not mean those objective standards so i'll end my comments there what's member brown yeah i'll second that um i'll be brief in my comments um any of my comments are related to kind of substantive concerns around um public safety health and safety um and you know traffic and some some other things which we have been advised and apparently the intent of laws like sp35 are um have been established the intent is to not allow us to talk about those things so i'm i'm not going to do that here and many thoughts on that um which i'm happy to share if anybody wants to get in touch um but i i do think that under the circumstances of this particular application the way it has been presented to us um or to the city uh and left to city staff i i've said this before but also i'm just going to say it again um to to try to navigate through a morass of internally inconsistent and i would argue in some cases contradictory materials to cut to basically create the application for the applicant right find what's in there to um and make that a coherent application that's what i'm seeing you know that's just terrible process and so um you know i feel i feel confident in you have the ability to um reject this today and to um tell the applicant to come back with a complete application um if that is indeed the um if this is you know to tell us what project they would like i understand there are some concerns or um challenges with the number of units related to um you know subsidy for in whatever form that takes uh for those units and i encourage um you know any and all subsidy to be brought to bear to get us affordable units um in new development and um so i support that but i i don't support this kind of wait you know let's just see because i have all you know i we have the right to do this i believe there are arenas in which we can push back and challenge and so i'm seconding the motion for that reason um i just also i really have to say um you know the irony of having a being told as you know one of the arguments to support this project um the city's failure to meet its low its very low income um arena allocations are arena goals um and to have a project that is allowed to request streamlining because we haven't met those very low income goals um and then not give us any very low income units you know there's just a real irony there um it's legal i suppose um and so that's not a basis for rejecting this but um it certainly is uh frustrating so um i'm all for affordable housing on the site i'm aware that um the neighbors are supportive of that and that there are others who want to be involved in conversations about how to realize that and um so i hope that we can have that conversation um i can't support this uh this proposal in its current form thank you council member are there any other council members who have comments or should we go ahead and take it to the vote vice mayor brooder you just i'm looking through my notes um spell out condition 13c please does staff have the conditions up i do have my conditions here if you'd like me to read it the staff have that readily available mayor i can try to find it and i'm sharing my screen just give me one second okay i've got it here if i uh bonnie do you want me to share my screen um sure uh i think i have it that way i can just say you see that sonia i'm happy to provide more context around this as well thank you any other comments by council or our questions at this time council member walkins i didn't know if the staff wanted to comment on the motion at all or um our city attorney i'll start off um with respect to 13c um that doesn't refer to the inclusionary um units that that refers to the density bonus units the inclusionary units are um are proposed to be distributed through the buildings and so maybe council member comings if that's if there's a separate part of the inclusionary ordinance that your um thinking is inconsistent maybe that clarification could be helpful council member comings it's a my understanding is that the city's ordinance that provide an exception for the dispersal policy if a funding source uh requires a project that's 100 affordable and so the other thought is that if the developer gets the funding for the affordable units that's technically we have two separate projects right one would be the affordable project and one would be the market rate in terms of if they get the state or federal funding that would require the instruction of 100 affordable building i guess that's where the confusion comes in around how they're going to be able to provide um i mean well actually i'll take i'll go back and stuff you know previously when this came to us the discussion was around the fact that um the units that were inclusionary and affordable had to be distributed throughout the entire project right and so if we if they get the state or federal funding to allow them to produce 100 affordable building that's technically two separate projects right i wouldn't call that two separate projects it's still one project they're just financing it separately is there any other comments on the motion that uh staff would like to make um i so a couple of things i would say with respect to the slope requirements you know um ryan um spelled out the staff positions related to that but i'm happy to answer any questions um or um have the team answer any questions you have related to that um with respect to the information being available there were links in the application that um provided not only the plans but also a link to all of the project documents and all the things that have been submitted so um i think that information was readily available for the council and the public um and um i think that's all that that i would respond there i don't know if tony if you have anything else to say i think that covers it i don't really have anything to add i have a question for staff um there was uh so i think everybody is struggling with the way this whole application process kind of happens it appears that things kind of can get submitted at any point in time um we have certain deadlines we need to you know provide letters back in terms of consistency um and there was a section in the hcd guidelines um that was included in the staff report that talks about um um it's on page 25.2 of the staff report it says hcd guideline 301 b5 states that protections of the housing accountability act apply to sp35 projects the housing accountability act in government code section 65589.5 j2 states that if the local agency fails to provide required documentation pursuant to sub paragraph a which unfortunately we don't have the a um the housing development project shall be deemed consistent compliant and in conformity with the applicable plan program policy ordinance standard requirement or other similar provision and then it's and then there's sort of a just a conclusionary statement that says in other words items not previously identified is inconsistent or deemed to be consistent therefore new inconsistencies not previously identified cannot be raised so i'm just curious if staff can talk to talk to that a little bit um i've heard a couple of comments with regards to whether this application is um deemed complete and i know that that is not really you know the intent of sp35 is is different than a typical application that we would render under our regular planning rules and so i'm just lee i don't know if you can kind of i don't know if you can hear here where i'm going i'm trying to kind of get some clarification on that those relationships between this conclusionary statement and whether or not basically the the application continues to be sort of in it it's an iterative my opinion is that this is kind of this iterative thing you know that this material gets submitted and i guess for the public you know when did when do the actual decisions start being made and i think that is at the building permit stage so there will be a determination of whether or not certain criteria are going to be accommodated based on you know sort of some of those building permit issuance types of conditions of approval if if i'm understanding kind of the process from here on out did you understand my question sorry that was kind of long and rambling um maybe i'll maybe i'll take a crack at it and you can let me know if there are other things that you'd like me to speak to or the team to speak to you so first off i would say that yes we understand that you know going into an sp35 projects especially one that is the first one that the community has seen here has been a different and and sometimes confusing process i will i will say that it's it's typical that the development review process is an iterative one so you know the difference between sp35 and what we currently do for a non sp35 project is there's typically a letter at 30 days and it says hear all the comments and hear all the inconsistencies here are the things that are missing and under the current law under sp35 that sort of completeness letter that's usually done at the 30 day letter at 30 day stage and the comment letter which is are you consistent with all the objective standards are lumped into this one first 60 day period and there's a separate timeline at the end that allows for 30 more days the 90 day period in which minor inconsistencies can be revised or in which the an objective or a public oversight meeting can be held to confirm consistency with objective standards um usually that iterative iterative process happens you know at that staff level there are you know plans they come in we say hear the comments and they were sitting to submit revised plans and with with this project and with sp35 how it's currently applied you know that iterative process is has been more public you know we've put that information out there every time that there's been a plan revision you know we've posted it online and you know we post plan revisions for other projects as well but there's certainly oftentimes not getting as much attention until you know a a more settled upon plan is ready to go there is some changes there's some changes to the state law with respect to completeness letters and that will help clarify how sp35 projects move forward starting the beginning of next year when that takes effect and and Darcy's here on the line can provide more information on that in a moment but the other thing that comes to mind is part of your comments mayor Myers is the information about the building stage and yes it is typical for us to require a lot of those detailed drawings as I referred to earlier the the structural plumbing electrical mechanical the green building requirements you know very detailed design drawings of how all those systems are going to work together and making sure that exiting and accessibility and so forth are all met those codes are evaluated at the building permit stage and that would be the case for this application as well thank you one last question is if during the so also seek what does not unfortunately seek was not you know used in a review in sp35 if there were archaeological artifacts found during the construction of this project what would happen that's a great question so and a very important one because you know there is that potential and we have a series of conditions of approval as well as an agreement that we put together with the tribe so there will be during any ground disturbance work there will be both archaeological monitor as well as a tribal monitor there and if something happens in terms of there's something discovered then work will cease and there'll be consultation with those technical experts the tribal representative and the archaeological monitor to determine next steps in terms of how that resource will be treated okay thank you okay I see I've got council member commentary Johnson we do have a motion on the table still up for folks to review I've got council member commentary Johnson and then council member Watkins and then Vice Mayor Bruner thank you I want clarification on the first part of this motion earlier I believe council member Brown asked for clarification of all that is if the if the staff recommendation is written such that that we are giving up our oversight position or not so that's I just had there was a lack of clarity for me as to what the staff recommendation was and then if this was the first part of this motion was addressing that kind of leave you can answer that yeah I'll take a shot at it so the a ministerial project technically comes to staff for the determination so similar to last time it was you know wrote we wrote a letter staff wrote a letter that basically identified all the things and fleshed out the the statements that the council had agreed upon so the the recommendation does say refer the final decision back to staff you know how the council wants to structure that is at the council's desire you know we will write a letter consistent with whatever direction it is that the council provides and the council can say you know there is not a required council action I should say but the council may take that action and staff will take that action and and translate that into a letter that that speaks to the council's motion all right okay so the way it's written now is not indicating that we would give up that oversight well there there isn't anything related to SB 35 projects in general the way that it's written again it's it's refer it back to staff how council wants to to word that motion specifically is up to council the council can say we've received this we agree with staff we want to send it back we've received this we agree with staff and we want to make a explicit motion with respect to that consistency with objective standards or we've received the information we disagree with stuff and we want staff to craft a denial letter based on the the following criteria got it okay thank you for clarifying that's member Watkins thank you yes thank you mayor and thank you to the community who share their perspective today this is this is a this is a really tough one let me just let me just start by saying that and I haven't been on the council for a number of years now I just really understand the complexity and the emotion behind our housing issue here in Santa Cruz from all perspectives um having been a student myself too for many years um I I also reflect on the process that we had as a city when we did a long listening tour you know listening to the community's thoughts about housing for our future and uh resulted in a blueprint of housing recommendations many of which I know have been accomplished and frankly you know over the past four years I've been on council a lot of the housing we voted on has moved forward more so than I think we've seen in many years in the past so I feel really proud of some of the housing production that we've had in place and continue to pursue I also heard loud and clear from the community that the housing growth that they like to see is in our downtown so the next item we're going to be talking about is going to bring that up and propose another project and um and other solutions on sort of the outskirts of our community and I've worked really hard I feel like my approach to housing and to these types of issues is to really try to do my best to look for ways for compromise and you know look for for people to for us to still produce housing but to do so in a way that's informed and iterative in a way that's moving forward and and feels like it's had a community process and even if everybody's not pleased with it I think at least we did our due diligence and that and that we can leave with a project that feels right for the most part I think what concerns me about this project is one I think just the SB 35 factor right obviously um it's the waivers you know in terms of who is for there's there's no I mean the waivers are for really no outdoor um living opportunity no play structures really it's all about maximizing the the um the space really to the best of their ability using SB 35 to sort of streamline it and given that this is the first SB 35 project I struggle with moving forward with this to be quite honest with you I understand my colleagues who really are on both sides of this that yes I understand sort of the legal process and the tables and and the staff doing the best they can and working really hard to to have these in place to meet these timelines and I still struggle with saying okay well I feel okay moving forward with this so although I'm not necessarily sure about the full motion here I I don't feel comfortable moving forward with you know approving the project at this time I think there are still issues for it it is confusing there are elements that feel incomplete to me and I feel like that you know at the end of the day we want to do our due diligence and I know that it's sort of this rapid timeline that feels like okay we have to do this and this is what we have right now but for me it doesn't feel like it's adequately enough to really say okay let's just go forward with it I I do understand it if we do go forward with it that there will be checks along the way in terms of the building permit process yet I also feel like that this project um as presented it doesn't feel like it it really works for our community and so I that's where I feel like I can't and you know move forward with the recommendation presented by staff because I feel like it is too kind of convoluted at this point for me so um I'm not sure about fully support the full motion other than that I you know I I do agree with a couple of the bullets when the time comes for the vote um I just want to remind the council we have a packed agenda today so um hoping to if we are starting to get into trying to amend the motion we should probably start to go ahead and try to do that um if if there are going to be any changes uh vice mayor bruner thank you I had a question um under SB 35 um can this motion here can an SB 35 project be denied due to I think what was put was substantive and um procedural reasons let me look at what it says I don't know where I saw that um versus meeting objective standards is my question the motion says deny the a-3-1 water street application based on the following substantive and procedural reason procedural reasons right um and so my understanding as the public oversight hearing and body that um it can be denied due to not meeting objective standards and um so that's my question here with this can you answer yeah I I mean I'm not I'm not sure I completely understand the question but I but I will say that the staff's recommendation represents the analysis uh of the staff and my office as to the projects uh compliance with both procedural and substantive requirements of SB 35 and our in our zoning standards um and so you know the council may disagree with that analysis but the staff recommendation is based upon our analysis of the you know the the circumstances under which the information before you got here um that that has not been um ignored or not taken into account um thank you uh Tony um and so I think you know there's I I really appreciate you know all the input we've received to date over several months now and um that certainly none of us I mean if there were concerns to the degree um that did not meet objective standards then um we would it would be different but I think there's been so much put into um analysis with this and that um so many of the objective standards are met and the concerns for the public in our community with this are so valid and that is yet to come I still keep coming back to that that um those those items will be addressed and even some of the calls with the archeological and the hydrology we will get to that point and um so I just wanted to make sure that I was clear with that thank you thank you council member contrary Johnson I think I'll just make it quick before we go to vote seems like we're heading that direction soon um I also appreciate everyone who's called in and all the work that's been done by staff and to say that this process has been frustrating is putting it lightly I think it's been very frustrating for everyone staff us council members and the community um I do um I'm hearing Vice Mayor Brunner's points and I do think that that um although there are a lot of issues that we have with the process um I don't think we have a real strong ground to reject this I think standing in a rejected project will once will not be successful and um it won't be ultimately the best interest of the city and the residents so I don't disagree with with the sentiments and what's been said um but I do not I won't be supporting this motion because um I don't think it's aligned with what we're supposed to be doing here thank you council member okay um I think we may be ready for a vote I might just just very briefly also um you know I think that the procedural aspect of what we're facing is unfortunately um probably the piece that is um the hardest to swallow today um it's very clear on what an oversight hearing is meant to do and the and the evaluation of objective standards and um you know I I'm very concerned that um a denial through this motion basically um will land us with a lawsuit and I'm not afraid of a lawsuit um when I feel like there is um but I but my my I guess my evaluation right now is um that you know through whatever it is either the determination by the court or through whatever negotiations that may happen um it is very likely that a project very close to what is basically been proposed will likely be ordered um and so I'm just letting my community know that um I the process around SB 35 the way that this particular um project has been handled has been extremely frustrating um but I don't personally see a place where we can continue to try to refine um I think the project has been changed somewhat um I think our staff has tried to make clear the the kinds of things that are going to be needed before any building permits are issued so um uh and I definitely do not support any fee waivers for this project at all and would would definitely not want that to happen um so I'm also not not going to support the motion today um and it's unfortunate that we're here today after a year of trying to really clearly work with the applicant and with the neighborhood to try to make something work and it's just a disappointing outcome to be at this point right now so I think we're ready uh uh Councilmember Watkins did you have additional comments we're ready I just had a yeah I had a quick question just because I I'm not I'm not prepared to support the recommendation as presented in the packet but I'm also not prepared to support all aspects of this motion I I I'm wondering in terms of how the vote could go if um if I could either for the record state where I feel um I land in terms of what is being presented or if it would be a future motion that I could specify kind of where I feel about how to move forward I looked at Tony on that yeah I guess um just given the amount of discussion that has already uh transpired here my recommendation would be that you go to go ahead and take a vote on this motion if there's another motion that incorporates parts of this that the council wants to consider that you take that up as a as a separate motion okay that would be my recommendation thank you for clarifying that Tony okay why don't we go ahead and take a roll call vote on this motion fine Councilmember Watkins no Helen Tari Johnson no Brown I Vice Mayor Brunner no no that motion fails uh I'm excuse me that motion fails um five against and two four um Councilmember Watkins did you have an alternative motion you'd like to make um I could make an alternative motion but I'm not sure if it would pass I I just sort of had a couple of things that I I don't necessarily feel like that this motion captures sort of where I'm at with it and that I feel like we've reviewed the proposal and for me it is just that bullet of it's just it's still unclear and confusing in order for me to make this determination at this time for approval is where I land and so I don't know if that is just for the record for a different motion or if you know I should make that motion and then we can proceed from there I'm happy to do you want to do you want to work off the staff recommended recommended motion and try to add in additional uh additional direction for staff but if I could um I I think it might be worth looking back at the action that was taken by the council at the november 23rd meeting just as a point of reference if I could share my screen briefly um I will pull up the minutes of that meeting so that so the action with uh senator lair speaking in the background is to rescind the denial the direct staff to schedule a follow-up public oversight hearing at the december 14th 2021 council meeting and to direct staff to complete the sp35 objective standards consistency review in light of the new information that was provided um so that is where we are right now is council is conducting the public oversight hearing and the prior council direction was to direct staff to complete the objective standards review um I interpreted that as a departure from the council's action taken in september but um certainly if that was not the intent then that could be clarified uh at this meeting as well councilmember Watkins so tony when you say that was a departure from the action taken from the council in september which was when we when the council determined that they that we should be the um approval body um and can while during not only conduct the oversight hearing but also have the powers to determine whether or not the objective standards were met correct and at that that's how I interpreted the council direction that may not have been the intent but that's that's how I interpreted it I'm not clear that what you just did is any help to councilmember Watkins at this point I'm sensing that it's not a blunt but what was that oh I said I'm sensing that it's not yeah vice mayor brunner I'm happy to make the staff recommendation um to review the objective standards table and density bonus information prepared by staff and refer the project to staff to complete a formal response letter to the SB 35 application including an objective standards consistency determination and determination of the granting of a density bonus and is there a second to that motion councilmember Cummings your hands up your hands down is there a second to that motion I'll go ahead and second that motion okay we have a motion which is the staff recommend we can see it it's also in the agenda yeah I okay thank you I can't I can't work while I'm sharing my screen hold on I'll go back okay we have a motion on the table um there is a second for that motion this is the staff recommendation councilmember Cummings I just wanted to um again see if I can understand this correctly from the staff's perspective so if the approval goes forward the staff will review the objective standards and then would they then be sending a letter to say yes the developer met all the standards and can move forward and so then they would be that ministerial approval body or is this going to come back to council for us to then you know have this project come before us again to approve or deny the project with this motion that would be crafting a letter in the next two days that says the project is consistent with the objective standards and they can proceed to the ministerial building permit process okay um I guess yeah so consistent with the analysis that we provided in the so in essence yeah so I mean the council could potentially though today say whether they agree with the staff recommendations on the objective standards and approve the project yes the council can take can take a definitive stance on that that council can have staff just convey the information that we've got in the letter their results is the same okay I just think that you know and this is the last comment I'll make I just think that it's really important as elected that you know we are taking formal decisions on development and not just handing those decisions over to our staff and so I would just recommend that you know if we move forward today that you know that the city council is the one who's making the determination and that that's that's reflected in the motion I'm not prepared to support this so it's not like this is a friendly amendment but that's just my feelings on this is that we should be making decisions about development in our community as an elected body and not just handing that decision over to staff and then the given where this is going as well I do have a friendly well I do have an amendment it's not again going to support this but it's something that I think the council may want to take into consideration which is that if this is the direction the council is going to take with um item with condition number 13 uh delete the set the language that says unless the applicant provides substantial evidence that for the product to be eligible for a state or local funding program it is necessary that the units not be distributed throughout the project I think that's really to get to many of our concerns around um the segregation issue within the project so the idea would be that if the developer is going to move forward with this project they need to have the affordable units distributed throughout the entire project and not consolidate the majority of them into a single building so I can send that language over to Bonnie if others want to consider it can you send it yeah I'll send it to you right now and I have a question while we're working on that um and possibly an amendment um I'd like to try to make it clear that fee waivers would not be appropriate for this project um but I want to understand Tony if that is an appropriate time or is that when the actual fee waiver would need to come back to come home who knows when that would happen could be a year from now could be several years from now yeah I think it would be more appropriate to um to to let the applicant know that that is the council sentiment about fee waivers um but the appropriate time to take formal action would be when it comes before you thank you if there was a request for fee waivers then staff would bring it forward at that time correct thank you council member brown while we're waiting for the language to come up I actually also have uh some proposed language that I sent to Bonnie for potential amendments so I'll just wait if um uh council member Cummings is if those are coming up first um but I can talk about them for a moment just so people are have a sense um so the first I I just wanted to revisit this question about um the site plan and you know what's been made available to us because I feel like we're kind of talking past each other um from among kind of constituents who have weighed in what I'm hearing from staff and um kind of amongst ourselves and maybe it's just because I simply cannot wrap my mind around it but um uh what I don't see is um uh locations for the density bonus units that uh within the site plan um which is I believe a requirement of our density under our density bonus rules um and so I believe that portion of the application is also incomplete I didn't want to go too far into the leads um but I'll add that here since it looks like we're heading towards approval um I believe that that must be provided and then um to ensure a thorough evaluation of SB 35 eligibility um that um projects are won't be eligible for streamlined ministerial process described in subdivision C of uh I'll just let you read the codes when they come up um around tribal resources that um that are on a national state tribal or local historic register um outside the project I understand that there there may potentially be those and that we could run into trouble um with those moving forward as well so those are my two um oh here they are sorry I was reading off my own page so you can see them right here I can try to explain further if um folks want to um you know have any questions but those I guess we'll just take them all together so council members Cummings um request would be to include in this motion in the stop motion or the existing motion that's on the floor um vice mayor Bruner that this um um this uh deletion I believe would come would would would uh be added to uh item number 13c in the conditions of approval so basically um let's see I'm just looking at that right now um kind of match up the language here can I ask a question about that sure how does that relate to section 402 e and f um regarding inclusion so there was inclusionary units dispersed unless the applicant can provide evidence um that due to funding it would all be one yes one one part of the project Ryan yeah thanks um I just wanted to clarify just a couple things one is just what we were discussing here um in terms of um 13c I mean this is basically consistent with the hcd sp35 design guidelines so that's consistent with that so I don't know if altering this could be I might leave that to Tony to answer if that may be an issue from a um legal standpoint the other thing I wanted just to clarify is that the applicants did provide us a list of their inclusionary and and density uh bonus units and I can show you where those are I've actually plotted them out on each level of the building so we do have those 22 specific locations identified the only thing we don't have is the 33 sp35 which as we've discussed is solely dependent upon what we're just talking about here um which is the funding sources you know are they going to be distributed evenly between the buildings uh is the funding source consistent with the 402 f going to require that they be um and consolidated those are all the questions that have yet to be answered and will be dependent upon the funding sources so I'm happy to show you the locations of the 22 inclusionary and density bonus because those have been provided but yeah so my understanding first let's quit first question real quick here um Tony is the suggested removal on 13c is that in conflict with state law um I I'm just looking at the hcd guidelines now in the language of the condition that's before you is virtually identical to the to the hcd guidelines so my concern is that it would be imposing a different standard on the project than what the s what the sp35 uh or the hcd guidelines provide um I might add that um that section 402 f also states that identification in the development application of the location of the affordable units is not required for ministerial approval but distribution of the units for this subsection can be included as a condition of approval under section 30185 so I I I do think the language as proposed by council member Cummings is problematic from a legal perspective thank you okay I've got vice mayor bruner and then council member Cummings and then council member brown I might just cue myself in here too I I think I want to I just want to be very clear that people are are understanding that under this under sp35 basically there is a an objective standards evaluation and oversight hearing those are the two pieces that we can cue ourselves into we could also cue our planning commission or we can we can basically say staff makes that there really is no ministerial there is no um non ministerial option under sp35 so we are not approving a project right now we are simply saying that we have completed the oversight hearing and that we are um referring our the remainder of the consistency and evaluation with objective standards to the staff to for completion so it's really important for the staff to realize or for the public I just want to make sure folks are clear we are not approving or denying a project that's different than what you you know a lot of people are used to in past where we had we actually had those duties we don't have those duties unfortunately under sp35 we're comparing it just against our objective standards so just want to be clear on that uh vice mayor bruner did you have additional um response to these um just just based on that those clarifications which was my understanding with um council member Cummings amendment I'm not amenable to that amendment and vice council member brown had some suggestions here um yeah so the second one the the next two are for your consideration as the motion maker yeah so I guess I um if I could um just want to get some clarity here I guess um perhaps this is a longer conversation for another day but I guess it may be as I understand it then and may perhaps I misunderstood um your call staff is calling the density bonus units and the inclusionary units one and the same so that 22 units is you're saying the density bonus units that you've mapped them out the developer didn't do it but so thank you staff for doing that the developer did it oh the developer did do it okay I thought I could say you did they provided us a table okay and I can show them I actually you showed you showed us the site I think I think we have that material available is that correct I believe so I mean they they part of the recent middle yes they included a table that identified the specific unit numbers on each floor and then I as part of I didn't include it in this I have I didn't include it in my presentation but I do have them available if you wanted to see it floor by floor each where all the units are um well you know I honestly I'm at this point I don't think I don't want to take more time unless others want to see it um but I I um I guess I was confused then that um there were two obligations related to the inclusionary and the density but you've combined it and said they're meeting that obligation with that explanation of where the 22 units are going okay well then I'll withdraw um the item one um I guess and um so then if there's anything folks have I mean I'm I'm just gonna leave number two on the table if others have anything to um say um just hoping that this is a consideration that um that you might make uh before we vote on the final uh motion um I saw Bonnie Bush's hand go up so I just want to make sure that thank you um yeah I just want clarification because um if these are amendment to the motion then we would have to have a second to them and then vote to accept them because they're not friendly amendments I don't believe Mayor Myers did a second I did second the motion and no no I mean to the I mean to the amendments you would need a second to this amendment and a second to this one because I'm under the impression this is right not friendly so well I'm is can we just put them in the minutes that they were requested as friendly amendments and if they I mean I can make it the other way but I'm just trying to get in the record here and maybe it will be accepted as a friendly amendment and if it won't then can we just say it wasn't accepted and we can so that's your then I'm just trying to save time here just try to save time sorry but thank you Bonnie for the councilmember coming to see and the same is there a second to your I'll second them I'll second them with the amendment and I'll second his so now here we are okay now let's go back and yeah all right just want to make sure go ahead so procedure I can we take a step back here um there was a request for a friendly amendment that doesn't need a second if it's accepted by the maker um I don't believe it was accepted by the maker so I believe what is now in front of you is a motion to amend the main motion to add this language yeah I was under the impression that councilmember Cummings was an amendment to you specifically said it probably wasn't friendly so that's the one I was mainly referring to right okay so um the discussions already occurred so hopefully we don't have to have that again but I'll second that and we can take a vote on that and then we can go on to the next one um I was comfortable just leaving it at not accepted but for process okay so there's a motion to amend the main motion to add councilmember Brown's language my recommendation would be that you vote on that if it passes add it to the motion if not then move back to the main motion okay um can I just clarify does councilmember Cummings had an amendment was that withdrawn or was that a friendly amendment that was not accepted no there's a there was an amendment and then it sounded like councilmember Brown just seconded that so we can move forward with voting and and then councilmember Brown was a friendly amendment that was not accepted but now I'm confused yeah me too I am just yeah the amendment the word the wording that was used was that you wanted to make an amendment but you didn't think it would be considered a friendly amendment so now we're having to vote on an amendment which I guess we can do um versus having the motion maker be able to respond to that friendly amendment request so sorry Bonnie I'll also I'm losing council members somehow people's internet is starting to not work at their home so I don't know what's going on yeah I I got a couple of texts as well if you want to take a break um now yeah why don't we take a 10 minute break I'm sorry for the public but we're we've had a couple of phone phone or folks letting us know that their internet is off so um uh let's take a 10 minute break and then um I just want to clarify the for the public so we were going to take a vote on the amendment proposed by councilmember Cummings correct if that was seconded by councilmember Brown and then councilmember Brown's amendment should be called a friendly amendment and I'll come back that was seconded by council member Cummings and then I'll come back it was not seconded because it doesn't need one it doesn't need one that's right okay but we'll come back to item two if it's okay with you vice mayor brooner we'll come back and look at that language after our break is that okay okay I just want to make sure if folks can get in they they can get in thank you we'll be back in 10 minutes just shepherds in transit I know that but yeah me too I'm back on hi there good afternoon we're going to go ahead and start back up again if council members are here please turn on your cameras I guess we're having um some there's just overall zoom issues happening so sorry to the public today um so I've got one two three four we have a quorum of council members here as council members arrive if they could please turn on their cameras mayor this is merteen I'm having a hard time with my wife I I'm gonna leave my camera off and hopefully it'll still work and if not I'll just call in okay I apologize councilmember counter johnson was having the same issue so we're just dropped so yeah I apologize for that no worries okay we've got six why don't we go ahead and get started again Bonnie can you please put up um the friendly amendment from councilmember brown vice mayor brooner just want to clarify that my understanding was councilmember Cummings made a friendly amendment which I did not accept and so and councilmember brown made an amendment and withdrew for part one and now we're looking at part two which I also want clarification on my understanding was when councilmember stated that he wanted to make an amendment he also stated that he didn't think it would be a friendly amendment so I believe Bonnie considered that an amendment which would mean I think that you know we would have to vote on that okay I I didn't hear that part so thank you I wanted to that's where Bonnie's question came in but councilmember brown distinctly stated she wanted to have the friendly amendment considered if I could I'm sorry to butt in but I when I pasted the language into the email I sent Bonnie I cut off the bottom so I just sent the rest of it to Bonnie and sorry I know you're dealing over there um but just if we can include that I don't think it's going to change the motion maker's position but I did want to make it clear so I can tell you right now where where is it it just sent it to you no no no I have it where do you where do you want it just right at right at the end there it's yeah it's that's part of the motion number two to ensure a thorough evaluation of SB 35 eligibility um and then the language that's in the quotes is actually the language from the section and then the so what I'm asking is that we get information to ascertain whether there's a tribal resource on the subject property whether or not that written correspondence to all most likely descendants on the list have if that's been done or that that must that should be done that makes sense so this would be added to the the condition as a as a condition of approval sandy or to okay I don't I'm not understanding this as a condition okay so maybe not as a condition of approval then I believe this is something that um I mean I would ask I would ask staff to weigh in here but I believe that this um I believe that this analysis of whether or not it's a uh on a historic register list has has been undertaken um my understanding is that a part of this has been undertaken but perhaps not all of what thought to be done has been as and again I'll ask leader clarified but as part of the conditions of approval there would need to be an archaeological and a cultural resources monitor on site in case here to for unknown resources are identified and that as a as a part of that process for the monitor so right now the monitoring is a condition of approval I understand that but um my understanding is also that a monitor has been identified and that what is not clear is whether or not the um as part of that process all most likely just descendants on the list um related to this to this site and the historical resources on an adjacent adjacent to where the building would be um have perhaps not been identified and communicated with so this is a level of um this is a second step Sandy I think what you're saying yeah thank you yeah I've had to do this step before so I know where it's coming from thank you thank you I know this language not under a 35 but under other other uh laws so or other actions um so I believe the question really is and Lee maybe you guys so this is um whether so basically has contact been made with the tribes on whether so part of the analysis that you would do as well as having an onsite monitor and a tribal you know representative is there a requirement or is can we require that that actual outreach to likely um descendants be done or has it been done is that it you sort of yeah I'm I'm happy to speak to that and then I'll pass it over to Sam because she was doing a lot of the work and I see I see Darcy has her hand up too oh great so um we did look we looked at the local state and national registers the national register does have information with respect to the inclusion of tribal resources we did find um information related to um the via the brand supporting and that was located it was identified as across the street at the location of the school so caddy corner from the subject site so this site was not identified that we found on those registers and I it's my understanding that that Sam has sought information related to the descendants the most likely descendants and that Sam has had conversations with the um the tribal representatives themselves and Sam I'll let you speak to any of the details that you'd like to add um that was essentially what I was going to say we we received a um a list of the tribes that we should contact from the Native American Heritage Commission and so we um contacted that you know those tribal representatives and um one did request a consultation with us which we held and that's where the agreement came from um and we did hear from either um you know over the phone or via email um I did end up speaking with the other representatives um many of them had conditions that we wrapped into the agreement um and the others um deferred to um the expertise of the representative that we met with thank you that's a brand councilmember brown does that do you feel like that due diligence has been done or do you still want this um considered by the motion maker as a friendly amendment um well I'm you know I this I I trust Sam um in the work that you're doing and that you've done your due diligence and I still am not clear that um because I think you know the invitation to consult is different as I understand it um from ensuring that all tribes have been asked if this site is on one of their registers so have if that's so that has that was that part of the communications Sam asking each of the tribe to say to say no this not on our register um you know I don't believe that that specific language was in the letter but we did solicit their review of the project and um ask them if they wanted to meet with us or if they wanted to consult with us further on it we did give them the location of the site and let them know what kind of disturbance was proposed to occur okay yeah I'd still like to see um uh you know more explicit correspondence um to the tribes personally I'll take your comments for your response and then Vice Mayor Brunner can you you you're you it's basically your decision on whether or not to accept the friendly amendment thirsty did you have more to add yeah I was just going to add the fact that SB 35 actually outlines specifics about the way that the cultural resources related to the Native American tribes are addressed and the planning department followed those requirements to the letter of the law at the time that the application came in okay thank you for that clarification Vice Mayor Brunner thank you I looked that up as well thank you Darcy for that are you do you have something else to add Darcy your hand went back up no I lowered my hand I'm sorry lower my hand yeah so I I I am not accepting that friendly amendment at this time okay so we I believe are back to the staff recommendation motion um language um which is review the objective standards table and density bonus information prepared by staff yep are we are we not are you including council member Cummings amendment to that oh we need to vote on that yes okay okay so we have the amendment um above sorry thank you for catching that which includes at removing the language um as stated in the quotations this is on condition number 13c um and we have a motion by a council member Cummings and a second by council members uh Brown and could we get a roll call vote on that one um council member Watkins I'm I'm so sorry I didn't I missed the discussion around this but I so I don't know I don't feel prepared to vote on it but I don't want to I understand that I don't understand we have a time constraint here too we're really running out of time we're an hour late now but but okay so I guess I'll I'll just vote no given that I just don't I don't know what happened here with my wife and I apologize for that that's okay council member Calantari Johnson I apologize I'm in the same exact situation um I I've been gone for the last half hour I missed the discussion so I apologize I'm also going to vote no because I just joined back on it sorry about that clarify this is to accept the amendment right yes that's right my votes no vice mayor Brunner no and mayor Myers my vote's no and I just want for the record because this basically is counter to the ACD state law so I feel it would uh uh all matter just from that perspective okay so that amendment fails now we'll go back to the original motion which is the staff recommendation which is just above um and any council members it's also in your packet review the objective standards table and density bonus information prepared by staff and refer to the projects project to staff to complete a formal response letter sd35 application including an objective standards consistency determination and determination granting a density bonus so we have a motion by vice mayor Brunner and I seconded that and Bonnie why don't we do a roll call but Bonnie are you there sorry I was typing council member Watkins no Bonnie we lost you again Calandari Johnson hi you probably having the same internet problems I am brown no holder vice mayor Brunner mayor Myers hi that motion passes for favor and three against we will now um move on to item number 26 which is the library mixed use project updated site program and design for members of the public who are streaming this meeting if this is an item you want to comment on now is the time to call in using the instructions on your screen the order will be a presentation of the item by staff followed by questions from the council we will then take public comment and then return to the council for deliberation and action okay and then when we get a little bit further out I do have some extra time folks that I will call when we get into public comment so I will go and turn this over to Bonnie Lipscomb our director of economic development good afternoon mayor and members of the council it's my um pleasure to be here this afternoon and to bring this item back to you today I'm going to start out with a brief update this is our regular quarterly update I'm going to go through it fairly quickly because we do have an exciting presentation from our master library architect that is really the highlight of the update today and I'll end the brief update with a with what the recommendation is in the staff report and then I'll turn it over to Abe Jason part of our master library architect team and Katie Stewart who is also part of our team so I'm going to go ahead and share my screen for my portion of the presentation and then I'll transition to Abe and Katie to bear with me just a second okay I want to make sure everyone can see that great we can see it okay great thank you okay so the agenda for the update is just a summary of our efforts to date since council approved the program back in June of 2020 a brief project schedule update a budget update next steps and the recommendation and I'm going to start out with a summary since this is a big project with a lot of elements there's a lot of moving pieces we had direction and we hired the owner's representative in the last year we implemented communications and outreach strategy we did complete a library reuse visioning process over the last year over the summer we secured an affordable housing master developer to develop the hundred percent low and very low income units we executed a contract this was brought to you before you in September with the master library architect team um since that time more recently in October um since October and over the last three months we've conducted multiple outreach sessions with the master library architect team including focus groups and community workshops and that will be the highlight of what we'll talk about today and then finally and and when I turn this over to our master library architect team you'll see the completed concepts for site configuration accommodating a 35 000 square foot library plus a 5000 a square foot outdoor patio deck to the library 125 up to 125 affordable housing units and some reduced parking which will go over in more detail this is our master library architect team jason architect with ape jason and katie stewart and I want to just briefly highlight the community outreach um that we've done to date um in November 4th first through 4th we had a series of six meetings um with stakeholder groups um around the library and we will have some highlights of that um and here's just a summary of the number of meetings we had the number of questions that were asked we had over 60 participants in the stakeholder groups and we had close to 800 responses and we have each of these I should say and I'll show that website in just a second all posted from each of the breakout groups and so we had two breakout groups for a number of the sessions per session for each of these six meetings and they're all posted on the project page of the city's website under economic development and then this past Friday we had three workshops um we also have posted from the workshops um on the city website same project page and here is the link below city of santa cruise dot com forward slash mixed use library and you can actually view a recording of a community workshop presentation and you can also download the presentation slide deck we had over 100 people participating in those workshops we're compiling those responses now there is a summary um that abin katie prepared and they'll go over that um a little bit later in the presentation I'm not going to talk about this I just want you to to let you know that um you'll hear about this more from abin katie but I did want to say that it has been a very engaged process that we've had with the team with the consultants and based on a lot of the community feedback of what was really important to be included in this project um from a reduction of the parking and increase in the housing and that feeling of really bringing up the prominence of the library so this is something you'll hear more about I wanted to briefly just talk about the project where we are right now is right here in quarter four of 2021 right in the concept design stage we still have a lot left to go in the project and we have more opportunities for public engagement here in the schematic design phase and design development phase I do want to spend a couple minutes on the budget update I realize this is a detailed slide um we've had a lot of feedback of just even wanting some big picture you know what are the costs um sources of uses and some of the estimated costs for the library so I did want to give an update um on kind of where we are I will also say these are very preliminary numbers and there's a reason for that we are in the concept stage so first we need um you know based on the recommendation today we need direction from you about whether or not you accept updating the program to include the higher count of housing the two-story library concept moved to the front of the project and the reduction of parking as well so if you approve that today we'll be able to go and refine some of these numbers specifically and come back to you with a full model in more detail but for today I wanted to give you an update um I have just for um the summary um we've been working um and doing doing some in detail work with the budget on measure s and we currently have over 25.5 million both and pay as you go funds and the ability to bond um once we issue bonds we'll have three years approximately to spend that funding um it's really those are just IRS tax rules so we are working both with bond council and with the county and the special council for the library um to make sure that we are that we are complying um with all rules and regulations around the bond funds um the both the Garfield and Branson 40 are getting to the near near end of their projects and I will say the friends of the library have been amazing and have actually done a pretty phenomenal job fundraising so we um there may be the possibility to release a little bit of the funds that were I'm going to say borrowed or the decision to take some of the funding that was earmarked for the downtown branch for the Branson 40 and Garfield and be able to move some of that funding back to the downtown so that is why I have a 25.5 million plus we're hoping to get at least 500,000 roughly of that back we do plan on financing for the parking district that's pretty uh traditional um my guess is that it will be considerably lower than this this is just right now a conservative number being held um we have through some funding that we've secured this year through two rounds successful rounds of local housing trust fund matches at the state we have over five million um earmarked and secured in our affordable housing trust fund for this project specifically which you know for a project this size that's a lot for the city gap to fill and I think it's going to go a long way um to this project and helping us be even more competitive for some of the uh next rounds and tax credits current approved cip budget that's approved for this project we have 1.35 million future cip and or grants we're actually in the process of thanks to some of our partners through um through friends of the library and others we are have actually in the process of applying for a grant for the library so we're excited for some of the grant funds that may be possible also through the mixed-use project combined uh combined with affordable we are very in a very sort of competitive grant position to be eligible for other grants over the next year so we're pretty excited about that um so our total source of funding is a little over 104 million the estimated costs right now I do have an asterisk on that we're we're really refining it and this does include some of the features that you're going to see today that are above the baseline library that you saw previously so previously we had an estimate did not include a fixture furniture and equipment it still does not include ffne that was always considered to be a fundraising item but it does include the roof deck the photovoltaics that you'll see and some of the really nice finishes that you're going to see as well so we do have a potential gap we may have a gap um but it's not a substantial gap and I will say that the reason it's not a substantial gap is because of many of the cost savings that you see from doing a mixed-use project together there's just a lot both on economies of scale and efficiencies from doing the project together so specifically the foundation overall is less expensive being part of the same time and sharing and material costs and labor sharing many of the exterior walls stairs and exits from the parking structure are being shared with other uses um share of street lights ADA parking eb charging will be included in the parking structures a lot of these things that were a standalone library project would have to bear the cost of these as a standalone project um you know adding to that building permit fees again shared across the entire project not specific to the library HVAC is also less specific as it'll be roughed in during housing construction so I wanted to mention some of those because we haven't fully absorbed some of those savings yet and we'll be able to do that when we get an approved um design and can get a little further on in the design and engineering for this project and then we'll come back to you with more refined costs for the project as well as we'll be able to move forward on applying for some of the grant and other funding sources so next steps um specifically um if approved today we'll move to the schematic design phase as I said they'll they'll will continue to be community outreach both in schematic and the design development phases um and we'll continue with our ongoing conversations with the farmers market we've been looking a little more specifically at the possibility of lot seven as well as their expressed interest and the recommendation coming out of the revisioning process of the existing library site to really explore that site as a potential long-term home for the Santa Cruz farmers market in conjunction with affordable housing um and then next steps also is a recommendation to come back to you if approved today um with an updated cost model so the recommendation before you today is to approve or accept uh the updated site program and design for the library mixed use project to include the following changes an increase in the affordable housing units from a minimum of 50 which you approved back in June of 2020 to a minimum range of between 100 and 125 units our goal is for the 125 units we'll go into the details of that that is an extra level of housing to five levels of housing over three parking and um there are some height uh discussion we should have about that um a decrease in the parking count from 400 to 310 parking stalls program expansion to include an on-site day care facility an approval of library design changes to include a two-story library facing cedar and Lincoln streets with a green roof and adjacent roof deck and other design elements as presented by the master library architect team um following this presentation and then finally um we recommend that you direct staff to return to council with an updated library cost model based on the library design and site program changes if you approve that today and that concludes my portion of the presentation and with that I'd like to turn it over to Abe Jason and Katie Stewart who are a part of our master library architect team mayor vice mayor council members it's nice to see each of you again we're really excited to be before you tonight we have a presentation to show you our progress since we last saw you and uh sort of establish kind of where we where we've come in conversations with the community and how that's helped shape the design that we're presenting you tonight we have uh myself uh i'm principal of jason architecture i know we've met uh previously but i'll introduce myself briefly and as a as a sort of refresher we have had the honor of working within your library system on multiple branches the recently completed lessel the beach branch as well as the boulder creek live oak uh branches within the county and then the branch authority and the garfield park branches within the city um and we're thrilled and honored to be working on your main library i'm katie stewart um you can hear me right just want to double check don't want to do the classic zoom mistake um katie stewart um very pleased to be here tonight i'm an architect and associate at jason architecture as well as the project manager for the downtown library project and i am also really pleased to be here today uh it's absolutely a privilege to get to work on a project of this scale and importance within the community and we've um been working really hard with your staff and with your community to make this a really excellent project um so thank you again for having us here today and uh with us tonight we also have uh jim renler with eden and for the future housing um he will not be a part of the presentation but he'll be uh part of the panel and available for questions after our presentation and uh bonnie as well uh who gave the intro so we have three sections for our presentation tonight the first is uh describing our conceptual design and the community process to let that led to that conceptual design the second is a section about what we heard and this is actually specifically going to be in regards to the december 10th uh meetings we had uh just this past friday where we presented this design to the community and we've poured over the feedback we received and uh sort of some key themes have emerged and then we're going to end with some next steps so we began our process with a series of stakeholder focus groups uh this was uh about two months ago and we had six meetings with people from uh diverse interest groups as it relates to the project we asked of these uh six six groups we asked 38 questions we had about 60 participants across these groups and we gathered over 700 responses so a really robust amount of information that helped us inform our decision-making going forward our process is one of uh sort of asking questions from the expertise of the community we are experts in the design of public libraries however we are not experts in your community and that's how we treat this engagement we we reach out to the community with questions rather than the community asking questions of us we are asking questions of them that help shape the project and what you can see here is that we get a diversity of responses and we're actually not placing emphasis on any one response in particular uh you can see you know some of the responses are insightful some of them are constructive uh some of them are kind of funny and humorous uh but in general what we're looking for is key themes to emerge as we move through this process and in aggregate as we we sort of read through this commentary we do see some things that start to become recurring commentary and sort of really starting to be identified things that are important to the to the community on the existing library we heard a couple things the first of which is it is well loved it it is a place that people have developed memories over the years uh they have raised their families in they have trained for careers in they see it as a social hub of the community and it has a special place in in the heart of Santa Cruz because of that at the same time we also heard very clearly that the building uh has seen better times it's dingy dilapidated and outdated and it is in need of uh you know uh sort of a revitalization it's not it's not ready for the next generation we also heard that it can be considered unsafe unwelcoming and stuffy on the new site we heard that it has great synergy with the downtown and pacific that there was a sort of real kind of excitement about the way that it could interact with the downtown businesses transit with housing there was concern about the loss of the farmers market expressed in these meetings and that's why i think it's fantastic that the city is working actively with the farmers market to identify a permanent home downtown there was also kind of consistent uh you know statements that it is a better use than a surface parking lot and that it is it is a better utilization of this downtown site on the mixtures project itself there was a real desire that it become part of the downtown fabric that it needs to become part of the interaction of this downtown community and sort of the design needs to take that into consideration so that the there's mutual benefits to the downtown businesses to the downtown residents and to the library we also heard loud and clear that affordable housing is needed in santa cruz and then there was also a kind of clearly expressed a desire for outdoor and green space and there were some concerns about how we would achieve that on this site on the new library we heard that this needs to be a library for not just this generation but future generations it has to be modern and forward looking it has to incorporate new technologies it has to be a place of information for the information age that we live in also true to the values of santa cruz it has to incorporate sustainability it has to represent the love for the natural environment that we see throughout the community of santa cruz and was clearly represented in the community feedback we received and importantly it needs to be a place for everyone it needs to be a place for young for old for people of different career paths and from people from different diverse backgrounds so how do we take this feedback that we got from our stakeholder groups and start to create a design for this downtown library mixed use project what you can see in front of you is a diagrammatic representation of the library housing parking and commercial program as was approved by by you by the council back in june of 2020 so what this represents is in blue we have the affordable housing in gray we have the parking in orange we have the commercial space and in yellow we have the library and i want to just take a moment to say that it's our professional opinion that these four program types work really well in concert with each other they have a lot of kind of great relationships between them the housing the library the commercial they all use the parking the commercial can entice new patrons to the library housing residents can use the library can use the daycare can use the commercial so we really see this as an excellent melting of these four program types into one building so working from that program from june 2020 we started to think about what we heard from the community and started to act on these program volumes so the first thing that we did was we moved back the parking and the housing to give the library more of its own identity and to daylight its roof next we increased the volume of the library to maximize the amount of programmable space with the library as well as increasing the volume of the housing to increase the number of units we also decreased the size of the parking then we pulled the housing volume along kind of giving it more surface area for light for daylight for kind of these perimeter needs of the space and we also pushed it back so that it steps up from the lower scale where calvary churches up towards the higher scale the higher volumes along pacific avenue next we started to carve into these volumes we started to think of them as more buildings rather than just kind of squares and we started to think about what sort of incisions do we need to make to maximize daylight and views so you can see here kind of with the red dotted line this is where we're beginning to carve into the building and create a new shape and maximize the amount of glazing that we can have so here those spaces are cut away you'll also see that this creates a space up at the top level for the library to have and kind of at level entry into a roof deck after we thought about these daylight and views carvings we started to think a little bit about how this building interacts with the street and how does it have more of a human scale for pedestrians that are walking along these street front so we've made a cut at this building to begin to shape it for that pedestrian scale pulling back so we have a more civically scaled sidewalk a more defined entry and a more prominent corner and then this view also starts to add in a sense of scale for the viewer we've got these little red people here what gives a sense of how large this building is and then last we start to think about areas of solidity areas of transparency the sort of areas where the green roof will be most effective areas of photovoltaics and then of course how do we populate this roof deck for the library to make it a really excellent outdoor space and this is the same view just orbited around so we're looking at it from the northwest corner this is a really prominent view of the library and you can really start to see how it has a street presence and is beginning to shape itself into more of a form all right so let's talk a little bit about the numbers of this project for the housing we are targeting between 100 and 125 units the program breakdown of the housing promotes use from a lot of different demographics there's studios and one bedrooms two bedrooms and three bedrooms so we think this will appeal to a wide range of folks individuals families seniors etc there's community space that's dedicated solely to the residential housing and this will be between 25 and 3500 square feet and this is a space where residents can come maybe share some time with an extended family group in a larger kitchen have some community meeting events etc that kind of thing there's also residential roof deck between 14 000 to 16 000 square feet of it which will act as a kind of outdoor space and gathering space for all of the residents of the housing for the library we are going to have between a 30 and a 35 000 square foot library interior with a three to five thousand square foot roof deck the library program and plans that i'll show you later do you show a 35 000 square foot library and a 5000 square foot roof deck and we're really optimistic that we can hit the high level of this range for this part of the program for the parking we're showing between 300 and 315 total spaces this is reduced from 400 and for the commercial and daycare we have space for seven to nine thousand square feet of commercial space and 18 to 2500 square feet of daycare another excellent thing about the these just different individual program types is how that while they relate to the programs in the surrounding area so we have a lot of surrounding businesses that have kind of a great synergy with the parking with the commercial space we have all of the businesses and restaurants along pacific avenue as well as the restaurants along all the streets of the uh front this project we also have a nice relationship between community uses with the church across the street and we have the housing that is going to be going in at the lot across cedar street which again has a nice relationship between the housing that is going to be introduced as a part of this project of course all of these program uses have a great connection with the existing business and businesses and shops along pacific avenue and we see this as a pedestrian connection as well as a vehicular connection something that we heard consistently in all of our stakeholder outreach meetings was the importance of sustainability as it relates to this project so we've targeted some sort of lofty sustainability goals we will have solar panels on the roof to provide solar energy for the project both the housing and the library will be all electric which means no reliability on fossil fuels we're trying to be forward thinking in the construction of the parking garage so rather than creating a ramped approach which would sort of necessitate that it remained parking in perpetuity we are thinking of the parking garage as flat floor plates which could potentially be converted to different use at some time in the future we're thinking about daylighting as it pertains to the library because it has its own kind of independent volume here we have been able to introduce glazing at all four sides of the building which will contribute greatly to the ability to daylight this space rather than relying heavily on electricity to delight it and this is also really important to another one of our goals to achieving zero net energy for the library as we sort of move away from dependence on electric lighting it means that our goal of zero net energy is more achievable and then last the library will have a green roof which will help with storm water management pollution and reducing the urban heat island effect and this is a section through the building here i'll click back really quickly for a second so it says if we're slicing through the building kind of right along i'm not sure if you can see where my mouse is but right along here and what you can see from this section is that when we pull the library volume away so the library volume is the kind of yellow lit volume we've created an opportunity for glazing and for windows all around the building so we're getting in light from from all four facades and we've also created an opportunity for natural ventilation moving through the space allowing the space to be naturally cooled passively rather than relying solely on fans and age back equipment we've also created a nice relationship between the public on the private uses of this of this site it steps down as it moves from a more private area to a more public area so we have a nice relationship between the pedestrian scale at the street level and the kind of more pedestrian and public uses and then we step up and we have more privacy as we move to the residential uses including roof deck area and green space that is given over exclusively to the use of the residence so they have kind of their own private outdoor space all right so what does this look like in plan this first plan is the site plan at grade so you can begin to see this more generous civically scaled sidewalk as it wraps around we also have street trees and generous planting along the edge of the building a couple of key entrances into the building and I'll point out number one is the mid block and main entrance to the library number two shown both on Lincoln and Cathcart streets is the entrance into the housing number three and this would kind of probably wrap around the corner actually is the entrance into the commercial space and number four is the vehicular entrance into the parking structure now we've moved up two stories and this is the site plan of the roof deck so you can see we're introducing a lot of greenery a lot of planting we're really striving to make this housing feel as if it's kind of within a park lake setting and we also have this really generous roof deck which will be excellent programmable space for the library so to kind of go through our numbers here number one is this 5000 square foot roof deck numbers two three four and five are all residential roof deck given over to the residential uses number three is a community outdoor space you know barbecue girls picnic tables that kind of thing for gathering number four is a children's play area slash playground and number five is a teen centric space excuse me a teen centric space tongue twister which is given over for teen recreation number six is the photovoltaics on the roof of the housing and the library and number seven is that library green roof all right so moving into the floor plan of the building the area in gray is the parking the commercial and the daycare the commercial and the daycare hasn't been articulated yet and the area in color is the library floor plan so i'll call your attention to again sort of these key entrances number one and number two are the entrances into the library one being the entry off of cedar street and two being the direct entry off of the garage 16 and 17 are proposed entrances for the commercial and daycare and number 14 is the vehicular entrance into the parking structure coming back to the library just to talk kind of high level about the plan once you walk in the front door at number one you are in a lobby area which has the new books and marketplace collection this lobby area is indicated in orange there are a number of community meeting spaces off of the lobby shown in blue the largest of which is number four the large community meeting room there's the staff area shown in green this is staff offices as well as back of house services like sorting and returns collections circulation etc and then we have the children's area shown in yellow occupying this nice prominent corner of the space moving upstairs in the library the second floor is given over primarily to the adults collection we will also be thinking in particular of the genealogy and local history collection we want to make sure that this sort of special and unique santa cruz collection has a place in the new library the teens area is also upstairs shown in yellow and there's a suite of small group meeting rooms these are kind of two to four person study slash work rooms are shown right over here on the right hand side of the building you'll also see at the south end of the space there's another staircase up that staircase up leads to the mezzanine level which is shown on this plan the mezzanine level would be this kind of fun almost airy space that overlooks the adults collection you could see there being lounge chairs here and this is a bulk or a guard rail height glass wall here so you would be able to kind of have a multi-use space there is another suite of small group meeting rooms shown in blue here on the right and then we have a direct entrance out onto this 5000 square foot roof deck which again we really see as programmable space for the library santa cruz has such nice weather that we see this as something that you could use probably 300 320 days out of the year as programmable library space then just to kind of touch on the other program uses at this level number seven is that residential roof deck and number eight is the footprint of the residential units all right and with that i'm going to hand it off to aben he's going to talk a little bit about cultural context so when we start thinking about how this library starts to look and feel we don't think about in the abstract sense we really think about a sense of place and we think about santa cruz as a community and what defines it and the qualities that make it really wonderful and special santa cruz is like nowhere else on earth it is a kind of special confluence of arts and culture and nature it's a creative community it's a diverse community it's a quirky community it's also funky and i mean that in kind of a good way it's not like a slick uh you know kind of silicon valley vibe it's a place that has a deep love of nature with a amazing proximity to the ocean to the redwoods to the fields of wilder ranch to the north we took great inspiration from the nature around santa cruz and how we thought about the design of this building in particular the cliffs of west cliff drive wilder ranch and santa cruz county as a whole you can see kind of in this collection of images the wonderful striation of geology that's created at the ocean's edge the layering of of rock and color as it moves from the ocean up to the plateau where we have the greenery that starts to mimic the sense of a green roof and the idea of these geologic forms moving against each other slowly over time we also took inspiration from the ocean specifically the textural qualities of the ocean thinking about the way lines of swell appear as they approach the coast and the kind of linearity to that the rhythm to that in some ways it has a diagrammatic nature and we started to think about that as an approach to how we might treat glass on this building that we just we don't want just any old shiny blue glass building we need to think about a textural quality to glass think about glass as a material that brought us to a material palette that reflects some of these natural points of inspiration the first of which is brick which reflects the cliffs that we showed you at wilder ranch and on on west cliff drive specifically a sand the light colored sand brick that has kind of a permanence and a civic quality to it it really has a kind of a geologic kind of feel the second is glass and again we're thinking about glass as a material as a textural quality glass with a patternization with a ceramic frit on it that might create texture help with mitigation of solar heat gain and create some creative and visual interest and then as an accent to these we're thinking about wood and in this case it would be wood with a weathering effect because we're by the ocean and we think about wood as driftwood or in the case of a wood screen over a glass wall wood like a beach bonfire over a camp fire so we love that idea of the play of that weathered wood and kind of the relationship to the outdoors there in terms of material palette for this building what you're going to see is the use of this light colored brick a green roof as a material palette in this case we don't mean green like a lush tropical roof that would not be appropriate in santa crews we're thinking green like a coastal california green so in that case that means warm warm yellows and browns like a like a grassland native native species with some rich sienas in there mixed in with the greens a weathered wood screen so it really has the feeling of driftwood that pattern i patternized glass you can see below and then we have accents of warm wood and then smooths light colored cement plaster so we've taken you kind of through the how we thought about this building from a programmatic standpoint you've seen it from a bird's eye view but now we want to take you down to the experiential level and we're going to start at the corner of linkin and cedar street what you can see here is we've really emphasized the prominence of the library as the civic centerpiece of this building it really steps forward and you can start to see the benefit of all of those diagrammatic moves that katie walked you through where we shaped the building at the street level and we set the housing back the housing really starts to form this graceful backdrop to the civic building at the forefront you can see the civic permanence of the brick shaping the podium as well as the sort of delicate use of wood as a screen over glass and then the idea that the upper level is this grand reading room fully daily from all four sides and topped by a green roof moving down the street down cedar street to the corner of cat cart and cedar we take a look from the other other side of the building here the southwest corner and what you can see one of the key things to point out here is the buildings actually step down again at this corner we're really thinking about gracefully interacting with the neighborhood to the west of the building which is lower scale more residential there's businesses along that edge that have less density so we're stepping the building down to this corner and that actually provides this wonderful opportunity for an outdoor roof deck and the roof deck is south facing so a great spot for kind of the warmth of the sunlight and you can also see it provides this opportunity for not just greenery on the roof but actual trees on the roof which will be visible from the street additionally you can see uh additionally you can see that the this podium this brick uh kind of uh base there's an interaction between the commercial function the library function so while they kind of distinguish each other as separate functions there is a kind of a playfulness about how they speak to each other you can see uh starting to develop the commercial entry and the daycare entry on cedar street as well as around the corner on lincoln's cat cart street the entry to the residential building and then down at the end of the block the entry to the the parking garage and you can see it's sort of gracefully integrated in a way where it doesn't actually feel like a parking garage it feels like a sort of very kind of well-calibrated facade with balance of materiality moving up onto the roof deck we want to take a look at a sort of more experiential level about how the space is going to feel and you can see it's actually quite a grand space of 5000 square feet i think many many of you kind of can relate that to the size of a house in some ways and get a sense of scale it's available it's a scale available for multiple programming activities in particular we're thinking about some small outdoor group studies uh these could be spaces that could be utilized like the indoor group studies on a nice day when it's a group of teens looking to do some homework or a startup group or he on their business plan and it's just too nice to be inside so a great place to huddle um and uh you know have a meeting do some homework with friends in addition you can see some great space to hang out with a book you know sort of lounging and had her on that chair and read for the afternoon at the same time it's a scale it's a scale of space where we can move all of these mobile furnishings out of the way and hold a programming event up here this could be a children's story time and all the reading it could also be an opportunity just to celebrate something that's worth celebrating in Santa Cruz and then again we've got a scale where we've we've got space for greenery and not just greenery but trees so we like the idea of shade trees growing up on this roof and you can pull up a chair and sit beneath the dappled shade of a tree up on this roof looking out at the activity below moving inside the library we're going to step inside the front door off see your street and the first thing you can see when you walk into the building is that your eye is drawn upward there's a kind of uplifting aspirational quality this space as your eye seeks curiosity in the reading room above the main stair sort of gives you cues about kind of the opportunity for learning that's ahead and immediately you can see the benefit of separating the library from the housing and that clear story window that wraps the building bringing daylight in from all four sides we love the idea of some creative artistic light fixture hanging some kind of fun chandelier occupying the volume of this space straight ahead you can see the entry from the parking garage and to the right there would be a circulation desk and information from the front the librarian as well as the elevator in the middle of the space new collections new books you know staff picks sort of fun materials as well as group study rooms moving upstairs what you can see is this space that we're thinking of as the grand reading room of this library and this really harkens to the history of library architecture where there is a grand reading room space that really inspires a sense of civic awe and it has a volume to support that again you can really see the benefit of daylight coming in from all sides but not just daylight the sense of greenery visible from this level greenery to the right from the trees on cedar street but also to the left and straight ahead this is greenery from the roof deck these are trees from the residential roof deck and the library roof deck straight ahead is the teen space and then you can see the study rooms on the left as well and then that really cool mezzanine level you can kind of really see the idea of how fun it would be to sit up there and kind of observe the activity down below and then lastly lots of wonderful books which is core to the heart of any library so this was the design we presented this past friday and we have some key takeaways from the presentation of this design that we're going to share with you today so we went through a similar process to the the previous focus groups where we had questions that we asked of the community and we really we actually do a breakout group so it's one of the reasons we had three sessions of about 35 people per session is because we wanted to then break those groups into smaller groups it's really about fostering a community dialogue and allowing people to kind of hear what others have to say and actually you know visually see the commentary from their fellow community members so you can see an example of one of these questions so we heard a couple a couple things the first it's just an incredibly wonderful thing to see the kind of civic engagement from the community of santa cruz the investment in kind of positive outcomes for their community and one of the key takeaways was that we kind of had an enthusiastic and primarily positive feedback and there were a couple things in particular that were very well responded to the first of which was the extensive use of day lighting which i think you can see from the design we presented tonight the other was the articulation of the form of facade i think there were some concerns with the in the community that it would the building would be blocky and lack character so i think people are very happy to see that and then the prominence of the library because it is the civic kind of star of the show and people were really excited to see that it was clearly defined and sort of you know had a had a starring role in kind of how the building came together we also heard that there is a concerned minority worried about the removal of existing trees on lot four and that was that was expressed clearly at the same time we also heard that other community members felt conversely that these trees should not be preserved citing concerns about maintenance leaves surface roofs and the fact that they're non-native so the the feedback received was not consistent on this but in general the there there is a minority of people that do have some concerns about these trees regarding the parking structure we actually had fairly balanced split opinions on the parking structure going in both directions there were absolutely some members of the community that felt like the parking structure was too big and it encouraged something that didn't in in their mind meet the values of Santa Cruz and encourage car culture it was not sustainable and that the library and the city should be thinking about bike and pedestrian travel instead on the other hand there were also people who represented members of the business community who actually felt the structure should be larger and that there was a real need for parking to serve the businesses downtown it was vital to their survival and the vitality of the downtown businesses so this was an area where we heard kind of a diversity of opinions and we did feel like it was fairly uniformly split in a split in terms of the feedback we received we received specifically constructive feedback on a couple things which are going to be really helpful for us in terms of how we proceed with this design we did hear concern that there might be congestion from a single vehicular entrance exit into the parking garage so that's something we plan to explore further we heard clear feedback that the library has to be flexible and forward thinking and that technology has to be integrated throughout this really needs to be a library not just again for this generation but for the next generation and that there really needs to be plentiful and specifically secure bike parking that was actually a really critical thing that that almost maybe should be the thing highlighted instead of the bike parking is secure and then over and over again we heard pleasantly surprised it was consistent throughout all of our feedback and I think it really spoke to people going in with some trepidation about what this important project would become and coming out really excited about where it was headed so I'm going to just briefly talk about next steps and then we'll hand it back to the council for question and answer because I'm sure you have some questions for us so just taking a step back and looking at the overall timeline and we've actually kind of been touching this project and this process at multiple stages along the way so we know how long and how hard the community has been working on this process I think the thing that's pretty exciting to see when you look at this overall schedule dating back to the master plan is we're actually at the beginning of the last third of the process you can see that we're at the very beginning of the design and engineering phase that's the we are here and we're looking at design and engineering through 2022 there's going to be two additional opportunities for public input once in the schematic design phase at that point we would be coming back with more fleshed out floor plans as well as really detailed computer rendering so we move away from the loose lines loose thoughts of the sketches and we start to get much more specific about some of the design elements and then we'll come back to the community once more in the design development phase at this point the design is essentially done but we will be looking for the last round of feedback before we finalize things and we are on track for construction and the project completion sometime mid 2025 to the beginning of 2026 so with that I want to thank you everyone for your time and then I hand it back to the council thank you so much Abe and Katie and Bonnie very very exciting what you guys have come up with so I will go ahead and turn this over to council for questions first and then I'm going to go ahead and take it out for public comment and I just want to make a note to council we do have a 6 p.m. session so we're at almost five o'clock now and then take it out for public comment tonight we will have three speakers with extra time those will be neighborly Santa Cruz our downtown our future and the friends of Santa Cruz public libraries and I believe those folks who are associated with those groups know who they are so I will be calling on you first for public comment and then we will allow two minutes for additional public comment this evening so I'm going to go ahead and open this up for questions right now for council and then we'll take it out to public comment and then we'll come back for additional comments and deliberation councilmember Golder councilmember Cummings and vice mayor Bruder I want to applaud you guys and your team for such an amazing design I'm the first to not usually like modern architecture or long presentations but Bonnie already ran us through this last earlier this week and then I was just captivated the whole time just imagining it and I think it's beautiful and you did a great job of getting the community feedback and and bringing this design forward and I'm so excited about it I do have one question and I don't remember to ask and I did ask I asked somebody and I didn't get an answer and it maybe was you Bonnie is this the structural engineer I didn't see that in the budget is that part of the architecture budget because I was like yeah we do have as part of the budget there's a lot of elements and so we have we have some smaller contracts for structural engineering we have it both on the overall project team and surveying so there's a lot of smaller contracts that that we're managing as part of the larger project right on well thank you guys very much thank you Renee councilmember Cummings well thank you all for that wonderful presentation it's it's probably it's from a long way and that I know that you know when I've kind of discussed some of the earlier designs and renderings with people in the community they were concerned with the fact that it's just going to do this like gigantic rectangle and I think by including some of those setbacks and providing more light that's going to definitely meet some of the concerns we were hearing I know well I'll keep my questions pretty short I just wanted to know with the regards to the green roof I'm just curious is that going to be currently the design is that accessible by members of the public because what comes to mind for me is that there's also an opportunity there like for example in California Academy of Science on the top of their building they have a green roof that people can walk on to and access and I think that you know depending on kind of where this goes there is also the opportunity to have that space on top of the library which is even more not only green space but public space right and so I'm wondering if there's an opportunity to kind of have something like that included as well yeah it's not currently as designed shown as accessible but that's a great idea and it's something we could certainly explore as we head into this next phase of design right yeah I think that might be just good I mean if we can we're putting vegetation up there already which is adding that weight you know how much capacity could it carry in terms of people who could access it as well and railings and other things so I think that could also be more programmable space that actually extend the footprint of that the roof of the library so um and then yeah that's it I'll I'll have a few comments later but those are the only that's only real question I had thank you council member I've got vice mayor Bruner then council member Brown and then council member Watkins I had a couple of questions thank you so much for the visuals that was really I was pleasantly surprised um so questions from the community and that I um just also have um first location of the old library site without going into too much history why why not that site for building the new library secondly is if um there is a way to keep heritage trees on the current on the current proposed lot four site third is there an elevator to the mezzanine you mentioned a staircase and then fourth um given that there is a petition initiative and we speak to that what happens with this process that'll be for staff yes or for Tony okay oh and then I guess maybe um uh that the other question that came up was regarding the Nelson my guard study saying we don't need a garage a parking garage and my understanding is that um there are other surface lots going away um was that can taken into consideration um there's um the you know the question that has been brought up is do we need more parking versus better parking management so a lot of questions in there but that's what that's what's there so okay um okay uh why don't we take those questions if we can um did you guys get a chance to write those down um I can answer or address one two and five and then I'll turn to Abe to address the elevator mezzanine and then maybe Tony for the in Bonnie Bush for the initiative okay um so for the first one why not existing site for new library I think one of the challenges with the existing site for the new library is that we would have to relocate the library for two to three years while we are building the new site so there that's that's one one reason um but we would have to demo it we would have to relocate them so they would be moving twice and that was something that we did talk about um in the earlier process but you know that's that's not a small undertaking um for the library and and the uses and even finding another site that's large enough to accommodate um the library um is not a small feat either so um one of the benefits of having a new location since we're doing a new library is that the library can stay where they are and not have an interruption of the services they're providing to the community while we build the new site and then they once it's ready it's you know as seamless as transition as as possible um and Abe and others may have something else to add to that um on the heritage trees um we do we have been working um on that both with our city arborist and um we've been working with um an outside arborist that our city arborist recommends as well and we actually have a meeting set up for monday to do an assessment of the trees on site i mean our goal is you know we all actually really do love trees um i will as i say up front it would be next to impossible to do the project if not impossible the project that you saw today and keep all of those trees it's just not feasible however we will look at some of the trees and evaluate them both for health um and um also look at particularly some of the perimeter trees to see if it's possible to include any of those in the design i will also say that you you know notice there's a lot of trees actually in the new design both some on the perimeter but also some on the roof deck um as well so we definitely want to look at both the health of trees the ability to include some of the trees in the project and also we're going to be looking at the possibility of whether or not any of the trees if were if they were relocated whether or not they would survive so there's going to be an analysis of the trees on site so we will come back to you with that and then um as far as the nelson-neigard study obviously that's a very um it's it's starting to be a very dated study i will say just as did we look at the other parking lots that are coming off online so much has changed in the last few years with the number of projects in the pipeline and the number of projects that are now moving forward so with just the projects including the three or actually just two of the city projects including the library mixed use project we now have the cedar street project across the street um we have two projects on front street our pack station projects we are losing um just with those projects i mentioned between 330 and 335 parking spaces just those projects alone we're not talking about any the new development or what that demand may be on the parking system so at 310 adding new spaces that isn't doesn't even quite cover what we're losing through plan development that doesn't mean we can't do transportation you know transportation demand management in the future hopefully we'll need less parking but we are not building new supply we're not adding to the system we are actually in a deficit position at this point so i did want to add that that's information that nelson niger did not have um with a lot of these projects um we're we're making a lot of strides and building affordable housing that's a really good thing but it does put pressure particularly in our downtown um environment and that is a concern particularly for businesses and residents alike um are we thinking about parking are we planning for parking so i did want to add those comments um and with that i'll turn it over to a to address the elevator question thank you bonnie uh simple answer on the elevator yes there's an elevator to the mezzanine and it's not just because it's good design it's also required by code bonnie could i just jump into about some of the advantages that we're at the library seeing so i'm glad you're on thank you yeah i'm i'm eric howard the interim director at the library and thanks again avan and katie that was fantastic um some of the other things that we're seeing in in the comparison between staying put we're moving as as bonnie pointed out um we would be unable to provide it's not in the budget to provide services um for those two years if if we had to close down for renovation um but additionally this option moving to the to the mix use project is a is a greener option for us um to which we treasure as a system for a number of reasons um one is that we've seen our power go out um the current library doesn't have the infrastructure to support um solar panels as you saw in the presentation of the mix use project would um we we really um pride ourselves for like in libraries um for being a community center during times of emergency so um the solar could provide that opportunity as a cooling station for the community whereas the current library doesn't have that and we're projecting that we will have the money for the 35 000 square feet with those economies of scale that bonnie first highlighted in the beginning of her presentation but the the renovation would would get us down to 30 000 square feet so we know that this city loves garfield park and so just to put this into perspective the difference between the current library and the mixed use is two garfield park libraries um and that's not counting the the uh outdoor space which we don't have at the at the at the current location um so that's a significant difference um in what we can offer the community in between those two two actions thank you okay vice mayor bruner is that good i believe there's a question about the ballot measure oh i'm sorry yes ballot measure exactly um yeah i can address that i think it's pretty clear that both the intent and the effect of the ballot measure should it qualify for the ballot and uh and be passed by the voters would be to put a stop to this project as it's proposed um it it essentially would amend the general plan to prioritize the use of the existing library site for the renovation of the downtown library um to discourage the use of the existing library site for other than library purposes to establish lot four as the permanent location of the downtown farmers market um it would further prohibit the construction of additional parking facilities above ground on lot four so it would prohibit the parking structure component of the project um and and really the library component too because it would authorize um only affordable housing to be constructed above ground on the library site or on the lot four and and most of the surface parking lots in the downtown area would also it would also prohibit constructing above ground parking above ground level parking on those um on most of those surface parking lots and would prioritize existing surfing existing surface parking lots for the construction of affordable housing above the ground level so those are essentially the components of the measure um and so yes if it were to pass at whatever phase we are in um in november of 2022 the the library project would be basically put on um would come to a halt okay next um i've got uh council member brown and i just want to remind the let's see the council we've got actually an additional item after this item so um keep moving as fast as we can um i've got council member brown next thank you mayor um thank you everyone for the presentations thank you even katie it's always nice to see you and um learn about all of the wonderful work you're doing um to try to bring us uh you know what the community is asking for and to really be part of asking those questions and engaging with our community it's really nice to have you on board uh i have i just wanted to follow up on the question around the heritage trees um so i i understand that um that's going to be looked at and i i guess i'm just wondering if we can get a little bit more um of understanding of like what those steps would be i mean we have a heritage tree ordinance on the books we have an obligation to um comply with it to take it seriously and we have um language in it that um does state that heritage trees can't be removed if some um i can't remember the exact language i could pull it up but you know if if i'll if site design or something the project could happen without removal of the trees and so i understand that you all are now like you've heard about this and you're clear but i am just wondering like what that means in terms of what the next steps would be and can the council hear back about that perhaps is just as an informational item um if it if there's some some more information for us prior to the next quarterly report like it would just be nice to know kind of how that's going because i know that is a big concern for some members of our community myself included and um you know and it's an ordinance on our books we adopted it for a reason so just hoping to better understand as we move along that that is going to be included in the considerations um i'll i'll respond to that um you know we can't come back to you and provide you an update with that and i think also we can ask the city attorney to weigh in on sort of the process and next steps but specifically on the heritage tree ordinance you know our next steps are really to have the arborist assess the trees and look at the trees and so once we get that information we will share that with council and we can share that with you prior to our quarterly update yeah i mean if it's even just like a memo an informational item that'd be great thank you thank you council member uh Mr. Odie i think you might have a little one that has got a hold of your ipad we're seeing a little spinning going on that's cute ready to look at the new uh going to the new library um okay next we have council member Watkins okay i'm gonna attempt to have my video on um but i'm i'm sorry i'm having the wi-fi issues i too just you know in the interest of time i'll keep my comments short but i just really want to thank you all for the the inclusive process that led us to this point and the compromises that also were incorporated as well as the innovation and incorporation of what is so uniquely santa cruz i'm super excited about the child care facility thank you bonnie um there's so much potential in need for that um and all the other amenities and particularly for those who really need to access this modern library for a community um when a question that was brought to my attention by a community member was is it possible or has it been considered to put a like a rooftop restaurant or a bar as a way to um generate revenue but also be uh you know a resource for the community as well um has that been thought of or explored um you know abe you might be better um to answer that but i will say that did come up in a lot of the community comments and we did if you look at that rooftop deck um you can see some of those alcoves it could be interesting to turn one of those into a little kiosk or something like that so that did come up in the community um comments we had if you probably didn't notice it because we flashed them up pretty quickly but uh some of the comments were coffee um you know a place to get a bite or you know and we just thought that that roof deck seemed like a good opportunity abe you probably want to add to that i would say it hasn't been explored in any detail but it's certainly something that you know many libraries uh you know incorporate cafes and uh some sort of small formal food service or beverage service um it's primarily a question about uh kind of agreements between a private vendor and the library or the city so it's it's it's less of an architectural question honestly that it is a kind of question about uh commercial leasing really uh but certainly certainly viable if that's something the the city of the library we're interested in pursuing great thank you okay i got councilmember comings next hey mayor i think most of my questions were answered i did um but just for transparency i was concerned about the um ballot initiative and the parking garage because my understanding i thought from that the ballot initiative was really going after um that if sorry i thought that in the absence of for example in the previous design the parking garage was kind of um not connecting with detached from the library and i thought that that might you know if the ballot initiative passed that that would not allow for that portion of the library price moved forward with the library would but it sounds like um the ballot initiative would not allow for the library to be constructed on the site is that correct that's my reading of it it identifies the existing library site as the priority location for the downtown branch library okay so i guess yeah so regardless of whether it's detached or incorporated into the design there's still the potential impact that passes okay i just wanted to get that clarification and then just wanted since councilmember vice mayor bernard asked about why the site not the other um i'll just say so that the community is also where there's extensive work that was done between the delac and also the subcommittee of the city council that had extensive meetings to compare the two and when the subcommittee met to evaluate similar to what um eric howard was saying in his comments you know we looked at how environmental the buildings were the potential for solar um a variety of different costs and and benefits and it turned out that this was the the site that was identified by the subcommittee along with staff to be the most beneficial site and design um and then finally i just also wanted to mention that on march 19 2019 we did have a transportation demand management study session and we actually had patrick siegman who wrote the nelson-neigard report come and discuss traffic demand management with the city council so i don't know if that video is available online but if folks are interested in reviewing that report that we spent you know hours with our city staff with representatives from nelson-neigard and with a professor from ucsc discussing transportation demand management so i just wanted to put that out there because we haven't it's not like we completely ignored that study and ignored the people who did that study we actually had them coming to give a report to city council just wanted to make sure that that was clear great and i have thank you council member i've got uh council member shepard voluntary johnson thank you and i'll keep my comments brief um i'm also just delighted to see this thank you for all the work that's been put in um by all of you and the process and engaging the community i mean just doubling our number of affordable housing we've had some extensive conversations about our need for housing um prioritizing children with the child care facility and the expanded space and then the green aspects um i know that you put up our timeline but i can't recall now that's there's my one question because all my other questions have been asked what when we anticipate breaking ground or if that was um identified you know it's really going to depend on when we secure the financing for the housing that's really going to drive the timeline we should um we have roughly a year for um entitlements and project design and then at the same time i mean if we can coordinate ideally and smoothly secure tax credits then you know potentially we could break ground sometime in 2023 but it's likely to be in 2024 thank you thank you council members appreciate your brevity and um and i i will just i will make more comments when we get get on the other side of the public comment so i'll go ahead and bring this off to public comment i'm going to have i mean and i misspoke earlier um so i have three groups neighborly Santa Cruz and i have kyle kelly um signed up for that so kyle if you can unmute yourself you'll be our first and if you are calling in tonight to comment on the library mixed use project updated site design excuse me site program and design you'll now want to press star nine on your phone to raise your hand and then when it is your time to speak you'll hear an announcement that you've been unmuted and then we'll set the timer for two minutes so that will be members of the public for groups that requested extra time uh kyle kelly please go ahead hey hey there i'm kyle kelly with neighborly Santa Cruz i'm a Santa Cruz resident that lives within walking and biking distance to the mixed use library project my whole family uses the library regularly as they are voracious readers we're absolutely delighted to see the library expand if it the needs of everyone especially as the city grows to welcome more neighbors which is actually the big topic of why i talked to you tonight i look forward to welcoming neighbors into the new homes as well as the shared spaces within the library i hope that everyone will join us in welcoming people to their new homes downtown as well as this beautiful shared community space we're currently in a housing crisis and climate crisis one proven way to address both of these crises simultaneously is by building more housing in areas well served by transit in Santa Cruz we are a welcoming community but unfortunately we haven't built enough housing for all the jobs created in our area the students and even our own children and grandchildren as a result the vast majority of us who are unable to afford a 1.3 million dollar home do not have many housing options the rest of us are left competing for the few rental or for purchase units that do exist we now have the opportunity to welcome more neighbors to Santa Cruz um and and we can welcome a lot more by maximizing the number of units of all types at the mixed use library site you know fires hurricanes flooding our world is seeing the effects of climate change this this is only the beginning to meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions we must reduce the largest contributor to greenhouse gases in the u.s private automobiles a proven way to reduce driving is building more housing near transit where residents do not need to own a vehicle to get around furthermore we must also take steps to reduce our energy and water use to conserve future scarce resources in california we know that apartment units use significantly less energy and water per capita than single family homes which will go a long way to making our community more resilient to climate change for all these reasons i'm urging you to support more housing at the mixed use library site as stated in the staff's recommendation to increase the amount of housing and i i just want to say you know the overall process i'm really glad that we've been able to move um the project in this direction um and that that we've been able to shape it with community view over the over the last uh couple years um so again um i urge you to support more housing at the mixed use library site and i'm looking forward to it let's say yes to new neighbors thank you thank you next i have uh john hall you would just unmute and then you can start john welcome don't see john's name so i'm assuming he'll have a phone number is john hall here from our town downtown our future if he's a phone number i won't be able to tell who he is john you'll have to unmute yourself and start speaking if you're on the phone i need i need to be able to um i need to give them permission to unmute themselves and i can't do that if i don't know who it is john hall uh if you are how do i get him to signal who he is i'm gonna lower everybody's hand okay great thanks my only john hall to raise his hand john hall is ready to speak um at the extra time period for his group our downtown our future now's the time to raise your hand please by pressing star nine i'm not seeing him in the crowd so i'm going to move on to our third extra time speaker which is oh is that john okay okay raffa i don't think i have you on my list um i've got three i've got phone number ending in seven four nine six um and that i soon will be john hall but i'm not sure john if you press star six you can unmute yourself but that's only if this is john hall okay everybody's queuing back up um why don't we go ahead with um martin gomez and i believe his phone number is the four one five number uh nine six oh one awani i think is his number yeah so go ahead martin hi a good uh good evening everybody uh mayor uh may or may or mayors and vice-versa members of the council i want to thank you so much for continuing your support for the downtown library mixed use project members of the downtown forward community organization and the friends of the library attended the presentation by the jason architects last friday and we're all thrilled the progress has been made on this project and we urge you to prove this plan the plan as was stated will increase the size of the library to 35 000 square feet and all the wonderful new housing uh for low income community members in our outdoor uh rough deck we're looking forward to having a wine and cheese event out there to enjoy the sunset and stand the crews a reduced number of parking responding to a lot of their concerns that community members had earlier downtown forward as many of you may know was formed in 2019 specifically to support the city's proposed mixed use library project this project aligns with our objectives to integrate the 21st century library affordable housing parking and transportation features and uh committing to finding a permanent home to the romers market by the way the friends of the library are also very supportive of this project we have endorsed this project previously and i'm happy to say that friends are very close to reaching the first of fundraising goal for the carfield park and the france of 40 and the autos branch libraries we're very near our mark of one million dollars and we look forward to doing our part and the heavy lifting for the downtown library uh downtown forward includes members of the friends uh housing now housing Santa Cruz friends of the Santa Cruz public libraries and the county chamber and the Santa Cruz county business council and several other organizations we want to thank you for the support that you've given to the mixed use project this as you know was started in 2020 and this is a project that actually started as was shown on the graph earlier in 2012 it's wonderful to see this coming forward and the next stages are going to bring this all closer to reality we're really thrilled by the vision uh that you the jason architect that has presented we urge you to vote to support and approve item 26 we cannot emphasize strongly enough how important it is that you vote to continue the momentum that began over 10 years ago thank you so much thank you okay we'll move next into our regular public comments if you do want to speak to us um you will have up to two minutes but by no means do you have to speak for two minutes we are a little bit ru