Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

And call the Planning Commission to order at 6.02 p.m. If we could please go ahead and call the roll.

Commissioner Silva? Here. Vice Chair Nielsen?

Here.

Chair Hernandez? Here. And Chair Kelly? Here. And we have two excused from Commissioner Rocha and Commissioner Zeis.

ITEM ONE IS OUR OPEN FORUM. I DON'T HAVE ANY OPEN FORUM ITEMS AND I DON'T THINK ANY OF THE OTHER COMMISSIONERS DID OTHER THAN TO SHARE JUST AS A POINT OF INFORMATION NOT FOR DISCUSSION WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION THAT THE CITY OF PLEASANTON HAS ANNEXED THE ARROYO LOGO PROJECT WHICH HAS COME BEFORE US A COUPLE TIMES SO THAT WILL NOT BE COMING BACK BEFORE US. NO OTHER COMMENT, JUST INFORMATION. BUT IF FOLKS DIDN'T SEE THAT, IT'S WORTH CHECKING OUT BECAUSE I think we had two or three hearings on that. Otherwise, unless there's any other open forum items, we can go ahead and move on to approving the August 3. But I feel like the Pledge of Allegiance should be on here and it's not.

It's number one.

I'm sorry, it's a slash. My apologies. My apologies. Let's go ahead and do the Pledge of Allegiance before we move on. And I am supposed to take public comment on the Pledge of Allegiance and the roll call.

I'm just going to add that it is on the agenda for public comment. It doesn't need to be in the in the future. You should you have public comment as part of the open forum because that's open forum, but in and of itself. But that's not needed in the future.

So go ahead and close public comment for item one. Move on to item two. I'll open public comment. Seeing no members of the public wishing to comment, I'll close comments on item two and we can move on to item three, which is the approval of the minutes for the August 3rd meeting. Is there a motion to approve?

Motion to approve.

Motion from the Vice Chair. Is there a second? Second. Second from Commissioner Hernandez. If we could, oh, we don't have to call the roll. We can just vote. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Any abstentions? Hearing none, the motion carries 4-0-0. Which brings us on to item four, which is our consent calendar. There are no items on our consent calendar, which brings us on to item five, which is our regular calendar and the zoning update to Title 17, which Rodrigo's here to for us. There you are.

yes good evening planning commissioners rodrigo arduino with alameda county planning department so at your june 15 2026 hearing this playing commission continued the proposed zoning ordinance amendments to future date and we're bringing it back to you today and your body had requested that staff and the consultants uh tonight we have tom ford with the m group as well as uh studio kda and tom will present uh himself and studio kda Your your body had requested the staff and consultants returned with a more comprehensive public facing explanation of the proposed text changes and their implications before any recommendation was made by this body to the Board of Supervisors so again. City Council Chambers, we're here to propose a more comprehensive look at the proposed zoning ordinance changes to. City Council Chambers, apply the housing element action items, so that we make the zoning ordinance more encouraging of proposed higher density development so with that I would like to turn it over to Tom Ford with the M group, I do have a PowerPoint presentation which. I will be running through so let me set it up and then we will get going.

Evening commissioners Tom Ford, M group. With me tonight is Darshan Amrit of Studio KDA. I'm with and group as Rodrigo mentioned. So I met most of you in June when we were here to introduce this item. And as Rodrigo said, you asked us to come back with a little bit of an explanation as to how we arrived at some of the text edits that you saw before you. Thanks. So we'll be doing that, Darshan and I. And then after you've had a chance to listen to our presentation, take public comment and have discussion of your own, We recommend that you recommend to the Board of Supervisors approval of these amendments to Chapter 1731 of the zoning ordinance and that they approve the amendments to Chapter 8.2 of the residential design standards and guidelines. First, I'll just give a little bit of a background explaining the methodology we use to get at what you see as all those text edits. It is an amendment to Chapter 1731 and two slight edits to or amendments to the residential design standards in Chapter 8.2 and then the next steps. Next. So before I get into that a little bit of background, as we discussed later, as we pointed out last time we've already been to three of the max. And January, February and April we placed the the voting record of their review of the standards and how they came down their decisions is right here next. So the master contract is a development review process improvements our office did a lot of work with county staff to try to improve design review processes when. Projects come in for review and part of the contract was also to look at the housing element overlay sites, the housing element was adopted by the board of supervisors in December 2024. We had a contract that started in January of 2025, and most of the development standards that they used when they put together the housing element were really using the county's existing R4 standards. And in some cases, there was a suspicion that perhaps they weren't going to actually allow the density that they were promising. So they asked us to look, as part of that contract that we had that started in January 2025, they asked us to look at that and to see when there's a certain development density promised, because that's the designation you're in, can the development actually yield that number? So that was the exercise that Darshan and his office, they do a lot of multifamily development throughout the Bay Area. And so that was a lot of the test fit exercise that they went through, looking at the standards and seeing how they fit. But just to remind you, while we're waiting for the image, just to remind you, we're only, here it is, we're only talking about a very few series of sites. They were the ones that were identified as opportunity sites in the six cycle housing element that the county has and the board adopted. So when you look across these three MACs, various densities are distributed, and those are the ones that we actually looked to see, as I said, a test fit to see where the standards that are being used going to allow the densities that are promised. Next. So as Rodrigo pointed out in the staff report, they're generally spread across four different densities. The nine to 2122 to 4344 to 86 and 87 to 125 so there's a whole series of. Housing element overlay districts that apply to those densities we made no changes in the nine to 21 dwelling units per acre. And so, as you'll see darshan is going to give you a little bit of background on his approach to the to doing the test fit and then go through and see how that played out. Our goal was to not raise the height limit to not raise the density, but to find a way to guarantee. that the density that was promised is the density that can be delivered the reason this is important is because um you don't want to run afoul if you will of hcd the housing and community development at the state because you if you're saying you should be able to develop at these densities you want a project applicant to be able to come in and do that There have been, you've probably seen in the papers, there have been occurrences just in the last couple of weeks on the peninsula where HCD has come in and actually sued, I think they're suing Half Moon Bay. They're suing another town on the peninsula. And what eventually happens, after the lawsuit is the HCD can come over and become the planning department. They can take over the planning department if they feel like what you're doing isn't getting what you set out to achieve with the housing element. So with that in mind, I'm going to let Darshan speak and just give a little bit of an approach to how he did the test fits, as we call them, and how that played out into the various densities. Great.

City Council Chambers, Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Commissioners. Again, my name is Darshan Amrit with Studio Kda, and I was largely responsible for kind of bringing the test fed and some of the analysis, some of our experience in multifamily development to reviewing the City Council Chambers, recommended changes for the development standards. One of the things that I like to use is the kind of cake pan analogy, where if our cake pan represents The development standards of the development envelope you know we kind of fill that cake pan up bake it the developer can then slice it up somewhere between the minimum number of units. or slices and the maximum number of slices or units right kind of gives them their choice and that's where we're kind of working with the team and as we're working with. Rodrigo and getting feedback from you know where developers were looking to push. City Council Chambers, We were getting feedback that that they were there was difficulty in getting the maximum densities. City Council Chambers, In that, especially with. City Council Chambers, The local i'd say sort of the. City Council Chambers, The market rate, which would be larger units three bedrooms to bath and so as we kind of going to these maximum dollars densities you could get them, but they might be. 800 square foot type of units, which would be more kind of an urban model, you might be seeing sort of downtown San Francisco or City of Berkeley Oakland and that also didn't comply with the requirement for the minimum of 1000 square foot units for developments of 10 or more. City of Berkeley Oakland and that also didn't comply with the requirement for the minimum of 1000 square foot units for developments of 10 or more. City of Berkeley Oakland and that also didn't comply with the requirement for the minimum of 1000 square foot units for developments of 10 or more. City of Berkeley Oakland and that also didn't comply with the requirement for the minimum of 1000 square foot units for developments of 10 or more. City of Berkeley Oakland and that also didn't comply with the requirement for the minimum of 1000 square foot units for developments of 10 or more. City of Berkeley Oakland and that also didn't comply with the requirement for the minimum of 1000 square foot units for developments of 10 or more. City of Berkeley Oakland and that also didn't comply with the requirement for the minimum of 1000 square foot units for developments of 10 or more. City of Berkeley Oakland and that also didn't comply with the requirement for the minimum of 1000 square foot units for developments of 10 or more. City Council Chambers, Where i'd like to focus on is where we identified where we can make those changes, and that would be on the side yard setbacks. City Council Chambers, Where we kind of identified that the maximum density could be achieved without increasing the height. City Council Chambers, Overall height of the building the front or rear yard setbacks the side yards would allow these future development. City Council Chambers, City Council Chambers, of these housing element sites to be designed and built with masking portions that would be complimentary contextual with existing fabric and typology that we would see. City Council Chambers, City Council Chambers, So we thought that those would be the the easiest thing to do a side yard and increase the side your setbacks to get better building and layout and everything and get all the units to fit in there without. City Council Chambers, affecting some of the mass massing and kind of the scale and kind of being in you know, imposing. City Council Chambers, City Council Chambers, Upon the neighboring development. City Council Chambers, This the increased allowable footprint development which i'm just going to call it so that kind of that that that's what you get when you. City Council Chambers, Go from 10 feet in this diagram of cider setback to five feet and set or set back it's a net increase of 10 on your of your width of your lot develop an envelope. City Council Chambers, that's that's where I was my face there. City Council Chambers, Just allows for more efficient layout of buildings and units without this increased kind of stories with an increased mass. City Council Chambers, And where we kind of see examples that is saying examples like double loaded corridors become more efficient in terms of unit layouts were kind of stacking it. City Council Chambers, We see parking where there's certain like minimums like of you know, getting a parking or if you're doing a podium building for apartment at some of the larger sites. City Council Chambers, You really need 64 feet to get a parking aisle to park on either side. City Council Chambers, You need that additional width so that really kind of becomes critical you're sort of given your sort of depth. City Council Chambers, But in kind of our experience working in these you know tighter sites and kind of all through Alameda county and and kind of in the seas of Berkeley and oakland we found that really kind of running up against that with. City Council Chambers, becomes really critical and sort of how efficient, you can lay out a building, and therefore we found that we were not meeting the sort of densities. City Council Chambers with this constricted with mostly governed by the 10 foot side yard setback. So if a five foot was kind of where we landed on would still kind of provide light and air safety, align with building code, but allow for flexibility in the development and allowing to hit these maximum densities. Next slide. Um, related to that is the usable open space. Um, we often see the balconies, yards, patios and a design. These are often located in the side yard setbacks. So aligning this reduction with those side yard setbacks. So, um, essentially wouldn't be saying, Hey, setback, use your five yard, you know, reduce the setbacks, but you still need to kind of have these larger set, uh, usable open spaces on the side. So we, we reduce those, uh, accordingly. Um, An increase with the proposed change was an increase of the thousand square foot common usable space requirement which was previously at five plus units to 10 plus units. This is recommended to reduce the undue impact that this requirement for smaller projects struggling to meet that density requirements either minimum or maximum at those smaller units. So we said, you know, said we should start that Minimums unit size at 1000 square foot for the common usable open space also the reduction.

For this zoning. Section is the open space requirement to be ground floor or is it just to be accepted to be accessible to the general public accessible to the building project.

City Council Chambers, Correct. It would be for tenancy. So when I reviewed the the thousand square foot here, this would be kind of viewed as the common usable open space. So that that hatched area. So this would just be for the the unit, either the tenants or the owners of of the the development. Correct. Yeah, they would have to make it accessible. So yeah, in an apartment or flat type of constructions, they could do the rooftop on that. And so therefore, and it could be a combination to where we often see. So using front yard or rear yard and then kind of a roof deck is kind of a common. Board of Trustees Meeting? Board of Trustees Meeting? Board of Trustees Meeting? Just, you know, you start to kind of look at, can I get all those units on there. Does it make sense to start to get a four unit project. So what we found is that that you were getting There was no encouragement to go towards the maximum with certain were certain of these development standards on these element element housing element sites. Answer your question a little bit for now. Okay. We also looked at on the private usable space. So these would be kind of The existing is 100 square foot per unit and our recommendation was to reduce that to 50 square foot. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. So here I'll go into a little bit of I kind of talked a little bit about that. But we can go through the zoning densities here. in terms of the specific reductions. So this was one of the mid densities here, the 22 to 43 dwelling units per acre in those two zoning districts. And here you can see again the side yard setback that I've mentioned here going from 10 feet to five feet. Additionally, in the existing zoning code, it requires that where there's a the side yards adjacent to a residential. The existing side yard setback is fifteen feet. We're recommending that it gets that five foot reduction down to ten feet. It does align with other provisions in the zoning code. So we thought that that was still prioritizing getting density, but also recognizing privacy and setbacks. Here's the open space, 75 to 50, and common open space reduced from 300 square foot a unit to 100 square foot a unit. And again, here, this is where you can see at a flat, a larger site at this density where getting a roof deck at 50 units, a 5,000 square foot roof deck, I mean it's it's not a 15,000 square feet of of usable open space, so we felt that this was kind of where you would want to see some of that scale that these higher density.

Next slide.

This is largely similar here oops same gets us the same slide.

freezes on me for some reason, so I reshare and. Hopefully unfreezes.

Great. Thank you. So again here at another mid. I guess they would call us a mid mid to high the next density unit. Next density district up. We would also have the same five proposed five foot side yard setbacks, ten foot against residential zone districts or lots. City Council Chambers, Here you can see a little bit where we're talking about this no reduction of maximum floor area upper levels that was also showed up here as part of the existing zoning code where at you know, developing mid rise flat buildings. City Council Chambers, Looking at keeping that same setback so it'd be five yard five feet on the front same thing on 10 feet where it's residential same front and side yard back. City Council Chambers and City Council Chambers and City Council Chambers and City Council Chambers and Are just deeper at your lower floors and then you're kind of have to scale it up. So it's just not really efficient in terms of especially hitting your density. Because you really kind of want to maximize your perimeter, not necessarily your depth. So having these wedding cake kind of zoning setbacks for your envelope. Are become really kind of an enemy of your density because you start having to get bigger units rather than more units at your kind of lower levels. And again, here you can see our open space set packs. We're kind of just keep tracking that across the board. Okay, so as we jump up into the higher up we see One more. Okay, perfect. So this would be the Bay fair parking site again. Is it. Yeah. Here we go. Yeah. So at the one hundred dwelling units. The sheriff substation site here. What we did where we did find is the same side yard setbacks would be beneficial. The same open space set reductions would be beneficial. What we found here is that the three point F. If the three point O. F. A. R. Was limiting in terms of hitting that max. again, a site where you could hit seven stories, kind of going at like having a half FAR kind of says you're only using about half the site in terms of that, just that kind of basic math. So what we recommended that is kind of a four, that the increase to four would allow for the more market rate, the larger units, the minimum 1,000 square foot per unit, that would all be achievable with the increase to the 4.0 FAR.

The common area reductions and the private open space reductions are such round numbers. Although in zoning, I'm always cautious around round numbers. Where do they come from? Just fitting the pieces in on the lot size? Or is there any consideration of like putting down the common open space by 2 thirds is a major reduction. Don't see how with most projects of this size me that with rooftop access how they're going to fundamentally need that.

I. yeah no i what we've used is a kind of a comparison across other um zoning um development standards so we find that these are comparable in terms of you know berkeley oakland san francisco and we've scaled accordingly so these are a little bit bigger than we might find in more dense where we kind of have some more multi-family denser requirements on that City Council Chambers, Are you still saying that 100 square foot for the common usable open space still feels high was that.

City Council Chambers, i'm more so that it, I mean this isn't Berkeley right I live in Berkeley this is definitely not Berkeley none of these neighborhoods are Oakland either. City Council Chambers, Oh, not saying what you said is we're looking at Berkeley and taking the zoning standards, because these are not Berkeley zoning standards. Some of which require greater setbacks and. Some of some of these are fewer setbacks than Berkeley has in particular, so that that's just notable to me, but in terms of the overall like. 50 square feet of balcony space compared to 75% of balcony space like enough. equitable does it people, then, when it comes to like the shared. common usable space, I mean, increasingly, that is just rooftop access and like maybe like a little patch up. What I what I am thinking about is that when developers meet it based on the top of the roof, they just make the whole roof into a common area, they advertise it, you know, it's very popular. But it's not at the expense of any ground floor space. And so I'm, I feel like in some ways, we're just Taking away requirement where then they're just going to turn half the roof into access space and the other. conditioning you we're not actually helping them to build more dense housing by making that change so i'm just not sure why the reduction is so high.

Um, yeah, I think what we've, what we've seen is just in terms of the, the number of units. I mean, I think kind of looking at that, I mean, usually that's also one of the first things that goes in a density bonus kind of, uh, argument too. Um, so, but I think that's something that I think Tom, we would have to, uh, kind of revisit, um, if that was, uh, too aggressive of a, of a setback in terms of reduction there based on the kind of generally kind of the the front yard and the rear yard and the roof deck. Usually that was kind of. We could usually accommodate a pretty decent amount of common usable open space, and I would say that 50 square feet for just the minimum is a decent enough balcony in terms of that, and then not requiring. I think it's where it gets into like crying. Multiple balconies requires City Council Chambers, multiple kind of structural improvements, you know multiple costs and sort of deterrence from from that housing density. But.

City Council Chambers, That that's helpful and i'm not trying to change the zoning from the bias I just increasingly i'm very aware with where we're seeing the trends and development. City Council Chambers, And the way we're seeing our specific plans and our zoning be updated that they don't necessarily match, and I have yet to see anyone, including the urban areas and alameda county. City Council Chambers, treat ground floor open space and rooftop open spaces different requirements which they fundamentally feel like different things, because one. ground floor open space, especially if it's along the street or the corridor publicly accessible that's a very big difference when you're walking down the street right your dog can piss you can sit down on the bench you have a cup of coffee. it's on the roof, then it doesn't affect the front edge of the road it doesn't affect your. The neighbors are affected by it, people driving down the street or walking and if it's on top of the building it doesn't come at any development expense, other than perhaps some infrastructure locations. And I would just hate for us to see as we're taking away more and more. The private open space more and more the street open space more and more the common yards for us to create a situation where unless there is a negative impact on our ability. targets here where we're ending up with less common space for the residents to use to have barbecues and birthday parties and walk their dogs and plant their Community gardens, then we would end up with. Under the current zoning when, if it is on the rooftop it does not reduce the density and that's just a very.

I would also like to just mention I appreciate the comment is that we did that's the purpose that we did not reduce the front and rear yard setbacks was that contextual and use of those those spaces it doesn't necessarily prohibit in terms of that context use in terms of that it was more just the minimum requirement and also the opportunity to Use those spaces front and rear yard as more common usable open space more more I'd say kind of more accessible in a way than the roof roof deck. So it was more An opportunity to incentivize rather than kind of a roof deck, which is which are nice at common times, but maybe City Council Chambers, A thousand square foot is a great roof deck you don't need a 5000 square foot so kind of been more we're more looking incentivizing use of those front and rear yard and that being those more consistent with the neighborhood. City Council Chambers, So I think that it was not necessarily push that. City Council Chambers, It was a requirement to reduce that common open space to get that like we were kind of saying let's not touch the front and rear yards let's encourage that activity to be more ground level. 16082389231190231190231190231190231190231190231190231190231190231190231190231190

would a solution be to i'm trying to you're so much more knowledgeable than i would a solution be to stipulate that open space calculations shall not include rooftop open space that's certainly an interesting suggestion i don't know what the impacts would be on the overall project i think that's probably more for staff to look at as we're doing

The specific and general plans, but I just don't think they're the same thing, and I think that. I think that's a very interesting. In my gut reaction to that suggestion it's almost like they're two separate things and there should be two separate categories and as we're increasingly losing subjective standards. Like that's that's just a conversation we would have had right like this is accessible to the neighborhood and we've seen that on projects right where they're like Oh, our open space is actually. Through the project, so that people can get from the park to the creek trail and that's a very different kind of open space that people are going to appreciate. In the project, then, and and the dog park is open to anyone in the neighborhood, even if you don't live there that's a very different Community impact. City Council Chambers, Community benefit than the rooftop I don't think i've ever seen them. City Council Chambers, And we've and we've often granted like reductions in some of these requirements as variances because what was being offered was more valuable or fit in better was more helpful as we're going to the completely objective standards we're losing that. entirely, and we can't have that conversation or that kind of back and forth. So it is a very interesting idea to not treat them the same. I don't know if that's practical or not.

So just a point of clarification to reiterate that the common open space is for use of residents only right. So it is. It is. It could very well be located behind a fence. So that is not accessible by the general public, the idea is that these birthday parties barbecues dog walks toddler play areas, etc, are for the residents, whether those residents or tenants. or owners in case of condominiums and their guests, but not open to the public, we would have. Separate open space requirements for park to either park dedication if it's market rate or if it's affordable housing, then there is no work. dedication requirement. So so there is that difference that the rooftop and or the ground level common open space are for the residents and their guests, not for the general public.

To proceed.

Hey, City Council Chambers, Here we're looking at the highest density requirement in the at the bay fair park park parking site. City Council Chambers, This did involve more extensive kind of proposed changes to the development standards, and these were largely due to anticipating and including the impact of SP 79. City Council Chambers, which states that the local jurisdiction cannot implement a maximum story limit that is left. City Council Chambers City Council Chambers, There was eliminated interior and side yard setbacks. City Council Chambers, As the future development likely include many kind of interior streets when we kind of viewed at that such a large large site that there would be many interior kind of streets or corridors or walkways and pathways. And therefore, further reducing it with additional setbacks would discourage these kind of highly desired breaks in the massing. The rear yard was from 20 feet to 5 feet. The reduced rear yard from residential is from 15 to 10. City Council Chambers, And this where you know we just at that not being able to legislate less than seven stories maximum kind of would require a maximum of 6.0 fa are from the 3.5. And again, looking at that seven stories or greater densities project the same usable open space again we're kind of looking more flat, I mean this is a huge site again, this is where I would say that you couldn't do all the usable open space if you're kind of looking at I think what we have up here Tom like. City Council Chambers, somewhere between 700 and 800 proposed units on a on a site like this so again looking at where that that can't be accommodated in. City Council Chambers, You know just rooftop and decks and so looking at sort of increasing that more kind of. City Council Chambers, we're planning we didn't get into a specific design for the site just because it's a very specific to a development type and lots of other parameters, but we just looked at that general envelope. and we're looking at those reductions in terms of the use of open space requirement definitely much more trending towards a high rise still kind of a mid-rise to high rise so therefore yeah smaller smaller balcony spaces but more ground floor space and then allowing a maximum sort of lock coverage from 60 to 90 mostly because of looking at the parking structure requirement City Council Chambers, and looking at ground floor commercial and civic uses so even if even if you're looking at those lower levels and we're looking at kind of residential towers you're still looking at a lot of these sites to their developed this density requiring coverage at the ground floor. City Council Chambers, And then we looked at. The onsite parking change from one space per unit minimum to change that to one per maximum with no minimum so zero minimum due to the proximity to high quality public transportation next line. A couple additional standards that we had looked at was just tailoring the crosswalks and pedestrian facilities to fit the scale of that site. City Council Chambers, As opposed to the more suburban. City Council Chambers, Spacing developing across parking lots so they're kind of more scaled there, and then we incorporated. City Council Chambers, Massing and scale we, these are all items from residential design residential standards and design guidelines we just included them in here, so that they were kind of so that was all it wasn't referring to another section of the code. We can kind of transfer the facade breaks, building high enhancements, roof design, all the stuff that's in 8.2, reference it here in 17.31. Next slide. One of the things that we really that we recognized here was that the largest impact was going to be to the residential neighborhood on Colby street and Dramondi so on those streets Dramondi and with the change from a parking lot to a large scale development. City Council Chambers, And while the SP through 79 prohibits the implementation of the maximum story limit less than seven stories. City Council Chambers, We studied and evaluated incentive for the developments to reduce the building mass within 45 feet of the single family neighborhoods, you can see that in that green where we took that perimeter. City Council Chambers, and improves in in transferred instead of requirement and incentive, where the development could be. City Council Chambers, made whole with larger density in the blue area towards the Center of the site also closer to Bart. City Council Chambers, tracks and the station, which would therefore kind of have the benefit of screening some of that noise as well, but it also kind of moving the massing away from the residential neighborhood. City Council Chambers, Even though we couldn't limit the number of stories there we were kind of creating an incentive, rather than a restriction.

Um, next slide.

So here as part of our kind of review of how 17.31 refers to a chapter 8.2 in the residential design center guidelines, we had a few recommendations amendments. Next slide. City Council Chambers, City Council Chambers, For here and figure. City Council Chambers, A point 2.1 it was just a clarification of how that minimum 50% of the landscape in terms of the required. City Council Chambers, setback area, so we just provided an additional hat showing how 50% could be a single area split just kind of showing that here's here's the qualifying. City Council Chambers, area for the front yard setback and taking 50% of that so just a minor modification no changes to that just kind of a graphic. Override. Next slide. Similar here we noted that in figure be point 1.1 a that the First of all, the four foot or greater upper floor setback in the in the zoning code is actually five feet. So we make that correction. And we also graphically change that so that the five foot is the setback of the upper stories is actually More in scale with with five feet doesn't mean that you couldn't go to where the left was but just kind of showing what that that minimum setback was required. So no, no changes to the actual City Council Chambers, set back there just kind of rectifying the graphics to align with the zoning code.

City Council Chambers, You darshan so with that. City Council Chambers, The previous slides that darshan took you through hopefully explains a lot of the the red lines of text, you see in the ordinance amendment that was before you tonight and again what we'd like to do after you have public comment and discussion. is that we recommend that you recommend Board of Supervisors' approval of these amendments to Chapter 1731 and approval of amendments to Chapter 8.2 of the Residential Design Standards and Guidelines. And our next step after your consideration this evening is to go to the Board of Supervisors for their consideration of these amendments ordinance. and the design standards. And that's our presentation.

Great. Thank you so much for the presentation. I particularly appreciate the updated graphic. It's silly, but I think it just makes it more accessible to folks when they look at it, especially folks who aren't planners or designers. It's hard to visualize some of these things. And a lot of the times when code gets updated, the things that are representing the code don't, even though it doesn't Before we go on to public comment, and as I think my practice will be, is to ask any clarifying questions or requests for information from staff that you'd like to ask before we go to the public for comment, then I'll allow public comment and then Commissioner additional questions and discussion. Are there any questions folks would like to ask before we go to public comment? And I'm going to go ahead and open public comment. We do not have any public in the room. Are there any members of the public online wishing to make a public comment?

I have no speakers.

seeing none i'm going to go ahead and move to close public comment with the note that in my 10 years on the planning commission i don't think we've ever not had a member of the public so that's interesting i want to document this um and then go ahead and open it up to um commissioner comments before we do i had a couple just top line notes for staff um we're going to do some cleanups to our rules of order and procedure for the planning commission i think in the next couple This, but I did appreciate that we had the on page three the municipal advisory council votes, but I would really appreciate, as I think perhaps with the other Commissioners. If that could just be on the cover page of all things that they come to us at the top, if the Max have voted on it, even if it was previously just to have you know prior planning Commission. City Council Chambers, Mac action or advisory Commission action, and then the rest of the document, just so that as we're looking through it and members of the public are looking through it we're making sure that those. City Council Chambers, questions or comments or votes are in our mind as we're looking at the document I know I certainly look at something differently if it's a unanimous vote of all the affected Max than if it isn't just helps to give a sense of that and I think it would be helpful, and then the other. The other question that I had before we go to Commissioner comments, it was very minor but we're moving everyone closer together, which there's a lot of reasons why the side yard is what you go up to for the setbacks I think you did a great job of explaining that. But I didn't notice and I could have mystics there's a lot of changes are we making any other changes to the development standards themselves to acknowledge that, like are we requiring more soundproofing between the buildings are more. Soundproofing of the windows are we just taking the existing standards and putting them closer.

We didn't propose anything that might be more appropriately in the building ordinance.

Okay, just living in a community where a lot of the buildings are this close. it's a big difference, I mean that is that is twice as close. And you can almost reach out and touch your neighbor and then you can also hear what they're listening to on TV and so that's just something that I would flag is we're making some of these changes, I think that almost always gets. not thought of. Most of the developers themselves think of it. And it's always interesting to me when private developers choose to continually put in standards that are higher than what we put in code. It often just means that someone misses it. But it is something for us to think about because that is a real quality of life impact on sleeping children, Everyone that's just I wasn't sure if we had or not.

So if staff may chime in one thing we do have that did not change, therefore it's not in the. proposed changes in your packet and I will share my screen, if I can here is in the existing residential design standards and guidelines, we do have a window separation requirement that stays it's not changed. And therefore, depending on the window type, for example, we will say. That your windows must be offset by a minimum amount and that's shown graphically already in our existing residential design centers and guidelines such that if you're beyond the distance between buildings and you don't need to offset the windows, but if you're. A certain distance or less than your windows are required to be offset so, for example in the lower left diagram there's got to be a five foot separation between the edges of the buildings, if you are. A side side configuration five feet apart from the property line if you are side to mean. window then it's got to be. a further separation between buildings, as well as a separation or an offset of the windows. So that would not change. Again, it's not already a Dave Kuntz, included in your packet as a change, therefore it's it's it's existing condition that is not part of the packet but it's something that this plan Commission may may want to just be aware of, and that there are offsetting requirements already.

Thank you. That's very helpful. And I would just encourage staff as you're going through between now and wherever it heads next to double check if there's any other standards that are present in the zones where we already have folks closer together that perhaps ought to be moved into these. And with that, are there any other I'm sure everyone's got a lot of comments. I'll start with the vice chair.

This is a pretty important document, and this is one of the times i'm really missing. expertise with definitely invaluable on different and. That really pushed for having the red lines and the explanations and other things mark was really animated about was making sure that. City Council Chambers, What it came through and, as you mentioned, the Max had seen this was such a an improvement on what we saw last time, and I think we probably all agree on that, and really breaking down what the changes are and what the amendment are. City Council Chambers, To confirm, has this presentation itself gone back to the Max. No. City Council Chambers, That answer, I think that this presentation should definitely go back to the. very very important aspect you know i'm obviously in east county i don't see this type of stuff all the time there's people that and we don't have a full board tonight um i think that there should be input from the people did by the decision silva commissioner hernandez

Thank you, Chair Kelly. On page three, under height standards, the sentence reads at the end, the proposed amendment to the height standard provides incentives for reducing height adjacent to parcel zone for single family by allowing greater height adjacent to the transit corridor. Now, we saw an example of that you showed us for Bay Fair. City Council Chambers, What happens to Castro Valley, why do we not have a. City Council Chambers, picture of how this would translate at the Castro Valley barn station.

City Council Chambers, The cash value bar station is is not on our sites inventory for the cycle housing element, although we did rezone it. City Council Chambers, To meet other state legislation, it is not in our sites inventory for housing element purposes.

And so to dovetail on that these changes for the for the incentives is only applicable to that highest density at the bay fair bar station, so it is a. It is a site specific zoning and it's a site specific incentive again that's having to do with us be 79 that created a absolute minimum. Dave Kuntz, height that we could require, which was seven stories and so we're not requiring anything shorter what we're doing is incentivizing a shorter building height. On those portions of the property that are located Jason to the. To the neighborhood to the existing neighborhood and by incentivizing as opposed to requiring we're not in violation of SP 79 we are just creating other options for the developer to be able to respect the existing neighborhood.

On.

City Council Chambers, Getting back to cash value not being included the barge station. City Council Chambers, pages eight and nine of the report discuss in length the CVC BD specific plan group he. City Council Chambers, sub area eight is adjacent to the barge station. City Council Chambers, According to Google I go i'm you know, I was trying to place all this and and and but. City Council Chambers, But my understanding is that the CV CBD specific plan groupie sub area eight is adjacent to the BART station and. City Council Chambers, Nine is West Redwood road which doesn't apply, but eight is is is. City Council Chambers, near the BART station so which leads me to the next question well that's Okay, Albert what do you think of that but.

City Council Chambers, yeah I like to go back and look at the the the map on the. It's been some time since I've had a look at some of this, and I don't want to say something that's incorrect.

That's OK, Albert. I was going to ask for a three-minute recess real quick, so we can go ahead and do that. If folks are OK, while you take a look at the map. OK, thank you.

Paige, was that Dale, did you say?

Okay.

What was he saying?

The 7 is coming.

All right, whenever steps ready, we can return to session.

Yes, so so to address the question about are there any changes that I believe the question and Commissioner, if you could please correct me if I'm wrong, I believe the question is, are there any changes to those areas in sub areas eight and nine. And again, the Parcels affected are those that are in the screen that's being shared right now. For downtown Castro Valley, Commissioner will notice there's some, for example, that are in the blue here and sprinkled throughout downtown Castro Valley, both on the east and west side of the boulevard, which hopefully can be appreciated as I move my cursor. And some of those sub areas that do allow for the mid range densities of 44 to 85, Only those parcels that are highlighted here may be affected, but again we're not considering height the the section in the. zoning ordinance updates that talks about height for those areas is actually left without any red mark changes there, there are there are no changes to height, there are changes to to setbacks and open space. Again, only for those parcels that are housing element opportunity sites which are displayed here on the on the screen right now. and only relative to open space and setbacks.

Change to height. Blue is the highest density, correct? No, that's the second to highest. The highest density is a dark blue, which doesn't appear in Castro Valley except for the sheriff's substation up at the northwest corner of the Castro Valley MAC. And the other highest density is City Council Chambers in the lower part of the screen the bay fair Bart so that's the only place where 1731.260 applies those two. City Council Chambers in the lower part of the screen the bay fair Bart so that's the only place where 1731.260 applies those two.

City Council Chambers in the lower part of the screen the bay fair Bart so that's the only place where 1731.260 applies those two. City Council Chambers in the lower part of the screen the bay fair Bart so that's the only place where 1731.260 applies those two.

City Council Chambers in the lower part of the screen the bay fair Bart so that's the only place where 1731.260 applies those two. City Council Chambers in the lower part of the screen the bay fair Bart so that's the only place where 1731.260 applies those two. City Council Chambers in the lower part of the screen the bay fair Bart so that's the only place where 1731.260 applies those two. City Council Chambers in the lower

to the density the density remains as it has been then while the discussion about the casper valley central business plan specific plan group e so that group e has already been approved years ago uh by the board of supes um again that we included all uh City Council Chambers, The entire ordinance for this plan commissions review only those changes that are red lined. City Council Chambers, That are in red font are proposed modifications so for group E. City Council Chambers, which are again are the second highest densities up to 44 to 86 million to the acre for group E, we are proposing modifications to only those parcels that are housing element opportunity sites and the. proposed modifications are to open space and setbacks and again those parcels that are within half mile of of Bart then they per other state legislation, they get no parking requirements, however, those are the only modifications to only those parcels and again i'm showing them on the screen here. Land use group he is not a new zoning designation as part of this housing element land use group he has was created as part of the. Castro valley general plan implementation of the 20 teens that has already established the higher density has already been in place for several years and the discussion within the.

um ordinance is part of this body receiving the entire ordinance updates that we're proposing and only those um um sections that are shown in red font are what is being modified well not not to belabor this but one more shot on this rodrigo if i may that group b is is red line it's in red letters on page eight with the following exceptions rear yard 20 feet side yard five feet interior side five feet those are the changes

Mayor Mrakas, Again, yes, and that is absolutely correct those changes are only for those properties in the housing element and we're only changing setbacks and open space so so yes land use group he. Mayor Mrakas, Like like other densities has changes only for those parcels and land use group that are housing element opportunities.

I have one more thing. Go ahead, Vice Chair. To try to help you out. So what he's saying is it's not the height, what they were considering on Bay Fair, but every one of these parcels that's highlighted, which is in the housing element in that specific area, the objective standards are changing on the side yard setbacks. And so it is changing. standards in that area and all these highlighted parcels, but not on subsequent parcels. Okay, thank you. That helps.

Yeah, it is an unusual situation in that we are changing zoning to be some of the rules to be different between adjacent parcels in the same district because of their presence on the housing element, which is what this is for. So then that makes sense that we're doing it. If you step back and you look at the neighborhood as a whole,

City Council Chambers, It does not make sense, but it is, it is where the proposal is coming from is it is it safe to assume that we just got a little overzealous with that amount of housing numbers we put on these. City Council Chambers, Specific parcels and now we're changing that some of the setbacks and creating different standards, so we can achieve the numbers that we put into the housing element is that what happened.

Well, the initial creation of the unit count, we thought that we could meet it. And what we're doing now is refining the standards so that it can certainly be achieved. I think what you're saying is probably true in terms of being overzealous. But at the same time, we are still, with the refinements that we're talking about, we're able to achieve densities without having to rezone. So we're just changing a few. We're tweaking the existing development standards to be able to achieve the density without, for example, having to change something from, you know, 60 to 86 units per acre or something like that.

So I guess in my how I would take that, that's a yes. You guys assigned housing numbers under the housing element arena numbers, and now we have to change them because we don't want to get sued like Half Moon Bay to achieve the numbers that you guys put together.

City Council Chambers, Except that we didn't change the numbers of dwelling units we're just making sure we're changing the Florida area ratio or changing setbacks to achieve the numbers that were achieved to achieve the numbers, but we're not changing the numbers right.

Right and just just in stepping in stepping back this again Rodrigo doing you know you're probably hearing a lot of voices. Rodrigo do you can be playing and stepping back, you know the the the arena numbers were assigned to us and part of the methodology and choosing the sites. For this housing element inventory we looked at sites that were either vacant or with very minimal development or otherwise. potentially developable redevelopable in many instances during our current housing cycle, so that it would be realistic right so so many parcels were not chosen, and so the the the unit counts were not spread. further among a larger number of parcels because those other parcels that could have otherwise been chosen were realistically not going to be redeveloped because they already got a substantial amount of housing on them. They've got recent development or development that is considered standard or up to code. And so the number of units required by the state had to fit in a certain number of parcels that were underdeveloped, vacant, or otherwise of such conditions that in theory they would be more realistically redeveloped within this housing cycle. And so by doing that, the densities on those specific parcels are not changed, but the A possibility to develop we needed to to make sure that. We were able to hit the maximum allowable development normally in the county the way our zoning rules have historically been developed in the county is that we have actually created a pretty suburban. Development pattern by having high setbacks high open space high step back and and low height. regulations, and so the density ranges that that we allow in our zoning ordinance. The the realistic development pattern is that is that development comes in at the very lowest end of that density range and so we're trying to do. given the development regulations imposed on us by the state is that we need to encourage development at the higher end of the density range, right? So when we're talking about 44 to 86 trillion units to the acre range, We want to make sure the development that comes in, comes in at the 86 unit to the acre range, not at the 44 unit to the acre range. And these are housing element sites. Again, these are a small number of parcels that are potentially developable within this housing cycle. And so we're not we're not anticipating development and other. parcels within the same neighborhoods where we're targeting these specific parcels and making sure that we can hit the high end of the allowable density range so that we're not disturbing other.

Correct. You're not I don't know you're gonna like the webinar categorize it so if not it's Okay, but is it correct to basically say that. City Council Chambers L' I think the vice chairs categorization was accurate right that we're trying to make sure we're fitting a. City Council Chambers L' very large amount of things into a very specific amount of places that perhaps without those targets wouldn't be trying to do. City Council Chambers L' But is the is it fair to categorize that in order to try to allow that development to occur within these parcels that rather than increasing the height we're allowing we're. kind of allowing them to be a little bit wider and a little bit less open space to try to keep them shorter while hitting the density.

Yes, Tom Ford. And that's going back to right at the beginning when Darshan was talking about think of it as a cooking pan and you've got so much space and that you try not to you don't want to go up. So you're going to try to either go out or use some of that percentage of open space. And so that's why his test fits really attacked the The setback and the open space, but not the height and the density.

And I think I think part of what is a struggle here and I realized that i'm not going to categorize this correctly what i'm saying is not factually correct. But I feel like part of what's kind of strange about this process is usually we would do that on a site by site basis by a variance. or by some other kind of project-specific consideration where the developer would come to us and say, hey, we're trying to fit this in here, but we have to put drainage there. The sloping's hard here. Can we have a little bit of a less, right? It is hard conceptually, I think, for the planning commission, at least for myself, to like proactively issue variances, which again, I realize legally is not what we're doing. But that's kind of the analysis that has been done by the consultant and by staff was to go through and look at the sites and try to anticipate that so that. At least one of those steps in the process will be less likely to be needed or that developers would have more certainty and moving forward. it's just unusual and it feels it feels kind of off and I would I would just say to the other Commissioners in my comment that we're on the plan Commission for 10 years and we haven't done this. City Council Chambers, That doesn't i'm not saying that's wrong that we're doing it, I think, in some ways it's quite a clever approach to look at the situation and outside of the housing element and the way I feel about those numbers myself, I do think there are times where like. City Council Chambers, We do keep running into the same sets of issues and the same sparts of the specific plan where the same sorts of problems are creeping up and. City Council Chambers, I do like in general, taking some of the pressure off of the individual projects to figure out those solutions and figuring them out more proactively. In a way that kind of balances the Community needs more by just think like it is. is really hard to look at a neighborhood and say we're going to zone this parcel this way, but we're not changing the overall zoning it is it's just not what we're used to doing is planning commissioners role it's a lot of disconnected. places across town from each other and across the county that like we don't usually think of simultaneously and so. It's just like about self struggling with trying to picture how it all comes together, because we just don't generally do this in such a way unless we're really updating. We don't update three specific plans at once. And this is definitely not what we're doing there, but it is kind of strange. I think that I don't want to cut the vice chair off if you had more in your thought process. Just circle back, which we can do. Yeah. I do have a couple of just other thoughts on the actual zoning changes themselves, which is I understand why you want to why staffs recommending a reduction of the step backs like the upper stories step back. To allow more development within the footprint like I get that I worry, though, that. We put step backs in for a reason, and they do make a difference in the in the step back from the street and the shadow corridor and all those things that we're going to lose. I don't know that that's wrong. I think that's probably this isn't a situation where you can choose everything. And so if you're having to choose something, that probably is the thing to give up. But I do think the thing that step backs gave us as like just a de facto part of a step back was it also broke up the facade. And I do worry a little bit about eliminating or substantially reducing step backs without some other objective standard around like percentage of facade that can be treated with the same color or treatment and I know there's a lot of very expensive ways to do that and there's a lot of very affordable ways to do that some of the best projects we see that come in at scale voluntarily kind of figure that out themselves where it looks like three or four buildings next to each other just visually right because one has wooden slats one has you know purple one is like slightly different architecture stucco same building. I do worry that an unintended consequence of that change and some of the other changes that we're making is we're going to end up with more flat facing to the sidewalk, to the sides, kind of boxy buildings that then just feel disproportionately large in the neighborhoods they're going in. And that's a general comment to staff, too, as we update these things elsewhere. I don't know how to incorporate that, and we don't really have examples and other specific plans where we've addressed that yet. But it is one of the areas where I think the reality is state has created a situation where we don't have a lot of local control over some of these choices. And we're in a situation where we have to try to figure out how to handle that. And sometimes it's saying no, and sometimes it's trying to improve what we can improve to get a little bit better. But when I step back and I think of living in Castro Valley, if you're going to have this type of development go in, what makes the bigger building that you don't really want there feel a little bit more comfortable? And I think that a lot of our zoning changes that we're making don't do that because that's not the goal that's been put to the consultants. It's not the goal that's been put to staff. But we really haven't gone through and added some of the objective standards. And I think of some of the projects that we've seen come in that have done so, so beautifully. We've had some really great projects that came in and did some of these things on their own. And those buildings just are very odd when you see them start to get built because they look like they fit there even though they're too big. It's like someone took the neighborhood and scaled it up, which is a very different feeling than grabbing a building from Berkeley and dropping it down on Castro Valley Boulevard. And so I hope that we can kind of bear that in mind as we sort of move forward so i'm sorry for editorializing so much about this, I just think we're going to keep running into the situation where. The housing was very controversial in the Community, especially in the areas where it was impactful and and the housing element is very ambitious very ambitious you know. it's the most ambitious housing element, I mean I think everyone's housing is very ambitious this year, I think about berkeley's housing, I mean like. And the thing that we don't often look at, and I would love, I might just have someone send a report out to staff, but I think we often like feel that we don't contextualize Alameda County's progress on our housing element, along with like counties in the state, because everyone's kind of setting these very ambitious goals and feeling this sort of stress. But we're going to have to figure out what our approach is going to be on it, because it can't. Can't just be to do the minimum the state creates and it can't just be what could just be to say no, like i'm not saying it isn't that's a that's a decision for everyone to make. But my approach and my hope is that we can find ways to try to do the right best thing by the Community without getting to a place where the state steps in and says. You didn't do enough so now we're going to take away all the local control over anything that would have been preferable to our cookie cutter approach. um because i'd rather have folks in this building studying the standards than folks in sacramento and the folks in sacramento are trying really hard to pull the decisions over to their their side of the street so i'm going to stop editorializing on this commissioner hernandez did you have any comments before we move on thank you first of all thank you for the presentation and the visuals i think that's really helpful to visualize the update

I do have a couple of questions and comments on page six guest parking. In terms of the guest parking, will there be some spaces that will be ADA accessible?

Yeah, that's that's dependent on the building code. So for every certain number of parking spaces in a parking lot, there has to be ADA compliance.

If you can clarify on page six, again, top on top of the page item number

to one bedroom unit what does it mean when it's one and one and a half parking spaces what does one and a half look like so in multi-family housing you pretty much had the you you combine them right so so if you've got one and a half spaces required per unit then on a six unit uh building then you've got nine spaces required a 10 unit you have 15

math.

Thank you. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you for that additional example. And then I just want to also just circle back to Vice Chair's comments regarding taking this back to the Mac. In terms of the the the updates that were presented to what would the timeline look like? If we take it back to the max? And is that necessary? I mean I i'm just kind of thinking to the chairs point earlier in terms of going back to community and and be mindful of of their needs in their neighborhoods.

Excuse me. I would just like to point out that the Planning Commission, while can voice their desire to have MAC input, cannot actually remand an action back to the MACs. You advise and make recommendations to the Board of Supervisors, and it's the Board that can do that.

Thank you for that clarification.

One last question from me before we move on to Commissioner Silva again. City Council Chambers, In this zoning and these zoning districts is the parking bundled with the units are they as the parking been unbundled I don't remember if we've gotten there yet it's it's bundled. City Council Chambers, Okay it's just another flag that i'm going to throw on the play that's unrelated to the housing element. City Council Chambers, Is that we should probably stop doing that and that's something we should be looking at as we're making these changes the flexibility, you get when you unbundle the parking which. for any member of the public who might not be aware of what that is, it's when instead of this apartment comes with two parking spots and that one comes with one, the fewer parking spots you have available, you don't want to end up with people who have two parking spots only using one or zero of those parking spots on these housing opportunity sites, because then you end up with the people who have three cars not having any, and as parking standards get lower, unbundling is a way to make sure that it's used most efficiently. I haven't been seeing that in any of our changes, but I'm from Berkeley, and I don't think that the rest of the county should turn into Berkeley. I mean, we have a university. It's an urban center, basically a neighborhood in Oakland, and I love my community. But as we get to making some of the changes to fit the standards, especially around high density areas, There's a lot of things that the city's already have in their specific plans and in their downtown corridors that were essentially creating and parts of the land of the county that aren't that are not there because they're completely unrelated. processes by which you get to those things like. Don't have the same parking standards in our downtown districts and then some of the corridors were adjusting the zoning on we don't have the same sort of considerations, but we're starting to create. The density of housing in some of those neighborhoods that creates the same problems you end up with and so that's just something that i'm very mindful of as we see that moving forward is how do we. About the ways that some of these things have been handled, because the real issues that we're seeing time and again of. City Council Chambers, parking access, how do people actually get to the hair salon how do people actually get to the grocery store. City Council Chambers, is to see more and more of this and with the some of the projects that are not here yet with the parking requirements being as low as they are, you know the neighborhood street parking goes away and. City Council Chambers, The fact that we aren't also adjusting the parking standards and some of the newer changes, I think, is. City Council Chambers, is something in a number of years we're going to look back and wish that we had, and it is much harder to do after the buildings are built. City Council Chambers, That is before they are and so that's just something I wanted to flag Commissioner Silva, I think you had another comment.

City Council Chambers, um no that's okay i'll defer I don't want to detract from those golden words.

City Council Chambers, Great so we've discussed i'm not trying to push the planning Commission to do, but I don't know that there's more to discuss we've discussed this we've heard it. The request from staff is that we recommend this to the Board of Supervisors. I'm going to hazard a guess that that probably is not a motion that's likely to be made. So it could be. Anyone can make a motion. I'm not saying don't make the motion. I'm just not seeing that motion on the wings waiting. So do commissioners have thoughts on how they'd like us to consider moving forward to try to get towards some sort of action or lack thereof?

will mention that we send this to the Board of Supervisors that we heard back to them and put an opinion.

So that would be a recommendation that the County Planning Commission forward the presentation to the Board of Supervisors with the request that after they hear it, they Correct staff to send this back to the Max. Am I understanding that correctly?

Correct.

Would that be within our item today to do so?

That's not on the agenda today to send this to the board so they can have it sent back to the Max. You're here today to make a recommendation on the zoning ordinance updates. So Right and in that you would be telling the board what you want them to do. As far as the position that you want it to go back to the Max but that's not really what's being considered today it's a consideration, whether you want to recommend these zoning updates or not.

That was the goal of the Vice Chair. Would it be. federally more preferred to have a motion to. City Council Chambers, I approve adoption of these changes to the to not approve the these changes to the board of supervisors, with the stated hope that they would send this back to the MAC for input before it returns to the planning Commission, or that they would just infer that from are not recommending it. City Council Chambers, could request that staff in your motion provide that reasoning to the board, so I think if if if that's amenable if the chair would like to restate their motion.

City Council Chambers, I will motion to not recommend. City Council Chambers, These amendments be made and that the supervisors at the staff supplies to the supervisor our reasoning of why, which is to go back to the Max for review and have this presentation. into the MAC.

City Council Chambers, Think that is the motion that's palatable so is there a second to that motion. I'll go ahead and second it for the purpose. I can second motions, right? Yes. Try not to, but I can. So I'll go ahead and second that for the purpose of being able to discuss and vote on the motion or not. I would say just to, you know, Rodrigo and Albert, whatever is decided now and whether or not this really even needs to go back to the max, that's, you know, it's I would really like if, when we see items this substantial that have come from the Max if staff would make sure that the Max are aware of what it's coming before us and even perhaps. And I can do it individually each time, but like on the behalf of the Chair, invite the Chairs of the MACs if they would like to provide public comment. This is not to put any words in my Vice Chair's mouth because I don't believe this is what he's doing, but I do think there are times when, as people who care about what the local advisory committees have to say or think, it would sometimes be very nice if they were here to provide a public comment. Because they might have an opinion as to whether or not they had fully considered something. It's just hard to always anticipate some of those thoughts. And I do think also, just as a general matter, I think a lot of members of the public go to those meetings. I often actually review their minutes if they're available before we hear things from them or try to go back and listen to the recording to hear the public or commissioner comments, which we're allowed to do. And I do just note in my head every time I do that, how many people go to the MAC and don't come to the Planning Commission. And I understand and fully support having the MACs. I think they're a very great thing for people to hear and have that local representation. But I do worry when you see 15 people go to each of the MACs on an item and zero people come to the Planning Commission when we're the ones making the decision, that it's like a very indirect process by which we get here. So we have a motion. There's a second. Would folks like to have any discussion on it? Or would folks like to move to a vote?

I'd like to have a main question sending it back to the max they voted to have voted for it already one of them use it as a opportunity to protest i'm not sure what information they would need they haven't already seen. Specifically, the setbacks and the diagrams it's all very helpful. But I can picture them saying this, we approve this once we understand why do we have this again.

and just as a point of clarification to staff the the substance of staff's presentation did not change right it was the it was the packaging of the presentation at the request of the plan commission to make sure that we presented uh in more detail the various um proposed changes so all the all the writing all the red lines in the ordinance are the same as they were as presented to the max and is presented the first time here at the Planning Commission. It's the updated graphics and the explanation by density ranges that we went over more fully here at this Planning Commission. That would be what we present to the MACs is nothing's changed substantially as far as the content, it's the presentation type.

If I could just help this along a little bit I don't know that we would get I mean appreciate all the comments around going back to the MAC and we try to always present them the full information that we have, I think, and we got to this forum. More detail was wanted, and we provided that. But I'm not really sure that we would get a different outcome if we went back to the max and presented this information like much like Commissioner Silva said, I think that you know we didn't get a whole lot of support when the housing element went around the first time. We got a little bit more support on this round. I mean this again was refinements to the existing ordinance. Fairview Mac. They voted in favor 3, 2. Eden Mac voted favor 5, 1. against it for for two um and so so yeah i don't know that we would get a much different outcome honestly um or that would sway your particular vote on this item one way or the other either so that's you know helped us along a little bit i would like you to consider those comments that's helpful context albert and i do just jot it down that's nine three right like if you combine them together um

And I also think that's a good question if they were to change their recommendations, if it would change our agenda. So I'm not sure that it would. But there is a motion on the floor to that effect, which I have seconded, and I'm happy to continue seconding it. If there's a different motion, folks should feel free to make a substitute motion. I haven't done that a lot on the Planning Commission. But I'm sorry if people aren't familiar. I just want to make sure everyone's on the same page, especially as I'm chairing now, which is new. A motion doesn't mean debate has to end, right? It just means someone is saying what they think we should do to move forward. But if someone would like to move forward in a different way, then a substitute motion is always more than welcome to handle it in a different way. So if there's a direct recommendation to the Board of Supervisors, either for or against, that could be done, or we can proceed to vote on the motion on the floor. But one of those two things is probably appropriate at this time.

I do want to add something I do appreciate how Commissioner silver kind of reframed. The question around if we take it back to the Max if we're going to get any different outcomes or feedback. And so with that said, I think I would be ready to to move forward to the Board of Supervisors. I guess I wouldn't mean a substitute motion.

Is that a substitute motion to recommend adoption or is that a substitute motion. Is it a motion to do the staff recommended motion, which would be to have the Planning Commission recommend to the Board of Supervisors that they adopt the amendments? I take that as a motion from Commissioner Hernandez to advance this to the Board of Supervisors recommending they adopt the ordinance amendments. Is there a second to that motion? Second from Commissioner Silva. Now, before we move to a vote, we can have a discussion if folks would like to debate. Debate's the wrong word. It's collegial board, but you know, debate the motion. But I would just like to clarify with county council before we do, because it's a little bit of an odd situation. So please correct me if I'm stating this incorrectly. The Planning Commission rules require a majority of the Planning Commission to make a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors. Majority, I'm so, you just tell us what I'm trying to say, because I'm saying it wrong.

It requires four affirmative votes, which is the majority, but just to be clear.

Affirmative majority. So when there's only four of us, a motion will only And do something if four of us vote for it, which is not me pressuring anyone to vote for something they wouldn't otherwise vote for it's just a bit of a different situation when you're not in a full Commission, which can be a little awkward procedurally so. No one should feel pressure to vote differently, I just want everyone to understand that a three one vote doesn't do what it would normally do if it was a five to vote or however that would be masked so unless there's. conversation to be had still.

Commissioner Hernandez, is substitute motion accepted?

Yes, I accept the substitute motion. Robert's Rules gives the substitute motion precedent over the main motion, just means it was made second. So we vote on that one first.

That's correct.

So I'm going to go ahead, and unless there's a desire to have debate, close debate, and call the motion. You can do that by acclamation all in favor, please say aye. opposed please say no. Any abstentions I abstain the motion fails to one one with that we would then vote on the main motion, which is the opposite, which is to send this to the board supervisors with our recommendation that it not. be approved and then our hope that they would send it to the max. So that's the motion on the floor. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Two ayes, all opposed, please say nay. One day, and I abstain so that motion fails to one one, which means we've now failed to both move the item forward and back. Unless someone wants to change their mind that means we failed to take a position on this item and that's our hearing on it, I don't think there's anything for us to do beyond that.

So under your bylaws, sorry, under your bylaws, after three failures to reach four affirmative votes, so this gets agendized next time, and if you don't reach four affirmative votes, it's a presumed denial. So this should come back to you for action for the third time.

OK. Second, why himself for a moment. Would mean that we could choose, for example, to pass a motion with four of us recommending approving it so that the Board of Supervisors could vote for it or four of us recommending that they don't approve it so that they can, can we we can't move something to the Board of Supervisors without a recommendation.

Take action you need for affirmative votes.

Are action taken just be to recommend the Board of Supervisors take the item up directly without a recommendation from the Planning Commission?

No.

So if folks don't want to hear this again, we could effort to come to a consensus motion of any position to send it to the Board of Supervisors, trusting that they are going to do what they deem best regardless of what our motion is, or we can hear this again in two weeks.

Yes, I would motion to probably go with that path or continue it till we have a full board.

Is there a preference for other commissioners on how we proceed?

I would rather move forward with the two Board of Supervisors.

Chair Silva? I'm assuming you would want to move forward given that was your previous motion. I would be comfortable supporting that in the interest of advancing this so that we don't have to have a duplicative hearing. But that would require a motion and for that to be unanimous. And if it's not, that's fine. No one should feel pressured to vote a certain way so that we can always hear this again in our next meeting when we should have two commissioners here.

Not changing.

It's perfect then. That's not pressure. I'm just making sure we're all on the same page. So then this will be has failed to have any action taken i'm going to go ahead and close the item, and then this item should I think be on our next agenda in two weeks. or will be the time that staff brings it back.

City Council Chambers, Next meeting in September, the first meeting in September, I believe we have a quorum issue. City Council Chambers, And we're going to have a meeting that would be September 8 and I thought we bumped it to the 20th.

If we could bring it back, if it's possible with our rules to bring it back to that second meeting in September when we are planning to have a full commission, I would very much like to not end up in a situation where we hear it with four folks again, if possible. That would be great. With that, the item has been heard. I want to thank my fellow commissioners for their very thoughtful comments. I do think it's a very frustrating situation to be in, and so it's understandable to be frustrated in my tenure. Ability to make decisions has been reduced every year by the state.

I just make sure that we have the right date. So this is going to be continued to a date certain so that we don't have to re notice it. Sorry, yes. That would be September 21.

I'm going to continue this with the date certain to September 21. Is there a second? Second by Commissioner Hernandez. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed, please say nay. Any abstentions? Hearing none, 4-0-0. The motion carries and will be heard at a date certain. With that, I believe that we are at the end of our agenda. Are there any The only announcement that I have is the same announcement I'll have for a while, which is please let staff know if you can't make it. Sometimes things happen last minute, and that's fine. But we will perhaps have to be a little creative with our schedule to make sure we have some full meetings, and that might also mean having less, more dense meetings, depending on how we can get people here. The next thing I wanted to just announce is we do have a vacancy on the commission, as the public is aware of. That position has been posted for applications by the county members of the public interested in applying to serve on the planning Commission may contact supervisor nate miley's office or go to acgov.org to find the application materials and are encouraged to apply, I would love to see that mentioned on our next agenda, if we continue to have vacancy. By which the public can apply I don't have any other. City Council Chambers, Chair announcements. Are there any staff announcements or comments or announcements by Commissioners?

City Council Chambers, Staff has one. There was an email that went out today to all the Planning Commission about an upcoming City Council Chambers, California County Planning Commissioners Conference that's going to be taking place in the fall. You should take a look, be on the lookout for that. That is something that the County can support financially if you want to go to that conference.

Great. With that, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. I'm so sorry, I have to allow public comment on this. Is there any member of the public wishing to give public comment? Any members of the public wishing to give public comment online? Seeing none in the room.

I'm sorry, there is one speaker who has been waiting.

Hey, that's great. Please make your public comment.

Clark.

Hi, this is actually Brenda Clark. My hand was up during the whole thing. I just wanted to mention, since you mentioned Robert's rules, I wanted to mention that the Brown Act is very clear on public comments on agenda items, that public comments shall be allowed before and during the board's consideration of an item. So I wanted to speak on I think Albert said it best when he said there's just more this is a better presentation, a more thorough presentation. This presentation has not been before our Fairview map. The February presentation lacked all the thoroughness and the detail and that slideshow and all that. So I wanted to mention that even though you closed the item while my hand was up, but I'm preaching to everybody on these commissions that the Brown Act is clear on when you can take public comments before and during a board's consideration of the matter. So I just wanted to clear that up and say that I do hope it goes back to the max. I hope that when you vote in September that you take it to the, ask the supervisors to take it back to the max first. We didn't have a presentation like this not this thorough, not this clear. And I think we as the public deserve to have that.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments. And with that, I'm going to go ahead and motion to close public comment.

We don't close public comments.

with that i'm going to go ahead and close public comment and then move along to a motion to adjourn all in favor please uh is there a second to the motion to adjourn second second by commissioner nielsen um all in favor please say aye aye aye all opposed please say nay any abstentions hearing none we stand adjourned thank you