me thing was 130 centered that's just recently been approved we expect that project to be built um you know no problem so we're not we're not counting on redevelopment happening in there so we've identified A through J as sort of the parcels the blocks or you know individual parcels where redevelopment could actually happen in the next sort of 20 to 25 year time horizon and so that gets us down to about 15 acres of actual like developable property from that initial 29 acres of project area next slide so um our I'm about to show you some uh development scenarios that involve buildings that are taller than we have seen in Santa Cruz and so I just want to talk briefly about how we're thinking about height and density controls so um the heights that we're showing right now staff is thinking about those as like that would be the final height so that height would be achieved either through doing a development agreement with a developer if there is a developer who's ready to have a conversation about that and that requires a willing partner on the development side on the private side or that those would be the the height to which you could get with a density bonus so you know absent a development agreement with a developer staff would be thinking about you know how can we structure our policy and set our zoning allowances such that when a 50 density bonus is applied this is the final building form so that's the intention with all of these um and as I'm sure your council is already aware our current inclusionary requirement at 20 percent it essentially makes every project eligible for a density bonus not every project pursues it not every project pursues bonus units they may use the density bonus to do um get a waiver of a certain site concession or for site standard or ask for concession um but uh every project that we are currently processing is eligible for a density bonus under the state law because of our inclusionary requirement so um we would really prefer to do these with a developer agreement it gives the city a lot more control and working with a willing partner allows us to like lay out some of these details and a lot more fine grain so we're not sure if we're going to be able to do that and um that is something that we're kind of still considering as we move through the next year of this process about how are we going to structure our policies so that they can work even if we don't get a developer's agreement so um just to keep that in mind next slide please so first I'm going to talk you through um the planning commission's scenario so when we took this when we took our information to the planning commission their their staff report and attachments were part of your packet today um so we showed them the initial three development scenarios that we had also showed to the public and we were just there to sort of solicit their feedback and input and they opted to provide that feedback and input both through discussion and by passing a motion so um the motion that was passed included a few components that um have been addressed by your council earlier with your um housing element resolution so um I'm not going to go into a great amount of detail about those components of the recommendation the physical components is where I'm going to focus my time and so the physical components of their um motion uh included meeting 1600 residential dwelling units which is a significant increase over the baseline the baseline in this area based on existing zoning is just over 900 units so um the planning commission motion was to allow up to 1600 housing units um and to cap the heights of the buildings after density bonus at the same height of the tallest buildings that currently exist downtown so the the tallest building in downtown is the palomar hotel it's a 90 foot height limit so we modeled the scenario looking at like a 75 85 foot height limit because under current building codes like building a 90 foot structure like your your floor plate isn't higher than 85 feet anyway because of some technicalities with the fire code so um so that's what so what we modeled here is actually 85 feet um and that can on paper get you to a zoning capacity of just over 1600 units um the reality particularly based on the feasibility of developing these smaller parcels on blocks e f and g is that that number would would that would be it would be very hard to actually build 1600 units just given the configuration and geometry of those particular sites um so what we think is actually feasible under this scenario and capping those heights in that manner is closer to 1450 housing units um to really get those other units you're going to have to introduce some kind of taller component of a building that's more limited in in floor area so um we've modeled this in 3d so that we you can all take a look at what exactly how this would look for the city so one thing i would just like to point out is the way that um the block along laurel and pacific at that intersection framing the existing neighborhood um just how tall those buildings are relative to the um the neighboring um residential area and i bring this up in some places we aren't as concerned about this this neighborhood actually carries a special zoning called the neighborhood conservation zoning and so the idea there is that within that district and actually extending beyond the edges of that district all the development is supposed to support investment in those existing homes and support um just the vitality of that neighborhood so um holding these heights down in this manner creates a bit of a wall around that neighborhood that staff has some concerns about but we'll just now walk you through um looking at this development scenario if we hold the heights down this really does limit the total unit count um and we wanted to model it and and show you what the planning commission um had the motion that passed so this is looking from just over like up in the air above beach hill giving you an overview let's go to the next slide this is from across the river so this is and these are building envelopes right these aren't building forms so you know there's no articulation here um just intended to show you sort of the height and you know overall massing of a building next slide and this one is up um on depot hill sort of looking um northeast and then this is the last point of view looking sort of that's laurel street on the left side of the screen um and then center street comes down in the foreground that way so um some other components of the planning commission motion related to um the timing of making this change with the laurel street extension the planning commission was very concerned about there's an existing board and care facility uh located on front street and they were concerned that we you know kind of planning to just pave a road through there so um we share that concern we have no intention of paving a road through an existing facility so um we do want to have policies in place in the plan we share this concern with them so we'll make sure that there are policies in place in the plan stating that the realignment of the roadway to the toe of the hill can't happen unless and until you know this facility is adequately relocated either within the project area or elsewhere within the county we probably will study um two two different alignments so we'll study our preferred alignment along the base of the hill we'll also study another alignment just on the off chance we can't find a replacement facility for that existing um uh board and care facility and those existing tenants and beds or they're not tenants but the beds and occupants of that building um the the pc motion also because of the way that it um recommends that we limit heights to be 90 feet after density bonus that actually reduces the base density below the existing downtown so in the existing downtown the base density is 75 to 80 feet in parts that have the increased height so if that's how we want our final height to be after a density bonus we would have to choose something lower than that for the base case scenario um and we have some concerns about that actually you know not really meeting the goals of the project which are really to increase the capacity for housing if we have to rely on a density bonus for every single one of these things to happen for any kind of increase to happen we're a little concerned that we're not really going to be meeting the goals that we've set out for ourselves for the project um also um the site constraints and construction feasibility i mentioned this would actually result in closer to 1450 units rather than the targeted 1600 you're really going to need some kind of taller component to get to 1600 units um and significantly on blocks a through d which are those four primary blocks on the east side of the project area next to the river and then in the center between pacific and front those are the four blocks where the warriors have some interest already and um the development that we can place on those blocks is the development that's going to directly support the financial feasibility of creating an arena and so we are thinking about and concerned about how how much of the housing for the total area gets placed onto those four blocks because we're interested in having the development support that arena to the extent we that's appropriate and feasible um so related to those above concerns this um going with the scenario from the planning commission could really you know put us in a position where we have to find other locations to rezone outside of the downtown for arena requirements that may come to pass anyway and um any number of units that we can put in this part of town we don't have to find a place for elsewhere and you know this is one of those locations that is going to stay really relevant being close to downtown it's always going to be close to transportation it's always going to be close to jobs so um we don't we really want to take advantage of that it also creates just a very flat skyline um of Santa Cruz with not a lot of particular interest in that location um so after we went to the planning commission and got this motion from them the following week we went to the downtown commission we had a very different conversation with them they didn't pass a motion to um send their comments onto city council but um they were very enthusiastic they preferred the highest intensity scenario that we had proposed whereas the planning commission scenarios is more in the middle of the three scenarios that we had initially proposed um and the downtown commission uh really pushed us to consider more intensity they asked well why aren't you why not more you know why aren't you why aren't you doing you know more of these tall components of these buildings why you know why would we stop at this point um they were very excited about the opportunity to bring more people downtown to have more activity to support the warriors and have this ongoing events facility that could bring people downtown at different times of day different times of year different times of the week so um we heard also similar sort of enthusiasm from the members of the public as well and so taking those components we moved into what we've called scenario 3.1 so um this is just a little bit different than the original scenario 3 that we brought to the planning commission and discussed with them so um this gets us to just over 1800 housing units and um it does this by shifting around the way that we do intensity so you'll see in this um on the map that we're including these taller flex zones on four of the blocks so on block a b c and d there are these taller components that are introduced um so I'll show you the 3d rendering in a minute but there are some there are some reasons that you would do that in terms of the construction feasibility so I won't go into all the details with the building code but essentially by limiting the floor plate that goes much taller you're sort of constraining the costs that would otherwise be spread over an entire that would have to be like multiplied over an entire building and you're also able by getting that height it just changes the return that you're going to get on that development to be able to use that return to facilitate an arena and to facilitate full build out of these civic amenities that we're really interested in and um we just we think this is a great opportunity this also allows us to shift density toward the river intensities toward the river and away from the existing neighborhoods so we can have more of a height transition rather than just one um height limit throughout the whole area so um there are there's a lot more detail about prefer why we prefer this scenario in your staff report I won't go through all of it but let's take a look at the 3d renderings so this is just the overview um from above beach hill so um I'd just like to point out that that block at pacific and laurel again you'll see how in this scenario those buildings were able to come down because we've shifted that intensity away from the neighborhood and toward the river um and you'll also just see how this skyline even just from this point of view it's it's more dynamic and it's more um there's more going on there's more height variation um and you know I think a lot of folks would say that makes it more interesting sort of engaging place and we do know that those that variation and height is something that is used frequently by urban designers and architects to create a sense of place and to create interest in their buildings and all of those are things that were after in this area uh let's go to the next slide so this is the view from across the river and you'll see that um you know these these buildings are significantly taller than what we have downtown this is adding a a really new component to our downtown um something that we don't currently have and so um um we think there's actually a lot of excitement around that and um we're really excited to see you know where this could take us and where we could go let's go to the next slide so this is the view from above depot hill uh looking to the northeast and then here's our final point of view again with laurel street on the left and center street sort of in the foreground and so you can see how these um taller elements can become sort of a visual cue for people sort of moving across across town um and from many different directions and um sort of create the idea that there's really some activity and some energy and excitement that's going on in this part of town next slide so this is the the last slide that will show you this just is intended to illustrate a cup there are actually a couple of things that are being shown here so this is illustrating the height transition so we're really showing this is showing a 200 foot tower element at um the river levee um and the final height that we're recommending in scenario 3.1 is actually 225 feet so imagine two additional stories on this building it's really an increment so this this what's shown here was actually our original um scenario three but then this also shows you how um so you can have a height transition of buildings and then you can have a level transition of the roadway from pacific to the levee so that when you walk up to the levee this is now more ADA accessible this is easier to find for parents and children it's just easier access for all of us it's easier access for cyclists there's no hill to climb so again thinking about making access available to cyclists of all ages um I think the intensity that adult cyclists can take on is different than older cyclists or younger cyclists so just thinking about how this creates that opportunity to um regrade the site so that you have a relatively um even transition from pacific avenue all the levee um and then that allows you to create that big civic space from the levee along spruce street and it's all sort of just at a level like a very very gentle grade um along the whole along the whole street I think it's a really wonderful opportunity for the city so now we'll wrap up with our summary so in in scenario 3.1 we're recommending this um a staff and consultant team um the number of housing units speaks for itself I would like to point out this does also because of the way that the density is shifted instead of evenly spread out it creates more intensity on the box a b c and d which we know are more important for the warriors team it also allows us to have these step down heights between the river and the existing residential area which we think is sort of respectful urban design it creates some variation in the in the skyline which can create like it actually creates a skyline for Santa Cruz there's actually a skyline which creates a sense of place um you know and again we're just looking at building envelopes at this point you know the individual forms of those buildings are going to be working on the design policies of that over the coming year um with you know with the planning commission with the community talking about um you know the environmental issues the design issues policies that we should put in place um to support making this a place where people want to spend time where they want to be where they want to spend money um and where they want to engage with their community um and then lastly um this scenario is is preferred by staff and consultants because it does provide all of those financial incentives to create excuse me create those streetscape and civic improvements that people are really excited about um we just want to make sure we're not we're not missing an opportunity that we're not planning for less than could be supported and then missing out on some of these um improvements and amenities that we think could really support and serve the community next slide okay so our staff recommendation encompasses all of these components that we've talked about over the past hour the circulation and realignments the connectivity to the beach via cliff street and making improvements to that roadway and wayfinding it includes the building heights which include taller elements that go from 125 feet up or 165 feet I'm sorry 185 feet up to 225 feet of those taller components the base components in our scenario are held to 75 and 85 feet or in some places of lowest 50 where it's neighboring up where it's bumping up against the neighborhood there um the head number of housing units at 1800 is the component the arena location we are focusing on um we have we share this with the planning commission recommendation both of these scenarios prefer the arena to move to the central block in the building area block c which is bounded by pacific spruce and front but we're also going to study we we are recommending that we study also a second location where the arena sits currently on that block which is block d in our scenarios just to ensure that we have studied an appropriate location so if something you know ends up not working out on block c that we've also studied block d and that that could be an appropriate location for the arena um and then it's also the civic spaces so the idea of creating these civic spaces the idea of creating this um wayfinding and engagement and activity through um through lighting through programming and the idea of closing offspring street to create space for those civic amenities that is all part of our recommended motion which we have the cliff the cliff notes version the reader digest version of our motion is that for our recommendation is that your your council pass a motion to direct staff to initiate work on the eir based on development scenario 3.1 and associated circulation and civic improvements we have the full text of the motion if you feel the need to read it but it's quite lengthy so um i think we'll leave it at that and just close our presentation and move on to questions and discussion thank you for your time great thank you um sarah and to our consultant bill as well for the um thorough overview of the item before us tonight i was thinking maybe it was a little suspicious with the warriors almost to game uh seven here but we're we're pulling for the golden state warriors for sure here in Santa Cruz in terms of timing um no i'm i'm teasing you i'm just saying um this is really a big deal for Santa Cruz and we do want to do our due diligence no no doubt and i really appreciate the level of community engagement and outreach that occurred um and just the different considerations that have been brought before us as we move forward with this really big plan that is definitely keeping kind of the long the long game in mind for Santa Cruz and what's possible here um so with that i know we have a number of community members who have been waiting and wanting to address us on this item we've all had a chance to review the agenda item um hopefully got some of our questions asked in advance so i'd like to ask our council to ask any brief clarifying questions and we can always come back after we hear from our community um so i'll go ahead and start with council member mires thank you vice mayor and um thank you our consultants and also um sarah i know you've done you and your team matt and others in planning department have just done amazing work um and um wow yeah really really um really interesting and really kind of exciting um but big change so you know it's it's hard to take in a little bit but um i i you know your visualization and your study of not only just the exact site but the really creating a whole new neighborhood is really obvious and i really appreciate the way that you've thought about this um you know including the connection from cliff street and and really just really taking the time to think through and try to help people understand what this may look like um i have just a couple of quick questions one is and i don't remember all the numbering of the blocks but um over here in the um in the left quarter uh above spruce street i'm just curious um displacement is one thing we've heard in some letters about existing residents and is there a measurement of any of the existing housing in that area that would need to be um either removed or um would potentially be altered or go away as part of these design plans i wasn't quite clear on that and i know that would be something that the eir would probably be looking at as well but i'm just curious if you get any work on that so typically with long-range planning we um we don't like do that sort of inventory at this point in the process um you know we're planning for all of these parcels that we're not expecting all of them to get developed all at once and um which is not to say we haven't thought about it at all so there are the city has policy and there's also the state law has recently changed and is now stricter than the city's policy so that's what we're following following in terms of displacement that requires um support for existing tenants and helping them find alternative housing as well as for any tenants that are um low lower or very low income that they have a right of return into new units that are created to replace those existing units so any existing units that are occupied by lower income tenants have to be replaced by units that would be affordable to those households and then those households have to be offered a first right of return um into an equivalent size unit so um at this point we've been we we are assuming that the state law will be in effect that it will be complied with that we will ensure compliance and um that's that's sort of the extent of our analysis at this point in time okay um my next question was um about birds um I got a couple of questions from folks um and I believe in our code we have bird friendly code requirements in terms of um types of windows and things like that but because the river is right there and um many of the bird species move back and forth between Uri Lagoon to the river and then over to the beach just curious about how do we make sure we're not creating places where birds are going to be you know running into big glass buildings and potentially um perishing from that sure uh great question and very timely because um we what we actually have right now are guidelines that the development review team has been using um in appropriate situations and um when we come through in a few weeks with our objective standards we're going to be um codifying a reference to those guidelines so codifying these apply when development happens within 300 feet of natural areas they you know requires that alternative designs be created for all the windows that are 40 feet and below which is where the bird strikes tend to happen um so we are just right on the cusp of putting that into our code so it'll be in our code before any development under this new plan would come in to play in those uh guidelines I would imagine reference something like the autobahn guidelines or whatever leading kind of bird scientists I know there's I've seen those references but I don't know that they're actually real or not but where do we where did you get those guidelines yeah so we worked um we worked with the Vantana chapter of the Sierra Club on those and then we had them vetted by an ornithologist to make sure we were addressing all of the right components and and identifying all of the appropriate mitigation or not they're not mitigations but the um accommodations or designs that that need would need to be included with okay with glass specifically got it thank you and then my last question um it was the slide that you were looking at when you looked at you were looking at the I think it was the planning um commission scenario um and you had a slide that was discussing the the rena both the rena goals but also SB 35 I think the slide was titled SB 35 and I didn't quite understand exactly where what you said at the end there which but my understanding was that with a 30 inclusionary rate um even in this type of in this area in this planning and development area you may not be able to my understanding is what you said but correct me if I'm wrong that with a rate that high you would still not be able to satisfy that in this plan development area you would still potentially need to build out in other areas to get to our goals because of that ratio is that did I understand that correctly um okay so that's not what I was trying to say about SB 35 so let me see if I can try again and I might ask Lee or Matt to jump in and help out so the point I wanted to make about SB 35 is that um so SB 35 is a bill that just creates streamlined process review and it exempts projects from CEQA so currently in Santa Cruz um a project doesn't qualify for SB 35 status unless they're providing 50 of the units as deed restricted affordable housing at the right level um that's we are in that there are there are three tiers within SB 35 Santa Cruz is in the 50 percent tier there's also a 100 percent tier right so for for communities that have met all of their arena they are not subject at all to SB 35 SB 35 applications are not accepted in those locations and then there's a third tier that's a 10 percent tier so in those cities and counties and jurisdictions any project that provides 10 percent of the units as deed restricted affordable housing qualifies for that streamlined review and exemption from CEQA what gets us into the 50 percent tier rather than the 10 percent tier is meeting half of our requirement for above moderate housing within half of the it's making adequate progress and adequate progress is defined as meeting half of your above moderate allocation within the first half of your housing element cycle so they're essentially taking that whole arena number they're amortizing it over the whole eight years and they're saying you need to build every year essentially adequate progress and the one that they check up on at the midpoint is the above moderate market rate housing so that was the point I was trying to make we need to ensure that we're building housing at all income levels we know that housing at the lowest income levels is the hardest to produce it needs the most of our financial resources and land resources and when we're planning in my department we need to be planning for all the income levels and what keeps us um what keeps our exposure to SB 35 reduced is meeting that market rate housing allocation the market rate piece so I mean I like to I like to refer to this as you can't just um create you have to create a housing ecosystem to basically survive SB 35 in a sense I mean because you really I mean the state wants you to continue to build for everyone in your community not just you know one type or the other and that could be so that's helpful for me I didn't understand it but now that you've explained it I do so those are my questions thank you for the presentation thank you councillor Myers we'll go over to council member boulder council member Myers asked my question and I'll hold my comments till after public comment thank you councillor Cummings do you have any questions before we go public comment I do and I just want to thank uh everyone for the presentation today it's very informative and helps paint a picture of the um you know change in the downtown plan I do want to ask though because I feel like the one thing that we didn't touch on really during this presentation was the arena itself and so I think it was mentioned briefly um something along the lines of the housing helping to finance the construction of the arena and I'm wondering if you can speak to that because I don't think that's very clear for many folks in the community um but you know how are we going to actually get the arena built and how does the housing and the increase of housing in this area actually contribute to that uh sure so I can I can do my best to answer that I understand that Chris Murphy is from the Warriors is here tonight and he's requested some extra time so hopefully he'll you know address this to some degree as well so um so so so a couple of things so first of all you didn't see a lot about the arena because we the city will not be building an arena we what we are going to do is to plan for a block of land or or two blocks of land we're going to study whether they can support an arena of a certain size and a certain activity level um and so and then we're going to set you know use requirements and use allowances to allow that to take place so we're going to set the ground for private development to come in and take over and we have been working with the Warriors and they've been a great partner and we've had a lot of great conversations about you know how do we how do we support your endeavor to build a privately funded arena so part of the way that they get there with a privately funded arena is by holding interest in additional real estate and then using returns on development of that other real estate to subsidize the development of the arena so that that's my understanding of how all of that works is that um returns on residential development support the development of arena they also facilitate the creation of all of the civic space which then supports everything um and i think chris could probably provide any more detail on that that you might need i think that's as much as i feel really qualified to comment on thank you i think it would be he'll be having extra time just so you that so you do know he's got to say we really good to just kind of get the community to understand this connection between the production of housing and the arena um and the financing because i think many people i still included don't really understand that connection as well and so i hear what you're saying but i think that even having some visuals and a deeper discussion about that might be helpful for the community to really understand the synergy between this these projects and how that brings about a new arena okay any additional questions councilman um no i think mine um were answered the displacement of residents and um those are all my questions for now thank you councilman thanks so most of my questions have also been answered at least the ones that probably can be answered given the stage and the process we're at um but i i so i wanted to follow up on a couple things i heard in the presentation actually that i hadn't thought about before um so we heard that the base density for the area is currently in 900 the planning commission proposal is for 1600 however the planning commission proposal also proposed to cap heights in such a way that um it would be unlikely that developers could get beyond the 1450 so there's a gap there um i'm wondering uh what about capping heights at the downtown plan maximum density inclusive of density bonuses so allowing for just extending the zoning from uh the downtown the current downtown plan into the expansion area how many units could we get out of that uh proposal like that uh yeah okay so um sorry to put you on i know that's on the spot a little it's not a problem it's not a problem we we modeled that so that was our initial scenario one was like basically taking this the um existing zoning and bringing it south and um i just i've forgotten off the top of my head i think it was like 1400 or 1500 units i'm just trying to find it bill do you have that number or matt can someone help me out here what's that number that we had from scenario one i i probably read it um this is our baseline so let's skip ahead to scenario oh right because bill has the whole presentation so can we skip ahead to scenario one scenario one gets us to 1319 residential units okay so so scenario one but but then i thought i heard that the planning commission which was more restrictive was could maybe get us to 1450 maybe okay so yeah very good point yes very good point so so it's more restrictive on blocks a b c and d okay it's less restrictive on blocks e f h i and j gotcha okay thanks i just was trying to make them not figure out how many how many stories to get to sure right no it's a good question it's a good question and there's also like i'll just mention that there's sort of there's a there's this economy that happens at um one story of like retail and commercial development underneath seven stories of residential development that gets you to 85 feet and that's the limit that is essentially the height of a fire ladder so that's the limit on the height of a building before you have to start adding things like additional emergency ingress and e-graphs so um there's a reason that that's why that's kind of usually the podium height and that any any component that then goes much taller that thing goes taller than that they don't want to go just two stories taller than that they want to go much taller because they have to build it differently out of like fires retardant or like steel and concrete essentially rather than wood um so all of that i mean it gets very detailed very quickly but yeah and one day i'll ask try to get to the bottom of how many stories to make that pencil out when you go higher and you need to go steel frame but not i'm very curious about it but i'm not going to ask about that tonight i know time is short so i'll i'll leave it there for now thanks and matt if you had more yeah thanks um yeah just to follow up on what sir was saying yeah so essentially if you set a building limit to nine stories for instance based on the current construction and economic feasibility you're still only going to see seven maybe eight stories uh regardless and that's kind of what we see in our downtown currently um no one's building beyond that those eight stories even though it's exclusive of the density bonus no one's doing a density bonus above those current heights so that's where you're coming to push beyond a little bit more to make that economically feasible thanks okay councilmember calentary johnson thank you um thank you for the presentation and all of the tremendous work it is it is a lot to take in and i really appreciate the work a lot of my questions have been asked but i did want to ask um you mentioned in the presentation that there was outreach and engagement of residents on spruce street is there a sense of how many folks from spruce street like showed up to any of those community engagement was there um i just i happened to talk to some of the spruce street neighbors who um um wanted to be included more so i just wonder um if we tracked the outcome of that engagement and if not if there's an opportunity to do so because this is of course a very long process okay so we did we sent postcards to folks who lived within the project area and within a 500 foot radius of the project area they got direct mailed postcards to owners and occupants um and those were those were for the community open house meeting that we held so that was the first time we sent direct mailed notices we wanted to ensure that they had the opportunity to learn about the project hear about the project you know get involved with it um i spoke with at least two groups of folks from spruce street um on the project night but we didn't request we didn't ask people to identify you know where they were living we collected email addresses um so i don't have numbers on that um moving forward we could think about how we collect our demographics and just sort of ask people to pin drop maybe with their address so that we can sort of see where we're getting our feedback from that's something the city's trying to um get better at is collecting demographic data about engagement so that we're getting better at ensuring more equitable engagement across all all types of demographic features so um yes that's something we can certainly um keep in mind as we move forward great yeah and um yeah i think just again this is a long process so maybe we can think of really directed outreach and maybe even just a community meeting just for those residents um just something to consider and so along those lines and i'm sorry if you addressed this i had to step away but what what um efforts have been made during the community outreach to reach latinx and spanish speaking community members that are in the surrounding neighborhoods and i apologize again if you've already addressed this um yeah no we didn't address that directly um so with this process we have not had direct spanish language outreach um i think within our project area i don't know i i the the demographics are a little bit um trend a little wider in this particular neighborhood um and that's a good point you know to keep in mind as we again as we move forward through the rest of the process to um focus some of that outreach into those neighborhoods that are just across the river or over beach hill on the other side great okay well those are my questions thank you again for the great work yes thank you council for your questions your clarifying questions let's take a like a two three minute stretch break bio break and we'll come back at um 752 ish and we'll hear from our community members who have been wanting to address this on this item hopefully you're like council colleagues had a moment to stretch their legs take care of whatever they need to take care of i know we've had a number of uh members from our community who want to address this on this item we've also received i think i see in our script here 44 emails sent to our city council account um and i've heard from a number of people as well that way um council member i mean excuse me mayor bruner allowed for chris murphy from our warriors to have extra time and um we'll go ahead and have chris address us first you'll have four minutes um to address us and uh we'll go ahead and have you get started uh now and you can just go ahead and unmute yourself or um if you're yep perfect thanks chris are you able to hear me are you able to hear me we can hear you chris yes all right perfect um i'm gonna go ahead and pause you for a second if you want go ahead um have your your computer maybe to to silence the computer so we don't have the the echo i'm just gonna use only the computers very perfect is that better perfect thank you good evening everybody my name is chris murphy as many of you as all of you know i'm president sancar's warriors in addition my role at the warriors i'm a father to two young children active community member throughout the city in the county um quick anecdote when i first attended my game my first game as president sancar's warriors is november 13th 2015 and one thing stood out to be more than anything else it wasn't the ring ceremony held pre game in front of all the fans on or the team obviously it was the amazing atmosphere in five and kp arena that exuded passion and support for the local team it was seeing 2,500 fans cheering in unison high-fiving each other smiling at your ear proud of their team of the sancar's warriors and i had goosebumps and i knew right then and there that sancar's was somewhere special the the gold state warriors the sancar's warriors all things warriors love sancar's we love this community this community supported us immensely from day one and we consistently try to do everything in our power to support the community i believe many of you are aware of our immense reach throughout the community but i want to highlight a few of my favorite things that we do um you know it's starting with our school educational programs focused on math reading health and wellness that serve thousands of kids annually our relationship with second harvest that's resulted in over a hundred thousand meals in the last two years alone for community members over three hundred thousand dollars we fundraised in the last five years alone for local non-profits multiple anti-racism webinars and discussions we've held with sancar's youth the numerous river and beach clean events the parades from mlk day to pride the holiday to the championship parade we could go on and on and there's the not so bright moments too the honoring our fallen officers administering over 20,000 vaccines COVID-19 vaccines being a resource recovery center for higher victims all tough moments but elements that brought our community closer and allowed us to come together as one sancar's we don't participate in the community because we have to we participate in the community because we're a part of this community a piece of the fabric that makes sancar's special we love sancar's we don't want to go anywhere however we need a new home our vision for a new arena includes a new venue for more than sancar's warriors we also envision dozens of concerts and shows a home for the sancar's symphony ucsc athletics local and regional youth sports tournaments community plaza spaces and much more our goals for this project to be primarily privately funded in order primarily privately funded arena our vision is for a mixed-use development project including housing retail commercial community spaces and more i know there was a question about it and i will respond to that uh when when asked again um to reiterate though the success of a mixed-use development is the primary funding source for the new arena we all know housing's a major issue in our community whether market rate or affordable across any level we have a major shortage and a tremendous challenge ahead to achieve the arena numbers in our site in this next cycle building more housing downtown helps relieve some of the pressure from other neighborhoods as we strive to reach the state mandated numbers our project will provide a substantial amount of housing that can make a significant dent in the housing shortage for our community our project will provide a multitude of affordable housing units at varying levels and building more housing in the downtown provides a vibrancy and injury energy year-round in our downtown core something we all know has innumerable benefits another element to the project that brings excitement to me is the creation of local jobs for our community not only the countless positions needed to build the mixed-use development of this magnitude but also the hundreds of jobs that will be necessary to make the newer area of downtown thrive daily this type of project creates a multitude of quality jobs for our Santa Cruz residents we all know and love what downtown looks like on a warrior's game night the streets are buzzing the restaurants bars and shops are packed the air is filled with a strong sense of positive community vibes imagine more vibrant local businesses resources for community family gathering spots with friends and seniors alike engaging the San Lorenzo river and the connectivity to the beach we can have all these things and create a more successful downtown as part of the mixed arena project thank we understand this is a big change for downtown Santa Cruz and we're sensitive to the needs and values of the community because i'm going to stop you here because your time is up and we want to make sure we have time to operate the housing our community so desperately needs i don't think we're hopeful that the final okay thank you chris yeah i um gonna go ahead and stop you there i know that you're available to to all of the council as well so we'll go ahead and follow up with your with any questions if we if we have some we'll go ahead and go on to other community members wanting to address the council on this item you'll have two minutes to address the council if you need it when the timer goes off that is when it's time for you to wrap up your comments so we can hear from the next speaker so on the top of my list i see chris minroe and we'll go ahead and have you unmute yourself or to um yes go ahead good evening my name is chris minroe and i have the honor and privilege of serving as superintendent for santa cruz city schools today i'm here to speak in support of the downtown plan expansion project it's really exciting to hear about these opportunities and what it's going to mean for families and for our staff who um desperately need access to more housing it's very difficult to re recruit people to come to santa cruz because just even finding a rental is such a difficult challenge um the civic space and other benefits that this plan encompasses are are really exciting um and i also most importantly want to speak to are equally importantly want to speak to the importance of finding a permanent space for the santa cruz lawyers the santa cruz lawyers have provided incredible support for our schools and for the wider community since they've come to our community some of the programs that they provide in our schools are read to achieve program for our elementary schools with incentives for for our youngest students uh players and coaches assigned to each school the math wares program where the wares paid for our middle school and high school teachers to build statistics lessons around basketball and then they paid gave tickets to students to attend and have some real uh world learning experiences the nutrition warriors program support for our high school athletics programs and wellness support for the boys and girls clubs basketball program the teams providing um service projects in our schools during the mlk day of service anti bully bullying assemblies anti racism webinars um providing access to santa cruz lawyers games for students and staff across the district to make sure that their their programs and uh are accessible to everyone in our community providing meaningful employment opportunities for our high school students and so much more every time i call the santa cruz lawyers presidents chris murphy to ask for assistance east he shows up i'm gonna say one one quick story that i can just really important when we were holding small cohorts outside during the pandemic bringing kids back to school who needed us the most when we still didn't know how to keep kids safe we had kids outside and i had kids without coats and he got me fleece blanket fleece warriors blankets to support our students it's just he steps up and the wear step up all the time for our kids and i just want to say we need to find a permanent help for them so thank you all for all you do and i will stop and have a good night thank you okay our next speaker is philip uh rosin bloom and you can go ahead and um have two minutes to address this on this end well thank you martin can you hear me yes okay um i'm surprised by this project i live on beach hill i've lived in santa cruz 30 years i went i finished up school ucsc i'm a teacher here i've raised my kids here um this is a zoning bomb this is incredible yes little postcards get sent every now and then and they're couched in legal leads and i can never understand what they mean this has been going on for a year and the first i heard about this was two days ago the public outreach has been absolutely horrible i pay attention to things i read the santa cruz sentinel i look at next door neighbors i haven't heard about this until and none of my neighbors have either my wife is part of the beach hill book club you know the idea that there has been any outreach is somebody checking off a box saying that you know there has been input by all the appropriate stakeholders it is absolutely not true um i don't know how i feel about this yet but i'm i'm shocked that this has been in the works for a year and this is 10 times bigger than the library project and the rail trail project put together all right who benefits from this listen obviously the city from revenue obviously the warriors um okay great um the city has to build more housing okay um do the local residents who are we're here do we really benefit from this well we benefit if you want to widen streets you want to build plazas you want to plant big trees you want to make more walkways you want to improve beach connectivity absolutely does that have to go hand in hand with building skyscrapers uh okay and traffic is the last word i'm going to just end you with it takes me an hour to get home i have to park my car down down sometimes thank you thank you vote okay our next speaker is Zachary demons go ahead you have two minutes thank you um i'll try to keep it brief um so Zachary Davis small business owner in Santa Cruz with businesses come towards the northern end of downtown as well as the beach area so on either side of this project um just want to say i i've participated in um a couple of the opportunities for engagement around this project and i i did feel like there was outreach and i appreciated that um what struck me um was that it you know it could have just been about an arena it could have just been about the housing um but when you step back and you look at how this project is being considered in the context of downtown and the community as a whole and the way it connects to north pacific the way it connects to the beach that's what really gets me excited that that the folks that are thinking about it are really thinking big picture and i so i wanted to support specifically the staff recommendation i think um we're fortunate to have some really fantastic staff members who do a great job analyzing these things really thinking in detail really getting into that you know all the weeds that that only experts can and uh i really appreciate the work they've done and and i just want to say i mean we need housing desperately this is a perfect place for intense housing to go and we deserve to have a team like the warriors in our community and have that connection Santa Cruz is a special place and um i just think it it makes so much sense that um an appropriately sized development league team would be in our community that would reflect the fact that Santa Cruz is you know it's it's a small community it's a closely knit community but it does have a place on the world stage and i think that um you know this is just another way that that we get connected to the world and uh and reflect it positively upon so thank you very much appreciate it thank you Zachary okay our next speaker is jim sandal thank you can you hear me you can hear me okay um good evening vice mayor Watkins and city council my name is jim sandal and i am a beachill resident at nine ten third street i support the concept of more housing and vibrancy in the downtown expansion i also support a new arena for the Santa Cruz warriors and other community events the warriors are a great asset to county residents and the existing venue has brought vibrancy to the blighted area of Santa Cruz uh down in south laurel and produced a myriad of benefits to our community a permit arena would certainly increase those benefits although i support our rena goals i do not support the three concept design scenarios presented uh in the study the building heights in all three scenarios will ruin the quality of life for residents on third street and the character of beach hill proposed scenario 3.1 will create a wall of buildings along the foot of beach hill between the depot park roundabout and the river that will exceed the height of third street properties by 50 to 150 feet that's four to 12 foot stories of solid building façades hovering above our homes along third street across the street from us even scenario one will overshadow us by four to seven story blockade uh at least 52 residential units on third street enjoy vistas with a unique perspective of downtown and the Santa Cruz mountains along with stunning sunsets over bonnie dune uh this is all going to vanish i have participated in the expansion public outreach meetings although these plans were shared the elevational impact to the beach hill neighborhood was not clearly discernible until i dove into the detail building height data this weekend that was attached to the staff report and compared them to a topo map of beach hill the realization was shocking and caught me and the five neighbors i spoke to this weekend by surprise the agenda report states that the three scenarios were designed to protect residents of pacific west of pacific avenue but what about beach hill um thank you thank you is there a way to soften the building heights towards blocks a b and d you know towards laurel street towards the river thank you jim your time your time is thank you thank you okay our next speaker is a caller and that phone number ends in 7407 and i believe you hit star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes okay thank you very much city council this is really fascinating um tremendous amount of work and very interesting i actually agree with shabra i want to jump to that very quickly um thank you shabra for bringing up that question about tracking the outreach i'm i'm afraid that i'm a very close observer city council i live right there downtown at pacific and laurel very close by in the city uh sent a postcard like something like four months in advance and then the meeting about the front one of the front street properties with several city staff and developers very few of us citizens anyway just want to say there is a huge spanish-speaking community thank you again shabra for bringing this up they live there it is right behind spruce street it is right on the other side of laurel it is very close to the arena they are being left out excluded this sounds extraordinarily racist to me and they must know what's going to be happening in their neighborhood it's right a stone's throw away i also go to downtown every day i'm down there every day i never heard about this not once i go to coffee shops i go to the library i'm conducting my job search down there it's my home that's why i'm paying attention i never heard disney squad about this not one flyer reached me but you got the chamber of congress you got your warriors production great i'm not necessarily against that but this is a not an environmental design i did go to the college of environmental design and boulder years ago all those lights are going to kill a lot of our enjoyment of the beautiful dark river where plants and animals thrive we need a much more harmonious not las vegas picture i hated the pictures of chase closet those are not human friendly designs i've studied design the wayfinding too garish too like there's a lot that's good here the housing obviously you guys are going to harp and harp and harp on that but we love our city and we want to keep some of the character please more outreach back it track it please don't snowball us we'll cancel the whole thing thank you okay let's see our next speaker is casey fire and you can go ahead and unmute yourself and you'll be given two minutes to dress thank you vice mayor uh marquine i really appreciate the opportunity to speak on behalf of the santa hoose county the chamber of commerce we represent over 500 members in the the santa cruise area all over the county and i'm really uh struck by the dynamics that we're seeing tonight where we're looking at an opportunity for the future of santa hoose county and the downtown in this project please note that what we're looking at is the future of santa cruise not today but tomorrow we have a lot of vital companies that want to expand in santa cruise we have people that want to work and live in santa cruise and we see this as an opportunity a once in a lifetime opportunity to make a future for people that will be here i talk to residents i talk to interns that work with the santa cruise chamber that ask the question i'd love to live here but i have no place to live so you have an opportunity with this opportunity to look at the downtown and address our our housing issues but also address the economic opportunity that this project creates we're not living in the 1970s let me say that again we're not living in the 1970s we're looking at the future of downtown and expansion will happen and you have an opportunity as a city council to move forward with a great opportunity for economic vitality in the core mission of the chamber this downtown expansion plan can bring more job to more people than live in the creation of an opportunity so thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight thank you kasey okay our next speaker is a phone caller ending in 8672 and you could press star six to unmute yourself you have two minutes uh thank you can you hear me we can hear you okay great uh good evening council members um my name is uh jesse bristow from some builders and we just wanted to uh express our support for the downtown um plan expansion and i really would like to applaud staff um i think they've done a great job on outreach and you know i've seen articles and look out santa cruz and santa cruz local and even some blogs of those who might not be in favor of this type of development so i i think um that outreach was really uh constructive and i appreciate um all the time that they spent on um their recommendations and i just want to encourage uh council to adopt the recommendation for the 3.1 scenario we've built a 555 specific we built 401 specific uh long time ago we've now um have 130 center street entitled they're really excited to see um other areas of the community and that and uh connect downtown to the beach and i think this is the best scenario for um long range development and to meet those rena numbers this location is uh you know one direction you're right at the rail trail connection and then in another direction you're you're right at the the new transit uh center that's going to come to be so i think it's the appropriate location and we really need to take into consideration the need for for new housing and investment in this area so i'm very excited and i just want to thank staff and thank you for your time thank you for your comments um okay we'll go on to our next speaker and that is a phone call uh with the phone number ending in five three six two and please press star six to unmute yourself good evening council um this is judy grunstra um one of the specifics uh that i read in the uh kim lee horn uh contract i guess is that it's optional for them to whether to provide full volumetric 3d modeling and i think people deserve to see what those building masses and heights will be downtown so what uh you should require them to provide that 3d modeling um have an idea of what it's going to be like um and it's interesting to see how the city or the presentation uh you know claimed how great it would be to have civic spaces with activation and all kinds of events and uh entertainment district and uh i'd just like to remind you we do have an entertainment district downtown uh we have the civic the catalyst and um um um a jazz center a real treasure and um if the city really wanted to activate the space we have a wonderful spot on lot four that could be a wonderful town plaza thank you thank you judy for your comments our next speaker is caroline and we'll go ahead and have you unmute yourself thank you hi thank you my name is caroline and i'm part of the downtown commission uh i first heard about this project when i got invited to the open house at the warrior stadium the prospects of the project was very exciting um especially with the ability to invite a lot more neighbors who want to live here in santa cruz um we have this unique opportunity to be able to mold and change as our city grows and with that i do want to say that as we do make these changes that do we want to serve the private automobile or do we want to do people and as a city we cannot serve both um after all how many times have you heard of parents or their childhood their children of the dangers of being their street in fear of being hit by a car or how many times a cyclist has complained of the dangers of riding with cars um this project is very exciting because it has the ability to really make a space for people and for children um i would just like to ask that the project as moving forward to aid in public transportation so financial aid to our train financial aid to bike safety bus access and even the trolley that connects our downtown to the beach um and thank you again for this presentation i really look forward to see how it changes over time thank you carolin okay our next speaker is former mayor don lane go ahead don thank you my name is don lane as one of the folks that help bring the santa cruz warriors to town you can count on the fact that i'm a fan of keeping them here permanently however i'm even a bigger fan of affordable housing and of the warrior's willingness to build housing because of that i'd like to make a couple of suggestions first as you consider the appropriate height for buildings in the new district please find that sweet spot that balances community sentiment about tall buildings with the need for a lot more affordable housing we won't meet our housing needs if the community fights against a plan with buildings that seem too tall for many people in the community i appreciate the the staff idea for pacific having lower heights near the spruce neighborhood for instance and for a variation of heights on different blocks on the other hand please don't be afraid to allow some buildings to be significantly taller than eight stories we don't need to be stuck with the 100 year old eight-story palomar building as our standard forever we have new needs and i hope we'll adapt to those needs many people living and working in santa cruz have been left out of achieving their dream of an affordable place to live third i want as many affordable housing affordable apartments as possible built downtown emphasis on the word possible please make sure the inclusionary requirement you establish is both ambitious and feasible if you're not certain exactly what the feasible standard should be please crunch the numbers with impartial housing development experts to get it right it will serve no one to establish a number that gets us zero affordable units and zero housing and one final thought more housing at this location means we the taxpayers are not being asked to subsidize the warriors thanks so much thank you don okay our next speaker is natalie goff and unmute yourself natalie you'll have two minutes hi this is natalie i just want to say i'm another i'm i live on pacific avenue and i have only heard about this project on sunday as as two other people have stated i live in a community of 90 homes and none of us know about this and i think that um it would have been nice if we were included if we were invited as well since um this is our neighborhood downtown is our neighborhood and um it sounds like 20 000 warrior people on their waiting list on their guest lists they were invited but people who live downtown were not invited so i would like for us to be able to have further input from the community thank you thank you okay our next speaker is danie keith go ahead unmute yourself danie thank you council thank you uh vice mayor for giving me the chance to speak on this topic you know we've had some great people bring up some really great points i mean it's hard to follow don lane the guy's such a magician with his words but when it comes to what the warriors has brought to santa cruz and and really the investment into the youth i was part of that first group of people that got the opportunity to work in the santa cruz warriors and golden state warriors organization and the culture that they bring the the strive for excellence the investment in education and just the overall outlook that it gives the youth of santa cruz to be able to attach to combine that with the ability to provide affordable housing for the jobs that don't pay a hundred thousand dollars a year whether it be working in a restaurant you know working at hotels you know those people are being priced out and you're seeing businesses being affected by that because these people can't commute from san jose or deep monterey county to be able to come to their 20 to 30 dollar an hour job so i think the combination of dawn's point is that we have to find that sweet spot we have an opportunity to have an anchor with the santa cruz warriors in the golden state warrior organization the things they've done for the youth like i've said has been immeasurable when you look at what the opportunity outlives for us to connect the northern and the pacific to the southern and the pacific plus add affordable housing i mean i don't i don't think you can argue that fact so i implore the council to you know grind the numbers figure out the best way to come to a decision and i have all the faith that we will make the right decision and we'll retain the warriors in our town and continue forward thank you thank you danie okay our next speaker is another former mayor hillary bryant we'll go ahead and have you unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes let me thank you vice mayor wattkins and council members first i want to thank you all for your service i can't tell you how much it's appreciated by the community i'm grateful for what you do every day and i have actually not addressed the council since i left the council because i leave it up to you and your good decisions but i couldn't let this one pass i took many votes and some were ones that i wish that i could change and some were ones that everyone was unhappy but this was one of the few that i was most proud of um bringing the golden state warriors to the santa cruz and having a team here was just such um a great opportunity for a community and it's a great opportunity for our community going forward you think about the chance to keep this team here build an arena build a civic space for our community that we can all use and embrace and put in affordable housing in our downtown i can't think of a better combination and i know these decisions are incredibly challenging and i trust all of you at the dais to figure out how best to do that but don't miss this opportunity for santa cruz for our future for the youth in this community the warriors have done so much more than they um have just on the basketball court it's one of those rare times where an organization came and said they do all these things and you know people come with these projects and they promise and they promise and they promise and they don't deliver and the warriors over delivered every day in our community everything from being a vaccination clinic to providing a place where we can have civic engagement and go vote to helping us after the fires to just being there when our community is at its toughest moments and then bringing so much joy and i just want to thank you again for all that you each of you do and hope that you allow for the greatest amount of flexibility in this project really listen to the community the concerns are very real but the opportunities are so big don't miss this chance to make a vote for the future of santa cruz and i thank you again for your service thank you hillary okay our next speaker is angela our next speakers angela and richard go ahead and unmute yourself hey thank you thank you council for allowing me to speak um my husband and i have lived on beach hill for me over 20 years him almost almost 30 years and we were so excited when the warriors came into town and so the fact that south of laurel started to be developed you know when they came into town or more developed um we were just thrilled so we were very happy and just passionate about the warriors and and again what hillary just said about them being a top notch organization and and the opportunity we have to partner with them to provide affordable housing and jobs and you know civic spaces and other events is just huge i mean this team is on the verge of you know winning another you know the nba championship so it's a huge organization's first class run and i understand that the the community has concerns and i myself too i i heard jim sandoval raise one about the height and don lane say yes we have to reach some kind of sweet spot absolutely agree um traffic you know for those of us you know everybody lives downtown and um traffic flow and i appreciate relocating cliff street i'm sorry laurel street extension and you know the corridor that's going to be developed upon cliff street it you know it all sounds really promising very supportive of it but it is delicate and it does affect a lot of people and you know you heard some negative people who said they hadn't heard about it which is you know you know frustrating if you live up on beach or in the community and you don't hear about it um you know we maybe we could somehow do that to try to include them i do feel that uh people reached out to do that um i received not only the postcards and emails but i believe it was in the paper which i had seen it and i've had just heard about it from talking with various people so um in support of it really appreciate what the council has done and um you know your work towards just you know every issues that come up and thank you for taking um my call and just wanted to add yeah so supportive of this project thank you thank you sandra okay our next speaker is linda burrows you'll go ahead and unmute yourself for two minutes thank you very much good evening my name is linda burrows and i am the president of the santa cruz symphony i have been involved with the symphony since 1992 and on the board most of that time this is my 10th year of being president i let you know this because i'm very involved with what goes on with them in our concerts um the symphony currently performs at the civic auditorium uh for our saturday night performances the civic poses many challenges for our audiences as we are all well aware and these include um steep and dangerous unrailed stairs um being located right next to the fire department doesn't allow us to leave our windows open and it gets intensely hot in there for our patrons and our musicians it's it's a challenge it's the only space that's available for us now so we're happy to have it but we wish there could either be improvements there or another option and that leads me to um i've been committed to finding a some kind of performance space for the symphony for over 10 years when i met chris um several years ago i proposed to him the possibility of creating a permanent um scott's valley or santa cruz warrior's arena to include um enhancements so that the symphony and other orchestras like ours and other concert goers our performance groups like ours could have that space to use as well um we both believe that this is a good combination and we're both in favor of doing whatever we can to acoustically enhance the arena so that the symphony can have a home there instead of at the civic my husband and i've been season ticket holders since the first year the santa cruz warriors started playing here there's been a tremendous level of community involvement and positive influence in our community the games are attended by families and people of all ages a joyous spirit and civic pride prevails in the arena as we all have heard i totally support the building of the permanent home for the santa cruz warriors and the shared use with the santa cruz symphony the expansion plan would enhance downtown provide much needed affordable housing enhance our as well as providing wonderful viable outdoor spaces thank you so much for your time thank you right now okay our next speaker is raffa sundown and raffa you'll have to yeah thank you um good evening council um i've been involved in uh local land use issues in santa cruz for a couple years now i've been involved in uh working to solve homelessness uh i worked for the county managing a shelter downtown and you know one of our biggest challenges is finding places for folks to live um we have a huge waiting list of section eight vouchers um and section eight can be used in market rate housing and um we need housing for folks of all income levels um and we need as much affordable housing as quickly as possible hundreds of units we have to plan for the next few years and this decision this evening i think represents you know the the fastest way to achieve our housing goals to get folks into housing um across across the income spectrum and uh you know this eir plan uh we can go as big as we need to go to get as many folks housed as quickly as possible and you know worrying about delay uh adjusting the heights that that all can happen throughout this process um but you know delaying decisions is going to make it just that much harder for us to meet our housing goals and um you know we heard about sp35 earlier this evening that will have that will you know affect other neighborhoods as well if we're not meeting our housing goals so you know if folks want local control this is actually probably the the most the best way for our community to retain control in our other neighborhoods thank you thank you rafa okay our next figure is carol um go ahead and unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes hello good evening council members thank you and um i appreciate being here um i moved to santa crs in 1983 and i was at the very first santa crs warriors came and had been at been at almost every single one since then so i am a very ardent supporter of the santa crs warriors and i grew up going to sporting events our father took us to them and it is one of the most meaningful parts of my life and i like that the santa crs warriors has pretty affordable tickets and there's a lot of families that attend and um that is a real asset to the community that we have that i i have some concerns about the proposed heights of some of the buildings and how that would reflect on the character of santa crs um i do agree that we definitely need to have um a lot of outreach in multiple languages definitely english and spanish but mostly i do want to really uh say that i support our um finding a way santa crs warriors support our community in so many ways and uh reading warriors math warriors all the kinds of things um it's been a team personally enriches my life in an enormous number of ways and i'm very very grateful for their presence so um go warriors and let's find a way to make it work that will we still if this still is santa crs thank you thank you carol okay um next up is mad and um we'll go ahead and have you unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes thank you members of the council i appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight i'm matt wittstein i'm usually known as the president of cabrillo college but tonight i'm here as a santa crs warriors fan and a fan of downtown santa crs i think you have a great opportunity and a great plan in front of you tonight i just have a few comments in support of the warriors as others have said it's a great organization that has done so much to support our community uh just i think what should be mentioned that has not been mentioned is the work that they do with united way with the stuff the bus campaign to provide backpacks to students including cabrillo college students i'm also a member of the symphony board so linda burrow's comments about the opportunity for the symphony to have a home venue that is new and acoustically better is a real asset for the community and i'm really excited about the opportunities that would come with concerts downtown add a new arena uh a larger size venue that will draw more acts to downtown santa crs and and just be a great thriving art center for our community the final point i want to make is that i i was um i moved here from stockton and so i was in stockton when they had an opportunity to develop an entertainment center back in the 1990s and i would assess that project as having made the wrong choice because it did not include housing they made the decision to build a hockey arena a basketball arena and a minor league baseball stadium and lost the opportunity to build housing along the riverfront in downtown stockton and because of that i think the entertainment entertainment sector that was built or planned to be built there never really took off you have an incredible opportunity to install uh in a large number of affordable units for our community housing units for our community that are so desperately needed by staff from cabrillo students who attend college in this town a greater community so i appreciate your your efforts and hope that you'll back this plan thank you matt okay our next speaker is natalie natalie go ahead and unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes okay natalie you're our next speaker you can go ahead and unmute yourself using the webinar feature and you'll be allowed two minutes so natalie goff you'll have speaking okay there i already spoke oh okay yeah have you um lower your hand and thank you for addressing i can say i will say again that i would really like okay so then our next speaker is kisha broder from united may and go ahead kisha you'll have two minutes well good evening everyone thank you council for inviting me um again my name is kisha broder with your united way of santa cruz county as matt mentioned before um when we talk about the santa cruz warriors one thing that we know for certain is that they didn't just come to build an arena to play a season in basketball they really invested and gave and poured into our community everything from the work that they've done with our united way to ensure that youth who are experiencing homelessness have the school supplies that they need to go and return to school um serving as that go to spot during our emergencies in both our pandemic and our czu lightning fires to all of the things that they all the programs that they do in our schools with reading and equity and all of the diversity equity and inclusion work that they do it's more than just basketball it's more than entertainment they are a part of the fabric here in santa cruz county and i can appreciate what kasey buyer said when he lifted up that we're talking about our future where do we want to be and who do we want to look like as a community five ten twenty years from now um and i i am certain that uh both our warriors and our city will continue to hear the voices the concerns because those are real but also be willing to have that flexibility and that optimism that we can create the magic here in santa cruz county that we can create this space that'll be vibrant it's a civic space for us to be um to have that space for family friendly events for us to have that connection for us to have that transportation to be not only there to support games but the symphony the plays the concerts the affordable housing the new jobs that this can bring to our community we have so much more to gain than we have to lose with this kind of a project so i appreciate you all taking this time to hear these uh potential development plans and i hope that we can work together so thank you and let's make this your home forever thank you kisha okay i think unless there's anybody else who would like to address the council natalie i'm going to go ahead and ask that you please lower your hand since we did already have a chance to hear from you um and again welcome uh you to reach out to us directly via email um or phone or a meeting but it i do see one hand additionally raised now and um we'll go ahead and ask that person to unmute themselves and that number ends in seven zero zero three and you'll have two minutes oh this is derrius mostening two things one and we're in response to folks that have said they weren't aware of this uh again this was widely publicized in sentinel emails on facebook uh postcards my tenants who actually live at 690 at the corner of spruce and pacific uh they themselves went to the um managed to go to the arena event back in april they were certainly aware of it and um you know they always obviously very concerned they've apparently the basketball court goes right through their living rooms in i think scenario two so um there was it was widely publicized i believe second um i'm very supportive of this project for a lot of people talk about the warriors but i'm concerned for we need people downtown there are currently 17 empty storefronts starting pacific avenue places you know the starbucks is still vacant logos it's there are more vacant storefronts than there were than after the 89 earthquake something is is a myth that myths downtown and it's missing people that will frequent businesses and restaurants and craft breweries and so forth and this project along with all the other projects going on currently now at the front laurel and further up front street all will contribute to revitalizing this you know this gem or one gem of a downtown and bring it back thank you very much okay we'll go to our next speaker and that is the individual with the so number ending in 5542 and you can go ahead and unmute yourself good evening councilor mayer i'm ron pomerance staff's subjective report about how well received the plan is ridiculous i was there staff's plans were half baked and not close to what staff presented tonight public outreach has been abysmal tonight's recommended plan is like what was on the drawing boards in the mid 1960s it rides hotels along west gliss built in hotel and convention center and lighthouse shield freeways crisscrossing our city nuclear power plants and dab import i find tonight's plan equally outrageous attempting again to turn santa cruz to silicon beach miami when the downtown plan extension was initially proposed it was just that an extension of the current downtown plan under today's proposal staff has at least doubled the downtown plan limitations preferred development plans eir should reflect this initial intent and direction it's been quite a bait and switch planning to build steel and glass canyons wind tunnels wind tunnel streets like pollution noise congestion with the loss of solar access doesn't sound too appealing to probably a lot of people santa cruz not silicon silicon beach miami and must never be affordable housing is essential the staff's attempt to make the case that 225 foot buildings are needed to motivate the warriors to stay in santa cruz appears crazy how to mass mix use 20 story buildings encourage the warriors to stay in santa cruz all the warriors require is a large enough area for their permanent arena please don't use the charm and excitement of a popular sports team as an excuse to get free rein to real estate and development interests the excessive building impacts of noise parking congestion water and security expensive housing loss of place and the like will long outlive the warriors staying in santa cruz aiming this plan down our throats will create a backlash you can't imagine thank you for your time thank you and i believe our last speaker is phone call phone number ending in 2174 and you'll have two minutes a good evening council julian greenside here there's no question that the warriors are wonderful and well supported however i feel that they are being used a bit like a trojan horse and inside that trojan horse is the mythology about housing yes the numbers required under rena are quite alarming however the city has the option of pushing back and appealing those numbers which are unrealistic and and will are guaranteed to transform our town and be unsustainable there's a lot said about we need housing across all areas we do not need more market rate housing we have already provided more than the required amount and the problem with market rate is that even though you add a bit of affordable it raises the area median income which makes you fall a bit affordability less affordable that has to be addressed a couple of other points um i think the consultants and architect need to get on board and educate themselves about dark sky issues that lighting display next to the river and on the buildings i found totally out of sync with modern thinking also the uh the comment that sander cruise doesn't have a skyline i think that was miss noisy yes we do it is beautiful cliffs and trees and sunsets these buildings are totally out of place lastly traffic has to be studied it barely gets a mention the circulation is all about how to put roads to make plazas the circulation or the traffic congestion towards the beach towards the wharf towards the boardwalk that goes through this gigantic development is going to be a huge impact your eir must study congestion not just vehicle miles travel that is critical and if there are empty storefronts downtown having this new bright shiny object south of laurel is not going to help downtown i would say back to the drawing board the first time i saw 90 feet was at the open house this is out of all proportion thank you thank you and i see we have one more hand raised and we'll go ahead and ask the individual in with the phone number ending in 0 3 1 9 to unmute themselves and you'll have two minutes hi my name is rachel meroyan and i'm calling tonight as a former council member for the first part of the call it's very rare when an opportunity comes up like this where the convergence of needs and wants all come together in one project i know it is a little overwhelming the scale of it and i can understand why people would be concerned but we have to make sure that we don't nitpick a project to death we're really good in Santa Cruz at doing that and i want to make sure that that we listen to everybody and that you know there's a little give and take that this is not a winner take all sort of project to defeat so let's work together on this i think we can and i think we could have something absolutely fabulous it's exactly the right type of housing in the right place uh and to be expanding in Santa Cruz and i live downtown i walk everywhere i don't use my car much when i don't have to work so it's a wonderful place the other hat i'm wearing is as a staff person the community and uh relations director at second harvest food bank we work very closely with the warriors they have been incredibly generous with their swishes for dishes program every time somebody scores um a basket or a point with the Santa Cruz warriors during the regular season they donate ten dollars to the food bank and it has resulted in a wonderful contribution to really make our community a better place so they've really shown up for the community they've shown up for people who are food insecure and and need our health and they truly seem to be an organization that's invested in Santa Cruz so i think we should work with the warriors we should work with folks who want to provide housing from everything from very low income to market rate i just think that this is really a great opportunity to seize the moment and move forward and and um hopefully get this done thank you very much city council thank you are there any other members of the community who want to address the council on this item now would be the time to raise your hand and indicate that you are interested in addressing us i'm not seeing any additional hands raised okay um i just want to start by saying thank you to the community who um reached out to us via email and other ways but also who spoke this evening and voiced their opinions about the proposal before us you know a lot of things were referenced um when i want to thank the the the councils who've had the foresight to bring the warriors into this community it's obviously done an incredible and been an incredible asset to our community um and i don't think we want to be short-sighted here as we're now tasked with thinking about the future of Santa Cruz whether it be the integration of the entertainment district keeping the warriors the affordable housing we had our housing element earlier we know that more housing requirements and needs are upon our city and other jurisdictions alike and um and it's exciting to see um our local warriors at the you know the national stage and um you know as they you know enter our you know game six and and potentially getting another ring you know it's people that we get to see sometimes you know um fostered here locally and there was no question without a doubt that the warriors have been a really great partner to our community and have given so much to a lot of very um important causes and our task now is to find that sweet spot hopefully um that will you know really dig sure of this this jurisdiction this area as we move forward um with uh with our plans so I look to my colleagues to have that conversation um I'm not sure if there are any um clarifying questions that might arise um there were some that were brought up I know that um you know other folks had brought up some questions during the public comment as well and we could have those addressed if needed uh so on my uh panelist list I have Councilman Remayers, Golder and then Cummings with their hands raised so we'll go have you um address our kind of take the floor at this point in that order so I'll go ahead and hand it over to you Councilman Remayers. Thank you Vice Mayor um I just want to make sure can you hear me okay my earplug just okay great thank you um well first I want to thank all the um members of our community who spoke um to us this evening um you know a number of leaders in the business community um Mr Murphy obviously um who I think everybody knows is just Chris because he's that much of a part of our community um we also heard from neighbors who are obviously wanting to know more about what's going to happen um either near them where they live or below them where they you know are you know I'm sure wondering about the transformation of this particular area of town so I'm very cognizant that um you know we are now at a place where we're giving direction that gives a scope of what this may be to our staff um to actually do the analysis about the impacts um and so we're now at what's called the CEQA stage or the environmental impact report stage which is um a very smart tool in California that's been in place for a long time which is really taking that step to really assess um a scenario and and look at those impacts that come to the community and I heard tonight a few people say you know we've got to look at traffic we've got to look at shade and the kinds of changes that that some of the residents in that area may experience um noise uh uh you know issues with environmental issues such as we discussed earlier um impacts from lighting on onto a river corridor into a repairing area which is a rare habitat in California um issues with uh the birds um as they may move through these areas through this um downtown little corner here which actually is buffeted um by many people who know the area by actual a number of natural areas including nearly the river and even out to the beach and um out to the river mouth which is also a really important habitat area for birds in this very dense little neighborhood area um and so I'm really aware of kind of where we are in terms of our decision framework right now which is um until you sort of put something on the table it's very hard to get into that next level of impact analysis um really having those conversations again at the neighborhood level uh at the you know the the level of folks trying to get from one side of town to the other um folks who have gotten used to um you know a slower pace in an area and now looking to see that wow this may become a place that is much more active and then even the economic pieces that we need to um think through which have been pointed out by a number of the speakers tonight which is you know how do we how do we care for our whole downtown? We do have a business district it is it has been hit hard by COVID so again you know not replacing one district with a with a new one but really understanding how to tie an active um living space which I believe downtown should become into um this new this new reality as well um all anchored by um I think what we heard tonight is a use that pretty much I think 100 of the speakers support which is um this the the um warriors who have come have have made Santa Cruz their home um and so importantly have invested so much back into our community so um you know we have you know what what would callingly be known as in planning terms as an anchor tenant or an anchor entity that is desiring you know to see an outcome in an area that um you know can be um planned for and looked at and rezoned and all those technical terms but more importantly I think what we have is we have basically a a pretty prominent love affair between an organization that came to Santa Cruz um and stands for things like health and stands for things like togetherness and stands for things like family and that that relationship has grown with our um community members and with the folks who not only live downtown but throughout you know Santa Cruz County and even into Monterey County so um the number one thing I have to say tonight is where we have a lucky problem here but it is a difficult problem um because we want this use to hopefully um make its way into our town and be retained here in a way that also provides those other benefits that many of the other speakers spoke about a new home for the symphony um you know the capability of having that type of site should we have additional um natural disasters or emergencies um and I think about when I go to the warrior stadium and you know at full capacity it's got about 2000 people in it and it doesn't seem like a whole lot of people so when we're talking about you know building homes for a couple thousand people that's what we're talking about we're not talking about you know building homes for tens of thousands of people we're talking about building homes for the people who fit in the existing warriors stadium right now plus maybe a few more um so you know again really imagining the impact of what what we're talking about tonight um I do have a motion that I'd like to put up on the screen um and what I'm really trying to do I think with this motion is initiate a conversation with my colleagues obviously um a couple of things that I think are very clear in Santa Cruz which I think we have to um think about as we move ahead is that building large buildings is is is atypical and it's very um intimidating to our community and you know I share the feelings of wanting to maintain a certain character a certain type of a feel in our downtown and I'm a huge advocate that um you know this neighborhood it can be noisy but it shouldn't be noisy all the time it shouldn't be lit up should not become sort of a noisy area it's next to the San Lorenzo River uh that is a very sensitive habitat that doesn't exist in a lot of other places and we need to be very respectful of that place and in fact it needs to be a quiet space but it also plays an important transportation corridor so here we have a location where we have this amazing civic use that we want to put in amongst um these natural features like the river near the lagoon um recreation areas like the beach and depot park um I mean it really is it going to be a new neighborhood so I think what do we study to understand impacts in this new neighborhood um the motion I'm putting up here actually makes some changes to um the staff recommendation um I'm looking at uh suggesting that we look um at a taller maybe one building one taller building of about 100 of 165 feet versus one of 225 feet um and then to look at um and not to exceed 100 feet on the remaining buildings um and I've retained the language that was in the original motion including in the packet which is really looking at how the height is inclusive of the anticipated height increases associated with the density bonus um I think that the staff did a really good job of really showing that a uniform height um creates um it creates you know a less interesting civic space um so I appreciate them doing that modeling and I do want to recognize the comment we had earlier that that type of work should be continued so that we can learn as we go into the environmental impact stage on this so I'm offering that we reduce the taller building um to 165 feet and then we look at a not to exceed 150 feet on the remaining buildings as they as they are positioned um I've kept the rest of the motion pretty much intact I do have a couple of questions for staff um that I would ask after I get a second on this but I'm hoping this is a bit of a starting point for us um and look forward to the conversation with my um colleagues I appreciate your comments council member Myers um willing to second I would council member Golder or your hand up for a second is that yeah I'll second but I have comments as well okay great so we'll have you as our seconder and um I just want to say how much I appreciate the comments I appreciate this proposal I think it strikes that balance that we seek and um and looking forward to hopefully move as long I know that you mentioned that you have questions so council member Myers why you have the floor why don't you go ahead NASA's um I had one question um for staff when they calculated the the I think was about 1800 units in what they called um the recommended their recommendation which I think was 3.1 um I'm just curious about the makeup of that 1800 um residence's figure is that did you do a mix of various housing types so you know uh whatever they may be I'm just curious about how we got to that 1800 housing units it was it a variety of housing uh type housing unit types so apartment townhouse one two three uh bedrooms etc just a very brief answer would be very helpful yeah so for running these like sort of ballpark scenarios we use an average unit size that's based on um in this case we based it on you know other recent projects that have happened around Santa Cruz and that average unit size that we used for these for these scenarios was around 750 square feet so that would encompass some smaller units and some you know one two few three bedrooms but definitely some a significant number of two bedroom units are factored into that average that's great and then um just a question around the EIR and what we can do to look at impact through that process um Sara is it possible to do additional modeling with regards to scale and mass shading all of those things I know we've seen that done in other you know um proposals development proposals that have come to us but can that type of analysis uh be part of the environmental impact study or how does that how does that read how do those kinds of concerns relate to the EIR process it's a very good question I might actually invite um Lee Butler to join me in answering this one because I actually am not a CEQA expert myself maybe Bill has something to chip in I my understanding is that some you know all the massing of buildings and shading are not CEQA issues so they aren't necessarily things that we would have to study as part of the environmental review um but those types of topics would be discussed as you got further into the actual refinement and then also the conditions of approval architectural style objective standards right so the design yeah so the design standards for these buildings are definitely um that's that's the piece that's going to kind of happen side by side with the environmental analysis over the course of the next year and so that will set um you know standards for how buildings meet the sky you know what how does that how do we treat that those taller elements do we require them to taper do we require that the you know base components be like stepped back in certain manners do you know how are we addressing some of these other you know challenges that are associated with really intense development which I you know I hear the community's um interest in those topics and you know concerns border you know interest boarding on concern for a lot of those um and so you know those are certainly things that we can look at and um I want to be realistic in what we can achieve with that kind of analysis I don't know you know this isn't this is a significant change I'm not you know we're not going to mince words about that this is different than what we have now it's going to look different and it's going to be taller than what we currently have in downtown you know lots of our downtown is currently only one story tall that's not that's not going to be this area if it's if it's zone for redevelopment so um you know those are certainly things we can think about and and continue to try and discuss with the public and if we set a target for a number of units that is going to constrain how much we can adjust the height of these components of these buildings thank you those are my those are my questions I appreciate that sir I know we're we're part way through a process we used to have a long way to go and so um those are that those are my changes to the uh staff motion um vice mayor and um yeah I'm done thank you thank you council member Myers so we have a motion we have a second by council member boulder and we'll go ahead and hand the floor over to council member boulder for your questions and comments I thank you um I just want to thank everybody that took the time to call in it was great to hear three former well respected council members um the superintendent of schools the president of the warriors the president of the symphony kc buyers from the business council neighbors from the from around um town and just the overwhelming support for revitalization of this neighborhood um years ago mike and I lived on sycamore street and just to see just the slight transformation that's happened down there where that new wine bar is it like it's it's looking so amazing and so I really want to also thank um bill for mentioning the word vision because I feel like there's been kind of like an absence of that in this part of town and I love the idea of creating a there and sharing what we love about Santa Cruz to our visitors and I think for decades we've turned our back to the river and over the last several rounds of development it hasn't really been at the you know the forefront and so this that the idea of the street with the slow incline was so exciting to see I also think um having lived through the earthquake and how long it took to rebuild the mall after that um the the the idea of this you know elevate um you know evolution of Santa Cruz and with the elevation changes and the streets gates and the new roundabout the presentation really exceeded my expectations and I was really excited but I but I was kind of trying to hold it back I really want to gauge what the public thought as well um but I was excited to hear from the public that they were also excited I think that the idea of connecting downtown the river and the beach has been something like of a missed opportunity and so I think this is one step forward and it's a amazing opportunity for potential revenue um um development and it's unfortunate but it looks like our tax revenue measure probably won't be successful and so thinking ahead like well okay what's next having this idea of this entertainment area where um we could potentially host youth basketball tournaments or volleyball tournaments or other indoor maybe soccer tournaments things like that where traveling teams from around the state could come and spend the weekend stay at the hotels eat at local restaurants shop at local shops like I know kids with or people with kids on traveling teams and they do that every weekend and they go to Fremont and you know Turlock like why not have them come here where we could um capture those those um tax and tourism dollars then you know ingest them into our local economy I love how you mentioned Mountain View I have mentioned that to this group before I've gone up there a couple times before concerts and I've seen how they close that street down and I the idea of Spruce Street being closed down for either like you know markets or concerts or things like that would make just just such an exciting vibrant feel for the for the area and the other thing I really loved and I I hope it doesn't offend bird people Donna but um the lighting concept I thought it was just so beautiful and so we've been lucky enough to to travel to Europe a couple times during the winter and we saw similar concepts in Venice and London and Austria and I'm sure I speak for thousands of people in Santa Cruz that would love to see these like amazing ideas come to fruition and I really want to thank the staff and the community members that have been working so hard for the engagement and for the much needed redevelopment um in this neighborhood and so you know I'm just a full supporter at this point and I and I agree that that the mass of that one building was a little startling and I was kind of thinking whoa you know I googled that how tall the double shot was at 125 feet and I was like ooh so I think um but if you scale it back to what council member Meyer suggested and then you think about the the kite of the cliff and those sorts of things like I don't think that it would be unreasonable to to think ahead in the future that this building will likely be standing long after we've kicked the bucket like we're going to be gone and the city is going to look different as it looked different before we were born right like it's going to change it's going to evolve and I think this is a great opportunity as one of the callers put it to to really to really take control of the area and and develop it with thoughtfully so it doesn't just become some sort of hodgepodge so thank you to everybody and I'm fully supportive of council member Meyer's motion. Thank you council member Golder. Council member Cummings and then council. Oh sorry I did have one question I totally forgot no and I didn't hear the answer is and so um I know she uh Donna asked if there was like a concept in yet I know it's still not going to all happen tomorrow even if we approve it tonight it'll probably be 20 years before it's all done but I'm wondering um to the extent possible if there could be encouraging that not everything's a rental unit that some of those are units for sale and then then that we could have opportunities for measure j units because I think those are great entry points I know lots of teachers that have been able to purchase homes because they were measured j or measure o in the county uh units and so it's a great like stepping stone for people trying to get into the housing market that can't necessarily afford it you know market rate right out the gates their first purchase so it's kind of a comment kind of a question I guess but well we'll go ahead I see Sarah's jump speak to that a little bit I'm sure so I guess I I have sort of two answers to that so first of all I'm typically the city doesn't get into regulating tenancy um and you know this being sort of more of an area plan we can sort of you know set some like policy intentions in the document so that's sort of like one avenue we could take um you know and if we get into a situation where we have where we are able to start negotiating a developer agreement with like one you know significant developer wanting to develop several whole pieces of property that that could potentially be a component of that type of agreement as well um and I think that sort of naturally in a project in an area this large where there will be some kind of mix of ownership and rental housing that would certainly be my expectation just sort of understanding the market um but yeah I mean if you want to add anything like that in into the motion I guess we could I don't really want to add anything I just want to I think what you said is right and I just think any place where there's a mix of housing of affordable market rate owners renters like when everyone's living together it creates a better community in that and so that's more I guess of a comment and people that own the properties and are going to develop it like think about it maybe I think it's actually a really great suggestion and I think finding ways for individuals to enter the housing market as home buyers is a really great idea so as counts as the staff continues down this path looking into that um I something I definitely support okay council member or council member Goulders that conclude your questions at this point okay manager council member Cummings then counts council jump in I just want to start by thanking the staff and the community for coming out tonight I'm supportive of the creation of a permanent home for the warriors they've brought many benefits that we've heard about here tonight and there's many community benefits that we're all aware of that the warriors brings the community I mean this is an opportunity that can bring you know more jobs and many benefits to our community in terms of instruction jobs opportunities for the warriors sort of small businesses and include them in their concessions and then just jobs in general for working at the arena and so there's a lot of great opportunities here and I've been supportive of the warriors since I've been on the council and before that I'm in addition to this I understand that the need there's a need for more housing in our community especially the need for more affordable housing and I just want to acknowledge the concerns that have come up as well traffic and parking concerns that were raised are real I've lived in the beach of south with Laurel area for over half a decade on and off living living in Lava here beach flats beach hill and so I understand how real these impacts are when it comes to traffic the summers alone I have brings significant traffic impacts for people living in those areas and this will likely bring more as well so I just want to start by saying I appreciate the effort to lower the height because 225 feet which is about 22 stories will be double the size of the dream in and I think that if that were to move forward many people when they find out would be extremely upset with that type of massing in our community and so in the effort to try to find the middle ground I do I have another motion prepared but I think I'm going to try to just make a motion to amend and if you could we could put the old motion up because I just want to look at that so in that motion to amend the rather than have a minimum of 1800 housing units have that be a maximum of 1800 housing units this is a friendly you're requesting this is a friendly amendment or in what form are you I think that well we'll see I think that there's aspects that aren't to be accepted and so that's why we'll just I'll just go ahead and make it as a motion and we'll see if it passes or not as a substitute motion is that what you're going to amend a motion to amend the main check and then I'd sent over some language and so no body number three and four in the language that I was going to provide if we could add that and I guess while we're waiting I'm wondering with staffs at what point are we going to receive some any kind of information about like the warriors project and how the arena is going to come forward and how that's going to be financed because we've spent a lot of time talking about as I mentioned earlier talking about this item within the context of the wars but we really spent the whole conversation on housing and you're able to speak briefly to how that kind of coincides with the wars but I think it'll be good for the community to get a presentation on you know how does all this fit within the wars expansion and so I'm just wondering is that going to come to the planning commissioner to see council at some point before we go ahead and jump into questions around this I wonder if there's a secondary to your motion to the second okay well finished I'll finish my I'll put that question out there and then I'll finish the motion so the rest of the motion it will be maximized have a maximum of 1800 housing units at least one third of the total new higher density housing units in the expansion area shall be affordable to low and very low income households and the inclusionary requirement for individual projects shall be 25 percent with a 30 percent requirement for projects with density bonuses and then the next piece would be in order to minimize the potential impact of the proposed plan on additional displacement of affordable housing within the planned area and in the surrounding areas particularly the beach flats south of Laurel and lower ocean and advisory committee of residents and affordable housing experts shall be formed to study and recommend effective impact mitigation measures in coordination with the planning commission second we have a motion to amend the motion with a second by council town um and then you had a question I believe both motions are debatable so we can go ahead and hear your did you want to go ahead and ask your question this day yes I don't know if we or Sarah will be able to answer that question around when we're going to get some kind of presentation around how all this fits with the instruction of the arena thank you councilmember Cummings um I have a series of comments um that I'd like to share at some point around um both of those motions if if it pleases the council but um let me start with addressing the question that you have councilmember Cummings because it relates back to some of those other questions um and um also your change in the language the motion language your suggested change from the to state maximum of 1800 units so with those height reductions there is a change to the number of units that could be accommodated and there's also a change to the number of units that could be accommodated on um parcels abc and d and um taking that back to your question councilmember Cummings um those are the key parcels in which um the warriors are developing partnerships with the property owners and so um the um the question about how many units can be built on those four parcels um with those height limitations um that are identified in the motion um is something that um I think um Chris Murphy from the Warriors is the best person to speak to um and um that's something that if it pleases the council that he may be able to speak to right now um I can say um that in order to come up with that um that specific number we would do need to do some analysis but we could come up with a ballpark um I I would have one question that we would need to um answer in order to come up with that sort of ballpark um number which is um the motion speaks to um 165 feet on one um at one location and 150 feet at other locations um the difference in scenario two and scenario three there's actually one location where there is an additional taller building element and so the question would be it does that apply to that parcel as well um which is um sort of the south side of um parcel c and I can share my screen if that would be helpful because I think it will be um and I'll just point this out for you so um let me zoom in a little bit here if it works um so can you see can you see my screen here oh it's fine to share yeah I'm sorry it looks like I am frozen um you can still hear me though we can hear you yeah all right typically does not happen here in the office but um I cannot stop my sheets oh there we go uh let me try that again um I will try to share my screen again I can jump in Lee if you need me to share my screen um do you have it now there you go okay great sorry about that um okay so you can see here scenario two and scenario three and um here on c2 here there is an additional taller building element on c2 here um that isn't on this so the question would be is is there additional taller building element contemplated in that motion in this area and um there are a few other comments that I would make I'll I'll just um put one of them out there which was um that um councilmember Myers you you talked about the variation um being something that was attractive to you and I will just mention that you know at those heights with the difference of 165 and 150 feet um that um those aren't going to be um particularly noticeable at at those heights you know there isn't going to be a a really uh distinct difference in those building heights um at at that small of a difference so I just wanted to put those out there for council consideration given what I've heard um and I'll turn it over to you guys turn it back to you guys thank you Lee and then I guess all up to that was just the you know opportunity to have some kind of presentation regarding the financing and the warriors and how this is because that's I mean the big question of we're the whole conversation here is about how we're going to keep the warriors in town I think it'd be good for us to understand like how does all this change in our zoning actually allow for the warriors to stay in our community and so I I believe that um Chris Murphy is prepared to provide some perspective on that and he may be able to do so but with respect to the general height limits that have been provided but I do see that he has raised his hand here and he's going to be best suited to speak to how those financial arrangements are occurring. They're going to be helpful to hear from Chris they kind of speak to that right now um go ahead Chris I think thank you um Vice Mayor Watkins appreciate it Justin appreciate the question and the opportunity um to speak uh you know I think ultimately what we were referencing before is in any development like there's going to be a difference between the proceeds and the expenses right uh so it's no different in this one where we are looking at a primarily privately funded development where some percentage or some portion of those proceeds from the housing and retail and other development are going to go to help fund the arena the exact numbers of all of that to be honest at this stage are still undetermined because I think so much of what the the model that we're building to try to find the best solutions for the community hinge on a lot of what we're doing now right understanding how large of how how many units can be involved how what the height requirements will be so much of this stuff impacts our next steps I I anticipate there being multiple meetings in the future and presentations that I look forward to giving you when we have a more concrete project around this is how tall these buildings will look this is where they will be in relation to the entire plan area this is the type of densities and units unit mixes that we have in mind um you know I definitely envision a multiple presentations to this group and many groups throughout the community to help them all be informed on what we're thinking so that we can try to stay here in Santa Cruz thanks Chris yeah and I think we heard that this is sort of the foundational elements that we're laying here at this time to essentially is see these things move forward at some point in some iteration so we appreciate you saying I'm being available for that question and any additional comments customer coming so nice yeah I guess I just add one piece to the the emotions to amend which would be that that the design would align with scenario two and that's just because we heard some comments from folks on beach hill about buildings blocking the view and it looked like between scenario two and three that one building that was directly against the hill would not be there and so that's other and then I would add to that so long as the second of the motion's okay with this and vice mayor I guess my question would be for staff on that particular um I don't believe in the original motion there was a selection of the scenario um I mean I'd like to recognize you know trying to avoid some of those impacts to some of those folks up on beach hill so not against that particular um but Lee do you need that level right now for what we're where we are right now we do need specificity to move forward with the environmental analysis um and that would be helpful to have the specific information um yeah I don't think that that you know with modifying building heights here tonight we're going to have the specific number of units that we're going to be studying right we'll have to model that and see um where that ultimately lands but getting a really clear understanding of where the council would like to see those taller building elements and what those heights would be will help us get to that number that number will then help drive a lot of the environmental analysis can you put those scenarios up again lead for the public and then I my vice mayor asked for um maybe at one point maybe but that um uh alternative or the amended motion up just so um there was a lot of pieces to it so sure sure go ahead take a look at that and then we'll go ahead and ask um and we'll have uh council for council members yeah so scenario to removes that um that closer uh building um and would sort of put those taller taller taller buildings more towards kind of grouping them towards those front end of the properties um is the maker is the seconder okay with directing scenario too or do you have thoughts are you on the motion to amend are you discussing your original motion councilor meyers oh excuse me you're right let's let's back up so yeah oh let's wait on let's do the motion to amend thank you okay he's getting late there's two motions on the floor your motion i'm seconded by councilor boulder uh the motion to amend the main motion councilor coming seconded by councilor um so we haven't voted which one to accept at this point I think we can debate both uh for a little bit longer we can get Tony condone but before um maybe we get to councilor calentary john since my news had her hand up we'll see if if tony you want to weigh in on anything uh procedurally here yes uh thank you I I briefly reviewed the amended motion language and I realize this is really just giving direction to the staff to uh select a preferred alternative to analyze uh to prepare an environmental impact report but I do think the subject of whether or not the city has the ability to require a higher level of inclusionary units uh to qualify for a density bonus than that is required for the inclusionary ordinance is a legal issue that we've impined upon in the past believe we've advised the council that you cannot require a higher level of inclusionary uh as part of a density bonus application that is something that I would want to analyze I'm not suggesting that the council can't include it in um this action because again it's an alternative that you'll be analyzing but I would like the opportunity to um provide some additional legal analysis and report back on whether or not that's legally viable I have some suspicion that it's not yeah I can see how that would be and I appreciate you weighing in on that um so yes thank you tony okay councilor killin turning to johnson brown and then maybe we can take a vote on which motion we want to continue moving forward with great thank you vice mayor Watkins and um I just I just want to make some comments I also want to thank the staff for all their work and all of the community members that called in and we had educators non-profit service providers neighbors so real wide diverse range of um folks who called in so I really appreciate that and I also want to thank our former mayors and council members who called in tonight who really had the foresight and the vision to see what's possible with inviting and partnering with the warriors um however many years ago now I know my family um has benefited and and um my kids have grown up um at that stadium so it's been a real asset to our community and I really hope that that our council um it looks like it's heading in that direction will carry that legacy in creating a vibrant corridor that really provides housing recreation walkable communities for everyone here in our community um and I do think it's important that we do this while maintaining the integrity of our community and what we love about our community so I appreciate what's happening here with um some creative thinking around where that sweet spot is as don lane said um around a height and um what can be tolerated in our community right now um I had questions about um the inclusionary as well I think Tony addressed them but but I do just want to pick up again I'll I'll bring in Don Lane's comments that um it's important for us to what did he say crunch the numbers and and have it done by folks who are impartial to just make sure that we get it right and that it is doable so if we head in that direction I would want us to do a study rather than jump right in if it's even legal for us to do that um and then just one last comment about um the outreach efforts you know kind of heard um there was a lot of outreach it was enough outreach so um so there was sort of a range of comments there and you know this is this is a process and this is um one of the steps in the process and and I certainly think that we can look at how we've done outreach and we can uh maybe work together to think of some more targeted specific targeted outreach for those community members who live in the surrounding uh neighborhoods so those are my comments for now and I just really appreciate everyone's work and and wanting to um wanting to create this opportunity for our community. Thank you councilmember count Terry Johnson um we'll go to council and maybe take the vote on the two motions before. I my understanding just as a clarification Vice Mayor Watkins was that those were amend