is the Hyatt Regency Sonoma Wine Country Fence and Lighting Project, which we heard in our last meeting. And so with that, we will hear first from Monet and then the applicant. If they would like to present afterwards and then we will go to questions by the committee for the staff or the applicant. Monet, would you like to get started? Sure, thank you and good morning. I appreciate it. Thank you, Amy, for pronouncing my senior planner position. So I'm going to share my screen. And as you mentioned, we had this meeting for this project in January and we are continuing it today. Again, there were some comments and the applicant tried to address those comments and they have submitted a revised plan. Someone asked for a printed hard copies. I hope you got a, Carol, I think you asked for those. Were you able, okay, great. Glad to hear that. Great, thank you. I'm going to share my screen and turn my camera off. So again, good morning chair and members of the Waterways Advisory Committee. The applicant has submitted a minor design review application to construct an eight foot metal picket fence with associated lighting along the southern boundary of the property in order to control access to high odd regency Sonoma Wine Country Hotel. And the applicant has submitted revised plans based on the comments received from the last meeting in January that I'm going to go over those plans and how they have addressed some of the comments. So as you know, the site is located in northwest quadrant and it is zoned station mixed use with the downtown station area, combining the street. And here is the project site with Santa Rosa Creek and Prince Memorial Greenway located on the south side. This creek is a channelized creek and owned by Sonoma Canyon Water Agency. The city creek master plan designates Santa Rosa Creek as a culvert restored and modified creek. So here I want to show you the previously proposed fence versus the new one. So the red dashed line is where when the previous fence was proposed. So the applicant has moved the fence back. The blue dashed one is the new one and they are basically replacing it at the same location as where the pool fence was. It was five feet, they are placing with eight feet and the fence will not go beyond the parking lot on the right side. As you can see, the previous fence was going all the way to the parking lot on the right side. So the fence will stop at the corner and no trees will need to be removed as a proposal of this new fence. And here are some pictures from the existing memorial, from the Prince Memorial Greenway and light poles, trailers and vineyards. Here are some additional pictures that the applicant has provided. There were some questions about the fence on their driveway. So applicant took some pictures that included here from the fence around the pool and the sculpture. I have a PDF file, so if you want to have a better look, I will share the PDF file when you have discussions and I can zoom in those pictures so you can see them with a better quality if you want. And here is the site plan. There are so much details going on but I will try to go over them. The fence, as I mentioned, will be placed back. There are two gates, one is behind the event center and one is around the pool. Those are rectangles at the center are the existing metal trailers and the applicant is proposing to remove the existing wines on the south side of the fence. And also I have to mention that today we have Terry from our park division with us today and she can help us answering questions related to the existing easement and who maintains those easements. So Terry is with us, I'm glad she's here. And okay, there are two portion of this fence. The applicant has provided the layout. This is the fence that is going to be along the pool. The existing five-foot fence will be removed and replaced with the new eight-foot fence, some lighting and new landscaping will be added along the fence. And here is the location of the fence around the gathering space with additional lighting and landscaping. The fence is not going to extend beyond this area like the previous one. And also, as I mentioned, those points down here, the applicant is proposing to remove those plants here. Page, the architect is available also and she can explain the reason for removal of those plants. And this is the proposed gate. The height of the gate is eight feet. There are two gates and this is an example of the gate, how it would look like, except it would be eight feet and the fabric would be similar to what is proposed and the pattern would be similar to the picture on the top right corner. And here is the proposed black fence. In the last meeting, there were comments about the sparks on top of the fence and that they were viewed as not friendly and the applicant has changed the fence picket to square top so it won't be any more pinched picket. And here are two pictures, a rendering or mock-up that shows the picture on the left is a rendering shows how the fence would look like with climbing roses and landscape addition. And the picture on the right is with someone holding the fence to just show the height of the fence compared to the person standing next to it and how it will blend with the landscape in that area. The picket fence would allow visibility from both sides and views of the Santa Rosa Creek. Again, I have a PDF file and I can zoom in these pictures if you want to see the better quality. And here are the planting schedule for the proposed landscaping. The applicant is proposing landscape improvements along the fence. The proposed planting would include drought tolerant, fire resistant and low maintenance planting. Ladybank roses would be planted along the fence which would also grow as a ground cover on the slope areas and along the fence to soften the metal fence. Evergreen flowering ground covers and evergreen ornamental grasses would also infill in areas where planting is missing. And as a proposed, because of a new fence is going to be set further back so no fence will be placed within the 50 foot creek setback. Here I'm trying to show where the top of the bank is and where the new fence will be located and it will be outside that 50 foot setback. And our Santa Rosa, as last meeting I mentioned our Santa Rosa Creek master plan refer to the creek design guidelines that is from 1997, which we need to revise it to include broader language to reflate conditions found along other creeks in the city and add new downtown station area specific plant and new zones in the downtown. This document has this section that is only for fences and some of the recommendations in this area for fences are open transparent fence is preferred with plant materials providing visual barrier. Fencing shall be softened by addition of suitable plants on the creek side of the fence. Four foot fence are preferred with six feet being the maximum height, provide lockable access gates to areas where privacy or security is required. And for metal fences, paints or powder coat in black or dark green finish. Next page, oh, sorry. And this slide shows the Santa Rosa Creek and the Prince Memorial Greenway with the existing trail bridges. One being right across from the project site and there are existing entry points to the Prince Memorial Greenway from public streets and Olive Park. We have received one public comment from Bill Montenegro, as late correspondence. We emailed that to the members of the Waterways Advisory Committee. I want to just go briefly over a few comments that Bill has included in his email. He says that the Greenway was envisioned as a welcoming and open corridor along Santa Rosa Creek. We need to work on solving the Greenway's problem, not cut it off from its surroundings. The new proposal with the fence located basically at the current site of the rough spotty and poorly maintained fence is better, but not benefit to the Greenway or hotel. Also, Bill wrote that he is disheartening seeing the landscape plans not proposing California native plans on the site. So I shared that late correspondence with the board. And with that, that was my presentation and it is recommended by the Planning and Economic Development Department that the Waterways Advisory Committee provide comments on the proposed project. The landscape architect is available to answer your question as well as the staff. And here is my information. I should change that to senior planner, no more city planner. Thank you. Thank you, Monet. Maybe we should hear from Terry talking about the situation with maintenance since we have city presentations. Would you like to let us know what your observations are? I think this issue has been one that has come up many times regarding the landscaping, how it's maintained, how the plaza is maintained. And it would be very valuable for us to know how that is organized and what basically is done and so we can consider that issue as well. Good morning. Thank you for having me. I've been doing some investigation as to what the legal responsibilities are. I haven't quite finished that. I just got a Monet just put me into this yesterday at about three o'clock. So I haven't had as much chance as I would have liked to to research this but I will continue that so that I can answer any further questions. Generally the maintenance on this site is Fire Parks Maintenance Team is considered to be any of the hardscape property from the edge of the pavement towards the creek. And then our creeks team takes over at the creek bank point but generally it's any of the hardscape so any of the planting would not be maintained by the city we will remove dead plants but we won't be installing any new plants any irrigation material that gets destroyed will not be replaced as part of a maintenance project. That would fall into the category of capital improvements which falls on to my team and myself and we do capital replacement projects. The downtown area is high on our priority list at the moment for current replacement projects but this one has not shown up on our radar yet as of yet. That answers some of the questions you may have had. I know you may have more. Yeah, we may, Terry. I think perhaps in our usual processes to have the applicant do their presentation and then we open it up for questions by the committee for everyone if that's okay with you. Why don't we ask the applicant to give their presentation? Our tour has a question. Who's representing the applicant? And just to follow on what Steve has said. Page, the landscape architect. Oh, okay. So Steve, I think the applicant has spoken then. I see her in the attendees list, but... Kimberly, are you able to give her speaking permissions? In the prompt sent over? I think it's page, correct? Yes, I got it. Good morning. Thank you. Can everybody hear me? Great. Yes. Good morning, chair and committee members and Monet and Amy, thank you for your thoughtful comments last time. We've done a considerable amount of work that since we last met and think that we've been able to address many of your comments, if not all of your comments, I think there are some things in terms of the easement and such that need to be addressed by the city. But in terms of design, we were able to address many of your comments and I just wanna add a couple of things since Monet did a very nice presentation. I would just add that the existing vines are going to be removed so that we can actually plant some more easily maintained plants along there. And I heard one of the comments from the public about them not being native and not the whole plant palette is not native, but over 50% of it is native. And the plants closer to the path are natives. We have native Cianothus and the Kerricks and some Arctostaphalus. And we were trying to select plants that are not only native, but others that would be low maintenance and easy to care for and would just blend with the hillside along the way. So we did mix in some others that, but they're all Mediterranean plants. They're all drought tolerant and just easy to maintain. So that was the reason why we didn't pick all natives. There are some existing Arctostaphalus that are surrounding the pool fence. And so we are gonna try to protect those as much as possible. And as Monet had mentioned to you, the fence is going to be, if not in the same exact location, very close to the existing pool fence. And then it wraps around and there's the fence by the trellis that surrounds the event lawn. And we placed it just six feet off of that so that it was very close to that already existing trellis, which is 12 to 15 feet high. So we were able to pull it back into the Hyatt property more, give back some of the feeling of the landscape to the creek so that the fence is not tight up against the walkway. And as an additional thing, I just wanted to note that I did have a call with Tim Finnegan at Parks and Rec to talk about the maintenance within the easement. I appreciate Terry's input on this as well. And what Tim and I discussed is basically the maintenance is just maintenance. It's not improvements. And so if a plant dies in that area, the plant is removed, but it's not replaced. So the parks department is not about beautifying the improvements along here. I mean, in a way, beautification, but not adding things, really just kind of maintaining the existing condition. He also talked with me a lot about vandalism and adding lights to trees. So we've put all the lights either up in the Hyatt trees or in on the fence and not in any of the Redwood trees around the gathering space, because basically vandals come and just clip the wires of the trees. And so I just felt like, that wasn't really worth the effort to get some illumination in there. So we will be illuminating the fence and areas of the Hyatt property only, even though the property goes down into the greenway, we're not gonna do it outside of the revised fence location. So I think that adds to what Monet had presented. And I don't wanna take a lot of time here. I would prefer to hear your questions in your comments, but I think, oh, I will add one more thing, which is this page, thank you Monet. On the top right-hand side, I met with the fence contractor and he brought out a panel of the fence. The only one he had in stock had the pinched pickets at the top and we have revised that to be a square picket at the top. And then this one also has a double rail at the top, which the proposed one will not have. It'll just have a single rail. But I think what's shown here is useful in that it's the height, it's shown in the approximate location where this one would be, which you can see is a little bit downslope from the existing pool fence. And this is the area where we were going to come away from the existing pool fence. And I'll tell you the reason why. Because pool fencing, you're not allowed to have any shrubs that are climbable within five feet of the fence. And so if we're putting this fence in, there would be a requirement to cut down all of this native artistaphalus, which is beautiful. And as you can see right now, it's in full bloom. They're really gorgeous plants. And I just didn't want to trigger having to remove all of that greenery. So in this area, the fence would step down the hill a little bit, but then it'll come back up and meet up over around near the sculpture. So I found it very useful that the mock-up was able to be put out there. And then we also provided a rendering of what that could look like with the shrubs in front. And yes, thank you, Monet. This is another area where we pulled it back up by the sculpture. And these are the existing vines in the foreground that will be removed and we'll just have ground covers and artistaphalus and grasses and some roses in this area. So I think I'll conclude there and just thank you for your thoughtful comments. I think we've addressed all of them and I look forward to hearing your comments today. Thank you, Paige. Okay, committee. We've heard both from the staff and the applicant. Are there questions that you have for either? Arthur, please. Yeah, so I have several. And first I, you know, I thought I understood this area better than what I did. I mean, so I've been on it multiple times but I went back out there yesterday. So I have a much better feel for this area. Ken, on this slide that's up right now, can we shift it? I think it's slide seven on my presentation. Can you shift it to that? It's a pictorial. Yeah, can you zoom in on that a little bit? So this, yeah, right where your cursor is. Well, no, your cursor was actually on that, those spherical things. Yeah, those. Well, those are not, the only access from the main walkway is up the hill, the slope and the dirt that went through what was a wooden and wire fence into that. So my first question, and I have multiples, is who's is that and whose responsibility is that? I know this responsibility maintenance question is ongoing but right now your new plan would fence and put that on the outside but there is actually no reasonable access to it from anywhere else except from the Hyatt. So can we answer that question first? I can try, this is Paige, I can try to answer it but I may ask Monet or anyone else to chime in. There are three areas on the Hyatt site that have public art included. This is one of the sites. The other is that sculpture over by the pool and then the third is, yep, thank you, Monet. Top left, there's some sculpture right there behind the back of the trellis. And yes, right now the access to all those pieces is from the Hyatt property. We will, we are proposing to put a fence so that yes, the only access to the round sculpture piece that we were looking at before would be down from the greenway. I don't know who, I think this was part of and then this was something that the chair brought up last time and I just don't know the history of it but I believe that it was a public private partnership with ownership at the Hyatt. Maybe it was prior to it being the Hyatt property but it was basically a public art program. If I could, it was a, I believe because it was a redevelopment parcel initially, there was a requirement by the redevelopment agency for a percentage of the project to be public art. And those I believe were included in that requirement. But there were, so there were commissions that were made to hire artists and recruit artists to provide those as it was a public requirement, I guess you might say. Okay, thanks for that, Steve. So then it begs the question to me with is it supposed to have public access or not? So that's the question I put out there and fence or no fence, there isn't any public access except to the Hyatt. And then once the fence goes up, unless there's a gate, there'll be no access from the Hyatt so it'll be essentially cut off. So that's my first point I'd like to make with the question. And then if we could go to the site plan which is five, we'll go to page five. It's where you have the blue and the red lines and the proposed fence. One more, that'll work. Okay, so in the western corner, yeah, okay, so the little building there is the cafe and I can see the fences now gonna allow more room around the cafe. But what about this area that's just to the west of that?  So yeah, that essentially that entire area. And so I have a question about that. And then I have comments, but I'll save those for later. And then my last question is when I look at an APN map there's two parcels. So you got the Hyatt parcel and then below that you have a strip of Sonoma water and then below that on the creek you have Sonoma water. So it looks like these are owned by Sonoma water. And so this also goes back into the whole question about the maintenance agreement on this. So this is an incredibly beautiful section of Santa Rosa that's just going completely ignored for the most part. And now we have this issue with who's is it? Who is is it not? Capital improvements, all of this stuff. Private, public, and I have anyhow, that's my question is where does Sonoma water fit into this? So those are my questions right now and I have comments that I wanna bring up later. Thank you. Amy, would you be able to take that one on? Or Manay, whoever. Oh, Terry can answer because I had the same conversation about is owned by Sonoma, but then city is meant. So who takes care of that? Terry, can you go? Of course. So the legal definition is Sonoma County Water Agency is the landowner and they own the land outright. The city of Santa Rosa has a maintenance agreement with Sonoma Water Agency said that we maintain and that's just simple maintenance not anything over the top. We just maintain it and keep the pathways open and unrestricted. So from time to time, you will see our maintenance crews in there after a high water issue and they will go in and remove trees and limbs and the sand that builds up. And that's part of our requirements with Sonoma County Water Agency. Terry, can I follow up on our question for one second because it was my understanding that Sonoma water the land up to the path basically the top of bank but I'm a little confused. I thought that the high was gonna have a fence on that line just north of that bike path. And my understanding was that that was high at property from there up. That's what the property legal description looks like. Oh, but you're talking about a maintenance agreement? We just have a maintenance agreement with Sonoma County Water Agency or the legal, the actual parcel that they own. Yes, this does get rather complicated rather quickly. Okay, so if I could jump back in. So again, I don't wanna under emphasize how to me and maybe many of the citizens of Santa Rosa how important this piece is for our creeks access, the all the work that's gone into it. I mean, this is a absolutely beautiful section of our whole creek system. And yet we have this maintenance, nebulous maintenance agreement and it's crossing two municipal jurisdictions with the Santa Rosa water and the city of Santa Rosa and with the private section here of the Hyatt and I think this has to be addressed because in my opinion, what is a finished product for how this section is maintained could go east and west along this on how the rest of it is maintained because this is kind of the showcase. So this really concerns me now about this whole, it's kind of a mess how this is done. So, okay, well, that's it for right now. Carol, would you like to ask a question? I would, I'd like to say hi to Terry. Hi, Terry and Art. I appreciate the frustration I heard in your voice because it's very frustrating. As somebody who does as many of the cleanups I can as I possibly can down there, I'm really happy to report firsthand. I've never seen that area look better between the city park special ops crew. I hear they're down there two to three times a week cleaning up the various volunteer groups last Saturday I wanted to go to the River Alliance cleanup. I bailed because it was cold checked in with a friend and she said, that's okay, there were a lot of people there and not much to do, which is just an amazing thing to hear. I checked in with one of the maintenance guys who said the issues along the creek are kind of seasonal and right now it is a kind of a low tide for encampments on the creek but it just looks amazing. So that's the thumbs up. But now going back towards the frustration and confusion. At one point the fence was going to be within the 50 feet of the creek, which kind of highlighted our interaction. Is it now across the board backed off of that 50 feet and does that change this board's relationship at all to this project? You cut out for me right as you were saying the dimensions. Do you want to repeat that? Yes, many of our projects are addressed because the applicant is encroaching upon the 50 foot line to the waterway. Has this project with the new fence line moved outside of that 50 foot line? Has our interaction with this project changed at all with this new proposal? Are you asking about your committee's requirement to review? So the language we have in the zoning code is gray and what it says is if there is a project adjacent to a creek. So I would still consider this under your purview. Great. The next thing I wanted to ask about was the plantings, the use of natives, the use of non-natives, specifically the 38 pyrocantha. Are the pyrocanthas all on the high side of the proposed fence? All of the pyrocantha are located between the existing trellis at the central gathering space and the proposed fence. So it's on Hyatt property, but it's outside the fence. And it's between the area that will be the most difficult to secure for the Hyatt property. Because there's a wall and a trellis there that could be easily climbed and used as a way to get over the fence. So this is 38, 15 gallon pyrocanthas along how many running feet of fence line? Monet, could you go to the planting plan so we could see? Yeah, so it's right. See the central, not the rounded part of the event lawn, but the central gathering space. So it's just along that edge there along the backside of the fence. And how many linear feet? I don't know exactly, but it goes from the corner there where the sculpture is over to the gate. So they're on the outside of the new proposed fence line? Yes. On Hyatt property and essentially they are creating a wall of pyrocantha? Yes. Is there any, I understand completely what you're trying to do. Is there any native plant, every single one of those berries turns into a seed and gets deposited and needs to be potentially removed because it's a non native growing in the creek. Is there any option other than a non native that will accomplish the goal of these 38 pyrocanthas? I suppose we could look at something else that has thorns and is evergreen without berries. So yes, we can take that as a comment if you're wanting us to replace those. As somebody who spends a lot of time pulling out non natives on the Santa Rosa Creek, I for one would really appreciate it. Last question for now is on potential watering. Watering, the new plantings, will there be any kind of water plan at least to get stuff established or once it goes in the ground outside of the fence it's on its own? Yes, we intend to put in drip irrigation. And that's for all your plantings? Yes. Thank you. That's it for now. Thank you, Carol. Kevin. Thank you, Steve. Question for Terry and for Paige probably, the existing vines to be removed. When I first moved to town and commuted along the Prince Memorial Greenway, I enjoyed seeing the vines. It was a nice reminder of our connection to the wine industry. And they've fallen into disrepair lately. So what was the thinking about the removal? What was the reason for the removal and what's the timing of that? Yeah, so we agree with you. The vines there were a really nice nod to the agrarian landscape of the vineyards in Sonoma County and they were something that could be enjoyed by the public and by the guests. We've had such issues here with the unhoused sleeping and removing things and damaging all of the plants that the Hyatt has put in over the years. That the vines were a little bit more high maintenance than what we wanted to put the money into, especially since the fence, we're really wanting to put a lot of effort and time into beautifying the Hyatt property and the event spaces and the areas where the guests will experience it. And the vines have just become something that's more high maintenance than the Hyatt wants to entertain right now just because of all of the years of damage that have been inflicted on all of the planting over the years that they've put in that has been damaged. So we were wanting to put in natives and something a little bit closer to what you might see in our riparian area. Not totally riparian plants because it's not on the creek's edge. And as we know, in this area, the creek has been channelized. So we were just trying to keep it loose and easy to maintain. Everything that's actually proposed doesn't need to be clipped or trimmed or anything, it can be planted and let go and just do its own thing. So we were going for ease of maintenance but also because of damage over the years and just trying to simplify what the Hyatt is responsible for. Okay, thank you. And what's the timing of the removal? We will be first putting in, it's basically we're trying to do this in a two-phased process and the real urgency for the Hyatt is to get the fence in so that they can mitigate the safety and other concerns. And so the fence would be phase one and then the landscape is phase two. All right, thank you. Other questions? Yeah, I have a follow on to Kevin's questions. Can we look at the site map with the blue and the red lines for, to the upper right one? So, whoops, what? Yeah. And the right one? Yeah, but it may be that the one to the left is more applicable. Let's go back to the one on the left because actually I looked at that. Where, yeah, that one. So there's vines on the east side, outside of those red polygon, right? So what's gonna, are those just gonna be left there in disarray or what's going on with those? You see what I'm talking about? Can you put your cursor on? Yeah, yeah, that area. Yeah, those are no longer part of this project. They could be addressed at a future time but they're outside the limit of the work that we're doing here that we're proposing. So those vines are in the Hyatt quasi jurisdiction, so to speak, but they'll just be left there and not tended to, is that what I'm hearing? Yes. Okay, all right, thank you. Charles. Thanks, Chair Rubinowitz. Yeah, first of all, thanks to the staff and the applicant for addressing our concerns that we raised in the previous meeting and clarifying some of the questions we had. So just to summarize what my understanding is, the city has a maintenance easement around the central gathering place, but beyond that, the maintenance for responsibility of the landscaping is Hyatt's whether or not they intend to actively maintain all of the areas that are on their property. I'm supportive of the use of native plants and removing the vines, although the visual quality of the grape vines was pleasing when it was well maintained, but I certainly understand how the introduction of the more spreading native plants would be a lot easier to maintain in those areas. And I certainly hope that Hyatt will perform some maintenance in there, even though it's a lower priority for them. The same goes with the area to the west of the pool house and to the south of the parking lot. That's clearly on Hyatt's property and we would urge them to maintain it when they get their security concerns addressed. Just to add a little clarification, I believe the ball sculpture that Art had questions about earlier, there appears to be a path that comes into that from the Hyatt property. So the access to that, that public art will still be through the property. However, it's not clear to be how that pathway going to that art piece interacts with the fence. Does the fence end at the pathway? Is there going to be a gate that allows passage through the fence? It's not clear to me from the drawings how that pathway, the fence and the art piece come together there. I'm looking at sheet L3.2 right now on another. A set of drawings. Let's see. I think the timing is important that the loses that are also along the fence and whatever is selected and an alternative to the pyrocantha go in as soon after the fence phase as possible because as we've all noted, this is a large and pretty visible fence. Even though it's black, it will disappear into the landscape. Eight feet is pretty substantial. And then finally at the westerly end of the proposed fence location on the diagrams with the blue and pink, it shows the fence going around the pool house yet on the drawings. It shows the new fence going into the side of the pool house. Could somebody clarify that for me? Yes, thank you. Thank you, Charles. I did notice that when we were looking at it, the diagram is not correct. This one here on 3.1 is correct. We are gonna maintain the existing fence location on this west side. So it will come in and meet the pool building the way it's shown here. The diagram with the blue dash came out wider and we're not gonna do that. We're gonna keep it on the fence. So sorry that those two are not matching up that area. And while you're on page, can you address the access to the ball art area? It does appear at the other end, it does appear that a path goes in there but I'm not clear in how the fence relates to the path. Yeah, that's right. So right now the proposal does not have a gate going into that area. Monet, can you just go to the next page, please? Thank you. So it doesn't have a gate in there. We could add a gate back in and maintain that path there to allow access if that's so desired. I could also say that the Hyatt would invite the city to prepare some plans and some improvements in that area to provide a path from the greenway. However, that's gonna be pretty tricky because it would probably need to be ADA compliant and it's a pretty steep slope going up to that art piece. So we could put an access gate in this rounded part of the fence. We hadn't anticipated that at this point but could add that in if so desired. In the drawing that's up it appears that the fence ends at a corner of the pathway. Does it tie into any other fence or? So that's not a path actually. That is, it's a tall water wall. It's probably 15 or 20 feet high. So it's just gonna hit into that existing water wall. All right, got you. So art's conclusion that there won't be access to that art piece is probably correct at this point without the city providing a new access from the greenway. Right, you can kind of come in off of the greenway but it's on a dirt path, it's not a formalized path and you could also come in from the parking lot up high. That's actually probably where there would be an easier way to access that art piece would be to have a flat path coming in off of the parking lot. But yes, art is right in that the proposed fence is cutting off access to that art piece right now. Thank you. Are there questions by committee members? Okay, I have a few. Where to start? Is all the art visible from the public pathway after the landscaping is installed? I would say no. Well, the piece that is on the lower middle which is a core 10 metal piece that looks like houses. Nope, in the very last row center picture. That one you cannot see now from the path. That one you can only see from the Hyatt property. The other one where is the middle, yep, exactly. That one there you can see from the path and you'll still be able to see it after the fences put in. And then the redwood sculpture which I had forgotten about until we started talking about the west side, the redwood sculpture is easily visible. And these balls, you really can't see those all too well. There's some planting there. There's an old fence you can kind of see in the middle there that's torn down. So that one, there isn't a lot of visibility from the path. So I would say two out of the four are visible today. And those same two will still be visible in the future with the proposed fence and planting. Carol, is your hand up for a question? It is, but you're on a roll, I can wait. I'm on a roll, wow, okay, let's keep rolling. Will the hotel commit to allowing members of the public to be able to go into the property? Of course, you know, depending on their right to give access under certain, let's say conditions to people who would like to see the art up close. Yes, I believe they do that today. That is how, if anyone does come to see the art, that's typically how they see it with the exception of the redwood sculpture on the west side, you can walk right by that one. But the other pieces, yes, if someone comes through the lobby, they have access to it. Okay, Carol, did you wanna ask a question about that or should I keep rolling? So I'm trying to visualize this. I am visiting Santa Rosa, I've got the art map and I assume that these pieces are on the city art map that's available for public art. And I come into the lobby and I just have free access. Do I check in at the gate? Do I check in at the front desk? I would say right now, the existing condition is that, which will be improved in the future, but if you put up a plan, Monet, that would be useful. So you can come into the lobby, you can then walk through the lobby and you come out, I wish I could show you my cursor, but if you come out where it says existing pool, yeah, go straight up. So that walkway comes out, you would turn left and go through the gate, which is right on this plan, turn right, sorry, I'm showing you my cursor, but you can't see it. So you would go right on this plan and you would come out into where it says existing garden, existing lawn. So that's where you would be able to access the sculptures. That existing garden there is one that is actually, I think that was planted by the Hyatt and some local children and if somebody from ownership can chime in on that, that would be great, but that one is open to the public now. The part where I said it gets tricky is that if you go, there's an existing gate now that doesn't go into the pool, but it goes into the garden spaces, you can readily get through that gate. Nope, not that one, Monet, back on the plan, but you can't get back out because it closes and locks automatically. So there's a gate, okay, so if you look in between the existing pool and existing garden on this plan, there's a gate, there's a fence that runs north-south between those spaces, nope, one over Monet, yes. So that is all for the pool. So that's fencing in all the pool. There's one little single pedestrian gate just north of that and that's the one that self-closes and locks. So if you were in the public and you came out to see the sculpture, you would have a hard time going back out through the lobby, but that could be fixed if all this other portion is then gated, then that gate could be a non-lockable gate at some point. But Carol, to answer your question, which I'm trying to do, but I don't really know, I don't think you have to walk up to the front desk and say, can I see the sculpture? But if you did, the people at the front desk would happily send you out and show you where it was and then you can come back and sit in the lobby and have a cocktail or a coffee and enjoy being at the Hyatt. And just as another example, so that existing garden that's there, the smaller one, that was a collaboration between a local elementary school and the chef at the Hyatt. So that was a really nice collaboration with the local community. Okay, okay, thank you. Steve, can I just follow on some of those that just was brought up by Carol? So when I went into the Hyatt, I went up to the front desk, identified myself and no problem getting access and she identified herself as the manager on duty. She was gonna issue me a card key that so I could go out, go through the gate and be able to come back in because you can go out the gate without a key but you can't get back in. So I don't know that all the art, if there was a gate put in where the spherical artwork is, you might have access one way but not the other. So I'm not sure about all that. Then the other thing, thank you, Terry for sending the brochure. So this artwork isn't on the Santa Rosa's public art pathway. So I just wanna point that out, okay? So thank you for right now. Thank you, Arthur. Just a couple of random things. The cafe sign, is there any interest in the hotel of having a cafe? Or do you, you may not know that, that's not exactly in your, probably in your plan, but... Yeah, I'm sorry, I can't answer that. I don't know the answer to that. Yeah, well, I remember when it actually opened for about a month. That was about 20 years ago, interestingly enough. Okay, what about, what is the thinking of the hotel on the parking lot area and the grape harbor there? I know you said it was to, it was really not gonna be taken on by the hotel, but I was just curious. The grape harbor meaning the vines that are over on the east side? Yeah, I mainly interested just asking a random question about what the thinking is about that parking lot area. Yes, it doesn't have any kind of, there's nothing in it in the plan regarding it. I think the thinking was that the Hyatt is very interested and securing the areas where they have the biggest issues and that's at their event lawn and in their pool. And it's impacting their business, it's impacting their ability to sell events and have successful guest experiences and it's become a safety concern. And so their number one priority is to improve those areas so that they can have successful events. We had previously wanted to have some security around the parking lot because people's cars are being broken into and valuables are stolen out of cars while they're at events. And that is a concern for the Hyatt, but right now for this plan, they're really trying to just be able to secure the areas that have the most guest interaction. Okay, thank you. Carol, did you want to comment on or ask a question about this? No, something else. I have one more question then I'll leave it to the rest of the committee for questions. Okay, right now there's the fencing is pretty, well it's at a minimum one could say porous. It doesn't fully exist in a lot of areas. And I'm just wondering what the thinking was to jump from that to eight feet rather than six feet. The Hyatt had for a very long time a six foot chain link fence. And there are not really remnants of that chain link, remnants of other types of fence. And over the years people would come and use wire cutters and cut the fence and destroy it and pull it down. And they replaced it time and time again and time and time again, it got ripped down or damaged. And so there's experience here that can be pointed to by the Hyatt that says the chain link at six feet was not successful. So one, we knew that chain link was not a material to use because they have wire cutters and they cut right through it. And so that's why we went to the picket fence and we went to eight feet because they climb easily over all of the picket fence at the pool, which is five feet. And we're just not convinced that five or six feet would do what needs to be done. Okay, thank you. Carol, would you like to follow up on a question? Yeah, I would. I appreciate the fact that the fence is being moved off of the creek. I still have great concerns about the precedent that would be set with an eight foot fence. I'll just come right out and say what I wanna say is could we do six and if six doesn't work, pop it up to eight. I know that that is totally unrealistic. So I'm not putting it out there, but to say a four foot chain link fence was easy to violate and bumping all the way to an eight foot, four inch on center steel fence is pretty drastic in my opinion. The last thing I wanted to say was having revisited the site again, again, I noticed that a lot of the existing fencing is the dark green and I found that a little less oppressive. So this is another can of worms, my apology page, but was the green considered as opposed to the black. Thank you. Okay, so to address some of your comments, one is the fence that we are getting is a manufactured fence and it comes in black and black and black, I think. I think there's only one choice. And I can recognize your comment about the green is a little bit softer. The green also goes with the existing architecture and works nicely for the hotel and blends into the adjacent landscape. The fence project is considerably expensive and the Hyatt has put a considerable amount of money into this area. They had pool furniture that was $150,000, which was destroyed. People came in and broke the pool furniture, which was made out of wood and used it for kindling for their fires. And the rooms on the south side have been broken into. So I hear all of your concerns and I appreciate them all and how they relate to the greenway. But the issues for the Hyatt are dire and the costs that they've put into this part of the property have been considerable. So the fence being black is a color that is acceptable in the design guidelines. And so we went with black because it's something that's gonna come from the manufacturer and be finished. You can always paint that but then it becomes an issue over time with maintenance and it's just not as durable as selecting something off the shelf and that's what we were trying to do because there are areas that are going up and down a slope. The other thing that I should mention is that the chain link fence was not four feet, it was six feet and it was easily climbable. And the area where we're proposing to put in the eight foot fence already has a 10 to 12 foot high arbor, which you can see in the distance so that arbor is going around the pool and then there's another one that's even taller over by the event space. So there's already a precedent on site and the middle picture as well down on the bottom there, Monet, thank you. The middle picture there has a trellis that's in the greenway, which is taller than eight feet, taller than 10 feet. And this fence would be behind that. So I think there are a lot of areas here where there's already an existing condition with something that's actually taller than eight feet. So I just wanted to bring that point up. Thank you, Paige. Any remaining questions by committee members before we open it up to public comment? Thank you for your questions, by the way, committee. Steve, I do actually have one more of a point of clarification. As of right now, from the waterways committee, it goes directly to an administrator that we are the only board with the city of Santa Rosa who will ever be reviewing this project. So the fence will go to the zoning administrator for decision. He's a one person, he's not the board, only one person will make a decision and we'll send a notice to neighbors within 600 feet. So anyone from the public also can attend the meeting and forward comments. Does that answer the question? Yeah, it kind of one stop shopping for us. I feel a lot of responsibility for this project that on other things has been shared by other committees that we do not have this time. So I have one more question, I guess. In the design review guidelines for Santa Rosa Creek, it states that four foot tall fences are preferred with six being the maximum height allowed above finished grade, redeemed appropriate by the city. So I'm wondering, and I'm not asking a specific person about this, but how do we look at that? It's in a city council approved set of design guidelines. Well, I think we look at it as being 25 years old and we have a homeless population that is significantly different than it was back then. Is there anyone from the city staff who could enlighten me about how I design guidelines? So what I can say is that this is a design guidelines, like zoning code mentions, this is the allowed height, but design guidelines just as a providing guidelines.  So we look at the guidelines and use them, but I don't believe we can enforce that guidelines. Okay, thank you, Mani. Thank you. Is there anyone from the public who would like to speak? We're not taking public comment. Is there anybody out there, Kimberly? I don't see any hands. Sometimes we like to give a moment or two for people to find the raised hand on there. So we have also a caller. If our caller would like to make a public comment, please press star nine on your phone and that will raise your hand and I can get your sound enabled. And I still don't see any. Those additional attendees might be additional members of our applicant team as well. Okay, thank you. So I'm going to go around and just ask people to make their comments, but I'll do it a little randomly. Why don't we start with Mark? Okay, well, I do appreciate the fact that they have withdrawn the fence back to and resulted in less disruption, less linear feet of this fence. I share the same concerns about the eight foot height. That just seems really high to me. The art in public spaces is kind of funny. It's hard to call this a public space when it's got this huge fence around and they have to go through the lobby to get there. I'm not sure what qualifies as a public space, but that seems like it's kind of a stretch. I'm wondering if maybe there's some need to relocate it or move it in some way that it can remain more open and more visible to the public. And I just want to say, I understand the hotel's concerns, but I just think maybe that they need to up their security game a little bit onsite. Perhaps there's things they could do internally to control this kind of thing without impeding onto the people's enjoyment of the creek there. So a couple of little things. I'm glad the tree can stay as a minor thing, but it's good to keep it. I think the pyrocanthus is a problem.  It's going to go out into the neighboring area, which includes the creek right next door. Maybe there's some other more protective kind of plant thing come up with the pyrocanthus. And that's pretty much my comments on the project as it stands. Thank you. Charles. Well, I think Mark captured most of my sentiments on this project. The only thing that I might suggest, and Amy tell me if I'm out of line here, but is it possible the project should go to the art and public places because of its effect on these public art pieces that may or may not be included in the city's list of public arts? But anyway, just a question. I think we've essentially been asked even though we're not a design review committee weigh in on a design review matter because it so severely affects the greenway. And I think we've given pretty good direction. I share the committee members' concerns about the eight foot fence, probably not at the same level. I think based on the photos and being on site and the amount of mature vegetation and other structures around that the fences, and if the landscaping is installed prudently, the fences will tend to disappear even at the eight foot length. And it may be landscape architecture dogma, but Tommy Church said never make a green fence, a black fence always disappears better. So I'm okay with the black color. And I think that sums up my comments on this. Thank you. Carol. Charles, I really appreciate you weighing in as a landscape person. This is really a complicated project as far as I'm concerned, lots of issues that are larger than our normal scope and the fact that it is not going to design review or art in public places or any other committee that we're it is a daunting responsibility. And seriously, I don't know if there's an option to have this reviewed by another board to get another opinion. Charles, you're it as far as the landscape architecture. That's huge. The rest of us don't have the same scope of knowledge. I share the native plans. I would like to see something other than pyrocantha. I question the protocol of an eight foot fence. I had visions of Ford. You can have any color you want as long as it's black. And I can appreciate that. I am not totally dismissing the needs of the Hyatt. I just think that this is a pivotal project. What I hope is the reemerging community asset which is the Greenway. And this is a very important piece and a very important decision that we have to weigh in on. Thank you, Caroline. Kevin. Yes, thanks. Thanks, Paige, for your time today and thanks, Terry, for being here as well. I applaud the move of the fence in response to comments last month. It looks like it's nicely designed. I'd love to see the pyrocantha become something else that has a similar function, something else prickly. But it'd be nice to not see that pyrocantha non-native spread in that area. I think we're having a bigger conversation about beautifying the Prince Memorial Greenway, I think, which is great. And this committee has had a lot of conversations in that regard lately. And I salute that and want to continue to see what we can do to beautify this section and keep it well maintained. And if that means capital projects are needed or whatever, I would support the Waterways Committee working on that. For now, I think given the need of the Hyatt to secure its property and conduct business and encourage guests to have a great stay, which I think is a big part of, you know, hospitality is such a big part of what we do in Sonoma County and such a big part of our economy as well, that I think the need for the fence, I think, seems to be pretty clear. I'm okay with the height. I think it's reasonable. Given that it's been six feet in the past, it's been so routinely cut or climbed, et cetera. So I think it sounds like it's pretty nicely planned. Now, the only other thought I have is to, if there is a chance, I mean, I envision a beautified Prince Memorial Greenway with a thriving public presence on that walkway. And if that's the case, at some point a Hyatt guest gonna wanna walk through a gate and take their afternoon jog along the Prince Memorial Greenway. If that's the case, certainly they can walk around and access it. But if there's a gate that would be open to the trail that might not be used now, but might be available for the future, I would support that as well. So that's it. Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. How about you, Arthur? Kimberly, am I able to share a screen to put up some pictures? Yes, you should be able to. There's a green icon at the bottom. As a panelist, you are able to. Okay, so I have actually quite a few pictures. Is it showing up here? Is my picture showing up? It is. Okay, so there's a whole set of them. So I don't wanna talk about each one of them. So of course, this is our spear. This is how you get up to the spear from the pathway. What I wanna note on this is this is where there's remnants of fence. It's kind of hard to see, but this is wire fencing and really flimsy poles. And this is what's there right now. So I wanted to point that out. There you can see it again. So I'm not sure if this is the chaining fence that was being discussed as previous or not. These are eight foot tall around the spherical artwork. They're open, it's not fenced. I'm not sure what the function of it is. The trellis. And then right, and we didn't talk about this, but right leading into the spherical ball artwork is this water wall, absolutely, really gorgeous. But it's not really, I don't know, it doesn't seem like it's much enjoyed by a guest because of other issues. The balls, again, so then I wanna point out that the signage on this is, most of it isn't readable. This is coming up. This is the Santa Rosa problem. Again, this is here and there's actually a neighborhood watch sign and the signage isn't being maintained by the city. So I'm not sure what's going on with that. And then along the eastern side, as you walk up from the greenway along the eastern side of the Hyatt, this is an eight foot fence, an eight foot gate. And this is that green color I think that Carol was talking about. It was unlocked, there's a chain that goes over it, but this is just an idea of the eight foot fence that's there. And then this is where, I suppose this is probably the trash enclosure. So this is six foot. And then this is looks like to be about eight foot. So that's kind of the difference in the fencing. So that's, I just wanted to kind of go through that so I could further discuss, I stopped sharing the screen. First, I fully support the Hyatt needs to maintain security. And having all the problems they did, this understates the failure of the city to provide that kind of security from their side of the property. So there's a failure there by the city that I know is almost an intractable problem, but there it is. I'm kind of not sure what the evidence is between being able to scale a six foot fence and being able to scale an eight foot fence. Because if you have a chain link fence, you just put your toes in the links and you can climb over it no matter how tall it is. But on a fence that has these clear poles, those aren't easy to scale. So when I looked at this whole thing yesterday, I got to wondering about what it's like to be on the other side in the Hyatt and looking out at an eight foot fence. And then the actual utility of the two foot difference of that actually makes a difference. And I'm kind of thinking it doesn't. But what I got to thinking about is why, and Kimberly, if you could pull up the site map again with the red and the blue proposed and put that up. I can put that up. We will share it just give me a second. I'm sorry. No, it's okay. I expect so much out of you Kimberly. Sorry for that. Yeah, that one. So the upper right, yeah. So what I got to thinking about was there there is no deterrent from the pathway up into the Hyatt. There's none at all into the vegetation. And so I got to thinking, well, why don't we have a fence down there where it's proposed? And why couldn't that be like a post in rail, simple three foot fence that went all around there that provides right away a small visual deterrent but also a visual deterrent. And then if they climbed that and they went up they would run into the six foot one that I think you can have the point of spikes on. Because like it's been said by Charles and others and the vegetation is probably gonna overgrow that. And I think you pretty much have settled your access issues. So I'm just throwing that out there because the eight foot fence is kind of bothersome to me too especially look at the long-term plan for this greenway if we ever get some of these problems resolved. The other thing is I'm really concerned about that the spherical artwork that looks like it'll just be completely cut off. So I'm hoping there's a solution that could be found for that. And then I'm also hoping that we can figure out the maintenance, just maintaining trash and signage and things that happen from flooding or whatever. And then where Santa Rosa water fits I think the whole thing needs to be re-explored and then seeing where the private piece comes in. And then last is as Carol brought up since we do have artwork that's associated here it seems like the artwork's being lost because of this public private piece here. And I really think it's lost by the artworks being lost by the city and it's gonna be lost even further. And somehow I think we have to bring that back in and if that means it somehow goes before that other committee or not but that's my I'm recommending that to the zoning administrator that they take a look at that. Okay, so essentially I think there's alternatives to the eight foot fence. I think we could put in a smaller fence more attractive and meets the creek guidelines down at the base. And those are my comments, thank you. Thank you, Arthur. Okay, first of all, thank you for a couple items. Taking it from the location of the fence was at first I think is positive and having a square top I think is positive. So the alignment issue to me is that was something I appreciate. And I think we all appreciate the challenges of the hotel and recognize that there's a problem there with that interface. But a lot of that problem comes from isolation. That area on the public side is isolated. The only ways to get in and out are, they're just a few in that location. And so I think that we really need to enhance public presence, public access and make the area desirable for the general public. So we then will minimize the isolation that is there which attracts certain people. So in getting to my recommendations, I still think a six foot fence is the most appropriate with a square top there. I think it should be, I don't see how an eight foot fence is going to really solve the problem more than the six foot. I know it's two extra feet, but I don't really think that that's really gonna make or break this. And I think the green color makes total sense to me. Thank you Carol for bringing that up. I think it further creates a feeling of isolation, both whether you're standing outside the hotel or inside the hotel property, if you have an eight foot fence. I also worry a little bit about the landscaping and becoming a part of creating more of a buffer there, if a separation I should say, we need to have clear vision between the hotel and the creek. That's something we look at in every single project we review to have eyes on the creek because that's extremely important to helping with making sure that whatever happens on the creek side is seen. And again, not feeding into that whole issue of isolation. So I think the landscaping should be thought of in those terms as well. The committee for the Art and Public Places committee recommendation does make some sense to me, at least having a referral to them because this does have some impact on accessibility and visual connectivity to the art pieces. But that gets me to the more of the big picture here that has been alluded to. This is more than just a fence. It's a question of how do we integrate the creek environment, the paths, the public areas along to the hotel property. And both are, I think, suffering from the current situation. It's obviously not a, it's a degraded environment, I might say, whether it's the plaza area we're talking about, which was meant to be a place where people would gather, hold events possibly. It is really degraded. It's blighted. The landscaping is on its own, hasn't done very well. It could be so much more beautiful. We could make this a place of beauty. We could make it a place that the community wants to come. And I think we're turning people away. I talk to many people who say, well, I used to come down there, but I don't feel comfortable down there anymore. And that's a problem. And it's a problem for the city. It's a problem for the hotel. So I think what we really need to do is establish a process of working together to come up with a plan for the maintenance and the upgrading of that area. And I would suggest that be part of our recommendation that that be created by both the city and the, and who, well, could be the water agency as well, but the city, along with the hotel owners and representatives, because I think that's what we really need to do. This is not just about a fence. So that is my comment. Anybody want to say anything else or have we covered it? And that was really well said, Steve. I really appreciate you packaging that information. Thank you, Carol. So Amy, have we left you with a clear idea of what we are going to move forward with in terms of your comments or do you have any questions of us? I don't have any questions. So what I did is I took notes from both meetings on your comments and then I'll send this to the chair and the vice chair to have you both review. And then we'll obviously be working with Monet to carry this forward and we'll check in with you on the next steps that this project moves forward to. Yeah, and if we could know when the meeting, when the decision will be reached as well by the zoning administrator, that'd be great. Who is the zoning administrator now? So the zoning administrator is a staff member. So right now it's Andrew Triple. Okay. And is that on the website, those kind of meetings? I don't really think I ever see that. You said it is a public meeting. They are. So they're held in the same fashion that we hold this committee and it's held twice a month. So every other Thursday. Oh, gee, I never knew that. Okay. There's a lot of, it's a minor projects that go to that authority. And there is an opportunity for staff to elevate beyond zoning administrator in certain circumstances. Could we get an email for when that meeting takes place and perhaps the link to join in not as a panel is just as a member of the public. Absolutely. We'll make sure to send you the patient. Thank you so much. Hey, sorry, Amy, I have to interrupt you. I'm just trying to share the screen here for our zoning administrator meetings similar to Waterways Advisory Committee. So we have a board, when we go under planning commission, board and committees, we also have zoning administrator. And they are the dates that we have the meeting. And the next one, for example, is on March 3rd. And if you click on the zoning administrator meeting link here, it will take you to that date and what items are scheduled for the specific dates. Oh boy, learned something every meeting. Thank you, Monet. Welcome. I never knew that. And thank you to all involved, all the staff, the applicant for doing your best to answer all of our challenging questions. And the committee, I can't tell you how proud I am to be a part of this group. You guys are great. And we bring up all kinds of issues that are pertinent. And it's just a really wonderful group of people. So I thank you all. And unless I hear that there is any other thing that we need to discuss, I am going to move to adjournment. Well, thank you all for being here. And all later. Well, Steve, still, yeah. And I guess Amy left, but I'd be interested in seeing the memo after you in order through with it, whatever goes to the zoning administrator. And I think maybe the rest of the committee might be also. We'll make sure. The memo that Amy Lyle has prepared, are you asking for that? Yes. Okay. Okay. I will make sure to share your work. I will talk to Amy. That's a good point. I'm not involved with it. I don't think Steve is involved with it. We never see it. Well, I thought Amy said she would send it to you for review before it went to the zoning administrator. So if I'm mistaken, sorry. Well, no, maybe she said that, I mean, we don't typically see anything on the recommendations. We never see that. Yeah. I got the sense that because our comments were so important and varied that she wanted to summarize them well for the administrator. That's a good point, Arthur. We could discuss that maybe at the next meeting if you want to bring it up. Okay. But yes, Charles will make sure that the committee recommendations are sent to all the committee members. Anything else before we adjourn? I just wanted to thank everybody for being patient with the new girl and thank all of you for your time. There was nothing new about you. There was no glitches or anything. You're great. I think you've done this before, Kimberly. Yeah. What an important exchange of information and ideas and compassion today. And Monet, we hope we see you again in front of the committee. He'll see me. Thank you. Have a great day, everyone.


Hello everyone, welcome to Options with Doug, streaming live daily on Bookmap Discord and the Bookmap YouTube channel at 1.30pm Eastern Time. Before I get started, I need to go through the Disclosures. General Disclosure. All bookmap limited materials, information, and presentations are for educational purposes only and should not be considered specific, investment advice, nor recommendations. Trading futures, equities, and options involve substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Here's my contact information. The best way to get in touch with me is through Discord. My name on Discord is Doug P. Also on Bookmap Discord, there's an options-dash-duck-chat channel that's a great place to post questions, comments, and content related to the topics of my presentation and the topics of the channel that I'll go through in just a moment. And note that Bookmap Discord is free and available to everyone, whether you subscribe to Bookmap or not. There's a lot of great content there on a variety of topics, asset classes, as well as languages. I'm also on X, formerly known as Twitter. My name there is at Doug Pless. The focus of my presentation today and the focus of the options-dash-duck-chat channel is options order flow, the impact of options markets on stocks and futures, and the influence of marketmaker hedging flow on price action. I have a two-step process for trading and the first is planning. And I use positional analysis. I look at how traders and market makers are positioned in the options market and how those positions changed from day to day to develop a thesis regarding the expected trading range and volatility for the day, as well as the directional bias. And the second step in my process is execution. I look at real-time motor flow and Bookmap and real-time marketmaker hedging flow and spot gamma hero to confirm my thesis and for setups for entries and exits. Questions and comments are welcome and I will be watching both the options-dash-duck-chat channel and Discord as well as the chat and YouTube for your questions and comments. Please feel free to post. I'll do my best to answer your questions. And hello, Don. Welcome. Glad you're here. All right. Here's my agenda for today, Wednesday, January 31st. First of all, I want to go over news items, economic data, events, and earnings for today as well as the rest of the week. And then I'll go through my positional analysis, then I'll review some setups from earlier today, and then we'll take a look at the live market. And of course, this is F1C Day. The announcement is at 2 p.m. I'll stop whatever I'm doing at 2 p.m. And we'll take a look at the live market. And hello, Stephen. Welcome. Glad you're here. All right. So let's start with news items, economic data, events, and earnings. And there were some data releases this morning, somewhat market-moving. First of all, the ADP Employment Report came out at 8.15 a.m. Eastern time. That came in lower than expected, lower than previous. Also the Treasury announced their quarterly refunding. And then this employment cost came in lower than forecast, lower than expected. And then finally, Chicago PMI also came in lower than forecast, lower than expected, and below 50, so still indicating contraction. All right. So some market-moving data this morning. And of course, the big event again for the week is the F1C meeting. Let me just refresh this page. All right. This is the expectations for this meeting today, January 31. Note the current target rate, 525 to 550 basis points. Right now there's an almost 96% chance that rates are unchanged and about a 4% chance of a rate cut of 25 basis points. That was at 2% yesterday. All right. So that's at 2 p.m. The press conference begins at 2.30 and that I'll wrap up my webinar at that time. But I will cover the announcement. All right. For the rest of the week, and also note that AMD, Google, Microsoft, all reported earnings after the market closes. And if we have time, we'll take a look at the results for those earnings reports. Tomorrow, 10 a.m., there's more PMI data. And then after the market closes, Apple, Amazon, and Meta, all report earnings. Then Friday at 8.30 a.m. Mr. Time is the jobs report and at 10 a.m., Michigan Consumer Sentiment. All right. Let's move on to positional analysis now. This is the S&P 500 futures. Oops. That's a NASDAQ. Let's go back to S&P 500 futures and book mount, ES futures. Before I take a closer look at this chart, I do want to take a look at the underlying index, SPX, and a larger time frame. We'll go through this quickly. This is the SPX one-day chart. That rally began October 30th last year, found some resistance at 4,800, broke out of that range on Friday, January 19th, options expiration, moved up to 4,900 above that level, and found resistance at 4,900. All right. So that's a one-day chart. Let's take a look at another chart. I'm going to go to a 30-day one-hour chart. So here's the resistance at 4,800, the break out on Friday, the 19th, options expiration. Here's the 4,900 level, acting as resistance, and then on Monday, on news, there was a break out above that level, and now SPX is trading back below that level. Primarily based on the earnings reports from yesterday afternoon. All right. Let me point out the levels on this chart. First of all, the dash purple lines are showing the lower and upper weekly expected move. That's based on the options market. I update that once a week. The dash blue lines showing the lower and upper daily expected move. Also based on the options market, SPX trading below that lower daily expected move. All right. The dark red lines are showing spot gamma levels. These are proprietary spot gamma levels provided to subscribers. They're shown on a variety of trading platforms. This is thinkorswim. I'm going to point out the key daily levels. First of all, there's the put wall at 4,500. That's a strike with the largest net negative gamma that can be expected to act as support. The next level up is the volatility trigger at 4,775. That spot gamma is proprietary gamma volatility flip level. Below that level, market makers position on the gamma curve is negative. In a negative gamma environment, they have to trade with price to hedge their delta exposure that tends to enhance or increase volatility. On the other hand, above that level, like SPX is trading now, market makers position on the gamma curve is positive. In a positive gamma environment, they have to trade against price to hedge their delta exposure. That tends to subdue or decrease volatility and know that SPX is trading well above that level. That volatility trigger did shift lower from yesterday. It was 4,865, so a pretty significant shift lower for the volatility trigger. The next level up is 5,000. That is the call wall. That's a strike with the largest net positive gamma can be expected to act as resistance. That's also the absolute gamma strike. That's a strike with large absolute positive and negative gamma. That's where most of the gamma weighted open interest is concentrated. Pretty wide range there from 4,500 potential floor to 5,000 potential ceiling. I mentioned before the volatility trigger shifted lower and all other levels remain the same from yesterday. No changes. Then finally, let's take a look at one other chart for SPX. This is a one minute chart showing three days worth of data. Here's that breakout above 4,900 on Monday, big consolidation yesterday, and then gap lower and now SPX trading above the low of the day but still below the lower daily expected move and also below 4,900. All right. Let's take a look at book map. On book map, I have my own cloud notes, so I can show SPX levels. There's the SPX 4,900 level. I can also show SPI levels. There's the SPI 487 volatility trigger, and then here's the lower daily expected move for ES. It's a little bit different than SPX. All right, note there is a difference in price between ES and SPX. But somewhere between 24 and 25, maybe 24.5 would be more accurate. I'm using 24, so when I looked this morning, when I posted this on Discord, it was closer to 24, so that's what I'm using. So I'm showing SPX 4,900 at ES 4924. So note now that price is oscillating up and down around this 487 volatility trigger, and the point of control shown by the purple line is just above that. All right, that's the SP500. I talked about shifts and levels for the SPX. For SPI, the volatility trigger also shifted slightly lower, and the put wall shifted slightly higher. But no changes to the call walls or absolute gamut strikes for both SPX and SPI. All right, let's take a look at NASDAQ. So this is the Enqueue Futures and Book Map. Before I take a closer look at this chart, I want to take a look at the underlying index products. That would be QQQ and NDX. This is QQQ, a one-minute chart, 421, more or less as resistance at the open, and then 418 support. And note that QQQ is trading below some key levels here, 423 volatility trigger, 424 absolute gamut strike, and the call wall is well above it, 430. And for QQQ, the put wall did shift higher. All right, so QQQ rallying up toward the high of the cash session. All right, let's take a look at NDX. Last time I looked, there was not much to see here. So we'll take a quick look. Here's NDX. Let's zoom in on this. So no gamma levels in play for today. There are several levels below, primarily the 17,100. That is the absolute gamma strike and the call wall, and that levels have remained there for quite some time. All right, for NDX, just like QQQ, oh, the NDX, the volatility trigger shifted lower, and the put wall shifted higher, just like QQQ. All right, back to book map, NQ futures. The reversal here, right at the lower day they expected move, just above the QQQ418. So I have my own cloud notes for NQ as well. There's the QQQ420 level. No NDX levels in play. All right, looks like I'm missing a 400 label there, need to check my spreadsheet. All right, so that's NQ. We'll talk about setups in just a moment. So I talked about shifts, minor shifts in put walls and volatility trigger for NDX. All right, let's take a look now at Gamma Notional to see how market makers were positioned on the Gamma Curve at the beginning of the day. So quickly this is Gamma Notional, market makers position on the Gamma Curve at the beginning of the day for the SMB500, NASDAQ, and Russell 2000. All these numbers shifted lower from yesterday. So the SMB500, SPX, and SPY remains mildly positive in a positive Gamma environment. This indicates for an index that traders are short calls, market makers are long calls, hence the positive Gamma, and they have to trade against price to hedge their dealt exposure. QQQ shifted negative in a negative Gamma environment for an index. Gamma assumes that traders are long puts, market makers are short puts, and they have to trade with price to hedge their dealt exposure. All right, so all numbers shifted lower. Let's take a quick look at the Vana model. It is coming into play today. This is for SPX. I'm going to look at the Vana model. What this chart is showing is market makers' delta notional, their delta exposure on the vertical axis, price on the horizontal axis, there are two curves on this chart. The white or light gray shows how market makers' delta notional may change with changes in price only, and the purple curve shows how market makers' delta notional may change with changes in price and implied volatility, and that change in delta with a change in implied volatility is the Vana effect, hence the name of this chart. All right, so let's take a look at some prices now. So at the low of the day, SPX was right around $48.79, so that's right about here. So this is on this portion of the Gamma curve indicating if price falls, implied volatility drops, market makers will need to sell futures to hedge their dealt exposure. They always want to remain delta neutral, so in this portion of the Vana curve, they will need to sell futures to hedge their dealt exposure, and VIX was moving higher this morning and price was falling earlier, low of the day again right around $48.79. Let's just take a look at a quick look at VIX for today. So in the morning, up until about noon, VIX was rising, price falling, market makers were selling futures to hedge their dealt exposure. On the other hand, if price increases, market makers can buy back their short futures. So that's what's happening now in the afternoon. Price increasing, implied volatility dropping, and market makers can buy back their short futures. That's a put Vana rally. So in this case, on this portion of the Vana curve here, Gamma notional has potentially shift negative, and market makers have to trade with price to hedge their dealt exposure. So that's SPX. We'll take a quick look at SPY, SPY low of the day right around $486. So also on this left skewed portion of the Vana curve, and QQQ low of the day $418. So well up on, and remember, Gamma notional at the beginning of the day for QQQ was negative. Positive for SPX and SPY and negative for QQQ. All right, so it's really difficult to have much of a thesis for FOMC day other than looking for higher volatility. Undirectional bias really depends on the market's interpretation of the announcement and also the press conference primarily. All right, so let's take a look at some setups now from earlier today. I want to start with looking at what options traders have been doing today. So this chart is from SPOT Gamma. It is showing the hero signal hedging impact real-time options, and this chart is showing options trades and market maker hedging activity for a combined signal of SPX by XSP and ES futures. So this is what I use for the SB500. The white line is price for SPX, purple line is the hero signal. Again, hedging impact real-time options. A falling hero line indicates traders are taking negative delta positions. They are buying puts and or selling calls. A rising hero line indicates traders are taking positive delta positions. They are buying calls and or selling puts. All right, let's zoom in on this chart. I'm going to zoom in on the morning here. This is what I was looking at in trading. All right, so what this is showing is the hero signal reverses lower right at $935. Price follows, hero signal reverses higher, suddenly traders start taking positive delta positions and during this time price, the drop slowed down as traders started taking positive delta positions and then they took the foot off the gas, took negative delta consolidated again and then when they started taking, aggressively taking negative delta positions again, price dropped again right around $1030. Note the flow alert here just after $1030 indicating significant options activity and then price reverses higher right around $1035, $1040 as traders started taking positive delta positions. All right, so let's go take a look at book map. I'm going to zoom in by zoom too far. All right, here's that $930 short set up right at spy 489 secondary entry at the $4900 level as traders were taking negative delta positions. Here's that area where price slows down as traders took positive delta positions and then the hero signal leveled off, shifted lower again $1030 and traders start taking negative delta positions again. All right, note the order flow and book map here, the pink line showing cumulative volume delta dropping, also the yellow line showing sell stop orders helping to fuel the move lower with a couple of sheep sharp drops. All right, I've got about two and a half minutes left. Let's zoom back out and let's talk about this turnaround now. Note that large traders were buying with iceberg orders. They really started before 10 a.m. That's shown by the rising light blue line, also the on chart indicators, large traders buying the move down by weakness with iceberg orders. All right, let's go back to hero. I did post this in discord and at the time I posted it just around 11 a.m. This is the mag seven signal. This is combining the hero signal, options trades, market maker hedging activity for the magnificent seven stocks, Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla, aggressively taking negative delta positions and they were selling calls and buying puts. They took the foot off the gas and then price starts to move higher. Also note the hero signal for the SM500 right around 1040 shifts higher and price starts to move higher. All right, let's go back to book map now. I've got less than a minute. Give me just a moment. I'm going to pop up YouTube here, YouTube TV, watch CNBC on another screen so we can watch. So I've got about 15 seconds to the announcement. All right, so we'll watch the SM500 here and then we'll take a look at how options traders are reacting. So it looks like an initial bearish reaction. All right, so Fed leaves rates unchanged. So now the algos are parsing the statement. We'll watch this for a couple of minutes so far bearish reaction. Now ES testing the lower daily expected move. Let's see what options traders are doing. Go to hero. I'm going to zoom in on this. I'm going to go to a shorter look back period to get more clarity. Let's go to 30 minutes, see if that gives more clarity. So just looking at the last 30 minutes of data instead of the entire day, this is showing that traders started taking negative delta positions just after one o'clock. And now that accelerated lower. One other thing that I wanted to take a look at today, I'm going to go back to think or swim, take a quick look. This is what's driving the market today. Based on the earnings from AMD, Google and Microsoft, large cap tech, negative. This is what's driving the market lower. These stocks were apparently a price for perfection as they say on CMBC. So the Fed said they mentioned the possibility of changing rates will assess data outlook and risk before change. So nothing new there. Fed remains data dependent. There's been a lot of speculation about cutting rates in March. I think that's too far out to look at. There's a lot of data that comes out between now and March. So options traders continue to take negative delta positions. Let's take a look at NASDAQ. All right. So initially a bearish reaction. Let's go see what options traders are doing again. Check the MAG7. Note that the MAG7, they started taking negative delta positions. Looks like around 120. Let's check the NASDAQ signal. This is combining NDX and QQQ. Pretty choppy. So for NASDAQ, I've found this signal provides a lot more clarity than MAG7. Let's go back to ESB500, go back to book mount. So for ES, support around the lower daily expected move, 486 and ES4900. So it looks like there might have been some changes to the statement that was released. Economy remains strong. Let's go back to HERO. Now traders buying the dip, starting to take positive delta positions and price moving higher. That may just be a pullback. Let's go back to book mount. One thing that I did want to take a look at is the stocks that reported earnings yesterday. Let's go to AMD. So this is two days worth of data. So this is yesterday. After the earnings reported, after the close yesterday. And then basically AMD has been working its way back higher. Let's take a look at Google. Actually before I do that, let's take a look at, let's go back to HERO. Take a look at HERO for AMD. I'm going to switch back to the one day look back period. So you can see traders were taking positive delta positions, multiple flow alerts at the low of the day, helping to move AMD higher. I'm not going to separate outputs and calls. That causes too much problems. But I looked earlier today. Traders were buying calls and selling puts. Market makers take the opposite side of that. So they have to buy stock to hedge their delta exposure. So traders definitely buying the dip in AMD. Let's take a look at Google and not so much with Google, an opposite reaction. Traders taking negative delta positions. Google moves lower. Again timely flow alerts. Let's go to book map. Take a look at Google. So here's yesterday. Big gap down after the earnings report. And then Google now trading down around 141, the low of the move down yesterday afternoon. And finally Microsoft. Yesterday regular trading hours, wrong tool. Regular trading hours up and down after reporting earnings. Now Microsoft heading back down toward the lows. Let's see what options traders are doing. Then we'll go back to the SB500. So Microsoft, they're taking negative delta positions again. Hero falling. Again timely flow alerts indicating significant options activity. All right let's go back to the SB500. And I'm going to go back to the 30 minute look back period. So I'm just looking at the last 30 minutes of data. Again right around 120, traders started taking negative delta positions. And there's been some up and down in hero. But still continuing the trend lower. Still making lower highs. But it looks like now price may be consolidating. Let's go back to book map. Go back to the ES. Let's take a look at NASDAQ. All right so NASDAQ remember low of the day was right around 286. That was the lower daily expected move. NASDAQ trading now above that. So after the announcement ES made a new low of day NASDAQ did not. Go back to NASDAQ, let's go back and see what options traders are doing. So now it looks like for the SB500 hero signal may be shifting higher. Let's take a look at this is the purple line showing all trades all expirations. Let's see what the zero DTE traders are doing. Traders with options that expire today that is shown by the green line. I'm going to go back to the one day look back period so we can see what portion of the trade has been zero DTE for the for the day and looks like a pretty large portion. So what this is showing this notional value notional value for the green line 735 versus the all expirations 918 so a pretty large portion of the options trades today have been in options that expire today zero DTE yes Caesar says no one doing a thing it looks like but also looks pretty empty empty probably waiting for 230 yeah I agree so the remember the expectation for the Fed to leave rates unchanged was about 96% today so the the outcome of was already known pretty much or expected and the Fed did what's expected now I you know they're parsing the algos and news outlets parsing the statement I you know I certainly don't have time to do that while I'm on the air but you know the big move will come depending on what Jerome Powell says at 230 since again the the outcome of the statement was already known in advance pretty much leaving rates unchanged all right so a good bit of the trade today has been in in zero DTE all still positive positive delta notional for the day all right let's zoom back in turn that off go back to 30 day a 30 minute look back period all right what what does everyone want to see let me know you want to look at more stocks continue looking at the S&P 500 is anyone trading this so mag 7 signal now starting to move higher well when we zoom out a little bit it still looks like it's making lower highs and triathlon trader asked me if I review hangs hang sing no I don't is that the Hong Kong index right so if no not I do not all right so mag 7 hero signal continues to move lower yeah I just I'm focused on the US market the the futures I I trade I look at our ES and NASDAQ and then these are the stocks that I focus on primarily large cap tech mag 7 stocks plus AMD and Netflix and thank you uncle says a great job reviewing everything today all right so the hero signal continues lower for for the mag 7 turning lower for the NASDAQ that combines in DX and and QQ Q now back to the SB 500 overall options traders still taking negative delta positions starting around just after 1 p.m. Easter time about an hour before the announcement let's go back to book map NASDAQ finding resistance at QQ Q4 20 also VWAP just above that that's the light blue line Caesar asked how long have I been a day trader I started using book map in 2019 and that was really my my beginning of day trading I I've always used book map for for day trading let's go back to ES now spy 487 volatility trigger resistance then again maybe finding supported the lower day the expected move so overall ES trading in a pretty narrow range here all right uncle wants to zoom out to see the liquidity around 5k all right so this I'm gonna have to zoom pretty far all right is this what you're so there you go uncle I that's that's pretty far out of range out of play let's zoom back in now I consider the consider the underlying index products all right triathlon trader says that is actually 4890 also says doesn't look there look like much support until 4877 so we can go take a look at that all right so the way I look at support and resistance is based on the underlying index products SPX and spy so note there if you're looking at liquidity for ES there is a band of liquidity right around spy 485 note that this level 4868 was noted as support in the spot gamma am founders note and the next level below that at 4850 also at this level and that's where those are levels where the market makers may be expected to act as they may be changing their hedging causing these levels to act as support right so I'm looking more at the underlying index products for longer-term support and resistance all right so stepping back a little bit initially ES making kind of a series of higher lows now that reversed making a series of lower highs let's go back to heroes see what options traders are doing and hero whoops wrong tool moving slightly higher price moving lower press conference in about four minutes one thing that I like to take a look at is on this indices chart let's see where it is I look at this combo chart so what that's just showing is call gamma positive gamma above the zero line the zero line right here note all the positive gamma above around 4900 that's a strike right here then not much below not much put gamma below so if price starts to move lower there could be a if price starts to move below there could be a scramble for puts all right triathlon trader says oh why do you use spy and spx for resistance as opposed to ES well you you don't need to have a subscription to for data for for spy for example but the gamma weighted open interest that well the basic reason why I'm doing this looking at the underlying index products is because I believe that when traders buy and sell puts and calls in SPX and spy market makers will hedge their delta exposure with ES futures so options trades and market maker hedging activity for those index products are a key driver of price for the ES futures and the same for NASDAQ especially for QQQ and to a lesser extent in DX so again that's a key driver of price action for the for ES ES is a derivative of SPX and spies just another form of SPX but SPX is the primary underlying index and the gamma weighted open interest at those levels is where market makers may have to react the levels of higher gamma weighted open interest that's where market makers may have to react and change their change their hedging so I'm always looking at ES as a derivative of SPX and those underlying levels as key support and resistance levels of course on a shorter term you and this is the advantage of book map you're looking at the the heat map and book map for these levels of higher liquidity that may may or may not act as support and resistance I look at them as magnets of price until price reacts there but longer term it's the underlying index products that I'm looking at spy and SPX for for yes and QQQ and NDX for NQ and this is why watching the hero signal is so important you know I've shown hundreds examples of traders buying calls buying and selling calls and puts and how that changes price for both stocks and futures alright it looks like the press conference is beginning starting to begin or will begin shortly I'm gonna go ahead and wrap it up I want to thank you very much for for watching thank you for your questions and comments and it should be an interesting afternoon and I'll see you tomorrow we'll talk about it tomorrow afternoon all right thanks again everyone and have a great afternoon good trading I will see you tomorrow bye