Okay, good afternoon everybody. Welcome to the 12 p.m. public portion of the closed litigation session of the August 28th 2018 meeting of the City Council. In this part of the meeting the council received public testimony thereafter the council members will move to the courtyard conference room for the closed session. I would like to ask the clerk to please call roll. Thank you. Council Member Krohn. Present. Matthews is currently absent. Chase. Brown. Here. Arroyan is currently absent. Vice Mayor Watkins. Here. And Mayor Tarras is absent. So before we have an open public comment I have a brief announcement. The City Attorney will provide a report on items listed on the closed session agenda at the beginning of the 12 30 p.m. session. Are there any members of the public who would like to speak to any items listed on the closed session agenda? Now is your time to speak. Any members of the public wanting to speak? Okay. So hearing none I will adjourn the meeting to the courtyard conference room where the council will go into its closed session. Are we ready to get started? So good afternoon. Welcome to our 12 30 p.m. session of the August 28th 2018 meeting of the City Council. And I would like to ask the clerk to please call roll. Thank you. Council Member Krohn. Here. Matthews. Here. Chase. Brown. Here. Arroyan. Here. Vice Mayor Watkins. Here. And Mayor Tarras is absent. And if the clerk could please lead us through the Pledge of Allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and through the Republic for Religious Stans, one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. At this time I'd like to have the introduction of new employees. And I'd like to invite up the director of planning, Lee Butler, to introduce his new employees. Good afternoon. Today it is my pleasure to introduce to you Oscar Soto. Oscar has 29 years of experience in the construction industry. He started out as a carpenter and eventually became a licensed general contractor. And he also has law enforcement experience. And these two skill sets are a great match for his role with us as a code compliance specialist and rental inspector. He comes to us most recently from Pajaro Valley Unified School District, where he ran the maintenance department there. And Oscar is married to his wife for 25 years and has four children. The two oldest are going to college, one of whom is playing softball and the younger two are going to St. Francis Central Coast Catholic High School, where Oscar coaches football. He also enjoys riding his Harley Davidson, the outdoors and gardening. So please welcome me and please join me in welcoming Oscar to the team. Welcome Oscar. All right. And now I'd like to invite up Mark Dettel from Public Works to introduce his new employees. Good afternoon. Mark Dettel, director of Public Works. Come on over, Jen. I have two new employees to introduce today. Next to me is Miguel Carranco. He's a solid waste worker filling an existing position. He was born in Santa Cruz and grew up in Watsonville, currently lives in Watsonville. And he was a bartender and a customer service rep, sales rep and a suspension technician. Graduated from Pajaro Valley High School, likes to watch soccer games and he plays soccer. He's an avid hiker, mountain biker, and a road biker. And he likes to travel. An interesting fact, he's been to Cuba. So that's kind of a cool fact there. Next Miguel is Janice Briesen, a parking enforcement officer. And Janice actually has been a temp for us. She started three years ago and we're happy to have her in a full-time position. She was born in the Santa Teresa area near San Jose and she's lived in Ben Lohman for the last 20 years. She's married and has two daughters at SLV High School. And a morkey, a Yorkie and multi-smixed dog named Chewie. So her past work experience, five years at Baymont in the kindergarten class as a teacher's aide. She's worked at Seagate doing freight auditing and fixed assets and RMC materials doing payroll and lucky stores for 18 years in management. What does she do for fun when she's not working? She enjoys cooking and bringing the crew's treats. That's nice to know. And spending time with the family and the friends going to the beach and art festivals. So please join me in welcoming our two new employees. Thank you. So at this time I'd like to read and recognize a few proclamations and I'll start with the proclamation declaring August as Muslim Awareness and Appreciation Month. And we have Husein Ahemen. I'll try and process it. To receive the proclamation or to say a few words?  Good afternoon everybody. Good afternoon. Vice Mayor Watkins, council members. On behalf of the Muslim community of Santa Cruz, I really want to thank you and appreciate this gesture. It's a very important one. It means a lot to our community. When I make the announcements on Friday, we usually have our service for people like, wow, this is big. So that's very, I really appreciate that. In times where American Muslims are associated with a lot of negative remarks and harassment and these positive postures will give them an encouragement that in this country, regardless of your faith, as long as you do your best, you abide by the law, you have a dream and you have a role and you have a place in this beautiful country with us. And thank you so much. Thank you. And that's so very true. Thank you. Hello. Thank you, Vice Mayor Watkins and the rest of the council. My name is Simena Usman. I'm the government relations coordinator for the Council on American Islamic Relations. What we do is that we provide free legal services to people who are experiencing any Islamophobic discrimination, hate crime, school bullying. And so to have, we've been working with the state of California and they actually were initially the ones who for the past three years have introduced this resolution to make August Muslim Appreciation Awareness Month. And so that's why we're working with several city councils and we're very thankful and appreciative for the City of Santa Cruz to also recognize this designation because it does mean a lot to the Muslim community. I mean, it's been a very trying time. But at the same time, this is where our government and our local government and our community stands firm with our community as well and that we are part and parcel and that we were truly appreciative of this. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for your work. All right. I'd like to have the mayor come in. And I'll go ahead and bring it. I'll just read a few lines from the proclamation. So where as freedom of religion holds a distinction as a cherished right and a value upon which this nation was founded. And the history of the Muslim, the history of Islam in this country dates back to before its founding or originating with African slaves who brought their Muslim beliefs with them to the Americas and who later contributed in numerous ways to the founding of the nation. Today, there are millions of Muslim Americans, both immigrant and native born of diverse backgrounds and beliefs. And I'll just move to now therefore I on behalf of the Mayor, David Terazas of the City of Santa Cruz do hereby proclaim the month of August 2018 as Muslim Awareness and Appreciation Month in the City of Santa Cruz to respectfully acknowledge the rich history, the contributions and guiding virtues of Muslim Americans to command all Muslim communities in California for their lasting positive impact that they have made toward the advancement of our state and country and to extend to them the respect and the camaraderie every American deserves. So thank you very much. Any other any comments from council? Okay, we'll move right along to the next presentation in proclamation, which is the proclamation declaring September as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. And we have Ishtar Carter from educational outreach director from Jacob's heart here. So Vice Mayor, thank you so much for having us today and all the council members. Jacob's heart, thanks you all so much for your support. We exist to improve the quality of life for the families with children who are challenged by childhood cancer. And I ask you all to join me in wearing a gold pin for the month of September on your envelopes. And I also hope to see some of you in your families at our upcoming events. I gave you guys some flyers. We have Kid Rages in Watsonville, September 23rd. And we will be out there celebrating many of our families who are with us and also those who we have lost. I also have with me today one of our Jacob's heart family members who will say a couple words. I'd like to introduce Moises. Hi, my name is Moises Ventilla.  And I'd like to compare this to being like a game show contestant. And you're invited to a game show you did not want to be a part of, who wants to be a parent of a child with cancer.  And if you were ever contested on that show, you would know that there's always a lifeline. You can call on somebody. You can connect with the audience or whatever. And groups like Jacob's Heart has been there as a lifeline. And I will tell you, without that lifeline, without that emotional support, without some of the financial support that Jacob's Heart and groups like them offer, parents like me wouldn't make it through. I was a bank manager before all this. And now I'm switching to become a software engineer. It gives me a little bit more opportunity and freedom to kind of schedule my own time so I can spend more time with my family. And I want to thank you for recognizing this month and being aware that childhood cancer does occur. It could hit you and you just don't know. And I didn't know I was working six days a week as a bank manager. And I didn't see it coming, but it came. And you'd love to have somebody like Jacob's Heart around. So thank you so much for recognizing it. So before you sit down, I have a proclamation to present you on behalf of the mayor if you are up for it. So I'll just also read a few lines from the proclamation. So whereas the character of our community is revealed in how we treat our most vulnerable, and each year one in 285 children in our community are diagnosed with cancer. And whereas cancer remains the leading cause of death by disease among children, more than asthma, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, congenial anomalies, and AIDS combined. And the families and children with cancer in the city of Santa Cruz receive essential services from Jacob's Heart Children's Cancer Support Services, a local organization that has gained national awards and recognition for improving the quality of life of hundreds of children with cancer and thousands of family members. And now, therefore, I, on behalf of Mayor David Tarazes of the city of Santa Cruz, do hereby proclaim the month of September 2018 as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in the city of Santa Cruz. And I encourage all citizens to join me in honoring Jacob's Heart Children's Cancer Support Services for its 20 years about standing support to our community and acknowledging its contributions to Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, honoring children with cancer in our communities. So thank you for the work you do and for being here. Definitely a theme of how we can support each other in our communities. I appreciate that. At this time, we have a 25-year service pin recognition for Hugh Dalton, and the presenter is Rosemary Bernard, Water Director. Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor and Council. Thank you so much. And whenever I come to Council and I see one of these, it's really an impressive thing to see the kind of dedication that so many of our employees in the city have brought to their jobs year after year, doing all the things that need to be done and that often sort of go unnoticed at the general level, but then people sort of, if they stopped do them, would really notice. And I want to tell today about Hugh Dalton, who has been with the Water Department for 25 years, and he is our Water Quality Manager. And this is the person that makes sure that the water coming out of your faucet every single day is safe to drink and is high quality and meets all the regulatory requirements, which is a really complicated job and an extremely important one in our community. Hugh began his career as a chemist in our Water Quality Lab up at the Graham Hill Water Treatment Plant, and he's developed analytical methods and standards that are still in place today. So he's set a whole process for sampling and monitoring in our system that are extremely important. He was promoted to the Water Quality Manager in 2008 and he brought his extensive experience in laboratory procedures to making our lab one of the nationally acknowledged and accredited labs for environmental labs, which is extremely important. He's brought in and trained many employees in these methods to make sure that there's consistency across our whole operation. They gave me a list here of just a sampling of the kinds of techniques and monitoring requirements that he meets. There are 18 on the sampling, so I'm not going to read them all to you, but you can notice that they're on everything from bacteriological to chemicals to starting up our various facilities like the belt treatment system, so those things all have to be monitored and operate within. Someone used to tell me, we operate in water quality or in the water drinking water business in a zero-defect environment, which is a pretty darn impressive thing when you think about what we do every single day and what people take for granted. Hugh's a champion of the water department and also the Citywide Safety Program, so he has really contributed in our organization to us having a very vibrant safety program that we're really proud of and it's gotten some new energy recently as a result of his contribution and the contribution of other people who've really taken on the safety issue of employee safety and workplace safety and it's a really strong element of our organizational culture. As a manager, he was kind and supportive of his staff and is always encouraging personal and professional development. He's always willing to discuss the finer details of his complicated work and how it relates to drinking water production with anyone who asks. One of the things I saw recently that he did was a whole description of how your water heater really works and what happens when flushing happens and how to take care of all of that and it was done with the customer information in mind. It was really a great piece of work. So with all of this hard work, it's hard to believe that Hugh has any time for fun, but he does. He loves to snowboard and serve and is even known to golf. I'm told he's a home diesel maker, biodiesel maker and a terrific garlic farmer and I don't know if those two things are related in any way, but maybe they are. And he traveled to South America to visit his daughter who was studying abroad and he learned Spanish to make the trip easier. And there also are impending nuptials for him soon with a friend from high school, so that's really great. He cares really strongly about his work and this community and is dedicated a big portion of his adult life to making sure we have safe water and I'd like you to join me in thanking him and acknowledging his 25 years of service. Thank you. Thank you for your service. So I have a few announcements before we move on to our regular meeting. So today's meeting is being broadcast live on community television channel 25 and streaming on the city's website, cityofsanacruz.com. Jennifer Cameron is our technician this evening or this afternoon and I would like to thank her for her work today. All city council members can also be emailed at city council at cityofsanacruz.com. If you would like to communicate with us about an agenda item, we'd like to receive your email by Monday at 5 p.m. before our council meeting. This provides us with an opportunity to review your email and include it with the rest of our agenda packet. Please do bear in mind that all items of correspondence with the city and the city council constitute public records and are generally subject to disclosure upon request by any member of the public. Accordingly, if you have sensitive or private information that you do not wish to be made public, you should not include that information in your correspondence. Our rules of decorum are on the window ledge to my left and it's my job to keep the meeting running without disruption and we ask that you respect your fellow citizens when you are inside or outside of the chambers. At this time, I'd like to ask the council members if there are any statements of disqualification today. Hearing none. And now I'd like to ask the city clerk administrator to announce any additions or deletions. There was item 22 which is the cannabis ordinance, amendments and update was rescheduled to September 11th. Okay. So I have a brief announcement on oral communications. Oral communications is an opportunity for members of the community to speak to us on items that are not on the agenda. Oral communications will generally occur at the conclusion of the afternoon business around 5 30 p.m. but may occur before or after 5 30 p.m. Okay. And now I'd like to turn it over to our city attorney to provide a report on closed session. Thank you vice mayor Watkins, members of the city council. All of the items on this afternoon's closed session agenda were liability claims. I'm going to list them. They are the claims of Errol Hepburn, David Myberg, Glen Shank, Timothy Lowe, Charles McClellan, and Marlase Schumate. Those are also listed as item 10 on your consent calendar this afternoon. And there was no reportable action on those items in closed session. Thank you. Okay. Now's the time for our city manager report. So I'll hand it over to Martin Bernal, our city manager to update the council. Thank you mayor and council or vice mayor and council. I just wanted to do a brief update on the charter amendment committee process that you considered at your last meeting on August 14th. I actually wanted to also hand out here a we prepared an informational item for you on the work plan, but I'll do just a brief overview of that. So you'll recall that the council directed that the committee be established and you outline the membership and also the scope of work that the committee would encompass and that's up there on the screen for you. So it looked at a variety of different issues related to directly elected mayor, district elections, compensation, and a number of other items. So what staff has done is prepare a sort of work plan for your consideration. It's an informational item as requested by council. Can I pause you for just one moment? Is it possible to get that TV on or not right now? Okay perfect. Go ahead. I see the screen in front of me. Thank you. No problem. I also have copies of the... Okay perfect. Just in case. We're following along with you. Thank you. Nice to have a hard copy. Thank you very much. Well that's going... We can go ahead and follow with your hard copy here. Thank you. Okay. So with respect to the committee selection, just some dates here to note. First, each council member will directly appoint a committee member by September 7th. So I know you all are working to do that and to provide those names to my office. Then the city manager's office, those are the directly appointed by the council members. Then there's the at large, which are six members that would be appointed at large by the city council. And so we're currently, this week we'll issue the application and then we will then ask that they return applications by September 19th so that you are able to then consider those appointments on September 25th. So that's the timeline to be able to complete that by the end of next month. So those are just the committee selection process. Then with respect to the proposed work plan, and you'll see that in the FY, there's more detail there too, but essentially what we did is looked at other communities who have done similar processes to what is envisioned here in terms of reviewing the Charter Amendment and the scope of work. And developed a work plan that essentially would provide for approximately nine meetings within a final presentation to the city council at a subsequent meeting. And that would begin in October of this year with the various topics spread out over these monthly meetings. And they would go through approximately August of 2019 with the final presentation in September of 2019. So just wanted to point that out. As far as the resources that we required to support this, it would require obviously some staff time from my office, the city attorney's office, and the city clerk's office. And so that would have an impact. And so what we would do then is just to be clear about what the impact would be, which would involve potentially just extending the time frames on existing current projects. But we'll bring that back to you so you see that more clearly. So I'm happy to answer any questions with respect to the work plan. Council Member Mathews. I think it was understood when this was brought to us that it would involve some rearrangement of existing work plans. So when you come back, I hope you'll be explicit about the things that will get delayed or postponed. Is there any other questions by council? Would it be okay if we put the interviews at 7pm so people could have some sort of time certain and it wouldn't conflict with their work? Hours? I think that's when we usually do like commission interviews in the evening. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. And do we envision that process would be like when we do our appointments to our annual appointments that the council does for like commissions and things like that, like a similar process where they come and they submit applications to us. Exactly. If we want to come talk to us, they can. Exactly. And then the council votes. Right. And you'll get the materials. You'll get the materials ahead of time. Okay. But do we anticipate we would vote in that meeting or in a subsequent meeting? I believe that the intent was to make the appointments by that meeting. Got it. So the idea would be to provide you with the applications ahead of time so that you can make a decision to September 25th. But it's up to the city council. But I think the timing is, as I recall, the goal was to try to get them completed by that time frame. But if you want to have a two-step process, that's absolutely fine too. I'd actually prefer two steps. I mean, the interviews are, for one thing, not mandatory. I mean, they're very helpful. But then sometimes in the course of an interview, you see someone you want to follow up with, et cetera. So, I mean, I've had people contact me, some of whom I know quite well and others sound very promising. I don't happen to know them. So, and I think it's actually better if the appointment, if the interviews are one component of a meeting and the appointments are at a subsequent normally scheduled meeting. If that'll fit to the timeline, I agree because there's a lot of people who I know really, they reach out to us a lot via email, but they can't come to the meetings in the evening regardless of, you know, what time they are. So, I think that could be helpful. Okay. That's the preference of the council, certainly. There is no hard deadline here. I think we were just trying to meet the goal of completing the initial direction, which is try to do this by the end of September. But if having an extra couple of weeks helps with the selection process, we certainly will do that. So, okay. Are there any other further questions from the council on this item? I just have one brief question. In terms of the timeline, do you have or anticipate then in the December date to incorporate new council members appointees, or how does that fit in knowing that some of the direct appointees will, that won't change? I don't know. Did we factor that in? Right. I think we talked about it. We did talk about it, didn't we? Yes. And the direction was that the council directed appointees would be by this council and they would remain and continue. Okay. And December 11th would just be an update based on what's going on. Right? Okay. And then the council would have to, like many other items, would have to sort of catch up and brief themselves on all the other items. Sure, sure. Unless there aren't any further questions, we'll move on. Thank you. Is there anything else in your update today? No, that completes my presentation. Thank you. So that moves us to our consent agenda. First up is the consent. These are items 4 through 18 on our agenda. All items will be acted upon in one motion, unless an item is pulled by a council member for further discussion. Are there any council members who wish to pull any items? Council Member Cron. Item 8 and 9. Okay. Are there any other items that any council members would like to pull from the consent agenda? No. Okay. Okay. Are there any council members who wish to only comment on any items? Okay. So if there are any members of the public that would like to request an item or to speak to any item on our consent agenda with the exception of items pulled by council members, which include items 8 and 9, now is the time to do so. Are there any folks here who would like to speak on any of the consent agenda items other than items 8 and 9? This doesn't include the consent public hearing, right? That's right. This does not include the consent public hearing. Okay. Seeing none, I am now looking for a motion on the remaining items, with the exception of the items 8 and 9 for consent. Move approval. Second. Okay. Moved by Council Member Matthew, seconded by Council Member Chase. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. Okay. So the motion passes unanimously. With Mayor Taras's absent. I'm sorry, with Mayor Taras's absent. Thank you. Okay, so we'll now come back to the items that were pulled and that includes item number 8. So I will ask if Council Member Crohn has any comments you'd like to ask. Thank you. I really appreciate the staff bringing this forward. Martine has been monitoring this along with other folks in the city. And I think these are good things for the Council to be supporting. I would like to call to Council's attention Prop Number 3, the water bond, which is not being supported by several groups, including the League of Women Voters and the Sarah Club for many reasons. And also our Republican candidate, John Cox, supports it as well, but I just want to throw that in. And so I was wondering, evidently, it's shifting the cost of taxpayers. There's a lot of private groups involved, one in particular, that will reap tremendous benefits from this. And they were the ones who paid the bulk of the money to gather the signatures, ag interests. And I just think this is a contested sort of thing. And I don't think it's something that I think we need to look into more. Whereas the other propositions seem to be clear to me that who's supporting and who isn't. And that there are things that we should be supporting. So I just wanted to bring that in. I would ask if a friendly amendment to take three out that we don't support three, or maybe just vote on it separately. Council Member Matthews. Voting separately would be fine with me, but I see our water director lurking in the wing. So I'd like to hear. And I see this is recommended by staff. So I'd like to hear more details. Sounds great. Thank you. So Proposition 3 is quite a lot like Proposition 1 that was on the ballot four years ago, I think. And it is, but it was generated in a slightly different way. It was generated by initiative in this go around, as opposed to by the legislature putting a proposition on the ballot. As noted in the staff report, my analysis of this is that there are probably more than $3 billion of funds that would be in this available through this proposition that could directly benefit the city in a number of ways, whether it's stormwater management or its supply augmentation or its treatment plan improvements that all of these things that are on our horizon here in the next few years. I noticed from Councilmember Crohn's email that he sent to the city manager on the weekend that one of the concerns of the legal women voters is that by passing these kinds of propositions that water users won't pay their fair share of the cost of the water system. And I will tell you that our water users are paying their fair share now, all of it. We don't really have any, we don't have any federal or state funding that's mitigating any of the rate impacts that we're passing on to our customers. I think that our customers are doing a lot of really good work and we have a lot of really important work to do on our water system and the resources that will be available in this bond measure or this proposition would really help us to at least have the opportunity of mitigating some of those impacts to our rate ratepayers over time. I think that our applications for and potential use of these funds will be very done in a very public way. There'll be a lot of accountability for them and I can't speak to the how else they might be used around the state but I can tell you that we would take it very seriously and I think we have systems and checks and balances in place to make sure that if we were to receive these funds that they would benefit and that our customers would also benefit but in a fair way that everyone would get their fair share of the benefits from mitigated rate increases. Good question. How much do you think out of the 8.9 billion that's being asked to borrow or to bond? And by the way the legislative analyst office says that when you do that 8.9 billion ends up as 17.3 billion when you pay those back so 8.9 17.3 how much would Santa Cruz be receiving from that money? Well the analysis that I did in looking at the provisions of the tax or the bond measure indicate that we would have projects in the city and I don't mean just in the water department but certainly mainly in the water department that would be competitive for nearly three and a half billion of those dollars. It doesn't mean that we would get them but most of the either grant funding for things like water treatment improvements that's a very that would be a very valuable and we would aggressively pursue the opportunity to get some funding for some expected improvements to Graham Hill that we're going to be doing. I know that there are stormwater management issues certainly in supply augmentation given our schedule and the time frame this money was likely to be dispersed. Some of the supply augmentation things we would be doing could potentially be funded and those are going to be expensive also. So I think that the fact that out of the not nearly 9 billion that three and a half billion roughly of that are things that could directly benefit us we obviously didn't get all that money but we would certainly be heavily competing for resources from this pot. The last thing I'll say is I just think it's and I totally support what you're saying. I just think it's the wrong way to go. If you look at the the legislative analysis office also says that we will be paying $430 million a year and from the state budget and this is why the Sierra Club as well as the League of Women Voters are not in favor of it because we are bound to hit a recession because we've been we're one of those high highs right now economically and that money will have to be paid and it'll be competing with all the other programs that I know this council cares about in the area of social services. So I think that's one of the reasons or one of the main reasons that the League of Women Voters does not endorse Prop 3. Any other comments? Council Member Matthews. I'm very much convinced by the details that have been provided about the direct potential benefit to the City of Santa Cruz from these measures. So I will go ahead and move the recommendation for supporting all the propositions and ballot measures proposed. Second. Okay so we have a motion by Council Member Matthews and a second by Council Member Norian. Can we split Prop 3 out of the five six? That's fine with me. Okay. Consider it second. And I'll just also note that these measures were also endorsed by the League of California Cities generally. Okay. Thank you. So just for clarification could I ask is the intent to adopt two separate resolutions one dealing with all of the matters that are addressed in the current draft resolution and the other dealing exclusively with Prop 3? Yes. So I guess we should say resolution supporting statewide propositions one and two and opposing propositions five and six. And then we will separately vote on resolution supporting Proposition 3. Three separately. Okay. Thanks. Go ahead. I'm a friendly amendment. I noticed that Prop 10 was missing and I think that is something that really is of interest and I'm wondering and the City Attorney advised that maybe we bring it back on a separate agenda on September 11th. I think yeah it's not noticed let's there's time we'll bring it back. Okay. So we have two motions. The first motion by Council Member Matthews and seconded by Council Member Norian is to vote on all of the recommendations except Proposition 3. Excuse me. No. Proposition 3 and we'll go ahead and take a vote on that motion then we'll return back to the second motion. You need public comment first. Excuse me. At this time we have an opportunity for the public to speak to the Council on these items. Are there any members of the public who would like to address the Council? Council Member Brown. I have a clarifying question regarding the process for adding consideration of Proposition 10 was I just want to clarify are we asking that that Chris were you asking that that be added to the motion to direct staff to come back or was the I'm not I just want to make sure I know what I'm going I would I would suggest that that be brought forward in the form of a motion you could do that after you've adopted the resolutions. Okay. Gotcha. Thank you. So are we clear on what we're voting on for the first motion? Yes for the first motion I have a comment on the second but I'll save that until. Okay. So we'll take a vote on the first motion. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That's supported unanimously with Mayor Trazos absent. Okay. So now we move to the second motion which I should probably make sequentially now very much perfect. I move that we adopt the resolution supporting Prop 3. Second. So that was motion by Council Member Matthew second by Council Member Norian. Okay. So we'll go ahead and take the vote on that or I'm sorry. That's right. Okay. Thank you as I stumble through this. Appreciate it. Okay. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. So that passes with Council Member Matthews, Chase, Council Member Norian and myself in favor with Council Member Brown and Council Member Crone not supporting the motion. And Mayor Trazos is absent again. I had a comment but I'll just be in touch with Rosemary about my concerns. Okay. Is there any further discussion? On the advice of the city attorney I would move that we put Proposition 10 the repeal of the cost of Hawkins on the September 11th agenda. Second. Any discussion on that? I think that's something that could be initiated by individual Council Members. Okay. Can't come forward. Sure. Initiated by individual Council Members. I have other things I want to put for Council endorsement as well. Okay. So it's probably for that reason I would oppose the motion before us. So in other words just prepare a report and bring it on the 11th. I'm fine with that. I'll withdraw my motion then. I don't know if the second is okay with that. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. So that moves us right along to our consent public. Oh, excuse me. I almost missed. Now we have number nine. Item number nine which was also pulled by Council Member Crone. Yeah. I was wondering. I had asked for if there's any history concerning this. If somebody could speak to that on staff. Someone contacted me about the past with this particular unit and just wanted to hear if anybody has anything, I guess, from Jessica. Good afternoon, Councilor Jessica Mellor, Housing and HUD program specialist in the Economic Development Department. I did get Council Member Crone's email and I did send a response of a slightly after a closed session had already started. So I apologize for that. The request was submitted by the property owner on June 6th, 2018 after her daughter who is listed as an equal property owner vacated the property and this caused the owner occupancy requirement to be unfulfilled. So the property owner also contacted me last year during the ADU monitoring letting me know that this may be a possibility this year that they wouldn't be able to fulfill that requirement. So I don't know of any history, you know, the questionable history I haven't heard or found any evidence of that. But you know, they brought through the correct process this year as far as I can tell and they were aware of the situation last year and they wanted to follow the rules laid out in our ordinance, one of which is this limited deferral being brought to the council. A past Council Member told me they were caught years ago and so that's probably why they brought it maybe to us now. I'm wondering, I like the rents that I'm seeing in the staff report. Is there any way for us to give them a one-year transition and keep the rents the way they are for one year? I don't believe there's any way to put in a rent restriction because it's the units themselves are not under the short-term rental ordinance, it's in place right now because it was built after 1995 with the February 1st 1995 date. So we couldn't hold it under the rent control ordinance. We could negotiate with them just like they're trying to negotiate with us, no? It would be out of the ordinary, that's not how the ordinance 2014-14 is stated. I don't know if that would require extra ordinances or changes or anything, but I would recommend to move forward with the standard request. Any other questions from Council Member Brown? I guess I have a follow-up question for the city attorney about the processes by which we could ask for a non-increase in rents in return for an exception to our current ordinance on the books regarding EDU. I mean, I guess I'm just saying if the part of the request suggests that the reason for this is to want to keep tenants stable in place and asserting that below-market rents. So I would just like to see that guarantee solidified if we're going to be making an exception in this case. I'd be happy to look into it, but I haven't had a chance to analyze that in any meaningful detail. Any further questions? Yeah, I have a question for Ms. Miller. What do you see in the interest of the city that we make this agreement? I mean, I think the Council's on record of not wanting owner-occupied ADUs or excuse me, when there's an ADU on the premises, owner-occupied house, because there's something about stability of the community in the neighborhood that's the reasoning, I think, behind it. Well, the other options in order to meet the owner-occupancy requirement are to require the owners to move back to the property that would displace tenants in one of the two units. It's also to remove part or the whole of the ADU, which would in turn remove a home for the residents. So we'd be displacing tenants in any other case to remedy the owner-occupancy requirement. So this is in interest of the tenants to keep them in their units. But if that was really going to be followed, we'd make sure the rent wasn't going to go up, because there's no security for them. They could easily raise the rent, whatever they want, especially since you have already said that it's not under the current ordinance of the rent freeze. Okay, Councilor Gis? Well, I don't know if this is necessarily a question, but a point. We, through the Housing Blueprint subcommittee, dealt with this issue in lots of different ways, and I can't actually remember where we ended up on this, but I thought that this topic was coming back to us at some point. Sorry to call you up, Lee, but you probably remember what ended up being literally reams and reams of recommendations where we are with this particular thing. Sure. Good afternoon, Vice Mayor Watkins and Council Members. That did end up being one of the recommendations from the Housing Blueprint subcommittee that was accepted by the Council on June 12th of this year, and the recommendation was to explore and evaluate what could be the pros and cons of a non-owner occupancy allowance on ADU properties in exchange for affordability restrictions. And so we will be doing that analysis. We have not completed that analysis yet, but that is something that we have direction from the Council to prepare. There was not a specific recommendation one way or the other. It was just, let's talk about this to see if it's worthwhile for us to pursue. Okay. Thank you for that update, and this was something that did come up in our very well-attended community meeting at Loudoun Nelson or London Nelson Center, and it received mixed reviews. It was actually, some people were all for it, and some people were kind of like, I'm worried about the neighborhood quality sort of impacts, and so it was something we felt like there was enough feedback on that we did need to pursue it because there's pros and cons, but it's something we should actually thoughtfully evaluate before we would make that change. So thank you for that update. Council Member Matthews. In the development of the updates of the ADU ordinance, we did be very clear that we wanted to stick for the time being with the owner occupancy requirement. That's something I personally support. We also understood that from time to time life circumstances happen, and people do need to be moved away from their home with an ADU for a discrete period of time, and I think the owner here was very clear that they understood the conditions, the provisions of the ordinance, and at the end of the two-year period, they were prepared to either move back or sell the property and to abide by the underlying restrictions. So it seemed to me pretty straightforward. I know we have done these in the past, rarely, but we have done them, the extensions. But why no guarantee of raising that? I would be, the city attorney has said he has not had a chance to look into the details of applicability. I would be happy to move the request with the addition that we direct the city attorney to attempt to build in a rent stabilization provision to the two-year extension. Just to follow up on the earlier question, I think that's fine. The ordinance allows the owner to not occupy the property for a period of up to two years under circumstances established by the City Council by resolution that may require the property owner. It says that the property owners may apply for temporary change in use, allowing both units to be rented for a period of no more than two years with the possible extension of one year by the planning director if the circumstances warrant. I think what you could do is by raise resolution establish a standard that requires units, at least one of the units to be maintained as affordable under the city's inclusionary housing requirements as a condition of that type of an extension. That's not before you today, so we could have as part of this motion also giving direction for an additional provision. Is that what you're saying? Yes. Just to clarify, that would be asking staff to bring us a resolution for what the ordinance appears to contemplate. So there's a motion on the floor. Seconded by Councilmember Norian. Is there any member of the public who'd like to speak to us on this item? This is item number nine on our consent agenda. Okay, seeing none, we'll return back to Council. Council Member Cron. I was wondering if anybody knows for the current inclusionary ordinance, what would you be charging for an apartment like this? Is this what it is? Is it $1,200 a month? Is that what the inclusionary currently says for a place like this? We'd have to do some research and I could send you our charts for the rent and the incomes to clarify that. I don't have that information right now. That wouldn't want it to be higher, you know, like when it came back and it was, you know, they're actually charging below that, which is great. But I think within the information available to us right now, we've given direction. Sure. And then do you have a comment? I just want to say quickly, I don't, if we get too much into the minutiae of this, I'd be really worried that what if there's somebody getting this great rent and maybe they make a little bit over the amount that, you know, would make them eligible for a low income unit? I wouldn't want to do that to the individuals currently renting either. So I think the way the motion is now make sure that those folks don't fall into what could be a little bit of a trap while at the same time we're protecting the rent they're receiving and the city gets that benefit. I'd like to protect the rent now because nothing stops these folks from raising the rent as soon as, you know, maybe they kept it low because they knew they were coming to the council. They can make that argument and then boom, I mean, just, you know, no guarantees. Right. There aren't any guarantees, but I don't, I don't also want to get them in a situation where they make let's say $5 over the amount to be qualified is a quote low income and then therefore they, you know, they have to leave. So I think it's, it's, I like the way that the motion has been worded because I think we don't get them into that trap while at the same time really expressing what our desire is. Either way, I think we could, you know, it's not a guarantee either way. I don't think it will fall under the inclusionary ordinance though, right? I mean it's not going to automatically go, oh, it's because the person, it's, it's something separate. So that, and I mean, don't we negotiate rents all the time? I mean, city, you know. This is different though, because it's not us leasing. This is, there's someone who owns something and so I don't know if we can dictate an exact dollar amount without it being part of an official program. So that's, I'm now, I thought I was really clear and now I'm getting confused. I, my understanding was the, that the request would be for staff to come back with a resolution that as a condition of exception in these cases, that the rents would not be raised and, you know, perhaps over the 2% or whatever it might be in the current moratorium rather than triggering the inclusionary rates and formulas. That was my, that was my understanding of the council's direction, but that resolution wouldn't be applicable to the action. And be for future applications. All right. Is everybody clear and prepared to vote on item number nine at this time? Okay. We asked the public. We had no comment from the public. So at this time, I'd like to see how the council stands. All those in favour, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. That passes with council member Crohn opposing and Mayor David Charles is absent. Okay. So we will move on to our consent public hearing and this is item number 19 on our agenda. Are there any council members who wish to only comment on this item? Are there any members of the public who would like to request this item be polled or to speak on it because now is the time to do so? I'm looking for a motion. I think the staff has done a good mid-course adjustment and so I will therefore move the motion before us, also including resolution. Okay. Moved by council member Matthews, seconded by council member Chase. Any further discussion? All those in favour, please say aye. Aye. That passes unanimously with council member Tross is absent. Okay. Next on our agenda. Oh, go ahead. I'm seeing that the folks for the tree appeal are not, don't seem to be present. I don't know if we want to go or are they? Yeah, for truth. But I mean, but the applicant. This item has been noted for 230 anyway, so it has to occur after 230. And if I was jumping ahead, sorry. No problem. Okay, so we'll move on to item number 20, which is the density bonus zoning ordinance amendments. And we have Carol Berg, Housing and Community Development Manager, as well as Lee Butler, Director of Planning here to present to us. Apologize, I just pulled up the wrong presentation. Carol Berg, Economic Development and Lee Butler, Planning and Community Development Director. So we are back with the density bonus ordinance. Just get it going. And as you may recall, this came to you in October and March as well. Because there was some confusion at that time, exactly what the density bonus ordinance did, I included a guide to the density bonus ordinance in your packet, which I hope you found useful. And I'll also just do a quick preview or overview of what the density bonus ordinance does and then go into the two changes that are being proposed or the several changes that are being posed. Density bonus definition is that it allows developers as a program that allows developers to obtain more favorable local development requirements in exchange for offering to build or donate land for affordable or senior units. And in California, this is required. They have the density bonus language that is in our ordinance is essentially state mandated language with a few exceptions. And it is under that state law, the density bonus for the developer is their entitlement. And the benefits can be approved as a matter of right. In other words, the city council or the planning commission or whatever proving body it is has little room to really deny a density bonus if certain requirements for approval are met. So basically a project that qualifies to receive a density bonus has to have at least five units. At least 5% of the housing would be restricted to very low or 10% to low income residents. For ownership housing, you can go up to moderate income where 10% or more of the housing needs to be affordable to moderate income housing that's not available for rental units. And then you can also have 10% of housing units in a project or more available for foster youth, disabled ventrins or homeless persons, and the rents are restricted at a very low income level. And the project can also donate land to qualify as opposed to providing units for a very low income project. And for a senior housing project, no affordable units are required, but the project has to be 100% senior. So that's how a project qualifies. And what the city gives back are three things, three components to the state law. First of all, you get your density bonus. In other words, you get additional units, a certain percentage based on what you're giving in terms of affordable units. You can go up to 35% of the project. You also automatically get a slight reduction in parking standards that is given with the density bonus. There are two other hearts to this benefits as well. And one is the incentives where an applicant can say it's not financially feasible to develop this project. And therefore, I need extra hide or I need setbacks or I need some kind of a change. And these are called incentives or concessions when it's linked to the financing of the project. And you can get one to three concessions, again, linked to how many units you're providing. And the city can deny this request if it's detrimental to public health or that it's not needed to create affordable housing and how we tell that is we require that they provide us with a performance in most cases. And then the third one, which we were a little less clear on before because this is all new in operations, is waivers. Now, you can get an unlimited number of waivers and waivers are if there's a physical barrier to being able to build the additional density bonus units. In other words, that 35% or 20% or whatever the additional units are. And that can include any kind of physical barrier like the zoning only allows you two stories, but you need three stories. And again, the city can deny this if it's detrimental to public health or it's not really needed to build those additional units. So as you can see, it's pretty difficult to deny this either kind of request. So this is an overall chart that gives you a sense of the range of density bonus and what this means. You can look at the bottom of the chart, a 35% density bonus, which is the maximum you can get. If you do very low income, 11% of the units need to be very low income. If you do low income at 60%, 20% of the units need to be low income. And then if you do moderate income, and this is for ownership only, you go up to 40% of the units. So you can kind of see it's geared toward really the rental housing, not necessarily the ownership housing. And we would expect it to be used more for that. So this is how it basically works. You have a base project which is equivalent to what the zoning allows. And in this case, we're saying the zoning allows somebody to be able to build 20 units at this site under the zoning requirements. So that's your base project. So developers are saying, well, I'm going to provide 11% of these units at very low income. And I want a 35% density bonus. And they've already built out the site in plans to maximum with the 20 units. So they will need to add an additional story in order to get the density bonus, which would be seven units. So they get the additional floor only if they request a waiver or an incentive for that extra story. And they have to either prove it's a physical barrier, which is an easier thing to prove, or a financial barrier. So when we were talking about the density bonus ordinance before, we focused a lot on the incentives, but really what's beginning to come forward to the city are requests for waivers. So it's something and there is no limit on waivers. So now how does this fit with inclusionary units? You've got your two very low income units. State law requires that these inclusionary units can be counted as the density bonus units. So you have a 15% three-unit requirement for inclusionary. So what happens is you overlap two of the units, and then the third unit is just an inclusionary unit. So what you would have is you would have two units that would be at very low income, because that always goes to the most strict requirement. And then you would have one unit that would only be inclusionary at 80%. So the density bonus ordinance did this on purpose in order to encourage the development of affordable housing and the overlay. The benefit the city gets, of course, is it gets two very low income units, which are a real advantage for the city. So in October 2017, the city amended the ordinance to be in compliance with state law. There were a lot of changes that happened just before 2017. And so all of these went into effect. And the city is in complete compliance with state law with a few little word changes that we're doing now. And at that time, the council also considered the amendments that would have two additional city options, that there is a little flexibility in the ordinance. And so you heard this in October and then again in March. So the only thing that we're talking about right now is these two options plus a little bit of cleanup. So the option one is that the city can define the approvals process. And the current ordinance, we had developed a tiered system, tier one, tier two, tier three, and it got the bigger the ask from the developer, the higher the tier it was classified under. And that determined who would actually approve the application. Tier one was with the planning director, tier two was planning commission, and tier three was with the city council. Tier two and three required performers. And the thing that it fails in, in that the density bonus waivers were not a part of this tier system and we're beginning to, like I said, see more of those. So the problems with doing it the way we have it right now and why we need to change it is that the tier requirements are inconsistent because the waivers are not included. You might have one project that asks for an extra story and it has to go to the city council. You might have another that does it under waiver and just is heard by the planning commission. So tier one incentives and all waivers do not require public hearing right now. And this is something that was really important the last time it came around. So that's not second problem. The third problem is a potential for a requirement to add approvals. It could cause like potential delays or extra cost, the added steps to developer. And the city wants to facilitate in the development of housing and not slow it down. So by, you know, maybe it could have been approved just by the planning commission. Now it has to go to the, because of the tier system has to go to the city council as well. And so in this, you know, what we're saying that this is a problem, it could slow up the project. So here are the solutions that we're talking about and have included in the amendments. The inconsistency solution is that the approval body would be based on the project requirement, not the incentive type. And this takes care of waivers. You know, the same waiver and incentive would be treated the same in a project. Problem number two was the public hearing, which you didn't have the waivers and you didn't have tier one going to a public hearing. And we've put this in that all projects will have a public hearing, whether it's at the zoning administrator or the planning commission or the city council, will have a notice public hearing. And the third problem was the potential for extra delays in the cost. And again, they would not require an extra step. It would just require what the project would normally require. And just a note that financial performers were required for tier two and tier three. And the way it's written now is that we've basically said and they weren't required for tier one. And so performers would still not be required for tier one as a way to encourage developers to ask for a 20% change in a setback or something like that. And tier one is basically anything less than 20% change in setback, 20% change in landscape area, or something like that, which we considered relatively minor. And if they don't have a financial performer for that, it encourages them to go that direction, then that's good for the city. So then the second option that the city has is to set affordable unit parameters. And the only parameter that we really set in the last one was the minimum square footage for affordable units. And the problems with that, if you look over at the chart on the right, is that there is a downward trend right now, especially for studios. And so what you can end up with is our minimum square footage, which is 500 square foot for a studio, actually could be higher than what the trend is saying it is. So it makes sense to look at what happens in the future. And the other problem is that the minimum unit size in the chart may not be consistent to encourage the goal of smaller unit development. This is trends go downward and we're like holding the line and it could actually end up being higher.  So the solutions to these problems, the support of a smaller unit goal is to just set the minimum unit size at 75% of the average unit size. So then if the project is fluctuating and maybe going down in the average unit size, then the inclusionary units or the density bonus units would also be going down. And then the flexibility over time, again, you would be, it would be variable. It would not be linked to a specific number in the ordinance, but it would be linked to the actual project. So that flexibility would be built in. So the two main items that we were talking about having you approve as options. We also have some cleanup in terms of affordable rent. We wanted to make it clear that these units could be rented by a Section 8 or similar federal assistance program. We did put that it would be applied at the discretion of the Planning and Community Development Director because we don't know what's happening in the future. We don't know what programs will be happening from the federal level. So this allows us at least to be able to say, yes, we think this program should, maybe this one doesn't, but it gives us some flexibility in there without coming back and changing the ordinance. We also had some consistency with state law, sorry, in that there's a definition of a major transit stop looks at all of the buses that go through here. We had left out a word that basically indicated it was just individual bus lines. So we made it very clear and matched state law on that. And there's no real option for that because the state requires us to do that. And we also removed some sections that no longer are applicable in the ordinance. There may be a category of zoning area like an overlay zone that doesn't exist anymore. So we took that out and that we, again, in another section, eliminated review requirements referencing the tiered system since that would go away if you voted for these. And so that is basically it. If you have any questions of either Lee or me. Thank you for the presentation. Are there any questions from council members? Council member noise. So the beginning of your presentation, you said we're pretty much adopting this because it's the state regulations and all cities therefore must adopt this. You said with few exceptions. Yeah. So what would be great is to just see what those few exceptions are like, what are we do? I know you kind of explained that, but it'd almost be great if there was a chart like this is what we have to adopt because the state says so. And then this is what we're doing. Okay. You have already made all of the state law adoption. So we're only looking at the two variations that we can, and I call them options one and option two. Okay. So those were the exceptions? Those are the exceptions. Those are the only two exceptions. And the rest of it was just cleanup. That is not really changing the ordinance at all. It's just making sure it's either consistent with itself or consistent with state law. Okay. Great. Thank you. Other questions from council members at this time? Yeah, I have a few questions. You know, first of all, I mean, I think that it's important that we be really clear here that what we're talking about today is where state law is absent, local jurisdictions can speak. And we've had a lot of communication about these changes, a lot of concerns expressed about the places where this may actually reduce community input. So I want to be clear, I want to be sure that all of our questions are answered and that people get to speak to us who are here today in the event that there are some folks here and perhaps have some additional questions after that. So in terms of the question, I get the rationale for using a percentage of square footage in order to not be changing the amount, the actual square footage over time, right, the flat number. And I understand the county has recently done something similar and 75% is their standard. But I'm wondering about how that matches up because, you know, the city, you know, perhaps we have more denser, smaller units in the city. What the, I mean, what is 75% of unit in the county mean relative to a unit in the city? And I know that's a, it's a difficult question to answer because there's variation across the county. But just some kind of sense of what the difference might be there because we're talking about potentially ending up with very, very tiny units. Well, they still have to meet the minimum size requirements that are in the zoning ordinance the way it is now. So we're not talking about units that we, you may not be, you may have a project and maybe you couldn't do a 75% reduction. And also when they're designing them, it's, you know, the same size units tend to be a little easier to put in a project. So you may or may not see actually the reduction up to 75%. It's just setting a floor. But that floor may be reached before you get to 75% because it may say that your unit size minimum for a particular type of unit is certain square footage that's above that. You might add anything. I would just say, you know, for, as an example, you know, we may get a small unit project with 400 square foot units. They could feasibly go down to 300 square feet. So long as they're meeting all of the criteria in the zoning ordinance that allows for that 300 square foot size. So we would also be looking at things like if the unit is the same number of bedrooms, you can't say, well, all of our studios, we've got half studios and half one bedrooms. And so that equivalency, the 75% is based on the bedrooms. So you would still have to provide half of your inclusionary units as or in this case, the density bonus units as one bedrooms and half of them as studios. And each of those would be limited. So they couldn't do all of the smallest units. You couldn't have all 300 square foot units if your studios were at 400 and your one bedrooms were at 800. Thank you. So a couple of other questions relate. So another question that occurred to me related to the and others. Thank you for pointing it out to non residential developments. So there are ways that affordability, the relationship between affordable units and commercial space in mixed use projects, to the extent that those commercial projects or occupants may have some impact on neighbors. I mean, I think that's a major concern for neighborhoods. And so is there a way that we can include some kind of language about, you know, not having those adverse impacts.  Is there any way to try to get at that? And when we're when we're negotiating over the possible, the density of concessions and or waivers, the density bonus ordinance doesn't control what district they go in. I mean, doesn't allow commercial to go in a residential zone. And it's a little different when you're talking about their requesting concessions. Because the state has made it mandatory, the city doesn't really have a lot of negotiating room. It has to basically approve, unless they can say it's going to be harmful to health or, you know, to health or safety, or they don't need to do the incentives. But even if they don't need to do the density bonus, we don't control the density bonus ordinance doesn't control that there's going to be a development there. It doesn't control the basic development. I would just add that there isn't a direct link between those types of conditions and the density bonus itself. However, our standard development review processes evaluate those. And in instances where we have things like potential for late night activity and drinking establishments and so forth, we have use permits and those use permits give us the opportunity to put in conditions on the uses themselves. And so when the density bonus comes in conjunction with those types of uses, we've got these other tools, either the land use entitlements that allow us to put in site design characteristics or the use permit requirements that allow us to actually condition the uses themselves and identify when deliveries occur or identify the noise levels to a greater level of specificity or closing windows if they've got amplified music inside and so forth. So we have some of those controls. They're just not inherently linked to the state density bonus outside of the other entitlement provisions that we have. Thank you. So I have a couple more questions if I could. And these are in no particular order just kind of as I was thinking through. So Carol, you mentioned that when we're speaking about waivers that they're unlimited. So, but my understanding is they're only unlimited to the extent that the city allows for them. So we're not actually talking about, you know, when we say that there are one to three automatic incentives or concessions, that's as prescribed by state law. That's different than this piece. So I'd be interested in hearing a little bit more about that given that some the proposal is to change the review process so that more applications under density bonus may end up coming directly to staff rather than coming before the council. We are after all the only elected body that is involved in any of these decisions. So just, if I could just get a better understanding of that, I think it would be helpful. The waiver, they can't, they can ask for unlimited waivers, but we can basically say to them, and most of these waivers you'll probably see are for the extra story to accommodate the 35 percent or whatever they're getting is their density bonus. We can do an analysis which we would do on each project and say, well, yes, you need the additional floor to get these units in, which means there's no way we can not grant a waiver. But you don't need a change in open space requirements or setbacks or something like that. And they could then say, oh, but from a financial standpoint, and then go over to the concessions side of things, but the big ticket item, which is the extra floor, could not really be denied no matter what approving body is doing it. And you mentioned less community participation. Actually, the change would provide for more opportunity for community because every single project that goes for a density bonus would have a public hearing and it would be noticed to neighbors. So on that note, in some cases, yes, it would provide additional public opportunities for public engagement. In some cases, it will mean less because we're talking about one public meeting potentially for every project, depending on how things go. So I just want to be clear about that. I think that there's some concern about that. And I do have some concern. I don't know exactly how to address it, but I hope we can at least try to identify some kind of, I mean, not to say that the process that's been set up is not meaningful community engagement, and we have another agenda item about that. And I appreciate the work that's gone into this. But meaningful engagement, at least for me, and I hear this out in the community, means that there is some kind of iterative process, that it's not simply a public hearing where information is transmitted to the community, people who choose to come, assuming they've been noticed properly and all of that is in place, but leaving without really having an opportunity to engage with a developer in early stages of planning. And I think that's something that we talked about in the Housing Looper and Subcommittee, is something that we really wanted to try to see happen. So I'm just wondering if you could speak to that. I know it's on our agenda for later, community engagement, but I'd really like to see something codified in our, if we really make these decisions about increased opportunities for density beyond the scope of the state law, that community engagement is going to happen, and how it will happen. This is not proposing to go beyond the state law. This is just proposing to go up to a maximum 35%. That is actually something the Council did request us to look into the potential of actually providing for density bonuses over the 35%. That would include, require a lot more analysis, and you would have a second chance to talk about that. But this one just is going up to state law, and I think Lee wants to talk a little bit about the community participation. Thanks. I would say that we absolutely agree with you in terms of the meaningful community input and the ability for community members to contribute early in the process where they have the best opportunity to influence the direction of the project. And so you'll hear later on in your agenda the community outreach policy that is geared towards that early community outreach. I also would like to comment on just the approval body that hears this. So what this is, what these changes would do is it actually mandates that there is a public hearing in many instances there may or I would say in a limited number of instances there are no public hearings required for these. Most of the time there is some public hearing that's already required. So if there's a PD that's associated, if it's a ownership project of five or more units, then that tentative map is going to trigger city council approval. And so there are a series of entitlements that by their very nature are going to require either planning commission and or city council approval. What the changes do is it also ensures that if we had a small project, for example, one that was just meeting the thresholds, five-unit project that is going up to six units with the density bonus, that there would be a public process in terms of the public hearing. Now what you'll hear later in the community outreach policy is that based on where that is located the city may also require that there is a community meeting for that. But if that's located in the downtown where you've got an infill project and a few units on top, that may not necessitate the same level of community involvement as something that's going into an established neighborhood. And that's why they're looked at a little bit differently. But back to this itself, the changes are intended to at least allow that public hearing in any instance where there is a state density bonus as a minimum level of hearing from the community. And in many instances, they're in most instances, I would say, they're also going to be part of that community outreach policy that's directing them towards additional outreach as well. Okay, I'm sorry, I have a lot of questions here, but I'm almost done. So another question is related to the, I just want to make sure I'm reading this correctly, that in fact there will potentially be cases where the requests for, for example, setbacks height, you know, increased height allowance. And I want to, I have a clarifying question about height and parking could come without a pro forma is that, that those, those incentives could be, and or concessions could be offered without a pro forma. And I'm trying to understand if that is the case. No, no, no, that is not the case. Unless they're, unless they're requested as waivers. So if they're requested as waivers, they do not have to provide that is not a financial issue. So you can see here on the waivers on the far side, number three on the slide here, that is if they're physically precluded from constructing those units. And so we can't require a pro forma in that instance. The concessions, I'll let, I'll let Carol jump into the concessions. Okay, basically, as I mentioned, it's 20% increase in lot coverage, 20% reduction in setback, a lot coverage again, required landscape area, required open space, reduction in off street parking just to the level that they get it reduced anyway. They, they don't have to ask for that as a concession, but because they get a small reduction. But if they're reducing their parking by substantial amount, they would have to, or more than that amount, they would have to go through that approval of a city rental housing density bonus, which is the automatic one that we have under the inclusionary ordinance and then approval of fee waivers for affordable units, which is under another ordinance. So really the only things are the 20% reductions and then the reduction of off street parking just to the level that the density bonus automatically allows. And can you remind us what that is? Because we're talking about one bedrooms going from 1.5 potentially to one unit or one space. One, okay. Yeah. Are there any other questions from Councilmember, Councilmember Crum? Yeah, can you walk me through why this kind of new system, that's, that's different, but it's one without tiers. You're getting, you're eliminating the tier system. Correct. And how is this going to be beneficial for the neighborhoods and combination that the tier system wasn't necessarily beneficial for the neighborhoods other than certain require, certain changes came automatically to the city council. But since we have built in a requirement that every single density bonus gets a noticed public hearing, it's basically covered. In fact, there's a higher degree of contact with the neighborhood and protection of the neighborhood and what's being proposed than there is in the existing ordinance because everything has to go. Any density bonus has to have a public hearing. And just in that respect, don't you have to have require public hearings now before we even make any of these changes? I mean, for the bigger projects and For the, for the bigger projects, generally, yes. There can be some instances, however, you know, the, the counseling one that came up fairly regularly as part of discussions with the HPS. There was a 16 unit project, I believe it was 16 units or so across the street from staff of life. And now, well, that didn't use the density bonus to my knowledge. That did not require a public hearing. And a project similar to that, that was using the density bonus that only, that only used a waiver or that used a tier one or multiple tier one concessions wouldn't necessarily have to have any public hearing. However, the new provisions that we're recommending would require a public hearing for those. How many units constitute a large project right now? There is no definition. So just, there's public hearings for large projects. But does that mean for every project is a public hearing or just large projects? That is not a distinguishing characteristic as to why a project triggers a public hearing or not. There are, there are some thresholds. I'll say like in certain zoning districts, it says mixed use projects with greater than 10 units, I think is, is one of the thresholds. But, but in other zoning districts, that isn't called out. So it varies by zoning district, but there isn't something that says a large project. There are some that say, if you're doing a mixed use project over certain thresholds, then you need to go to a public hearing, but it's not called a large project per se. Thanks. And I'm going back to the picture of the low income units of all the boxes. How many units will eventually be in this building that we're looking at? 27, if they get the 35% density bonus. And will those two low income units, they can be 75% of other studios or other one bedrooms or how does that work? It would depend on, well, they'd be layered on top of an inclusionary unit. So they would, if for example, 50% of the units were one bedroom units and 50% two bedroom units, that means that half of the units would be one bedroom and half would be two bedrooms. And what we would look at as staff, since there'd be one unit that would be cut in half, we'd discuss that with the developer and make sure that maybe it was a one bedroom unit, but it was a large one bedroom unit, or it could be a two bedroom unit that was maybe smaller. So we'd work with the developer for that third unit. But the two density bonus units would have to conform with what we're doing with the inclusionary units. So if we change the definition of square footage of what a one bedroom is, if it's 75% of the inclusionary, 75% of the market rate one bedroom, does that change past projects that we've previously approved that they call them studios, but now that they have this kind of square footage we're talking about, can you then call them one bedrooms? No, the square footage doesn't define the unit, how many bedrooms a unit has, the square footage defines, I mean, the number of bedrooms, the actual bedrooms that qualify as a bedroom define whether it's a one bedroom or a studio, you could have a very large studio and not maybe be the same square footage as a one bedroom, but the one bedroom has to comply with all the requirements of having a bedroom. Could you go back to the bus intervals, I just was trying to understand that 15 minute bus intervals, what does that mean, like where is the actual bus stop? For example, the Ocean Street, Water Street intersection has multiple bus lines that go through there, so during the peak hour, if you look at all of the bus routes, they have a bus that stops there at least every 15 minutes, and so that intersection qualifies. Each individual project, if they're requesting reduced parking under the near a transit stop, we'd have to do a current analysis of that intersection because the bus line always is changing their schedule, so we'd have to see if they met that 15 minute interval during the peak hour threshold. Thank you. It says in our staff report that the 75% is the average square footage is what's used here of all market rate units, and it says that's the similar to the county's 75%, so would you say that our 75% is going to be exactly like the county's current ordinance? 75% applies to city units, the city has made a, the city council hasn't tried to encourage smaller units, so hopefully we would end up with smaller units in the city because of your actions to encourage those smaller units, and therefore 75% would be smaller. More questions? Just one about setbacks. Can a developer ask for setbacks, even a setback of zero? Could that, within what we're looking at here? They can request that, yes. And would you say that that's compatible with a neighborhood that is adjoining to that zero setback? It seems kind of... They would have to prove that that's the only way that they could get either the additional units or it was the only way that it was financially feasible for them to develop the affordable units, so they would have to prove that's the only way they can do it. Thank you Mayor. Are there any additional questions or clarifying comments from council at this time? If not, we'll go ahead and open it up to public comment. This is for item number 20 on our agenda, and each member of the public will have two minutes to speak, and I will be consistent with that time frame for everybody. So public comment is now open for item number 20. Any members of the public want to speak to the council on this item? I'm back. And also I live right next to that intersection that Carol was talking about, so the thought of a zero setback, and we are an established neighborhood, but it sounds like none of this would make any difference for us. What surprised me is that only two people here asked any questions, and I wonder if you were tested to explain what this is, if you all could really do that, because it's pretty confusing and complicated, and I don't... Actually, I'm not even sure this came up so late if you're voting on this today or what, but I wonder if it's really understood the impact that taking away neighborhood protection, even more neighborhood protection like this could have. Public hearings are nice and necessary, and I totally support them, and I'm glad that's in here, but my experience is in every case, and I've been to a ton of these, it always comes down to, oh, we don't want to put more burden on the developer, and if the developer has a burden, maybe he won't do it, and it happens again and again and again, and I feel like taking away the tears, taking away the protection of the elected people, you guys, is wrong. We need that protection. This may not seem like a big change to somebody who might live in the country, but to somebody who's being impacted by Ocean Street Area Plan, who's living in a small neighborhood of single-family homes to hear this neighborhood impact discounted, and claiming that one public hearing and a little bit of posting is actually neighborhood protection. I can tell you from experience over and over and over, public hearing is nice, but it doesn't... Unless it has big teeth, it won't do anything. Thank you. Any additional comments from the public on this item? Good afternoon. I'm here to request that you do not make these changes. The tears are the very, very small mitigations for the neighborhoods, and it's disconcerting for me to realize that we're looking at more impacts to the neighborhood when we haven't even looked at the design review that came up yet. All this stuff is coming up now, but we're not looking at things that actually could help us live with the impending density that we will be facing, and also the early notification and the kinds of notification that's so important. I'm concerned to take a reduction in 75% of what the county has in terms of the size of units. We have a unique situation in Santa Cruz. We have students, three, four students in a unit, and I can imagine at that 400 square foot unit going down to 300 with three or four students in there, they may not be legally on the lease. We all know this happens in Santa Cruz, and I just can't imagine more of this kind of density in our town. I'm recommending that you do not modify the tears. They're inadequate for sure, but they're at least something that the community has, and also I would recommend that you do not further reduce the size. Thank you very much. Hi. You already started. My name is Candice Brown, East Morrissey. I'm imploring you not to pass this. I'm from east side. It's not just the major corridors that are impacted, but most of Seabright. These are multi-family zoned areas. The tears are allowed with the state mandate. It is allowed. We're not violating any state mandate. A public hearing in this case could be a zoning administrator, which is one person without any deliberation. It's a city staff. That is considered a public hearing. We saw instance recently where, at the last minute, four clauses were added on a project that had been in review for three years, and that was used to negotiate some onerous terms with another developer in that same area. You probably know what I'm talking about. It was negotiated outside that public hearing process, so therefore it was not a public hearing. But that's what comes down. We've seen tentative map after tentative map that's approved without any negotiation of affordable housing, since when has that ever been used to improve a project in any way? These are just approved. We are at the mercy of you right now, and we are imploring you not to pass this. This will have such impact. I cannot imagine what our world will look like in the next five years, and we also know a project that has not pulled building permits. It's of the size of a studio. It has not been built yet. They can put a wall, and so this will be one bedrooms according to this analysis. So to say that this project will not impact other projects, it will. I think you're making a big mistake if you vote for this, and I really implore you not to consider the east side of Santa Cruz. Thank you. Any additional speakers would like to speak to the council now is the time. Okay. Seeing none, I will return to council for deliberation and consideration. I'm looking for something in the report, so I was pulling my microphone. I'm not quite ready if you're ready. Well, I mean, I think there are a couple of areas that I want to talk a little bit more about. I mean, I have some concerns about elimination of the tier system and the assurance that this is going to lead to more community engagement. I mean, it's an empirical question yet to be answered as with many things. So I'm very uncomfortable with taking us down a path that may actually have unintended consequences for lack of a better term. So I'm going to start there. I would be interested in hearing more from staff about the public hearing process. What do we mean? And Director Butler, you said, well, some projects will obviously require more an enhanced or expanded public engagement process and others may not. I mean, it's just hard for me to wrap my mind around how that's going to be determined. At what point will the city council have a say in how that's determined? I mean, a lot of these projects may fly through without us even knowing unless we really pay attention. So I'd also like to talk about some council notification anytime a density bonus application is submitted so that we can track those and monitor them. I just have a quick question for clarification. I know that we have item number 23 that will be coming to us later in our agenda that is really about community outreach policy. Are some of these concerns going to be addressed during that time as well? They're certainly related with respect to what approval body the application goes to. The community outreach policy does not speak to that. That is strictly dictated by the zoning ordinance. So the zoning ordinance specifies that certain projects go to an administrative approval, a zoning administrator, a planning commission, or a city council. And so those are the tiers. And what this would do is it would eliminate for any projects using the density bonus, it would eliminate the ability for that to be an administrative approval, and it would, and as the speaker noted, it could be at a zoning administrator hearing. If no other approval body is required to act on that application, the planning commission, or the council. And of course that action can be appealed if it were at the zoning administrator. It could be appealed to the planning commission or it could be appealed to the council. I ask a clear and fine question. So in those circumstances, then it could still follow that same process. Then if the zoning administrator hears it, it can be appealed up to us. It can be. I think one of the things that we heard the last time was a concern, well, there is a cost with that. And there is a cost to that. But there is that ability in the zoning administrator action can be appealed to the planning commission, and then the planning commission's action can be appealed to the council. I think just a point of clarification. So as I understand this, the approval requirements, this doesn't change them. It actually makes them consistent with any other projects. So the approval stay the same. In addition, this adds another layer that isn't with the other approvals, which is that public hearing noticing requirement. So this doesn't give these projects any additional benefits as it relates to the approval process just to clarify that. It adds an additional requirement. So with respect to it, when you're looking at the approval processes, and you can clarify that, Lee, but that's the way, just to clarify that. That's correct. In most instances, the applications themselves, not the density bonus, are going to dictate that a project has to go to council, for example. If someone's doing that subdivision with five or more units being created, it's got to go to council regardless. And the tier process actually did that. The tier process actually provided for different levels of approvals. This actually makes it go back to comply with every other project. So it makes it consistent with it. Whereas the system we have now actually did that. It's variable. Exactly. With less potential possibility. Exactly. This just makes it more consistent so that it's like any other project. So density bonus or not, it doesn't necessarily give it some different kind of approval process. Okay. I want to go back to the question. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt. Go ahead. Do you have additional questions, Councilor? Or did you feel that your question was the answer? Well, I guess I have a comment, I suppose that in theory, this is another layer. But I just feel like there's a lot of, and if we're implicit in the idea of more flexibility means the potential for less of a review process from the perspective of the public. And so I just want to be really clear about that. And I think that's why people are expressing concern here. So my question was answered in theory. Again, unintended consequences. I'm pretty sure we're going to be, if we're talking about streamlining a process, I think that we're more likely to see more appeals coming our way than not in the future. So I think we should just be ready for that as well. Any additional comments? Did you have a, sorry, before Council Member Chase, did you? Mine was actually related to tears. And so Council Member Brown got that. Okay. Council Member. Just how is public hearing defined? How do we, is it defined now and will it continue to be defined like that if it is? There are provisions in both the local ordinances as well as state ordinances that put in minimum requirements for public hearings in terms of notification. In certain instances there are publication requirements in the newspaper. In most instances there are notification requirements mailed USPS notifications. Now that isn't always the case if it's a large citywide project. For example, we're not required to mail notices to everyone in the public. But there are implications for publishing in the paper and mailing to the surrounding area. And that'll be part of, if this goes through, that people will get noticed in that way that Right. For more projects than what are currently required. So tier one wouldn't necessarily require that nor would waivers. But again, most projects end up going to a public hearing anyway by virtue of one of their requisite entitlements. So they have a design review permit or a special use permit or a PD permit or a tentative map. Something that they're doing will trigger that public hearing requirement. But there are a limited number that don't. And those wouldn't right now if there are waivers or tier one incentives or concessions, those wouldn't trigger a public hearing. And we're saying that anytime you're using the state density bonus you need to do a public hearing. You talked about appeals before appealing to the planning commission appealing to the council. How much does that cost the appellant? I believe roughly right now it's around $700 just ballpark. And so you know that the council really has an interest in affordable housing and how will eliminating the tier system and passing what's before us stimulate the production of affordable housing more than it is now or will it? So it has the potential to one it simplifies things a little bit anytime that you're making your regulations a little bit less complicated and it makes it more readily understandable to the staff, the community, the development community as well. Furthermore, I think there is a potential that it reduces the time that is associated with that. So if a project we're needing to go to the council under the tier system, but it only needs to go to the planning commission under the proposed amendment, there's a month associated with that. And some may say a month isn't a lot of time, but there is a really substantial cost both in terms of carrying costs that the affordable housing developer would have on paying the mortgage for that property as well as the opportunity cost not only of the lack of income for an additional month where they wouldn't be getting the income from the residents, but also the residents who would be moving into the affordable project that are having to be out in the market for another month. So there is a timing consideration. Is it huge? A month, maybe two on the top end, but it's something that we obviously and you all obviously hear from the developers on an ongoing basis is that timing is important and that's no different for affordable housing developers as it is for market rate developers. Same issues. And just to clarify what some people are saying, that density bonus, we are complying with state law, but eliminating the tier system has nothing to do with what the state is asking us to do or mandating. That's correct. We can maintain the tier system as we have had it. We could modify it. The tier system itself doesn't influence our compliance with state law. Just can you give me one or two reasons why we want to eliminate the tier system then? Simplification and timing. Just to sort of follow up on that, one of the things that I did hear from you then is also this is something that we can modify, adjust and evolve over time to make sure it is aligned with our community and our needs and really the intention behind the policies. So this is something we can review in three to six months from now, see how it's going, modify if it's not, producing the outcome we hope to see or meeting the needs of the community and so on over time. Since it is our discretionary policy, correct? That is correct. I would say the one thing that I would say regarding that is we don't typically see a lot of state density bonus proposals and that is consistent with other jurisdictions as well. However, I do think that that is changing and just being very blunt, I expect there are going to be more projects coming in that are proposing to use it and so if we do a review, it will be incumbent upon us to have some projects that we evaluated coming through the pipeline and so after that time we could certainly report back and say, well, here's how this project was or was not affected by the changes. I appreciate that because I'm an advocate for continuous improvement knowing that we have to be in action and are ultimately intending to continually improve things, but there are lessons learned along the way. So I appreciate that as a potential next step. Are there any further discussions or? I don't mean to be tedious, but I really want to make sure that I'm clear when we're talking about the parking. I want to just go back to that for a moment because elimination of parking, it means different things in different neighborhoods, speaking of neighborhood protection. When there is no other off-site parking available besides street parking, that means that makes a big difference in neighborhoods versus places where there may be parking garages, other parking spaces available. So I just want to be really clear and I guess I'm not sure how it could be that parking reduction could not be, how is it that a developer would come and make the case that the parking reduction is not a financial, there's no financial reason for that. It's just curious to me how that could be. I would suggest that if you want to eliminate that from that, the list that is now saying you don't need a financial performer, that wouldn't really affect things anyway because they're allowed to do the density bonus level of parking. They can also under concession ask for a further reduction in parking, but this wasn't what it was intended to cover. So I don't think it would really change the ordinance if we eliminated that particular one. Well, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Council Member Brown, what you're getting at is if someone, so a project is entitled to the lower parking ratios, but they can request to go above and beyond that. And I think what you're getting at is how would we, if they did that through concession, how would we establish that it isn't in fact making the project more financially feasible. And it is going to be very challenging because as we've talked about in many instances, parking, there is a substantial cost to it, whether it's surface parking, but particularly if it's structured parking. And so there very well could be a real argument from a developer that the parking is reduced. I think what it boils down to in many instances is that developers also want to right size their parking. And so while they can request that concession, one, they are limited by the number of concessions that they request. It's up to three based on how much affordability they're requiring. So if they're requesting other concessions, they may or may not be able to request the parking as well. But then two, they want to make sure that they have enough parking for their residents because there's going to be a demand for that parking. And so it's a balancing act, but you've hit on an important point that the city does have very limited flexibility in many of these instances where a state density bonus is being requested and either incentives or waivers are being requested. So thank you for that, but just to be clear, so it is possible for us to eliminate parking as through the waiver process is something that could be requested without a pro forma that we could require pro forma. And it currently does. So the concession that's identified right here in tier one, I'll pull the information up. I just wanted just to try to clarify. Sure. I'm speaking about so incentives. Yes, there is a pro forma required because there's financial need demonstrated. Am I getting that wrong? Only for our current tier two and tier three. So right now these tier one, which are shown up here, which is the 20% increase in lot coverage, 20% reduction in setback requirement and so forth. And it says here that a reduction in off street parking is also triggering, excuse me, is also not triggering a pro forma to be required. And I think Carol's looking it up right now, but that is the standard reduction that they're entitled to. So if they're just requesting the standard reduction, if we go down here to tier three, tier three should have, and I may need to stand corrected here because it may not actually, the parking may not require, if you give me one moment, I'm gonna, yeah, if you give me one moment, I'm gonna check the ordinance itself instead of the tiers here. Are you looking at that right now? Yeah, tier three concessions, reduction of off street parking ratios below those permitted by government code section, et cetera, et cetera. And it's basically anything that goes below the basic amount required under the density bonus ordinance by the state would have to would require pro forma. Yeah, so what I said, what I said was correct. I'm looking at this here, tier three concessions, reduction of off street parking ratios below those permitted by the government code so that they have the government code by right. And if they're going below that, then they would have to provide a pro forma and they would still be required to provide pro forma. That hasn't changed in this project. Thank you. Yeah, I know that was tedious. I really just needed to. Sorry, that's a lot of detail and a lot of different options. So appreciate the patience as we looked up those codes. Okay. Any further discussion or councilmember willing, ready to move the item or? I will. Yeah, I appreciate all the detail. And just to state the obvious, this is a first reading and there's very often additional thought and changes when we get to the final reading as well. And clearly, this is the case where the both the council and community interests in promotion of affordable housing and providing meaningful opportunities for neighborhood input and compatibility on projects are crashing up against each other. And we all understand the drive to make a significant movement in the affordable housing to the extent we can. I think taken as a whole this through the provision for public hearings for all of the projects is actually an additional protection for the neighborhood interests, all of which have been mentioned and and do provide simplicity, greater simplicity and timing that relates to to cost. So I'm going to go ahead and move the recommendation as presented for the first reading understanding that we're going to give this a lot of thought as we go towards the second reading. So motion by councilmember Matthews second by councilmember Chase. Any further discussion by the council? What did you mean by the affordable housing crashing up against the Well as we make all the concessions and waivers greater density. These are things that are of concern to neighbors, neighborhoods particularly and they are also components in the ability to provide affordable housing, deeper affordability, more affordable units. It's a pretty clear formula. I don't see it that way. I think what's before us I believe is not good for the community and it's going to lead to increased traffic, increased use of the water, it's going to add considerable market rate units to our housing stock but I don't see again much affordability being asked for from the developers. I think if what's on the candidate in public agendas for this fall election it's about affordable housing and homelessness. I don't think this council is addressing it with these ordinance amendments that are before us. If we seriously want to address those two issues and improve the housing stock in Santa Cruz, eliminating the tier system is not the way to do it. I think the tier system is in place to work with the level of how those neighborhoods are going to be affected, the impacts on those neighborhoods, the level of impacts on those neighborhoods and I think that's what the tier system actually addresses. Eliminating the tier system will lead to less neighborhood input, not more. I won't be supporting these recommendations. Okay. I'll make some brief comments. Thank you. I am in support of this after a year and a half of hearing from the community and working with our committee on this. This is very complicated but in specific around the tier system one of the things that I consistently heard and I think we heard as well from outreach is that the variability that exists in these processes which are already really complicated makes it very difficult for the general public to engage in these processes in a meaningful way and so I am in support of trying this new process in conjunction with what's proposed in item 23 which we haven't quite gotten to yet. Well we'll talk more about meaningful early engagement of the community in way more projects than they've been engaged in now with much more wider noticing and more opportunities to really at the point where you can really impact projects before they're approved. So I'm in support of this. I know that it's complicated. I know that it is not something that everybody fully supports but this is on our way to developing more housing in our community and that is what we ultimately need. Any additional comments from council members or are we prepared to vote at this time? Yeah, I mean affordability isn't written straight into this because we all know to get affordability you're going to need some subsidies and we know that the state has passed several bills that are going to be allowing subsidies to come to communities so we can partner with developers. So it's hard to write in those specifics in in this tier three plan and like council member Chase said I'm really excited about the community engagement item that is coming up that I think will address a lot of the issues that people see in tier three in regards to engaging with the neighborhood. So I think I can get behind this and obviously we have a second reading and I'm open to hearing you know any sort of other ideas in between now and then. A quick comment since I've dominated this for long enough you know I just want to say I you know I really appreciate all of the work and thinking that's gone into it and I like council member Chase you know I have learned a lot and and have a pretty good sense of the intention of the planning department in moving in this direction. However the more I it feels like the more I learn the less I actually know about how this is all going to work and you know there are a lot of unknowns here and so I can't say that I'm prepared to support the motion today I do look forward to having a conversation in the interim before a second reading to see if there are some areas that can be clarified for me. Additionally I don't want to put us through any more of that right here today but and also some ideas about ensuring that the council does have timely information as these you know as we get an increase in density bonus applications over time and some formalized report back so hopefully we can work on that in the interim and but for today I just I don't feel comfortable saying yes without knowing more. And I can remind the council members that the staff is always available for these types of items for individual meetings to help clarify this type of complex kind of content and how we can be best prepared for the time when it comes before us so just to remember that that is something that we have available to us and yeah I was going to suggest that if if there are questions or clarifications that you need just please go ahead or even the public just go ahead and submit them to us so we can be prepared for the second reading assuming this goes through and be able to have that all in advance so that again those clarifications and information can be provided at your next meeting. If I could just say one more thing you know I appreciate that and so I think part of the unfortunate piece of this is in making a decision there are a lot of questions I have that probably can't be answered until we actually put something into practice so I'm still grappling with that as well and so I just wanted to be clear that it's I don't think that staff hasn't been forthcoming with information and it's part of the more I know the less I understand. It is complicated after all so let's look at it for everybody so to the extent that we can help. I agree I agree and I know that there's the unknowns and sometimes it's about just being in action and figuring things out. Councilmember Cronin we'll go ahead and vote. Thank you. I agree and I know that you're there's well intention to point to staff and I and I think I do ask them a good deal of questions but my orientation to politics is that this is the public arena where we I think can debate and talk amongst ourselves because we can only talk to two other council members that you raise questions in this in public so the public can see you raising those questions and that you are actually like doing your homework and wanting to engage them and I think that it's really important that asking questions of staff that people in the community have asked us I've had a dozen people this week say they watch it on TV believe it or not I'm watching right now and they would like you know to know that there is a level of conversation amongst council members and that how public policy is made that there is engagement amongst the council as well so many times if I'm bringing forth an issue I really do want to hear from other council members and from staff in public. Yeah it's the healthy balance okay at this time unless there's any further discussion we'll go ahead and vote on the island before us all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay so that passes with council member brown and council member crone opposed and mayor david trousers absent okay so we now have a a tree permit appeal item number 21 before us I would like to take a five minute break as we transition thank you and we'll see you in a stretch 11th inning what is it seventh inning stretch okay so next step on our agenda is item number 29 21 excuse me 21 which is public hearing for the tree permit appeal for 1420 King Street this this item is an appeal which will be conducted as followed staff will present their report the appellant will have 15 minutes to speak and present evidence in support of the appeal opponents or the responding applicant will have 15 minutes to speak and present evidence public comment will be two minutes the appellant will have five minutes to rebut and then we will return to council for deliberation and action so at this time I will turn it over to staff for the presentation thank you Leslie Keady city urban forester so the recommendation before you is either a resolution upholding the appeal submitted by Sally Schultz reversing the parks and recreation commission approval of a tree removal permit okay pardon me just for one second apologize okay for jumping right in it came to my attention earlier that there was a request to postpone this item so before we get into it we will hear what that is and take that into consideration I apologize it was recommended to have the appellant and the applicant talk to council to request a possible postponement of the item just to clarify there was a request that came into the city clerk I believe yesterday by the applicant to continue the hearing to give the applicant further time to prepare um city clerk consulted with my office and I advised that whether or not the matter could be continued would be up to the discretion of the city council if the council is interested in hearing from the applicant on whether or not to grant a continuance this would be the time to do so uh if you do my recommendation would be to give the appellant an opportunity to respond to the request uh and that would be before you start hearing the matter on its merits okay so uh council I see the people shaking their heads no that's not what they want okay so if um if the person who requested the postponement or the continuous wants to state come on up communication we inquired what would be the process if we wanted to postpone it and you informed us of what the process was but we actually decided not to postpone it yeah sorry if that confused you but we appreciate that you remembered thank you there we go thank you and thank you for looking into it staff and we'll go ahead and proceed as planned so right now we're on the portion that is the staff presentation on this item thank you so uh to reiterate the recommendation is two part either you would uh adopt a resolution upholding the appeal submitted by sally schultz reversing the parks and recreation commission approval of a tree removal permit application number 18-0077 submitted by Eduardo Toledo and Victoria Sanchez to remove one giant sequiatry at 1420 King Street or you would adopt a resolution denying the appeal submitted by sally schultz and upholding the parks and recreation commission approval of tree removal permit 18-007 submitted by Eduardo Toledo and Victoria Sanchez to remove one giant sequiatry at 1420 King Street so a bit of background on April 26th of 2018 Eduardo Toledo and Victoria Sanchez submitted an application requesting the removal of one heritage size giant sequiatry in their front yard at 1420 King Street the property owner reasons to request tree removal in summary were foundation damage which had been fixed but which would likely occur in their opinion sidewalks are starting to lift neighbors plumbing issues and their front yard is useless the application included an inspection report for the home and a letter from a landscape professional who recommended tree removal i inspected the application and at city staff's request the property owners performed a route examination to provide information to document the foundation damage and they opened that area up demolished a concrete patio walkway and undug and exposed the routes staff observed large routes however its staff's opinion these routes could be pruned and eliminated and that a root barrier system could be considered to lessen the chance of reoccurring damage the exposed routes do not appear to be adversely impacting the structure in my opinion and it is my opinion also that the application to remove the tree should be denied as it does not meet the requirements per resolution ns23710 exhibit a1c1 and additionally i feel that this tree is eligible candidate for the heritage tree grant program which could be utilized for root pruning a root barrier system and also any maintenance on may 11th of 2018 the applicants filed an appeal of my staff decision and included a detailed letter in your packet to support their appeal on june 4th 2018 the parks and recreation commission held a hearing on the tree appeal i as staff presented items and information and they deliberated and upon consideration of my presentation and the information provided at the hearing the commission had a differing interpretation than staff on the resolution ns23710 uh 710 pertaining to criterion standards as to when trees are approved for removal and the commission decided that the home had been damaged by the tree in the past and that there was a likelihood of property damage and that the tree was an inappropriate size species for their lot and that ultimately would require removal at some point due to size and ongoing damage potential so the commission reversed my denial and voted 6 to 1 to approve the removal of the one giant sequoia tree and on june 13th 2018 sally schultz filed an appeal of the parks and recreation decision to reverse the staff denial of the tree request and she included a letter in your packet and this is my presentation so again it's 1420 king street appeal of the parks and rick commission approval of application 18077 to remove one giant sequoia tree staff findings a sequoia tree is approximately 50 feet tall with a db h or diameter breast height of 53 inches the tree is well balanced of normal size and color with typical branching structure the trunk is sound and solid with a minor list or lean in the upper crown there were no insects and only minor disease present which is typical for this species i also provided in your packet a second opinion a peer review submitted my mr. james allen which as a similar arbor cultural interpretation is what i have this is the tree looking at it in the front yard of 1420 king street this is another angle that shows the minor lean of the upper crown other staff findings tree roots are evident and mostly parallel to the foundation tree roots have been pruned and removed in the past by the previous owner and the foundation has been repaired only minor roots have regenerated in the areas where they were previously eliminated it is not obvious that the potential cracks in the foundation are currently associated three roots also the inspection report for the home does not draw complete nexus to the cracks is being specifically caused by the tree it talks about seismic activity and overall settling of the foundation is also damaged potential for the cracks these are the very large roots after they demoed the walkway patio area adjacent to the home that you will see after the demo and again they are mostly parallel to the foundation and i didn't see any cracks in the foundation that were obviously attributed to tree roots this is just another angle of the root matrix it's the same amount of roots that were under the patio area parallel to the foundation and then they continue going under another paved walkway area towards the rear of the property this is where some of the roots were pruned in the past by the previous owner you can see that root has been pruned and this is the regeneration of root pruning and it's very nominal this is where another root had been pruned away from the foundation and there is no regeneration staff findings tree roots are present on the surface of the neighbor's lawn the neighbor has potential concerns about root impacts to her sewer system the roots have impacted the public sidewalk which appears to be minor at this time these are the surface roots in the neighbor's yard these are the minor cracks in the sidewalk area which it could be from the sequoia tree but it's possible that these cracks were also caused by the trees that were in these cutouts in the sidewalk before the crepe myrtles were put in and i actually gave these crepe myrtles to the previous owner more staff findings the tree is approximately 15 feet from the owner's structure the tree is approximately 25 feet from the neighbor's structure staff recommends a root pruning the roots that are parallel to the foundation and installing a root barrier system upon approval the heritage tree grant program can be utilized to protect the home address any potential sewer impacts and for any sidewalk repair this is the tree proximity to the home approximately 15 feet and the proximity to the neighbor's home of approximately 25 feet and at this distance i feel that a root barrier panel would be something that would allow the tree to coexist with the structures recommendation that the city council upholds the parks and rec creation commission decision to approve the tree removal of one giant sequoia or that the city council reverse the parks and recreation commission decision to approve tree removal and denies the tree permit application to remove one giant sequoia which was the initial recommendation made by staff and i'm bound to resolution as to how i determine my decisions and the findings i would have to make are the heritage tree has or is likely to have an adverse effect on the structural integrity of a building utility or public or private right away physical condition or health of the tree such as disease and infestation warrants alteration or removal or a construction project design cannot be altered to accommodate existing heritage trees and i don't believe that the findings have clearly been met in this case for this resolution and i feel that the roots can be pruned and the tree in the structure can coexist and that concludes my presentation thank you okay at this time the appellant will have up to 15 minutes to speak and present evidence in support of the appeal just a quick question sure um uh james allen you mentioned his name was he working for the city or was he how did he get involved because i know he's a very noted arborist in town very well known yeah i in the past when we've had tree appeals um both commission and council in the past have asked if i was the only arborist to investigator look at these and um so i obtained a peer review on this um from mr allen my other question is how much is a root barrier cost was it contained that information here i didn't see it uh well it depends where they would put it and so uh gosh i would probably i'd guesstimate it might be about four thousand dollars to do the front portion and the side of the home uh could be about three would a heritage tree grant cover that yes it would cover 50 percent of a total of that and not to exceed five thousand dollars total thank you mayor could you just um respond Leslie on the are the roots typically for these types of trees i know the ones you referenced from the neighbor's yard were surface roots is that typical are they deeper well it always depends on your soil profile and if you have clay below the grade or if it's sandy soils sandy soils promote a deeper soil profile for root development and growth so most of the case these trees are fairly deep rooted because they're native to the sear and about a mountain range where they are drought tolerant so um it's my suspicion that you would have a combination of some surface roots because they're coming up to get the lawn water or landscape water but um when they did the root exam we didn't really see too many roots which were surface which would lead me to conclude that the bulk of these roots actually are subsurface and fairly deep thank you would you recommend to someone in a residential neighborhood to plant this type of tree as part of landscaping or just something that you would do to enhance your yard if you were looking to plant trees i don't generally recommend tree species for anything out of our public right of way that's more of a landscape professional or a private sector arborist opinion but um it is a very large tree species um when you bring the giant sequoia out of the sear and about a mountain range and you put it down in Santa Cruz next to the ocean where it's not um endemic or it's not an area where these trees generally grow it's unlikely that this tree will get to be as huge as the general Sherman or some of these other large kings canyon sequoias they also are impacted by our fog and the moisture in our climate and so that slows the growth rate they also are subject to a pathogen that's a fungal pathogen that also slightly stunts the growth on these trees um so it's it is a big tree species but it's not going to be as large as the ones that are in the native habitats so it sounds like you know it won't grow as tall as the general Sherman's kind of an extreme comparison and i've i've been up there so it sounds like this tree could grow more oh it'll grow more uh there's uh i'd say maybe five or six in our community it's a fairly rare species for our community and um the largest ones in our community might be 20 feet taller so not too much larger in growth um diameter so it sounds like the type of tree that say a landscaper um probably wouldn't recommend somebody put in the yard unless it's a bigger area in which like someone who has maybe a pretty enormous size backyard yes it is a very large tree species proportional for the lot size and i would say most landscape professionals would assert that thank you there aren't any additional questions at this time we'll move on to the next portion of the process and that is the appellant which will have 15 minutes to speak and present evidence in support of the appeal thank you good afternoon um i'm sally shills i've lived in the west side for over 38 years and i am appealing the decision of the parks and recreation commission to allow the tree at 1420 to be cut down because according to the staff report as the conditions for the tree removal have not been met we have so few of these trees left that possess such stature and beauty the tree is in good health and has been admired and appreciated by the community for many years the city arborist assessed the situation and recommended use of proper root pruning and root barriers to address the concerns the report stated that the proper root pruning would not destabilize the tree in fact the city arborist stated that this is one of the healthiest coyotes in the county this recommendation was made by a professional city arborist there is also a second one that leslie mentioned a second certified arborist who also concurred with the original findings i have had several friends that have mitigated large tree root problems with much success under the heritage tree ordinance that uh which leslie also pointed out there are you know it needs to be of a qualifying size and unusually beautiful a distinct specimen and a rare or unusual species and provides valuable habitats the decision by the park in order to remove the tree is based on resolution and as 23 710 exhibit a the heritage tree has or is likely to have an adverse effect on the structural integrity of a building utility or public right of way no evidence was submitted that the tree roots were adversely affecting the foundation of the house the only submission was a home exception reciting foundation damage that contains no mention of tree roots and no invoices for repair included it seems that the owners the new owners seem to be fear-based and not fact-based the city arborist gave clear options to respond to any concerns including a root barrier system and responsible root pruning both are industry standards and protecting structures and for protecting structures and preserving trees i am besides the 135 signatures that signed the petition to save the tree i have another 90 to submit to the council here over the over on 89 members have signed this petition to save this majestic heritage tree i hope you are encouraged to do the same thank you thank you and you're welcome to submit the additional documents to our city clerk okay okay at this time the opponents or the responding applicant will have up to 15 minutes to speak and present evidence good afternoon my name is victoria sanchez and this is my husband aduardo teletto and i'd like to start off by thanking you the city counc