7,700 responses from from the surrounding residences about the mall 35 of them 3500 of them shared their contact information so now we can update them on an ongoing basis of what's happening you know with you know on a monthly basis and events and and eventually you know the redevelopment of the site know what we what we saw here is that people wanted real world-class retail brands distinguish local restaurants and national restaurants increase options for women apparel and a new luxury cinema and so with that we're going to go through just I highlighted a few items off the survey I didn't want to go through the whole survey would we'd be here until tomorrow so what we did is we first asked do you go to the mall 97% of the people said yes 54% of them go there often probably about once a month or so and sometimes four to five times in that month you know what kind of products or services do you usually purchase when you're at the mall clothing and shoes accessories everyday household and skincare products and so as you can see clothing and shoes and accessories is 80% of of the survey what's important to you like I said world-class retail brands ambiance and in and a town center type of type of area where can we go sit have a glass of wine or a coffee where can I take go take my kids and run around in seating areas and and and meet people and have fun distinguish restaurants local and national mix of restaurants entertainment or recreation and we'll get into the entertainment here in a second and what would you like to have included at the renewed mall women's apparel as you can see women's apparel has been very apparent in all of these moving forward home decor and improvement and boutique stores and so with this we kind of get a sense of what type of retailers we want to go out and talk to who's out in the marketplace who wants to be in capitol and and and in the area and and so we've started some of those initial thoughts on on talking to those retailers we're actually meeting with a lot of retailers later on this month and ICSC in Vegas which is the annual retail convention so we will sit down and talk to them about hey if we had a plan what kind of plan would you like to see and would you want to be here in capitol on a long term so what kind of dining would you like to see local and national restaurant 65% healthy dining casual full-service dining so it's not it's not all sit down you know white tablecloth dining but there's also some very casual dining as well so what kind of entertainment or recreation you want to see 63% want to see a movie theater people want to see outdoor gathering places and live entertainment you know does that mean you know during the summertime you bring in bands and have a jazz thing have you know jazz concerts or movies in movies for the kids or no we're gonna now we have to take all of these ideas and figure out what our next steps are so the takeaways we get from this on the use is is obviously clothing shoes and apparel for women and men boutique retailers beauty and skin products home decor improvement key local national restaurants luxury movie theater and entertainment and we plan to bring every single one of those to this mall and so that's that's a very key for us knowing that hey this is what the community wants to see and is very it's very evident that that they're lacking things within their community without having to go over the hill to go get these services other takeaways on the site planning is ambiance and town center and retail to the street housing fitness grocery and walkability so we've you know we'll take all of that into consideration when we look at you know setting the site plan and and what we're gonna come up with but you know it was 7700 people taking a survey we've done this in other communities and we roughly get between three and four thousand people responding to that so almost double it's it's pretty evident to us that people are really focused on what they want here so you know we have a one-time shot to do something right so we want to do something right here on the long-term basis and you know our next steps we're gonna present to City Council next week and talk about all of some of these same ideas that came up having a community meeting on June 11th located at the Sears building you know we'll continue to meet further with key stakeholders in the community and get feedback from them and then our goal is to prepare an application and and and put in a put in a plan sometime in Q3 of 2019 and we know it's gonna take some time there's a lot of work to be done and and you know working with staff and and getting getting to an end game I think is what we all want to want to get to at the end that's something for all the community and just because we have one more community meeting doesn't mean it's gonna be our only community meeting I think we're gonna it's gonna be a process to be out into the community talking to people individually having coffee or even in a group setting and sometimes people feel they can share more as an individual instead of in a group setting so we're gonna be open to that we'll be up here we'll be talking to people moving forward so with that that's so wanted to share that with you tonight and I appreciate you letting me be here to speak and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Great thanks Stephen. Do you have a budget of what you kind of contemplate spending up there? Well we always have a budget but I mean I mean we haven't we haven't formally put together a budget but I mean we have an idea of what we want to spend and what the what costs are and what what we can get out of it. Yeah one thing I'm probably one of the earliest baby boomers born in 44 actually I'm just outside the window you know our days are numbered and the shopping patterns of the next generations are definitely changing so our how do you plan to address that? Well I think you know retail is changing but retail is not dead so let's understand that you know just because retail is changing you have to change with it and that brings you know maybe there's some streetscape and walkability and places in and the right places to be and and the right restaurants that want to be here and and just continuing to talk to people out in the community about that and it's and you just have to make it relevant retail and you have to bring you know the shopping centers are evolving in which they have more entertainment uses they have more fitness uses and and and just the right type of retail and retail is not dead it's just changing constantly changing. One of the things I read was some malls are considering bringing in health care facilities into the mall? We would not do that we don't see that's an option here and we did show you a couple of office we don't plan on office here it's not an office market in our mind I know the two plans we showed you had a significant amount of office but office and medical office are not today not contemplated in our well the night for us so where I think our general plan is currently maybe a bit deficient as far as them all now that it's five years old and I was the chairman of the general plan advisory committee over a three-year period and followed that process very closely but what I think we failed to do looking back now was emphasize the need for housing and mixed use enough at that site because what's happened over a period of time is that the critical need for housing has just gotten greater and greater and so your Mountain View project I didn't hear enough from you really about the potential for mixed use and housing on this site similar to the photos you gave us of Mountain View what you did there we do plan on plan on housing component that needs to be really emphasized for a number of reasons and I hope that will be part of the plan as part of our survey you know we had about 12 questions and housing was was in there and and we did get a number of responses of people saying the housing is needed on site so you know the amount of housing what type of housing that's that's all needs needs to be considered Courtney Peter you probably already know this is probably a stupid question but as you're going through that presentation I know you're talking about movie theaters and mixed use restaurants and I was just thinking of the new movie theater that we just put in that's across the street from you and Olive Garden and the various new restaurants that are there I I'm assuming you're fully aware fully aware of your surrounding businesses and competition what absolutely okay absolutely me a safe stupid question but it just struck me that you were yeah we were talking about things that had already just been resolved in other locations that's all questions or comments well I see when things for coming and I appreciate you being honest and forthright about the underwhelming the consensus of the the first meeting and I understanding the constraints of the amount of property actually owned I see that and I concur with Commissioner Newman about this housing and it's something that every city and especially now Newsom is pushing you know this housing and demand for housing you know the state impacts us to you know the rena numbers amount of numbers and housing we're supposed to have so you know I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with as far as having that housing and and making this something that's going to be you know useful to the whole community and and I guess I should say I'm not surprised to see the response that you said you had those 7,000 or so people that gave input because it's a it's a big part of not just capital about our whole community and and you know it's it's been tough well for me for one as a planning commissioner watching those stores that empty in the city losing revenue and and people being discouraged about a prime piece of property so I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with and I will say and I'll bring up again at the end of the meeting that at 6 o'clock in the evening at the Sears building on June 11th they're going to have this community forms and at that point I guess you'll have more of a question-answer period yeah we'll probably you know show some conceptual plan it's going to be more of a open house type of form it's we'll probably high-level talk about maybe go through a little bit what we went to tonight but it's going to be a form we're gonna probably potentially just you know have stations set up to talk to people and and it'll be an it'll be an open forum it's not going to be a presentation okay very good to that sense anybody any other commissioners have comments this it's really was designed to be a presentation and I how many days are people in the audience that came to see this specifically and have some specific input something they'd like to comment on before Stephen leaves okay we'll see in that Steve I thank you very much staff are you good any questions I'm glad you repeated that the meeting will be on June 11th at 6 p.m. and at the Sears building so we'll be partnering up and making sure that the word gets out there to the public it's about a month away so you'll start seeing information around town and we'll highlight it on our web page and and then we'll definitely notice it at least two weeks in advance and look on these papers like we did last time great and they're also available on the website so if you have comments that it goes specifically to you or they can just you can go to our website or you can I left Katie some business cards if you wanted to pick those up and and or you can go to the mall I mean or if you have a question I guess email Katie and she can forward it to me and we can be in contact so okay at this point you know the city does not have an application and so there's no public comments really that we would take in from the public but if if anyone has concerns I'm happy to connect you with Stephen and and on that we should add that when it does start going to the application period there'll be more time opportunity for public comment as it comes through the planning commission so absolutely council meeting great thank you thank you appreciate you coming okay with that we will move into item 4 approval of our minutes from March 7th and April 4th I think we need to break up this into two because I think we had abstinence so first on approval for the meeting of March 7th motion in a second all is in favor hi hi and someone was missing one those meetings that was that okay and then so for our meeting of April 4th I think that was a meeting you miss so okay second okay so we have a motion a second one abstain abstain and I I guess you maybe were here so and all those in favor hi hi Courtney was that clear in our Chloe I mean he was that I always get this Courtney clothing I'll figure it out before we're done here okay with that we'll move into our public hearings and our first item is item 5a 1200 C 41st Avenue for a conditional use permit thank you chair welch and good evening the planning commission chair commissioners the application before you is a conditional use permit amendment for support ramen to allow on-site beer and wine consumption the restaurant is part of the begonia plaza located 1200 C 41st Avenue in the community commercial zoning district the site was previously occupied by Rui dim sum which received a conditional use permit for a restaurant in 2015 the original permit did not include approval for the sale of alcohol the current application is an amendment to the original CUP to continue as a restaurant and include the sale of alcohol the applicant must have an approved conditional use permit from the city of capitol before the Department of alcoholic beverage control will allow a type 41 license to be used by at 1200 C 41st Avenue chief of police terry mcmanus has reviewed the application and provided a letter of necessity and convenience which is required by the ABC staff recommends the planning commission reviewed the application and approved the amendment to the conditional use permit based on conditions and findings that includes my presentation available for questions and I believe the applicant is in the audience okay any questions for staff with the applicant like to speak not it's not necessary but if you'd like to speak you can okay okay you can you just if you speak into the microphone and let us know your name yeah my name is Daniel I'm the only angle okay I don't have it being too but so it is um so we we want to increase the business before alcohol use okay so to the local community yeah so okay Daniel that's why any questions for Daniel okay thank you sir or is there anyone in the audience I would like to you're you're good thank you you can you can return to your seat thank you no questions for you any anyone else like to speak on this okay we'll bring it back to the commission for discussion and both no comments okay so we have a motion second and a second all those in favor so it's approved thank you Daniel good luck we're good to go if you can leave if you'd like you don't have to stick out for the rest of meeting you were approved good luck okay so we're gonna move on to item B this is for 3744 Capitola Road for a sign permit thank you Chair Welch the application is a new sign for a new wall sign for Pono Hawaiian kitchen and tap the sign I need to recuse myself due to having a property interest within 500 feet all right thank you Commissioner Newman I'll go ahead and yeah I'm gonna go ahead and restart the application is for a new wall sign for Pono Hawaiian kitchen and tap the sign will be located at 3744 in the community commercial zoning district staff would like to note that the property is outside the coastal zone and subject to new sign regulations under the new zoning code the maximum allowable area of a wall sign is one square foot sign area per linear foot of shopfront with a not to exceed maximum of 36 square feet the linear footage of the shopfront is 38 feet therefore the property is subject to the 36 square foot maximum the proposed wall sign includes a logo and channel lettering the logo measures 5 feet wide by 5 feet tall the lettering measures 13 feet wide by 19 inches tall the total sign area is 45 square feet the applicant is requesting an adjustment to the maximum sign area to allow a 25 percent increase which does equal 45 square feet under the new sign code the Planning Commission may approve an adjustment to increase the permitted sign area of up to 25 percent if five findings shown on this slide can be made staff was not able to make findings in support of numbers three and five which I'll go into on the next slides finding three the adjustment is necessary due to new unique characteristics of subject property structure or use on this property the structure is close to the road and is visible from the street and sidewalk finding five the adjustment will not establish an undesirable precedent the project is outside the coastal area therefore the new zone code applies this is the first sign adjustment requests we received under the new code allowing the adjustment when findings cannot all be made may establish an undesirable precedent because the findings cannot be made staff included condition of approval one which requires a reduction in size of the logo from 5 feet by 5 feet to 4 feet by 4 feet which complies with the 36 square foot maximum currently the site has several unpermitted signs as a condition of approval all signs on the property must be in compliance this includes the removal of a temporary wall sign the front window signs and the abandoned monument sign from the previous tenant the applicant may apply for administrative sign permit for a window sign that does not exceed 30 percent of the window area staff recommends the planning Commission deny the sign adjustment request and approve the sign application based on conditions and findings that concludes the presentation if you have any questions for me any questions for you go ahead so your recommendation to reduce the the logo to 4 by 4 I'm not sure why you're so specific if the requirement is really 36 square feet of wall signage shouldn't your recommendation just be that the total signage be 36 square feet in other words leave it 5 by 5 and then maybe reduce the kitchen and tap yeah that could be an option and then also you mentioned low voltage and I think the purpose of the signage is you as you want to make sure that it doesn't cause glare for motorists and pedestrians and the voltage may be a means of doing that but I don't think you should specify how they get there just that they get there they have a high voltage sign that is low illumination that's fine and what is low voltage 2 volts 100 volts so I just think that's an unnecessary complication a reason reason for the low voltage that was something that was included in the application so we we attached it to the conditions well I'd hate to be the person who found out that my sign voltage was a volt over some I don't know if we have any counters out there but so that's condition of approval number two and it says the wall sign may not expose any direct light or electrical all electrical shall be concealed the logo shall be internally illuminated the channel lettering shall be illuminated from the back for halo glow the sign illumination shall be low voltage and shall not shine directly on adjoining properties or cause glare for motorists and pedestrians I think it'd be easy to just cross out the below voltage and because our code does speak to shall not shine directly on adjoining properties or cause glare to motorist and pedestrians so that's an easy more sense to me at it thank you okay any other just to follow up on Peter's question if the logo stated the five-foot diameter what would be the reduction in the size of the sign lettering do we know that if they reduce the channel lettering as opposed to the logo now if they kept the logo at the same size and reduce the size of the lettering you know do we know what that would have to be reduced to to meet the 36 square feet 11 square feet would be left for the sign below because 36 minus 25 is 11 I believe Commissioner Christianson was considering I was playing with the logo and when I received I think Troy's email he was saying that if they reduce the size of the of the circle they would see the unsightly behind it and so I started playing with it and it and if they shrunk the lettering about a foot and then took off six inches from the height it would fit within the 36 square foot allowance but I think I was discussing it with Katie and the overall length of the the frontage of the building is 38 linear feet and they could probably I think they could cheat it up a little bit it's what I think well we have a max of 36 right yeah but I think that the future code is is going to the one foot per linear foot the old code was up had no maximum this is on the new code the new code has a maximum 30 well maybe we could let the applicant is the applicant here and we like to speak well come on up looking forward to having a wine restaurant in the city limits of capital so it was got a great reputation yeah good evening chair planning commissioners and staff my name is Sean Adams I'm the owner of Monterey signs and Santa Cruz signs we were hired by Polo to bring signage and breathe new life into this bamboo garden building that they've leased so we we spoke with city staff before we made the sign drawings and signed plans to get on the same page and the only discrepancy was the diameter of that logo and that is a it's covering up a four foot diameter attic vent that you saw on some of the photos so the plan was to create the logo for Pono that was just slightly larger than the attic vent so the vent could still operate and be functional but it would hide it you can see it there it's just it's unattractive so we want to cover it up with the logo element and then we were hoping you could you would find it that it wasn't excessive that we hope you find it would be attractive and well balanced and appropriate for for the use the letters the faces of the letters don't light up they're soft halo lit glow on the backside and most municipalities you know really like that treatment of signage it's a softer more elegant and more sophisticated type of sign so it's a very professional sign and the existing window graphics that are on there that's really just meant to hide the construction equipment tools that are on the inside all that's going away when they're open for business as well as the old sign that's there we did consider a monument sign at the front of the business that would be perpendicular to the building but it was I think there was a setback requirement from the city for that type of sign so this was really the next best alternative okay any questions no just the diameter of the vent is then four feet you say four feet exactly so we could make it you know we could make it four and a half feet for this time but you know it this is the subjective nature of I think the meeting tonight for this would it would it be acceptable to shrink the kitchen and tap a scooch yeah if you if you need that to be I mean it would fit under the you can leave the circle alone if you just shrink the lettering it'll fit within the 36 square yeah allowance we could we could do that I'm here to ask for this that's what you would like us to do we can do that thank you Peter you have any questions I guess it I guess not okay you can thank you very much okay we got enough information we can all right discuss and now are there any anyone else in the public that has comments on this okay seeing none we'll bring it back to the Commission for discussion and there's there's one other combination too is to reduce the logo to the size of the vent and reduce the lettering just slightly so there's several combinations here I would I would like to give him the option of bring it into conformance of the ordinance but reducing whatever he feels is best reduced to achieve what he wants to achieve so I have a question about the ordinance this is actually kind of a carryover the maximum 36 square feet you guys been around well longer and I have is there what what's the history of having that maximum signs are a big thing in capitol and and there's a lot of work and effort that went into that and mostly probably consensus over the period of time to get so you don't have these overwhelming signs when we were rewriting the new code and I don't remember were you here initially when we started I don't believe so but signs of signs have been debated in this community for the last 40 or 50 years I I think you guys are on the right track and maybe someone could look at a motion maybe of letting staff work with the applicant to I mean I think you understand we understand where we're trying to give it we it's hard for us to make an exception necessarily to based on the information we have so and if you'd like I can clarify a little bit about the history so the the old code was one square foot per linear foot of building and there was no max and under the old code all wall signs came to Planning Commission with the new code it's you know there's the maximum that's been put in but if you want to go beyond the max so now it's an administrative process if you stay under if you stay at one square foot per linear foot of building we could have if this came in at 36 square feet approve this administratively at a staff level and the Planning Commission put maximum levels and then if you want to go beyond that you have to come to the Planning Commission to ask for that increased area so under the fifth finding for whether or not you're setting precedents you know under the old code this could have come to Planning Commission up to 38 square feet whereas today it comes to 36 square foot max because that's what's allowable administratively so a little more history and so we when we when we wrote this this is not a variance per se right no we wanted to move away from the variance and create adjustments because it's often hard to make variance findings for signs but sometimes there's really practical reasons right regarding sight being able to see the notion of covering up this vent is not it couldn't be stretched as an exception or a special cause for needing extra signage it could be possibly a unique characteristics of the structure if that's what it's reaching to see if there's any reason why we should grant a variance and the only thing that that's unusual about this property is the vent well it's not really a variance this is at our discretion so this is separate from the variance track this is at our discretion to allow that but I agree with you that you know there's they spent a lot of time working on the zoning code and you just I don't think it's appropriate for us to casually ignored or override it and so I was just wondering if you know if there were were there any special reasons why we should that that are kind of unusual and I would think that would be the only straw we could with grass pad if we wanted to make an exception for me I would be comfortable if we they would just reduce it to the size of the vent and I should have asked I get you're not actually covering the vent you're hiding the vent but you're not covered the vents are for purpose right so right yeah so I personally I could live with reducing it to the size of the vent no one's interested in revisiting the code itself no we're not interested in opening that up I think you could go up to 38 feet without saying that you've set a new precedence because of the at the one linear foot you know because he's come to the planning commission to ask for an adjustment typically you would be allowed one square foot per linear foot and that's why you would come before the planning commission to ask to go beyond the 36 square feet and at that point you're not asking for more than others have achieved without a variance in the past but that's a middle ground of 38 it's not too much more of a precedent if it's part of the old code but we change the code for a reason we're gonna go back to the old code why did we change it but but really it's the difference between what can be approved administratively at the 36 feet and then coming in to the planning commission for a request to go beyond so it I don't know that was a big part of our rewriting our code was trying to put a lot of the work more towards staff so it didn't have to come to the planning commission so but we did leave that opportunity if they want to go above what the code was that they could come to the planning commission for approval so do we have any I'd like to try a motion there you go I thought I would move that the applicant be directed to conform to the 36 square feet but given the option to make the necessary adjustments to either the logo or lettering size however he feels comfortable with okay so we have a motion is there a second to support that I'll second it okay do we have any discussion about that is everyone no discussion no questions you have questions corny can I can I can I am like a you can ask for a friendly amendment if I can I can I make it 38 to conform to hold good you know I just I just look at all the work that was put into developing these ordinances and the sign ordinance and I just think it's important that we hold to them you can make a subsequent motion can I make a subsequent motion well I guess we would have to take we'd have to see if this vote passes and then so I with that I guess we'll do a roll call vote then Commissioner Ruth I Commissioner Christiansen Commissioner Wilk hi chair Welch hi okay so motion passes to one everyone for math math sake thank you hey thank you sir do you are you clear on where we stand on that yeah and however you work that out thank you would it be possible to see how many people in the audience are here on Berlin game and how many are here on San Jose because if they're all here on Berlin game I would ask that we take that one first we that's a good proposal so can I ask how many people are here for San Jose we got a few how many people for the Berlin game we got about the same really I'm gonna have to recuse myself on Saturday that's why I was gonna okay request that they be reversed yeah and Courtney has to recuse herself on because myself on San Jose for the same reason that I have property within 500 feet thanks me too okay so that moves us to item C 115 San Jose and this is for two conditional use permits item C and D but we'll start with item C thank you chair Welch and remaining commissioners getting a little empty up there tonight we have an applicant requesting a conditional use permit for a takeout restaurant with six seats or less at 115 San Jose Avenue in the central village zoning district applicant is proposing to convert space 111 in the cap and tollo mercantile which was previously occupied by off-the-block snow cream and bubble tea into a takeout restaurant with six seats or less space 111 shown here in blue has exterior access from the parking lot adjacent to the Esplanade and interior access from inside the mercantile in the CV zone restaurants including takeout restaurants we're adding a takeout window to an existing restaurant require a conditional use permit the takeout restaurant will be pizzeria la bufala which has another existing location in Abbott Square in downtown Santa Cruz the six seats allowed for this user shown on the floor plan in blue the proposed business hours would be from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily and just of note the prior establishment did not have a conditional use permit for a takeout restaurant here the proposed south and west elevations the proposed takeout restaurant has the same parking demand as the previous retail use and the unpermitted takeout restaurant therefore the project would not significantly impact the existing parking conditions and just for your benefit here I did a slide with all of the existing spaces and their uses and what that works out to for required parking and it's a round up to 44 spaces is the total so the site plan submitted with this application shows 41 parking spaces plus two unmarked spaces for the apartment for a total of 43 spaces however a site visit revealed that eight of the spaces shown on the site plan were non-existent spaces 1 2 41 28 12 40 37 and 38 which brings the number of existing spaces down to 35 staff has determined that some of the spaces were removed in order to create outdoor seating areas but the removal slash conversion of those parking spaces was never approved as part of a planning permit in addition to the spaces number 37 and 38 on the bottom right there by the Esplanade actually never existed the last conditional use permit for a business in the Capitola mercantile which permitted the conversion of Caruso's restaurant from a takeout restaurant with six seats or less into a full restaurant use was approved in 2005 based on the existence of 41 on-site parking spaces that use change should have required an additional four spaces to be provided on site but the Planning Commission determined that the uses in the Capitola mercantile had different peak times in terms of parking usage and therefore made findings that the 41 existing on-site parking spaces were adequate staff recommends the Planning Commission require the owner to provide 41 on-site parking spaces prior to issuance of a building permit and or business license for the proposed project this will bring the existing CUP for Caruso's restaurant into compliance and allow the proposed pizzeria the requirement to provide 41 on-site parking spaces is included as condition two of this condition of the conditions of approval so that staff recommends the Planning Commission approve application number 19-0140 based on the conditions of approval and findings okay you any questions for staff no Dennis are you gonna speak as the applicant good evening honorable members of the Planning Commission I'm representing Peter Dware Susie owner of the mercantile actually I think Mackle back me out there there's 40 spaces out there now is that correct Matt yes the day I was out there at the site Dennis actually restriped it that day sure when he got down there yeah and so if you if you went down and visited there is a little outside area that's used and what's nice about that it isn't used by the mercantile necessarily there is a pokey place there but it's used by anybody's walking down the street it's a real nice public area but it's off the side it doesn't take any parking away right behind the gate to the left there's actually a space right there and we're proposing to actually put a bicycle parking in right there and with the other applications coming up I think that's be important part of it because we that's gonna be most of hands we're fine with all the conditions of approval we will produce 41 spaces there this is this is basically a takeout business and if you've been down down downtown to Abbott Square you'll see his business there and he has a number of restaurants this guy's been very successful in town here and I think he's a real good addition to our village and it's one of the few businesses you think about this in the whole village that provides its own parking this business this business of the mercantile provides its own parking but I will agree with all the conditions with the exception that public works gave us a list of of conditions to be removed Danny sent a memo to you yes yeah and that has to do with public public works such as erosion control things that we're not there's not going to be any work outside the bill the building stays as is and so those type of conditions she did remove them at the time it was unclear whether they'd actually have to do some more significant work in the parking lot to provide those spaces those conditions were included but when we figured out that they could just be restriped that's perfectly fine to remove those okay thank you for your time great do we have anybody from the public that would like to speak on this no okay I'll bring it back to the Commission for discussion and vote yeah I would just like to see one additional condition added and hopefully added to all future takeout restaurants so they be required to provide an offsite trash container is approved by the city that matches whatever design our committee is going to come up with so for that condition I'd like to run that by the public works department so it'd be off site or I think on site would be more site so that we because that's where all the trash winds up off site yeah they've done this with pizza my heart so they have the pizza box containers now along the walkway in the Esplanade that was specifically for those boxes and I believe there's a committee that's been looking at this for a long time it's correct we've in the past that there was one CUP in which the property owner was required to pay an annual fee towards trash so if we could if the condition could be a little more broad possibly for cuz to specify that it needs to be a trash collection site so you mean a pizza collection box similar to the I mean a trash container like like we see him on the beach okay the ugly ones that we have now that we ever can't seem to get anything uniform that looks nice whatever new design the city comes up with to replace all those containers I believe takeout restaurants should have to provide one of those somewhere off site in the in the village and and make are you you know they have the blue ones down there for the pizza boxes yeah I see those so I don't know what the takeout boxes are gonna look like but maybe we can leave it up to staff to work with I don't know if the BIA I don't know if the BIA put made them put those in or how that happened but it would seem unfair to put all the burden on one to go pizza place maybe we could have staff work that out do you understand what we're I do I I if I think it should state provide funding to provide the additional trash collection because I think typically the city would buy you know we want them to be uniform as you stated but to cover the cost of an additional trash collection within the village okay Courtney any questions or I had a couple questions actually that um can we go back to the site map the two parking spots that are right outside the entrance of the mercantile I think that's the two those two right there they're facing the window of the restaurant and it just doesn't seem like there's any barrier from the cars to just kind of somehow lurch into the windows I was wondering if we could make it a condition to have some type of barrier either bollards or planters or something that's implemented between the cars and the windows and then the second one was the bike racks that Dennis was talking about I was wondering if we could make it somehow conditional that they could be free bike racks so they wouldn't have to be somehow you know you have to purchase the parking space for your bike just you know thinking the gate is down when you come through but you can walk around both ends of it right so yeah it's meant to be free yeah totally yes that's the intent okay it's just yeah I want to get a clarification on that condition again because you you've mentioned providing funding for trash collection okay that's not what I'm looking for my my understanding in the last communication I received some from Steve Jesberg was I I think maybe perhaps the Arts Commission or somebody some group were looking at new trash containers uniform of a uniform aesthetically pleasing design for the village and my condition would be that one of those be provided by the applicant okay so are you so when you're gonna put that in the form of a motion now okay I would move approval with that additional condition okay the condition is that they buy a city approved container for trash off like trash so second so we have a motion a second all those in favor hi good point of clarification is did you also want the bollards and the bicycle parking requirements that was not in the motion so I don't we could always bring it up in the next since we by bypass that I forgot the comments I would have been my emotion my motion to include that okay that okay very good okay so now we'll move on to item C I'm sorry item D which is also 115 San Jose for a gaming arcade correct and I'll try not to keep I'll try not to be too repetitive but this one we're gonna go over a little bit of the same stuff so the applicant is requesting a conditional use permit for a gaming arcade 115 San Jose Avenue capital mercantile contains 11 commercial tenant spaces totaling 8,735 square feet along San Jose Avenue in the Esplanade the occupied spaces in the capital mercantile are currently a mix of retail and restaurant establishments in the CV zone commercial entertainment establishments such as theaters and amusement centers conducted within a closed building require a conditional use permit the applicant is proposing to convert three commercial spaces 102 104 and 106 shown here totaling 1390 square feet in the capital mercantile into a gaming arcade with 20 to 30 games the three commercial spaces were previously occupied by retail shops arcade will be overseen by an on-site manager who will repair games and answer questions pros business hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the winter and 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. in the summer seven days a week there's the table I'm gonna go in a little more of the table this time this table shows the current uses in the capital mercantile in the required parking six tenant spaces are currently vacant for this analysis staff assume that the vacant spaces in the building were to be used for retail bakeries restaurants slash takeout food establishments because those uses of the lowest parking requirement of one parking space for 240 square feet based on that assumption I came to the number of 44 required spaces the parking demands for uses that fall under the commercial entertainment establishments category very greatly so Kim Lee Horn was hired to make a determination about the parking demand of the arcade use based on their technical memorandum the video arcade use would generate less net vehicle trips than the existing retail components that would be replaced therefore the project would not significantly impact the existing parking conditions as I mentioned previously you know we recommend getting back to the 41 spaces which the applicant is willing to do and almost there so that's also going to be conditioned to on this application simply because I didn't know which one was gonna go first so it's gonna be on both so with that staff recommends the Planning Commission approve application 19-0134 based on the conditions of approval and findings. Okay, any questions for staff? Dennis, is there anyone here besides Mick and I that remember the bowling alley? Oh yeah. That was once a bowling alley, but it was actually it had gaming and carcades in there in a restaurant inside that building and the poison spray. That's right. Jojo was a pin setter there, but they were not automatic pin setters then. They were manual pin setters. And getting along with the same use in the village that you look at any old picture back and clear up until the 70s that the whole stretch from the old Marigoran or Zelda's outside eating area was the Marigoran all the way down the stretch all the way if I'm not mistaken all the way to the Margaritaville was was was Ski-Ball. Ski-Ball through that whole section there, you know, and so gaming was a big thing and it's feeling that maybe this is a time to bring that kind of arcade. In fact, the Capitol Mall now has this type of gaming arcade in it. And so what it does is it actually gives another use in the village for kids. It really gives them an opportunity to do it. And so we're suspecting that the majority of people that use this are going to be people coming there on bicycles or, you know, kids there for the summer as they use and and so this is this type of uses is has a history in the village and it's been a good use in the past and the idea is to bring it back. We're trying to develop a vision for the mercantile and it's never had one. And it's never been able to able to hold tenants in that building. And there's a lot of reasons for that. And most of you know those. But one of the big one is is that to pull people off the street into an arcade thing like that, you need a variety of uses. And so if I was to give you a vision, I would say, if you've ever been to Napa, and they have a marketplace there is called the Oxbow Market. And it's a mixture of about 40 different businesses, small flower stands to to a to a oyster bar to an herb place. And they're all within this this mercantile building. We would hope that someday we can develop that the more uses the variety of uses there that would they would create that we in the in their future are going to apply for a master use permit for the building. And what that'll save us is is that is that both of these applications tonight. It's good that the public hears these. But when you're changing uses within a building, you can't put tenants off or people offer for two or three months to go through a process is staff did a great job of getting this through very quickly, quickly for us. But I think that they should have the power to once you have a use permit agreement for this this type of use that they can make a decision of what what what what can go in there without having to make a major process. Also, your planning staff, their time is very valuable. This doesn't seem valuable to me in use. There's so many things that they they should they need to do out there. And this if we develop a master use permit, that I think that we can take care of applications like this at the staff level instead of bringing them forward. But I appreciate your approval on this. And again, the only we're fine with the conditions of approval with the exception of the public works being removed. Okay, thank you. Very good. Dennis. Is there anyone from the public that would like to speak about this? I'm Rodney Warthock with capital a candy company. I have 205 Capitol Avenue. I know a lot of these kids, the local kids and their parents, and I'm in full support of the arcade full support. The only concern I have is supervision. I've been told that it's going to be self service. And there's just going to be somebody checking it on an hourly basis. And knowing these kids and our village, I don't think that's enough. And it's it's what we need in the village. So I'm 100% supportive and I hope it happens. But my only concern is the supervision. Great. Thanks, Ron. You know, it said they're going to have on site management. But I guess it's that a periodic thing is that what I'm hearing. So I'm hearing it through others. So I know I'm not for sure on it. So it's just something that I'm concerned about. I heard it actually from the property manager there. Okay, it's going to be kind of hourly. Okay, very good. Ronnie, thank you. Any questions for on you? Yeah, so no full time attendant that I can answer your knowledge. But that's that's to my knowledge. There's not itself service. And it's a little bit of concern. Thanks, Rodney. Yeah, when we're done here. We have cars coming up. No, I mean, you couldn't afford to have a full time person we have 20 games, or it just doesn't it doesn't matter. It doesn't mathematically work out. But what we have is we have a full time person that's in charge of the mercantile that is the maintenance guy in the custodian. It does all that stuff. He's going to be around. Plus, when you have a use and you are surrounded with uses who have who have tenants that actually owners in there, you have that kind of supervision. In other words, there's the whole if you've been in the building there, it's all glass across there. So the sight line goes through on from every single business there to this, but you couldn't afford to have a full time supervision at a place like this. It's just it's just too small. Is there someone on site, though, not necessarily at the gaming but a manager there, the manager, the manager of the place lives on the property. He lives within Peter Dwaris' project. They're not not in the apartment there. But you know, he's lives above the above the ice cream store. But he manages that whole corner there. And he's he's around. And you know, he's he's got to be responsible for the machines and keeping keeping what it is. But it's a very visual area. It's not closed off his glass all the way through. So it doesn't work to have a full time manager. Yeah, I we hate to put the burden of supervision on the other businesses there. But we'll we'll see how the process goes. Thanks, Dennis. Card. Good evening, Karen Hannah. I agree that this is kind of a use that we really need in the village, because there are a lot of kids that come to the capital and they don't necessarily all want to go to the beach. So I agree with Rodney supervision is an issue. We have had a big increase in problems in the village with the kids and their scooters and the wheelie guys and that whole thing and the police department does seem to be cracking down. Personally, maybe I'm hoping this will get some of them off the street into the building.  And I think it's a it's a good thing because it's gotten just a teeny bit out of hand in the last six months or so. But I am supportive of the project. I just hope that the other businesses there again, aren't, you know, saddled with the responsibility of making sure everything goes smoothly. Right. Thank you. Okay, anybody else from the public like to speak? Okay, seeing none, I'll bring it back to the planning commission. Well, if it doesn't go smoothly, it probably won't last very long. True. I have a comment that's kind of unrelated. But Dennis mentioned some of the old casinos in the bowling alley down there. And just there's a new video that's been posted on the Capitola Museum website. It's it's old eight millimeter films from 1952, I believe that was posted by Brad McDonald, one of the community's first mayors. If you get a chance, go to the Capitola Museum website, take a look at that. It's really a fun old photograph video of Capitola. But back to this, yeah, I don't really have a problem with it. I think if there are problems in the interior, I think Mr. DeWars and the building manager will certainly hear about it. I think it has to be kind of self policing in that regard. Okay. Courtney? Anybody want to make a motion? I move approval. I second. Okay, we have a first second. All those in favor? Hi. And so it moves forward. Thanks, Dennis. So now we're going to move into Berlin game. And so I think we're going to get back to our commissioners and we're going to lose one. And the reason that you're have to be recuses, she works for the architect who has a project. So very good. Okay, so we're an item E 523 Berlin game and I'll let Matt explain the process. I don't want to make you read through that whole thing and have me repeat it. So okay, so tonight, the proposed project at 523 Berlin game Avenue includes a tentative parcel map to divide one parcel into three, a design permit for a single family home at 525 Berlin game Avenue, which has an accessory dwelling unit and is requesting a driveway with exception for perpendicular parking in the front yard within the R1 single family zoning district, a design permit for a single family home at 523 Berlin game Avenue within the R1 single family zoning district, and a design permit and conditional use permit for a four plex on Capitola Avenue, located within the CN neighborhood commercial zoning district. The presentation just divided into those four distinct sections. So my plan of attacker was that I can stop after each section for public comment and commissioner discussion, and then the planning mission can have a final discussion and take action at the end. Okay, it is important to note that this application must be reviewed as one project to ensure compliance with state stormwater regulations. Any modifications within one lot may impact stormwater calculations for the entire site, and therefore any approval, denial or continuation of the application should be for the entire site. So I'll start with the subdivision. Application includes a tentative parcel map dividing the existing parcel into three parcels. There's a zone change between the parcel on Capitola Avenue and the two parcels on Berlin game Avenue. At 524 Capitola Avenue, an 8,000 square foot lot parcel a is proposed within the CN zone. The proposed lot measures 80 feet wide by 100 feet deep. At 523 and 525 Berlin game Avenue, two 5,000 square foot lots parcel B and parcel C are proposed within the R1 zone. The two lots measure 50 feet by 100 feet. The application complies with the lot design requirements for subdivisions in the Capitola Municipal Code. The applicant is proposing two new single family homes on Berlin game Avenue within the R1 single family zoning district and a four plex as I mentioned at 524 Capitola Avenue in the CN zone. The proposed single family home at 523 Berlin game Avenue requires approval of a design permit and complies with all of the development standards for the R1 zone. The proposed single family home at 525 Berlin game Avenue requires approval of a design permit and a driveway width exception to allow parking space parking space parallel to the street in the front yard setback but otherwise complies with all the development standards for the R1 zone. The proposed four plex at 524 Capitola Avenue requires approval of a design permit and a conditional use permit for multifamily housing. The four plex complies with all the development standards in the CN zone but it does not comply with the architecture and site review considerations related to site layout in the Capitola Municipal Code because it does not follow the established development pattern along the street. So I'm going to just pause here for a sec. I assume no one has comments or anything about the subdivision but if you'd like to discuss anything about the subdivision we can do that here. I do. So I was looking for the tentative map. If I'm reading it correctly the tentative map shows the new parcels and shows the old building before it was demolished. Is that. Yes. It seems like a strange thing. It was hard to read. Well I mean I don't know why you would want to know about a building it isn't there anymore. So the tentative map will send out to our to be reviewed by the public works director sends it out to a consultant engineer and will provide them with notes of what they'll need to clean up before it gets recorded and that would be one item. It would be a good note. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else. So next up we're going to go to House one. The applicant is proposing a 2991 square foot single family home with a 2992 square foot attached accessory dwelling unit or ADU because I'll refer to that as an ADU later at 525 Burlingame Avenue. The site is adjacent to the Dignity Health Medical Group Dominican to the north. The proposed single family home at 523 Burlingame Avenue to the south and the proposed four plex apartments at 524 Capitol Avenue to the west. The proposed single family home with ADU complies with all the development standards of the R one zone except for the maximum driveway width. The proposed two story single family home with ADU exhibits contemporary design features along with organic accents to incorporate the new development into the Burlingame Avenue streetscape. The front of the home features natural wood accents white or cream color stucco and large bay windows with bronze anodized aluminum frames. The ground floor main entry of the home is tucked away under the massing of the second level. The awning paired with the material transitions differentiate the overall architectural massing of the building structure. Let's go through the elevations here. This is the front elevation. The rear elevation. The north elevation. And the south elevation. The 2991 square foot home is required to have four parking spaces one of which must be covered. The ADU does not require any additional parking because the site is within half a mile of public transit. And even if the home did not have the ADU it would require four parking spaces. The applicant has requested a driveway with exception to allow the fourth required parking space to be located perpendicular to the two tent tandem spaces in the driveway. The Capitol and municipal code states that driveway width for residential uses in the R one zone shall not exceed 20 feet unless an exception is granted by the planning commission due to unusual lock configuration landscaping or site design considerations. There are no special circumstances related to unusual lock configuration landscaping or site design that would justify a driveway width exception. The proposed parking setup creates a driveway width of almost 43 feet out of the 50 foot lot width for a 10 foot segment of the driveway resulting in an 86 percent in 86 percent of the width of the front yard being utilized for parking. The project could have been designed to incorporate four parking spaces without a perpendicular space located in the front yard simply by providing a two car garage. Due to the inclusion of the ADU the property received an extra 500 square feet of floor area compared to the maximum floor ratio for homes on other lots of similar size and only 292 square feet of that was used for the ADU. The extra 200 feet could have been used to provide one more covered parking space in the garage and meet the parking requirements without needing a driveway width exception while still having a home several hundred square feet larger than most other homes on similar lot sizes in the R-1 district. Oh sorry and that was it for house number one. So I've got a question on your calculation going back to the driveway width. So if I was to interpret that ordinance I would say that I would calculate it not as a 42 feet but the car width basically I take A and B and then I'd take the measurement horizontally of the third space and say okay what is that? That's still over the 24 feet but what would that be? That'd be like 36 or 30. It's certainly not as egregious as your 30. Yeah so this parking range has typically been discouraged in the city of Capitola and the way it's been discouraged is by calculating that as driveway width. So if you would like to do that differently we can change the policy but that's how it generally when we get this a lot actually people coming in and proposing this parking arrangement and we tell them no because that exceeds the maximum driveway width with the purpose being we don't want parking all the way across the front of all the lots so. Okay thank you. Any other questions for staff on this? Okay looks like there's no questions. Thanks. Move on into house number two. The applicant is proposing a 2488 square foot single family home at 523 Burlingame Avenue. The proposed residence is cited adjacent to the proposed single family home at 525 Burlingame Avenue to the north and existing single family home at 521 Burlingame Avenue to the south and the proposed four plex apartments of 524 Capitola Avenue to the west. This home complies with all the development standards of the R1 zone. The proposed two-story single family residence exhibits contemporary design features including natural wood, white stucco and dark anodized bronze accents. The front facade of the home is articulated with a small bronze colored trellis and bronze anodized garage door to break up the white stucco facade and provide an inviting approach from the main driveway. The home has a flat roof on the ground floor level which is clad with vertically set natural cedar and the second level and garage have sloped gable roof lines with minimal eaves. The second level includes a partially cantilevered covered deck that sits above the ground level patio at the rear of the home creating a small covered area for outdoor dining. There's the front elevation. There's the rear elevation. And the top part you see there is that cantilevered deck that comes out which you see here on the right on the north elevation and on the left on the south elevation. And that's it for house number two. OK. Any questions for staff from customer two? No. OK. This is the easy one. Move to the four plex. Yeah. OK. So the four plex. The applicant is proposing a five thousand three hundred and forty square foot four plex apartment building at five to four Capitol Avenue. The four apartments are relatively small measuring six hundred and thirty three six hundred and thirty three seven hundred and twenty eight and seven hundred and forty two square feet each. The proposed four plex is cited adjacent to the Dignity Health Medical Group Dominican to the north commercial office building at five twenty two Capitol Avenue to the south and the proposed single family homes at five to three and five to five burling a map to the east. The proposed four plex at five to four Capitol Avenue complies with all of the development standards of the C.N. Zone. However, staff has concerns of the site layout of the four plex which will be covered later. The proposed two story four plex incorporates contemporary design features and the two stories are differentiated through materials with stucco in the first story and a combination of natural wood and aged ash horizontal siding accents on the first and second stories. The ground level of the building has differentiation in the setbacks to break up the massing along Capitol Avenue. Two of the garage doors are recessed eight feet three inches behind the other two garage faces giving the building a more articulated approach. The building facade is further articulated with bronze to anodize aluminum garage doors windows and clear glass railings on first level patios front stairs and second level decks that break up the massing across the front of the building. There's our front elevation rear elevation north elevation south. The Capitol Municipal Code identifies considerations which the Planning Commission must analyze in review of a design permit. Staff has concerns with the site layout for the foreflex relative to consideration D one site layout which includes the orientation and location of buildings decks or balconies and open spaces in relation to the physical characteristics of the site the character of the neighborhood and the appearance and harmony of the buildings with adjacent development such the privacy of adjacent properties maintained. Within this stretch of Capitol Avenue between Bula Drive and Bay Avenue there are numerous mixed use and multifamily structures. The majority of these existing developments shown here in red have a single curb cut and shared driveway leading to shared parking. The proposed design does not follow the established development pattern along the street. Each of the units in the foreflex has a garage facing Capitol Avenue and driveways that split off of the two main driveways that connect to the public street. The end result is a building set back 28 feet from the street with a larger than typical front yard consumed by pavement and parking. The design of the foreflex could have incorporated one shared driveway leading to a shared parking area similar to the development pattern along established Long Capitol Avenue. In the CN zone multiple dwellings or groups or combinations thereof require a conditional use permit. Capitol and municipal code states that in considering an application for a conditional use permit the planning commission shall give due regard to the nature and condition of all adjacent uses and structures. And you may impose requirements and conditions with respect to the location, design, siting, maintenance and operation of the use as maybe necessary for the protection of the adjacent properties and in the public interest and to preserve the integrity and character of the district and to secure the general purposes of this title, general plan and the local coastal program. As stated previously staff has concerns with the site layout relative to the amount of driveway area in the front yard and the number of garage doors facing Capitol Road. That's our avenue. Staff recommends the planning mission continue project application 18 0508 for modifications. Specifically the foreflex at 5P4 Capitol Avenue should have a single curb cut and shared driveway leading to a shared parking area on the side or rear of the building and the single family home at 525 Burlingame Avenue should be modified to comply with the maximum driveway width. As I mentioned earlier the application must be reviewed as one application to ensure compliance with state storm modern regulations. Should the planning mission approve the application as proposed draft findings and conditions of approval are included as attachment 10 and there was an additional set of conditions from public works department that should be included as well. It includes the presentation. Okay. Any questions for staff on the foreflex? I've got lots. So first of all was there a preliminary review of this design where they came in and talked to you about the whole general concept. Yes. We met several times with the applicant and the project has changed over time as most do. Originally the whole front was four driveways very close together without without the sort of landscaping you see now that exceeded the driveway with on the apartments which led to the modification that had the two 15 foot driveways that then split off. So I guess I'm asking that question with regards to your recommendation that there'd be a single cut in parking in the rear. I couldn't find anything in the code that said that's a requirement or even a recommendation that there should be rear parking. Timothy. So there was a prior there were meetings prior to them developing a plan and discussion of you know in our just that I know I met with the with Fuse architecture across the street and we discussed just the pattern along the street and concerns for you know that it should fit within the pattern. I also gave them a copy of you know the new code and where you know we had a lot of conversations about the mixed use district and where things were headed. But I mean that code is not in effect at this time. But the the current code under the design permit findings does talk about you know being relative to the neighborhood and also the conditional use permits. So that seems general. I was specifically using very specific in your recommendation that there that there should be rear single driveway cut in rear parking. And although you've shown that there are many other areas other houses in the area that have that style I didn't see anything even in the new code that said that is a preferred style that we want rear parking in the rear and mixed use areas. Was there something I missed. I think it is clearly stated in the new code about parking either being preferred not required but preferred on the side or to the rear of the lot and shared parking. I looked at it recently. But that's not under you know the new code does not apply to this property. So just in preliminary discussions we discussed that at a high level conceptually before they had drafted plans. And then as as the plans came in the discussion continued on the our recommendation to follow the pattern of the street of shared parking for a you know for a multi unit complex. But there's no violation in terms of driveway widths or parking or it's really this recommendation that the new code says we prefer parking in the rear. I wish I could. There is there is not a standard in the code today that states that parking. Yeah. But well even the new code I mean the precedent would be we want to we want to start following the new code and I know in the Frank or Arkansas architect on the Arkansas Committee recommended that as well said you know he gosh I wish it was in the parking was in the rear. And if the new code says it's in the rear I would think that that would be something maybe we would want to insist on. But but if it isn't there. You you cannot require anything from the new code at this point are the under this review. It has to the review has to be based on the code that's in place and then staff's analysis on this project. It's the design finding that Matt brought up on the slide and also the conditional use permit criteria regarding neighborhood and fitting them within the neighborhood. And that's all right. Yeah and I don't want questions. Maybe Commissioner Newman remembers I recall having the conversation where we were writing the code. My memories seems more like it was towards retail and office space that we're trying to get it out to the sidewalk and I can't resolve recall exactly the terms of it. This site is sewn for commercial or residential. So kind of this is mixed bag. It's mixed. So I use I'm done. I'm not only the tentative map. I have trouble reading these plans in a lot of different ways. I don't know why they're difficult to read. Yeah. So anyway is the frontage 80 feet on this. OK. I finally found that. So the two driveway cuts are 15 feet each right. So 30 feet out of 80 feet would be driveway. Now if we did one driveway to the back that would probably be 20 feet. Because you'd have more. So we're we're talking about 30 feet of driveway versus 20 feet of driveway on 80 feet of frontage. Just to kind of get the numbers out there. Yeah. And then I mean the option also would be to have if we're going to look at that not just from the rear but maybe from the side as well. But is there any more questions for staff and maybe we can let the applicant come up and explain if they have a Dan you can come. OK. Thanks. Good evening commissioners. My name is Dan Gomez. I'm with Fuse Architects. Where would you like me to start? I know it's a big project. Yeah. So start from the top on the tentative parcel split or we can start on each individual that's just to ask where we start. Let's start with number one the tentative. Any questions about the tenant parcel split town doesn't sound like it. So house number one. I had heard a concern about like why we showed the existing the old convalescent home on that site map. An attentive map. I don't think that that kind of clarified. Well I don't think you need to show that. Well the reason it was OK. Yeah it was shown because there's calculations that are done to support the previous versus impervious surface area. Right. So you have to kind of relate that. If it's an empty site then they consider it all impervious surface and then your stormwater calculations. So you mixed up a tentative map with kind of an improvement but it was part of the requirement. Yeah. So OK. So house number house number one. Any questions about which is house number one is which one are we referring to as house number. That's that 525 I believe. Yeah. Yeah. That's the one with the exception or not parcel B. That is one with the exception that's on the extra drive. Well yeah we should talk about that exception because that's up for grabs here. This is the parking. Right parking exception. OK. So if you notice can we go back to the site map that shows the parking layout on that one. So if you look at where the red the parking spot that is dictated by the red rectangle there the reality of kind of this site and I we believe we submitted some documents that kind of show the actual streetscape to the planning commission earlier today. And you will see that the actual edge of pavement is well beyond the property line. So if you see where the two tandem the parking spaces behind the parking space loaded in the garage located in the two blue rectangles there that's the property line. Right. So beyond that is actually another I think we're more like 15 feet from the red rectangle to the actual edge of pavement but that is not even the road. So then there's another section of area where a car can park there in the street currently now and in the future. So the crown of the road is actually further away. So our proposal actually has a berm that is approximately 10 feet wide that is all landscaped as a buffer to that. And it's not only just a flat portion of landscaping. We actually proposed a mound to kind of to discreetly cover that spot to minimize the impact of what a parking space would be. And if you kind of look at the way that the municipal code is written now it talks about garages and garages are kind of discouraged to be the main focal point of property. And so in doing so we wanted to kind of minimize that as well. And this being an ADU it's actually going to be used as a family residence with the option to have the ADU. He has a large family and it's nice to have the parking minimized and the garage frontage minimized. So what we did is we tried to landscape that area so that it protects and preserves kind of the street frontage so that it's softer and you're not seeing so much of a large focus on the garage element. So if you go back to the front rendering if you don't mind and do we have copies of the plans that we submitted and not digital not digital copies. I can't put them on the screen right now. Do we have copies that I could distribute at all of the showing kind of this is the one you sent out today. Yeah. These ones we set out today. Do you guys have copies of those? I have a copy. If you go do they each have a printed copy. OK. So if you see the one that has the site plan on the back that shows the green area that's hatched and also has a rendering showing a car parking in front of the bermed area is a labeled house one parcel. House one parcel of proposed development. Right. They're next to each other. Those pictures and you can kind of look at the before and after two. So there's one that has a site plan and there's one that has the two images showing the perspective of the existing empty lot and the perspective of the proposed house with the same car in the same location. Right. So you can see where the property line actually starts beyond where that car sits now. And then the berm goes another 10 feet beyond that landscape berm and then it shows a silhouette of a car parked in front of the. Does everybody have a copy? How does that car get to that spot? Do that right there. Just looking at the plan. I didn't know if there's a car parked on the street. That isn't so that that I think that was I Matt read a comment about the width of the driveway and I think that's a little misleading in that like commissioner Welk stated that I think you said that the driveway width was considered how many feet wide. Almost 43 42 10 42 10. So I think that takes into consideration that there it almost leads you to believe that that driveway exists. The full frontage of that property when it really doesn't. It's a driveway. You drive in the actual driveway and turn to the left to park. So the landscape area. So it's is a buffer. My area at the street is much narrower than it's a two car driveway. Correct. What's the stop an RV or a boat from being stored on that parking space. Which parking space. One that's perpendicular to the driveway. Well that's the case for I guess any house right. They could park an RV or and in any front yard. Yeah but not not one that is parallel to the front of the house that blocks the whole front of the house. It becomes the focal point on the street. Well that's I guess that's a matter of of hearsay. They're not they're not really going to we can't control that. I guess you can say. No you can't control that. That's my concern. In regards to the actual material of this area. We want this to be a paved impervious or pervious surface that is turf block. Why not so that it can actually be the intent is that it's not going to be really used for parking. I mean it meets the code requirement. So we provided it with the intent to. Provide as much buffer as possible for this area. Any more questions. I'm still not getting maybe a question for staff. I'm trying to try to imagine this this this Berman this buffer. I mean at what point how big would that be before it's not even considered your front yard anymore and the driveway just kind of goes back and now it's really. You know I'm trying to say it's like OK this is his front yard but it's a it's a recess front yard. And so I mean if he was to put. I you know. I'm just wondering if if there's a a definition of the depth of a front yard that that you can't have a drive can have cars in that as long as he provides you know the lawn or whatever in that space he can you know duck duck around it has been 15 percent. Fifteen feet. Isn't it. From the lot line 15 feet back that is technically the definition of the front yard. So if he has that his L shaped driveway beyond that 15 feet then it's not his front yard and the code doesn't apply. Well you cannot parking outside of the front yard setback I think the parking setup would still be discouraged under the same thing. So for the first 15 feet from the property line back is where you know you can have your the 20 foot wide driveway and typically we discourage parking in the front yard area but there is a practicality to it that you need to accommodate your your spaces and so the the first two spaces are within the 15 feet. But then as you turn I believe that's also in the 15 foot setback. So that's my question if it wasn't in the 15 feet that was setback far enough so that that berm is was actually 15 feet wide. Would that be a violation.  But. Well I'm trying to understand the technical aspect so if the front yard is defined as defined as 15 feet and if he has a driveway beyond that you wouldn't have this violation. You would just you would just fall back on well it doesn't meet community standards it doesn't look nice but that wouldn't violate. A specific code. As long as that L shaped driveway was 15 feet back. No it would still violate the width of a driveway with the driveway with is limited to 20 feet so even if the driveway were to go back and then expand into the L shape at that point we would calculate the driveway with is the 43 feet. So so we're saying the width of the driveway because it's in this setback area it's that full width of the parking spot and the. Entry to the driveway. I mean if you look at what was presented this afternoon that landscaped area the entry into the driveway is. How wide do we know what that is. That's the 20 feet wide is it just 20 actual 20 feet wide yeah yeah so it becomes that 44 feet because of the park the parking spot and when it makes that L. Which I guess for me if we're looking at what is the intent of. Of having the driveway with limited to 20 feet is to have this. Area one for parking on the street and two for a landscape area which to me it looks like they meet the intent I have this exact same thing in my house there's a number of them on up on Depot Hill and throughout our area where they we've actually allowed parking in this configuration but some of them not even to this step so that landscaped area is one that's in the city's right away second portion of it yeah and then how big of that area is in in the off the property line. Well that that area I think that parking number four is a 10 by 18 or is that nine by 18 I can't remember is it 10 by 18 so then it's five feet. So five feet is on the property it's five feet on the property and then another and then another five foot three is on the in the city right away so we have a 10 foot buffer there but part of that shared in. Right. So I guess my point was that is if that that five feet that you just mentioned that is theirs was expanded to 15 feet somehow magically then then they would have a case that says well we meet the letter of the law because the front yard is in fact in full existence and we and we don't have a driveway in our front yard it's it's back beyond the front yard. The driver with not tied to front yard that's why Katie and I both clarified that and said that even if it was outside of 15 feet that we would still calculate that perpendicular spot is with the driveway so this doesn't correspond to front yard. Interesting that means my driveway technically is 80 feet wide then. Okay. This is not the cleanest definition this is the interpretation of the driver with in the code with the purpose of dissuading front yard parking all the way across lots and that's been done for the entire year and a half I've been here and there have been many applicants displeased with the fact that they could not do this and that's just been the policy so if you want to start permitting this you know we can. No I understand I think I think we understand the intent and where that's at before we let Dan go sit down is there any other questions for. Yeah I just have. I'm curious this has never been allowed in the past but is it allowable now to use city right of way to meet your landscape requirements. No the anything that's you know the city allows you to use if we're not utilizing the right of way we actually encourage you to use the landscaping area in front of your home. Right but you can't but it doesn't count to get an approval for. No this that area would not count as part of their setback requirement nor would any parking that occurs in that area count towards their parking requirement. And we hadn't seen that by the way in what they shared today until today so that was not calculated in any of their landscaping. OK correct yeah we didn't we didn't we didn't assume that we were just setting that as an additional buffer. Even though we're fully planning on landscaping the five feet that's on our property we didn't take that into our calculations. OK. Does everyone have enough information to. OK so we have that one do we want to talk about house number two now. Any questions regarding. OK any questions regarding the fourplex. Or did we start out there. I can't remember going back now. Moreplex again I would ask that you might want to address the driveway issue. Yeah. So. Maybe I'll start back a ways actually we came up with a plan for this property and then we did go and we met with staff and we discussed it. And I believe in that meeting Katie expressed that in the new code that they were going to try to get parking in the back and underneath. So we went back and actually tried that and for the purposes of what we were our clients were trying to do and for what we thought was appropriate for this part of Capitola it we we tried many options and it really doesn't work. We've actually worked on a project that actually does have parking underneath just down the street at 512 Capitola Avenue and.  You end up having to will yourself around and try not to hit the building and it's really a nightmare so and the reality is is on the ground floor there's no there's no connection with this the street I mean you you you try to force as much livable space you can down at the bottom but on this site in particular it eliminated any any useful space other than parking on the ground floor. So having that whole bottom section of parking was underneath the building was not feasible from what our studies produced so in regards to parking in the back it pushed the building so far forward to the street and it minimized what they could actually do just to get to parking in the back that it it also was unfeasible and for personal reasons there's that I will potentially let one of the clients speak about is a street noise and trying to minimize the amount of street noise to the occupants in the building so by pushing it back and giving a little more street presence with landscaping our goal was to try to create as minimal as possible the even though it has two driveways it still only it's like Matt said it's it's 30 feet and we're allowed to have 30 feet of driveway off of that street in that in that front 15 year setback so ultimately we we know that there's lots of properties around and I think you highlighted a site map that showed the properties that have parking in the back if you wouldn't mind going back to that site plan. So out of those spaces Katie and Matt I don't know if you're aware how many of those are are commercial buildings. I think all of our right. If I'm aware I think they're all office buildings and or commercial uses or at least a majority of more. I know at least a few of them on the west side of the street to the south where residences like if you look at like a three for sure. Well dignity health right next to our building right dignity is is commercial and they actually do have parking on the front street side as well. The building just south to us is a mortgage or real state business has two curb cuts and drive and parking in the front. There's the house just adjacent to the south of that that you didn't highlight also that has parking in the front and parking in the rear. I think they all they and they actually park right on the street frontage. So if you look at it I mean a majority there's just kind of a mix of how this works and very few of them have actually any landscaping up front. And so our goal was to like say OK we do have the two split driveways. They're 15 feet wide. They meet them then they meet the code Max. And if you saw from that rendering I mean the idea was is to populate it with landscaping to defer some of that street noise to the occupants and also to create a nice walking area. I mean these are these are residences not a commercial use. So that being said you can see I mean the amount of landscaping that is going in that front courtyard that access is the bottom. There's a bottom unit underneath the two story middle unit. And then there's the stair access way that accesses all the three upper units. So when you landscape that initially at the time of construction are you using specimen trees. Yeah we have a landscape plan that specifies. Are you using specimen trees fully grown trees. Are you just using the box. Well 15 gallon box. Well of course I mean time permitting I mean if if we're going to plant trees that will grow. It's a requirement. The landscaping we're seeing there is probably about 10 years down the road. Well how do you want to propose like I mean ultimately if that's a condition that says hey you got to install mature trees that could be a condition. But at this point in time it's this is the envisioned design and proposed design. So the landscaping obviously to buffer that this probably has the most landscaping out of any any project on along the street facade. So in our opinion I mean it's it's actually pushed back from the street. It's it's I believe we are about 28 feet or so back to look at the actual measurements. That's correct. Is that correct. Yeah. And so I'm in respect to the parking in that issue we did study that and it ultimately this was a great solution. Every there's two private garage two parking tandem garages in one side. So actually there's only two spots that are dedicated for outs outside parking. We have the other six are enclosed parking spaces. Okay any other questions for Dan. Dan any other comments. Yeah there was one other condition here real quick here that I think that I believe there was mention of in the staff report about four driveways. Is that correct. Or for it says here. It's a two branching into four. I think it was two branching into four and that is and and I think that is a kind of an inaccurate statement. It's two driveways leading to four garages. Correct. And if you notice the intent of them they're actually if you look at the plan there they're actually step back from each other. So to create a recess between the two so it's not you're not looking at garage garage garage garage there's actually some inundation between the two between the facades. Okay. Any other questions. All right thank you Dan. Is there anybody else that would like to come forward. Go ahead. If you could just give us your name when you come forward. My name is Matt Howard and my brother John and my sister in law Kerry and my wife Laura are collectively doing the project. You got the whole family. All right. Yeah well you know it's a big deal to us. So we appreciate the commissioner's time and and thoughts and efforts around this project.  It's a project with purpose. We are not private equity guys doing them all. We're not developers trying to flip a house. We're locals that have been here for a long time and trying to build homes for ourselves and candidly a unit for our my nephew and their child. So so the history of our family goes back. My sister in law owns a house at 206 Stockton Avenue. And it's been in her family since 1905. So it's been around a while and they'll live there shortly I think my grandparents honeymoon here in 1928. My grandmother bought a house on Westliffe Drive in 1969. We thought she was nuts and we hope that we were that nuts someday as well. It worked out pretty good. My dad opened a store in the brand new Capitola Mall in 1970 like 77 78 at which we worked as children and young adults for our lives. It goes on and on and on. I was a lifeguard at the beach here in Capitola. My son Mitchell is a junior lifeguard instructor this year and a local as well. You'll see him on his bike riding through town surfing. So to your question about what's going to be in my front yard, they'll never be an RV in my front yard. There will be bikes and surfboards and kids and that that type of mess. So for that I apologize ahead of time. So we're local. We intend to bring great value to this community. We know there's a housing crisis. We're trying to do do well by doing good. And so our thought process is we're here. We're going to add six housing units to this community. We love this community. We've lived, John and I both owned condos or homes in town one way or another. I live in Soquel right now and I'm anxious to get out of the woods and come down and live in the village. So the purpose of this project so that you scratched your heads a little bit and thought why not do the parking in back on the side. We have a purpose and the purpose is you probably saw in the package. We have a special needs nephew and child that needs that we think we could make a meaningful impact on his entire life by doing the project the way we're doing it. So there's not a random nature to the building on Capitol Avenue is it's really purposeful and thoughtful and we're hoping that Andrew can do that. So I've rambled a smidge. We appreciate your public service and doing this unity.  We took a lot of risk to buy it and try to figure out the details around this. And if it if it comes down to one parking spot on a project of this size, I would, you know, request that the council's, you know, gracious permission to move forward. We've been going at this for a couple of years now. And it's expensive and timely and disconcerting to get delayed. So with that, let me turn it up to Kerry and talk about the special needs. Thanks, ma'am. Hi. So Matt gave the context of the family relationship. This is we're building kind of a family compound. And as you, I'm not sure if you read the letter that I wrote, but we have a son who's now 19 years old with autism. And as he's gotten older, we realize that he's going to need 24 seven care. And with the state of affairs with so many kids with autism, 80% of them end up living with their parents for their lifetime. So we were looking at trying to find something for our son, where the two of us and our son could all grow old together. And Matt being very involved in real estate, he started helping us try to find properties where we could, you know, the three of us could live together. And and the special needs world is a whole nother animal than building a house. But anyway, this property came up. And he, Matt approached us and said, you know, would you guys be interested?  And our son to get to a public bus stop takes 20 minutes for him to walk there. And so we thought, Oh my gosh, capital of village, he could literally there's a doctor's office right next door. There's a bus stop 50 feet away, 50 feet away. There's not pill. He would have so much to access. So we met with Dan Gomez and Courtney Christensen. And we would bring Andrew with us. And he's being who Andrew is. He walked down to the fire department and introduced himself. And they were talking, he was talking to one of the firefighters and they said, Oh, you know, what are you doing here? And he said, Oh, I'm moving here. And they said where? And he said the golden age caught me less than a hospital. So anyway, and he met the gentleman that was here earlier this evening, who owns the candy shop. So, you know, he's already kind of integrated himself into the community. And and we just are so grateful to Capitola because they are embracing him. And so anyway, so back to Fuse, we approached Courtney and Dan, and we talked to them at great length about this idea of how can we build this property with Matt and Laura and eventually our son being able to live in an apartment by himself. That's our goal. And so we discussed at great lengths the necessity for his safety. And so they really listened to what we had to say, and they were able to design all three properties so that we could all live with some privacy, but be connected and all of that. And so if you look at our property, we're at the five to five. Could you actually pull that up? The idea was that the bottom, the apartments and so the idea was, was that the Andrew could eventually be in the bottom unit in the apartment complex, and that way he would be able to access the backside of our property and and so Dan and Courtney designed it this way so that there was no, you know, there's a fence line. There could be a fence line there, but there would be a way for Andrew to get to the backside of our property without having to cross the street or a parking lot or anything like that. And so there were, there's all kinds of different little intricate things about this design that I don't want to bore you with all the details unless you're interested. But just a vision. I'd like to be able to sit in my kitchen and have a cup of coffee and look out and see that he's in his kitchen having a cup of coffee and say, you good? Yeah, Dan, I'm good. That's all I'm looking for. Yeah. And so we are an open book and we just would hope that if you have any questions about anything about the property that you not make any assumptions, but just ask us and we're more than happy to share our story and Dan's and our vision. Thank you, Miss Howard. And I did get a chance to read your letter. So that was that was nice. I appreciate you sharing that information with us. Any questions of the Howard before they sit down? OK, thank you very much. OK, thank you. And it looks like that's about anybody else who would like to get up and talk about this project? No, seeing none, then I'll bring it back to the commission and we can have a discussion. So we we basically have four different items that we've talked about, but it's got to be and we could talk about them individually and get to a final resolution for one final vote. I can I can start. We have the House A.B. Which which one is A? A is the the northerly one there. So there's do you want to do my address or what we were calling House number one and House number two. House number one, House number two. OK, House number one is at the upper right. OK, let the driver with exception. OK, House number one is the one with the parking lot parking spot parallel to the street. I'd be willing to consider a variance to eliminate that parking spot and allow them to have one less parking spot than required. That's my opinion on that. House number two, I don't have any issues with. To me, that's a great design fits right into the neighborhood. The apartment building. I wish with your history of Capitola and the longevity of your family being here that the design had a better appreciation and feel for the village. I looked at the land use plan and the various policies and just about everyone verbatim states that any development in the village has to honor that the characteristics and uniqueness and the beachy feel of the of the village. There's another document that's not an official document. Three years ago, I was part of a core group along with myself and former Mayor Gail Ortiz and city manager Susan Westman, council member's story and Bertrand and several other people. And we developed a document called Vision Capitola. And in the process of developing that document, we held two community meetings. First one had over 100 people participating. The second one had, I think, 98 people participating. We handed out several thousand surveys and we got a return of almost a thousand surveys. And basically that document was asking people what their vision was for Capitola in the future, what they wanted to see five, 10 years down the road. And one of the number one criteria, one of the things they held most valuable dearest in this town was the village that they wanted to preserve the uniqueness and the character and the quaintness of the village. So looking at those plans, then I put it on Nick's door. And I know that's generated a lot of comments, OK? There were 44 responses. I closed that Nick's door website this morning and put it out the last remaining comments and provided it to everybody up here. Those comments ran about 80% against this particular design and felt that it didn't really meet the characteristics and special quality that we feel in the village. And I would just, my own personal opinion in that regard, I don't think the community really accepts this design. I don't think it meets our policies. And I would like to see it redesigned to be something that better fits in the village. That's where I'm at. Peter? I think it does meet the unique discharacter of the village. I don't want to weigh in on whether or not a modern design is better than a craftsman design or a beachy design is different than a train station design or what have you. I think the notion, when I've read the guidelines on what the feel and the uniqueness character of the village is, they're the kinds of things that were addressed here. It was not blocky. I mean, not blank faces, very pedestrian friendly, landscaping, varied surfaces. Those things are all met. So I don't have any problem with the design of the building and don't want to be part of the fashion police. And so I disagree with, respectfully with Councilman Ruth that this doesn't meet those requirements. I do have a problem with house number one. I think that we need, as government officials, need to provide a predictable and consistent front and that when you go to the planning staff and get some advice that it's advice that is valuable and that we will stand behind. So that's why I pushed on this notion of what defines a driveway and how you'd measure it, this and that. And it seems to me that we would be undermining staff to allow that driveway because we gave them clear guidance with the rules. They followed it. And for us to undermine that, makes us unpredictable and inconsistent. So I'm intrigued by the notion of the variance as a way around that. I'd like to explore that if anybody wants to talk about that more. But that's my only problem with this project is that one driveway or the one parking space is number four. So I would send it back for that reason alone. But I would consider the variance idea. OK, well, I've got about four or five different items to discuss here. First of all, I think the overall development and site plan for this site is brilliant and provides housing. It's interesting because I've been in real estate as a lawyer and an investor for 40-some years. And the axiom always was that commercial is the highest and best use. If you had residential and they zoned it commercial, you were dancing in the street. But now we're seeing potential commercial sites being made into residential, which is it's an inversion that never existed in my career. And it's a good thing right now because we need housing. And I just really like what they did with this site. So that part's really good. As far as house number one and the parking, I thought about a variance too. And I'm a stickler for the requirements of the variance. And I just can't see. I'm trying to think of how we can justify and satisfy the state law requirements for a variance, the findings. Yeah, you know, I was thinking too, this would be better off with just three parking spaces. It's too bad we require four. But staff seems to think there's a solution to redesigning, to solve the parking problem. And to me, that's, you know, I hope that that can be done. As far as the fourplex parking, I don't think 30 feet of driveway in an 80-foot frontage is that problematic in this setting. You know, I look at the houses and other areas of Capitola and look at the size of the frontage and the size of the driveway. And it's really not out of line. So I'm okay with that. As far as the design style, people differ in terms of their tastes. Some people like that kind of style. Other people don't. I have to be one who does. So the village, if you look at the house next to the stairway on El Camino, that's a similar kind of design style. And that's been there for how many years and nobody has said, hey, that doesn't belong in a village. We're an eclectic, you know, it's a dynamic too. This is, I mean, the village is a living entity and it's not 1924 forever. So maybe the character of the village is gonna be more like a different kind of architecture. I can live with that. So all in all, I think it's a great project and the only problem I haven't been able to solve in my own mind is that one parking space. Yeah, this is interesting because it becomes very subjective. Especially, and this is kind of my issue with the next door concept is, we don't do this by popularity vote. To me, it's, I mean, we all have our own. I'm very, I very much believe that property owners have rights within the confines of codes. And we do have some guidelines. And I'm familiar with Commissioner Roos work with the Vision Capitola program. But I think he mentioned earlier, we need to move into 21st century. And I think we have to look at this. And I think your house or the Ford Plex, all them, to me, they do look beachy. And so I guess it's how we look at those things. And I would leave that up to architects to articulate what homeowners want. And for me, I think it's a great project. Looking at the parking issues, it's kind of interesting how we did this. So, you know, we're saying on the Ford Plex, we want you to move it out to the street, but we're saying on the houses that we want you to be set further back to have room to park, right? So we're kind of, we have this icon. It's like, well, what are we trying to get to? And I have to go back to intent. And when we looked at this whole concept of moving structures closer to the street, really it was, in my mind, based around business, commercial, retail, trying to make that accessible. And that would be the frontage area. And then we're doing, trying to do the same thing on 41st Avenue. But I don't think anybody would desire to have their home closer to the street if they had a choice. We'd rather sit that further back. And so, for me, I think on the Ford Plex, I understand what we were trying to get to. And I see the layout and trying to how to make that work. But I think how you've landscaped it, the two driveways are not concerning to me. And if I look at really the intent of why we were trying to move the projects out along the commercial neighborhood areas was really more for retail, in my mind, not necessarily for housing. The driveway and house number one, I could name you house after house in Capitola. Some of those that I set on and some of these other commissioners set on, that we approved parking in these weird concepts. The very end of central, we did one where it's just a piece of grass that we allowed to make a parking area. It's Ashwaterf. We did it on, recently on Riverview. We made another parking spot because of the way the lot is. We have many areas in Capitola where we don't have more sidewalk exempt, depot hill sidewalk exempt. I hate to use my own property, but using the theory that SAF has, my driveway is 80 foot wide, well, 76 feet wide. So it wouldn't meet that intent. But when mine went through, I wasn't on the planning commission, obviously. The area that's landscaped is mostly in that setback area that is part of the setback in part is the Capitola area, city owned area that were required to landscape. I think if I'm thinking about it, not necessarily from a variance, but I think it meets the intent of what we want. Is there a buffer there between the roadway that hides and gives you some landscaping by your drawings and your architecture to me? It meets that intent of trying to hide the parking. So I could live with that, given the circumstances of that being a landscaped area on both the city right away, which by the way, you're required to landscape. You can't just leave it out there as gravel. The city's not gonna allow us to do that. So to me, having that landscaped area now, I don't think we've deemed that area sidewalk exempt, have we in that area? There aren't any sidewalks in that neighborhood. No, there are not. But I'm saying we haven't, are we asking them to put in sidewalks there? We are on Capitola, I know, but on that area, we're not asking them. So if we look at Depot Hill, we look at the Jewelbox area. A lot of these areas we have identified as sidewalk exempt. If that's gonna be landscaped to me, I think it meets the intent of what we're trying to do is not have cars parked right up against the roadway there. So I'm flexible.  I'm flexible in any of those that we could do. I'm curious, you mentioned that there was plenty of precedent for this. And I think that's where I got a different feeling from staff that they time after time deny these kinds of things. And so if there is plenty of precedent, I think I'd like to explore those and the reasons for those exceptions and maybe this would fit in to the same rationale. There probably weren't exceptions when they were built. Well, I think the one I'm gonna clarify. So typically when folks come to the counter, we discourage them, but we've not, they always have the option of coming to Planning Commission to ask for that exception and we inform them of that. But we discourage it because the code is at 20 feet. I did want to show you an image. I'm hearing that you'd like to possibly accommodate this. And I think there's a good design solution. This is a property on Bay Avenue that was approved. It's near Gales a few years back. It's the flag lot, the home in the front. And I'm not picking on the audience because my owner is here as well. He wants to share that with the audience. It was a great design solution that, there were three or I think three parking spaces required for this home. There's a garage in the middle as you can see and then there's the two where the tires tracks go in. It's paved and then the parking, the site to the right which you see this stepping where it's lined up so that the tires would land on concrete. But it was really a minimalized parking solution in terms of they did not have the need for the parking and they wanted to decrease it to the extent possible. And I think something like this, especially with the modern design of the home would fit in nicely in the front but also address the planning commission's concerns about impacts and staff's concerns of too much. What are you saying? So possibly instead of a variance having minimal concrete areas just for the. The same design, the same site plan that they have already or has it changed? I'm sorry, this is, I was suggesting for possibly where the one space is in the front to take a similar design approach. Church blocks. Yeah, and just where the tires go rather than having all concrete. How does that change the issue? It doesn't, but it's more, you wouldn't be considering a variance, but. Can I ask real quick? It makes it look less like a driveway. Makes it look less like a driveway in a front yard. I didn't do the math, but under our new code, currently we include the garage space as part of the floor area ratio. Would that change that on this and change the parking requirement under the new code? I didn't do the math usually. I would look at that and I guess. So would we be below that threshold of not needing? If we didn't count the ADU and we didn't count the garage, then it would be under the 2,600. Three spaces would be required. But the ADU doesn't count, right? It already doesn't count, yeah. It doesn't require any additional parking. What's the total square footage with the excluding the ADU? 26 something, 2,708. And the maximum for three spaces is 2,600. So if we deduct the garage under a new code, they wouldn't, under the new code, they're not gonna need that additional parking spot. So we can't do a variance without having I advertised for a variance first of all. So that's out. They haven't even made an application for a variance. So, but the notion of invoking the new code. No, I'm not asking to invoke the new code. I'm just saying is there some leniency to move towards these exceptions like we've done in these other areas to have that area looking landscape whether it's turf blocks or whatever and adding some leniency knowing that, yeah. We move, I keep going back to intent. We keep going back to the new code. We did that specifically because it's not fair really to ask people and I understand, I'm not asking us to adopt the new code on this one p