Planning Commission - Special Meeting

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, right here, ready? All right, I'm gonna call the special meeting of the Planning Commission to order. Can we have roll call, please?

Commissioner Alborn? Here. Commissioner Allen? Here. Commissioner Karapetka?

Here.

Commissioner Locke?

Here.

And Chair LePage.

Here. Okay. First item of business is the public appearances. Any members of the public may address the Planning Commission at this time on any matters of municipal concern. These are items which are not on our agenda tonight. I want to remind any commenters that you are governed by the Brown Act. Anybody in the chamber here that would like to address us on any matters which are not on our agenda tonight? Don't see anybody coming up. Any hands up?

No, sir.

Okay, we'll move on from the public appearances. Get right to the orders of business. Tonight, we are going to have a report on the objective design and development standards. Can we have a staff report of the presentation?

Yes, thank you. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay. Thank you, Chair LaPage and members of the Planning Commission. I'm just gonna give a brief introduction and then I'm going to turn it over to our consultant team to give the presentation. So we are here this afternoon at a special meeting to discuss the objective design and development standards for accessory dwelling units. This is going to be our fourth community meeting, but our first meeting with the Planning Commission on the odds, for short, is what we're calling it. Just for the benefit of the commission, but as well as the public, if anyone has missed a prior community meeting and they want to go back and watch it to get caught up, all of the videos are posted on our website. We met in January, March, and at the end of April. So all of that information is available on our website. This evening, our consultant team from Opticos Design is gonna give a presentation similar to the presentation they gave at the April 29th community meeting, introducing an administrative draft of the odds for ADUs. And our team is joining us virtually this evening, so they'll be on Zoom. The team consists of Tony Perez, Cecilia Kim, and Joseph Abamonte. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to them to deliver the presentation.

Thank you, Marnie. Thank you, Planning Commissioners and everyone in the audience. Thanks for letting us be with you tonight. And thanks for letting us do this work for you. We're very excited to be here tonight and to present this work. And so I'm going to share my screen here. So hopefully there won't be a little lag time there, but just bear with me for a second. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Okay, everybody see that? Okay, so we're going to cover three, mainly two, the last piece is small comparatively, two pieces of content here.

So Tony, you're not quite in presentation mode from what we can see.

Okay, so I just, I stopped doing what I was doing. What am I doing wrong?

So we do see your computer screen.

Just got a slide show, I should be able to.

Here we go. How about this? Does that work?

You want to go to slideshow up on the ribbon, I think. Go to slideshow.

Okay. It usually works.

Yeah, okay. Presentation mode, yeah.

Sorry. Yeah, it usually works with what I did, so I'm not seeing it. Yeah, somebody help me out here. I don't see what to do.

Can you try playing from start?

Over here on the left, third, you'll see presentation view. Right there. See that? Presentation view.

I don't. I don't get it.

Play from start? Okay. Yeah. Okay. All the way to the left. Play from start.

Wow. I'm not seeing what you're seeing. Keep going.

There you go. Keep going. One more.

I can't see it. Okay.

Doing a binder.

Yeah, there's a bar in the way. That's why I can't see it. There we go.

You got it.

Is that it?

I think the issue is, Tony, that you're sharing the presenter screen and not the presentation screen.

Okay. There's a bar in the way. Okay, here we go. All right. So which one do I do? I've never had this problem.

Presenter view? I don't think you have that option.

Yeah, I'm really sorry. I've just never had this happen. I don't know what to do here. But what if we do this? What if we just see the slides here on the left and I just go through it anyway and I'll make this small? I don't know what else to do. So let me get this out of the way. Okay. Okay. Unless somebody can tell me what to do, I'm just going to do this. So is this okay?

Yeah, that's fine. We can see it. It's larger. Go ahead.

Okay. All right. So we have the update on the administrative draft, the odds, and... As you can imagine, it's a lot of content. And so intentionally, what we've done is gone to the community and shared with them the key pieces of content. And in this case, it's 13 topic areas that we're going to be covering tonight that we showed to the community on April 29th. We're also going to share with you the major feedback that we received at that April 29th meeting. And also just what's been leading up to April 29th, the feedback that we received at the previous two meetings and then next steps. So, as I mentioned, there are 13 topic areas that we want to share with you tonight that are representative of all of the content in the administrative draft odds. And there are three key principles as a foundation to all of this content, all of the standards that we're preparing. And these principles really came out of listening to the community in community meetings number one and two, and talking with them and listening to their ideas and their concerns. And so the first principle is that all new ADUs need to match the main house. There's a lot of concern that recent ADUs did not really achieve that, that ADUs didn't departed greatly from what the main house looked like and not necessarily always for outcomes that were desired by the community. So matching the main house is a key principle here. The second one is that the ADU always be seen as visually secondary to the main house on the lot. And then the third one, along with that, that the ADU be located on site in a way that obviously complies with state law, but by the standards emphasizes the main house instead of emphasizing itself. a take on principle number two. But these three principles are at the core of everything that we've prepared. So, you know, if you find yourself asking the question, why is this there? Why is there so much emphasis on that matching and all the things that you're gonna see tonight? It's because of these three key principles, which came out of community meetings one and two. And, you know, to be fair, to be clear, People didn't say these principles this way. We derived these principles from the feedback that we received. So if these principles need to be updated or another one needs to be added, we're certainly open to that. Quickly, just in terms of how these odds relate to other regulations that you already have in place, these odds supersede Title 17 unless stated otherwise. However, if there's a conflict between the odds and the applicable Carmel Municipal Code, then the Carmel Municipal Code shall supersede the odds. And then, as always in all cities and counties, the building and their fire codes supersede the odds. The draft odds right now are contained in nine chapters. You can see here on the screen an introduction talking about how these rules implement state law and are consistent with state law, what kinds of projects qualify to use these new objective standards, and how to use the objective standards. Chapter two, standards for the site design. And then chapter three, getting into the building form. How can the building be? How big can the building be? How long can it be? How tall can it be? And then chapter four, building facade design. And then you see their roof form, building entries. And then... Supportive content in Chapter 7 with administering this content, these standards, and then measurement methods and definitions and how this language in the standards is constructed. So the first of the topics is the building and parking placement. And another way to say this is where can the building go and where does the parking have to go to make more of Carmel's beautiful and desirable character, a physical character. And so these standards are dealing with building setbacks and parking setbacks and driveway location and driveway width. But they're also talking about different situations for parking. So in addition to on the left where the building can go, on the right, you'll see two gray areas. One is cross-hatched and one is just a plain gray. And they're to indicate where certain types of parking can go. So if you want to put one space wide on the lot, then the light gray areas where you can do that. If you want to put two or more spaces, if you could fit them, Then that cross-hatch area is where that kind of parking is allowed. And it's all aimed, again, everything is aimed at making these ADU buildings fit in, not only to their site, but to fit into Carmel's beautiful physical character, which is just really unique. As you know, and so these diagrams, as you'll see throughout throughout these standards, intend to deal with different situations where the building might be to one side of the lot. It might be to the middle of the lot. It may be toward the front of the lot. And so the standards are are accommodating those different situations. This is the first of three building types. So the standards direct new form, new buildings in the form of three building types. And the first is a carriage house. And so I'm going to jump to the picture first. It's this kind of arrangement where the ADU is on top of the garage and the And you can see different variations of that. And I'm sure you've seen this in certain places. But there are three choices here. And this is the first of them. And so you can see the topics that are regulated, the key topics are regulated there at the left. And the standards there on the right. And I just want to call your attention to the footprint standards. You see there in the middle of the page. I don't know if this is calling out when I do this, but the the idea here is that we're wanting to limit. the main body width and the depth or length, if you will, the x by y of the building so that the building is still a reasonable size that achieves the state minimum which you can see there up there in habitable space net in this row, for one bedroom, state law requires at least 850, so we're putting that as the maximum here, and two beds have to allow at least 1,000 square feet. And so this information you'll see for each of the building types It regulates that square footage in a way that results in building proportions, at least in footprint, that are human-scaled and do not overpower the lot. Of course, those are maximums, and they're subject to each individual site and its idiosyncrasies, existing trees, et cetera, location of existing building. So that's the carriage house. And then the next one is the attached ADU. And so you can see now the main building there in the black outline, white building here, and then the ADU attached to it in three different situations. So there are situations where that ADU is going to want to be attached in the rear, sometimes in the middle of the building or somewhere toward the middle of the building, but to its side if the lot is wide enough. And then in some situations, depending on the slope of the lot or the configuration of the main building, the ADU will be attached to the front. And so these standards deal with all those situations. And one thing that I want to call to your attention here that is different or new than what you currently require is this building entry area. And we have a whole set of standards for that, but it's identified here in terms of an area that needs to be accommodated. So let's see here on this first one. It's shown here in the back on the side because the ADU is behind the main building. and here in the front and and on the side as an alternative what the building entry area is it's just a fancy term for basically saying hey instead of simply putting a front door on that adu you're required to put something like a porch a door yard a terrace astute, one of those types of welcoming elements that give a there there to the front door and make more of the front door than simply just a door. And that's one of the things that really makes Carmel. Carmel, all of its buildings are have some version of that. And it's just a beautiful little element that really distinguishes the front door from just the door and wall. So that's something that is a requirement in these standards, in all of these building types. And here are two examples of that. The third building type, these are choices that the applicant can make. An applicant choosing to build an ADU can say, I'd like to pursue the carriage house, or I'd like to pursue the attached ADU, or they can pursue the detached ADU. And you can see here now, the ADU is detached from the main building in all these cases. Similar information, similar requirements, just a little different to accommodate that type of project. And you can see two versions of that. And you can see here this raised deck as an element for the front door, to get to the front door. Beautiful example of a terrace, and this is a beautiful, simple example of a covered entry, a very small version of a porch. But the idea is that there's some entry of feature emphasized by how you approach it. The next topic are chimneys. And here we are aware that Title 17 already has standards for chimneys. So we will coordinate those existing standards with these proposed standards. and make sure that there isn't any duplication and that the standards in your Title 17, if they are objective enough, that they be included. But with everything else that we're going to show you tonight, the idea is that you know, with that key principle, number one, matching the main house. Well, what is matching? And so, you know, there was a lot of discussion at community meetings one and two that people simply not copy things. And sometimes even if you wanted to copy them, it's not possible depending on when the main house was built, the type of materials that were available at the time, all those kinds of things. And so the standards that you're going to see tonight are, here on forward in terms of individual elements, a certain amount of variation is built in with that understanding to say, well, how much less could you build something in terms of size and how much more could you build it in terms of size or proportions? and still be perceived as similar or the same as the main house. And so that's why if you've had a chance to look at this information, you'll see that variation throughout the standards. Exterior lighting, similarly, we understand that Title 15 has existing standards, and so we will coordinate those with these proposed standards. But these are location standards to say if you're going to apply lighting, these are the standards for applying the lighting on a facade. And we will coordinate them with Title 15, just as I was talking about with the chimneys. And the building signage, again, there's a great tradition in Carmel that I haven't seen as, we haven't seen as comprehensive in other communities. I think La Jolla has something like it in the neighborhood, but not throughout its whole community as Carmel does. It's really beautiful to see people name their houses. It's pretty cool. So this provides for that. And so we will coordinate with Title 17 and the current signage to coordinate with these standards for size, color, material, and shape. Windows. This is really an interesting topic. We, or I should say Joseph, led the research on this on our team. And it was really interesting to see when he lined up different window sizes. and just tested, well, how much could you vary from that size, either smaller or larger, and still have the person looking at it perceive that window to be the new window, although different in size, to be perceived as same or similar. And what we found in that research that he prepared is that you could vary below and above those. You can make something smaller or larger to a certain degree. And when Joseph laid on all these options for the different window sizes, it was very clear when, at least clear to us, hopefully you feel the same after reviewing the standards when we published them in mid-June, But it was very clear when something was starting to become not the same anymore, to really be perceived as different. And we found that to be true in three groupings of windows. And you see the three rows here. One-to-one, or basically square, or wider than square, taller than square, up to one-to-three proportion, and then taller than one-to-three proportion. And you can see the different percentages that, based on those groupings, the percentage of variation that would be perceived as the same or similar is a little different. It's nuanced. You can see 75% in one case and 80% in another. So it was very interesting. And also, we're hoping that it provides flexibility for people working with older buildings, not historic buildings, but just older buildings where that window size might not be made anymore. And so the other thing to say here that you're not seeing is that there's a whole methodology that the standards include that guides the applicant of how to determine which windows to identify as the windows to base these standards on. For example, the standards don't allow somebody to take a window on a bathroom and say that's my window that I'm going to use. This is as my window on the facade. There's a whole methodology of how to determine which is the prevalent window on the facade and how to measure that and then apply the standards. Similarly, with areas that don't have openings on them, on the facade, or blank walls, another way to say it, there are three thresholds here, three groupings that we identify. And based on the amount of a blank wall area, you're required to have a certain number of windows, and depending on whether it's... less than 100 square feet or less than 200 square feet, then you are required to add windows and a balcony and an attic vent in certain cases, all to break up the visual mass of a blank wall. And then balconies, we identified three groupings here. So depending on the balconies that might be on the main house, there are three options here. And then again, the variations in the different elements. So this isn't requiring balconies. It's simply saying that if balconies are proposed because they're on the main house, these are the standards to apply based on the type of balcony present on the main house. And then this topic for a dealing where ADUs are near other buildings across a property line. And so what this is getting at is, you know, the ADUs allowed to be within a very close distance of the rear and side property lines, up to four feet max. And so that might present some issues with where windows are placed because of the floor plan of the ADU. And so what these centers are trying to do or aiming to do is orienting new windows in a way that don't pose issues for existing buildings and their windows. And so if your window is within a certain distance of the lot line, in this case, 15 feet of the lot line, which most ADUs are going to be that close of the lot line, then If the window aligns in this manner, right here in B, like this, then there's a 72-inch minimum sill height, so that it basically prevents direct viewing from the new ADU. But if you angle the new window away from the other windows, then there is no limitation on sill height. And then exterior colors and materials for all the elements of ADUs are covered here on these slides and in the standards. And then roofs. This was another, obviously, the roof type. What type of roof does the main building have? And so using that roof type on a new ADU. There was a lot of input early in this process to us about examples where The main building had a certain roof type, let's say a gable, and the ADU had a very different roof type, such as a shed. And there was a lot of concern that they were so different that that shouldn't be allowed anymore. And so these standards are getting at that, maintaining similarity between the main house and the ADU. And there was discussion about that at the community meeting number three. I'll get into that later. But similar to the windows, Again, Joseph led this research for us, and what he found was that it's interesting when you lay out a bunch of roof pitches in a row, at first when you look at them, they can tend to all look the same. And then you start to look closer, and you realize where they really look the same and where they really do not, just like with the windows. And so what the research told us here is that Aside from roof style, but just the pitch of the roof itself, is that if the pitch of the main building is X, a new building, an ADU, could either go one step above that or one step below that and still be perceived as the same or similar as the main house. It's very, very interesting to find that. And then similarly with eaves, eaves are very telltale characteristic of buildings and architecture, depending on how deep or shallow or no eave at all, it communicates a certain massing, a certain style, a lot of things. And so the research here also showed us that there were three groupings of eaves, deep, moderate, and small, small being Up to 18 inches deep, moderate, up to 30 inches deep, and deep being over 30 inches. You have all of those, as you know. And so the variation that produces a same or similar match with the main house isn't the same for all three groupings. And so that's why we articulated them in this way. And then dormers associated with the roofs as well. A really interesting element, beautiful element, but it can also get out of control very quickly and overpower the building that it's on or multiple dormers are on. And so these standards are aimed at producing dormers that are functional as needed and also are complementary to the design. And here's an example, a really wonderful example on a side street to ocean in the neighborhood about a couple of blocks from the ocean. And on our last visit, I just saw this one and thought, oh, this is just a wonderful example of this idea of a dormer in proportion to its roof. Because one of the things that's being regulated here is this idea of How much of the roof length should be occupied by dormers? I'm sure you've seen examples where too much of the roof is filled up with dormers, and it really looks like an additional story. Well, how much is too much? And that's open for debate, certainly. We're ready for your input. But we found that around 50% seems to be a good balance, whether that's individual dormers collectively or one dormer like this. And then this element of the building entry, so this idea of surrounding the front door with something other than just the walls adjacent to it. So here's one choice that an applicant has, and it's a porch, and you know porches well. Here are the standards to make porches function well by being deep enough. So that you can actually put chairs up there, maybe a table to your side, and people can walk in front of you without having to move the chair. And it would be a really nice space and enjoy Carmel's beautiful afternoons and evenings. And here are two examples of that. And then the dooryard. So the porch is a raised version for a raised entry. And the dooryard is an at-grade version. And here are two versions of that. And then the stoop, it's a raised version that's really intended for places where there's a little more topography, like on the right, or sometimes the building's a little closer to, say, a public walkway or a sidewalk, and it's a way to gain a little additional privacy by raising the floor level so that when you're sitting down in your chair or inside the building, you are not making direct eye contact with the people walking by. Community feedback. So those are all of the 13 topic areas that we presented to the community. And you can see here there are sticky notes on those posters that I just showed you on the slides. And so here are the key comments that we received. There are a lot of others, but these are the ones that were really important. really big in terms of community concerns and ideas. This idea, this concern about the ADU being subservient to the main building, that word subservient, I really want to emphasize, that came from the community. That is a word that they used to say the ADU needs to not only be secondary, but really serve the main house. That was very clear, and there were a lot of comments about that. As you can see here, the building placement should not visually compete with the main building. There should be a low plate height to the ADU. The range of ease should be smaller, but not larger than even the main building. And then also another big topic was protecting trees on the lot. That was a very You know, there are concerns about, okay, we know we need to accommodate state law and allow the production of a certain amount of square footage, but we really need to make sure that we don't destroy or remove Carmel's wonderful forest in its neighborhoods in process. And then a couple of others here that were big concerns. You know, the whole emphasis of matching the main building had been talked about very much up to this point. And everybody recognized that that was important, but they also said, what about, they asked the question, what about houses that don't conform to our guidelines? Do we want the matching, do we want the ADU to match that? And then there was a lot of discussion about limiting the total habitable square feet on 4,000 square foot lots specifically. And we had a lot of discussion about, yeah, we hear you, but we also have to make sure that we allow what state law requires. The state law doesn't allow us to nuance it to certain lot sizes. It simply just says, you know, 850 for one bedroom and 1,000 for two bedroom or more. So anyway, interested in your ideas on that as well. And then the last slide here, you know, in terms of next steps, I know we're not there. It's just, I just wanted to present this. As I mentioned at the start of this presentation, the goal is to finish the public review draft odds based on your input and direction and produce that by mid-June and release it for public comment. And then having Planning Commission meetings and City Council meetings as you can see there in July, August, and September. So I will stop there. That's the end of the presentation and thank you for your attention.

I do have one. Was there any conversations around height?

Are you asking that of me?

Yeah, the question from the, you want to repeat the question?

Yeah, was there in all of the conversations and the community input, was there any conversations around the height of the building?

Yes. Yes, there was, Commissioner. I don't see your name, so I can't address you by your name, but I see your name. Commissioner Allen, thank you, Commissioner Allen. Yes, there was, and I encourage my teammates here to chime in as needed, but there was a lot of concern that the building be smaller than main house and that it not be taller for sure. So we talked about what is currently allowed by the Carmel Municipal Code and what's required by the state law. And the state law right now, requires 16 feet, at least 16 feet. And in some cases, 18 feet for the ADU. And there are a couple of nuances to that. That's for detached. For attached, it's allowed to be up to 25 feet. So, but yes, there's a lot of discussion about it, Commissioner Allen.

Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you.

Commissioner Alborn has a question for you, Mr. Perez.

Mr. Perez, thank you very much for your presentation. It's nice to see you today. I have several questions. The first is in regards to the building entry area. That's very new to me. Is this something that's required based on state regulations?

No, it's something that we're recommending.

I see. Thank you. Is the building entry area Is that included in the total square foot of the ADU?

No.

So that's additional. So then, and this might be more of a question for Ms. Waffle, our principal planner, the building entry area, how would that impact our city's site coverage? It would count towards site coverage. It would? Yeah. Okay, thank you. So that's all for that section. For the ADU chimneys, two questions. The first is more of a general question. Do we allow new wood-burning fireplaces here in town? Are we allowed to build? Yes. Because I know in some areas we're not. Okay, thank you. And then the ADU chimney height that was... represented in the diagrams. Does that height include the spark arrestor or is the spark arrestor additional and not included in the regulated height?

Go ahead, Tony. We will need to specify that, yes. Yes, one way, because the spark arrestor is required.

It is required. By state code. And it should be within the total height. There you go. Okay, thank you. So that's that. For the ADU windows and also the ADU roof patch, rather fascinating research, actually. I enjoyed hearing about that. And thanks to Mr. Avamonte for doing that. Why not just have the ADU windows and the roof pitch and eaves match the main house?

Well, as I mentioned, sometimes it's not possible to do that for whatever reason, either for material reasons or for the windows. The reason can be simply that those windows that manufacture windows. that only made that size that size isn't available anymore uh there's a size that's four inches wider whatever it is you know just cookie things like that with manufacturing um it might be the age of the window it might be the manufacturer of the window uh things like that and then the roof pitch itself um it might be a pitch that uh is also maybe a little eccentric or unique in the way it was constructed. And it might be just as good to produce a roof that is a little bit different in pitch, but very close and would be perceived similarly. But I understand what you're saying. Those are the reasons right now.

Thank you. The idea that Carmel would have anything architecturally that's eccentric is really quite a statement.

I mean that Carmel is so eclectic. I shouldn't have said eccentric. Carmel is beautifully eclectic.

Nice cover. I'll go with eccentric. It's all good. And my last question, for the ADU dormers, and also the, and I'm sure my fellow commissioners will weigh in on that, the idea of 50% of an ADU is rough covered with dormers is frightening to me. That sounds rather excessive. But my question is this, much simpler, is if the main house doesn't have a dormer, Is the ADU allowed to have a dormer? And is that specified? Because I would like it to be specified if that is.

Right now it's allowed. I don't think it's prevented. Yeah. So the rules are all aiming at matching. So if we take matching to mean only if it exists, then it would not be allowed if it doesn't already have them in the main house.

Great. Thank you, Mr. Perez.

Any other questions here? I had a question for you regarding conflicts with section 6632. And this is regarding entry placement. So as I understand it, with the section 6632, we cannot set standards as to the entry placement if it is in conflict with the size or the floor area or the setbacks.

I'm going to defer to city staff on the section 6632. I'm not sure what that reference is.

Okay. All right. That's fine.

I'm happy to answer the question. I just don't know what that says.

That's fine. We can go into that in other, you know, more detail. It's not part of your presentation. Okay. Any other questions for Mr. Perez this time?

I only had one on the balcony. This is Commissioner Karapetkov asking a question. We discussed a lot of the topics in the workshop, but I did not remember if we discussed that one. There's this table that says if a blank wall is more than 100 square feet, you have to have a balcony and the window. I think that's the way I read it. The balcony, that would only apply if it's a two-story building, right? We're not pushing people to put balconies on the first floor.

Right. Yeah, that's great. Yes.

Okay, just to be sure.

That needs to be clarified that it can't apply. Yeah, you can't force somebody to do a second story to do a balcony. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, thank you for your presentation.

Thank you.

So was there any more information staff was gonna give the commission to, before we open it up to comments? Nope. Okay, so at this time, I will open it up for the public comments. So anybody here who wants to make comments regarding the presentation, the proposed development, objective design development standards for this, please come forward.

Good afternoon. Commissioners, Nancy Toomey here. Some of the comments I think might be repeat of what I had mentioned at the last workshop, but I'll just throw them out so that you guys can hear them. On the building and parking placement, it's really the parking side. I'm really looking for clarity on these diagrams because I find them very hard to interpret. especially given the distance between the street front and the right of way before you get to the property line, that's not really clearly mapped out, as well as I think it would be helpful, I know it's potentially a little hokey, but actually show vehicles in their examples so that you really get, because right now I can't understand this diagram and that parking thing. Maybe I'm just being dense, but hopefully I'm representative of more people. In the bottom half of the handout that we were provided, I also don't know what a re-subdivided lot means, at least relative to Carmel. So looking for clarification on that. I didn't understand until today the use of the words carriage house in that it was meant for the use case where a garage of some sort exists and you're putting the ADU on top of it. So I get that now, but we haven't been using that terminology before. So, or at least I hadn't heard it. So my apologies if I missed it. And in the use case of that scenario, there is also 150 square feet allowed for access, as in a stairwell that takes you down to the main floor. So that's just not included. So I'm sure it will come out in future iterations, or I believe it would. And then, let's see, also does this carriage house scenario, no it doesn't, does any of these building forms on the handout that we were given, apply to when an ADU is intentionally being built on a second floor to a building that does not have a second floor as well. So I don't know what that use case is or if that's enough outside of the scope of what odds will embrace because potentially you are excluding them in the odd scenario and it would go down the standard design consideration. So that's just another point. And let's see, I think that might be it enough for government work, for your magic here. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you.

Thank you, Nancy, for your comments. Okay, anyone else in the chamber would like to make any comments? Any hands up online?

Not at this time, no, sir.

Okay, I'm gonna close the public comments, go up to the commissioners. So does the staff wanna just reiterate what particular direction they're looking from the Planning Commission today for this?

Sure. And if I could maybe just respond to two things that Nancy brought up, if that is okay. The re-subdivided lot is something that is specific to Carmel and is defined in our zoning code. And it has to do with when an original 40 by 100 square foot lot is turned 180 degrees and becomes a 50 by 80 square. So that's something that's defined in our zoning code. And we just wanted to make sure that in looking at the lot sizes and our odds that we account for that. So that's why you see the re-subdivided lot show up. It has different setbacks. So if we only included setbacks for a 40 by 100, we'd be missing all of the re-subdivided lots in our design standards. And then the carriage house, so that is a new term. So you didn't miss anything on that. And I do think it's important that we make sure that we just, that we clearly define it as part of this document because it's not something that we historically have used. I just wanted to respond to those two things. So what we're looking for this afternoon is any questions, comments from the planning commission, anything that you think we need to look at further, things that need to be flushed out, things we may have missed. things that you're seeing for the first time that maybe don't make sense, so that we can take all of that information back and use it to inform the next draft of this document. So we're just trying to gather as much information as we can from you. And this is also another opportunity for the public to also bring their comments and questions as well, before we get into a full draft of the odds for ADUs.

And Marnie, on the question that Nancy had about like adding a second story, would that fall under attached ADU? And if so, is that represented in attached?

So I think this came up at the April meeting and I don't remember, Tony, if it's attached and it's over the footprint of the house, I don't believe that scenario, is that addressed in the current version?

What people said at the meeting was that it would be dealt with as a room addition, that the house is being expanded and that the house would be taken through the process that you have for room additions and house modifications.

I don't think that's true, no.

Well, yeah, I'm just repeating the conversation. It falls into the category of the attached, but there was discussion that some people thought it would go through the house modification process.

So what I think I'm hearing then based on that question is we need to make sure that our document clearly distinguishes between ground floor additions of ADUs and second floor additions of ADUs to the primary residence.

So it's my understanding that an attached ADU cannot exceed the height of the existing residence, is that correct?

That's right.

Just a minute, I'll let you come up, just a second. So Mr. Perez says that's right.

Yes, that's the way it's set up right now.

Is that in the state law?

The state law simply just says height.

It doesn't refer to the existing residence height?

It says if it's detached, it's at least 16 feet attached. It can be up to 25 feet. So, yeah.

So state law doesn't make a distinction about the height of an attached ADU with regards to the height of the existing structure that it's attached to?

No, it just talks about existing houses or proposed houses and whether they're attached or detached.

Because I know in some of the other municipalities, they have that particular definition or standard in their ADU law ordinances.

So as the commission knows, we're also concurrently working on our local ADU ordinance. which will address some of these development standards, whereas this document is intended to focus solely on the design. Ultimately, the two will need to be in harmony with each other, but it's not the intent of this document to establish necessarily what all the development standards are per se, but how to integrate the design into the lot.

So this is an attempt to do an objective design guidelines, what it's trying to do?

There is some overlap, but if we allow two-story homes and we allow our homes to be up to 24 feet tall, and somebody comes in with an ADU that is within the two-story height limit, I'm not sure that we can say no to that, but we can certainly as part of this process make sure that that ADU, the design of it, it matches the main house and it integrates with the design of the main house. And I think that's the objective of this document is to make sure that that happens.

The gentleman, want to make a comment?

Yeah, I have a comment.

Well, come on up to the mic so we can get it.

Yeah, thanks. Well, thanks. Ray Stramitis. I'm actually a property owner and went through the process of building a two-bedroom ADU that worked out quite well. It's been a while since I've looked at the state of California, but is it still, you showed pictures of a carriage house on the second floor. Would that be considered a junior ADU, and is that still a defined term?

That is not a junior ADU. It's a detached ADU above a garage.

So it's attached to the garage.

Which must be detached from the house. That's kind of what defines it being the carriage house.

Okay. Okay.

The junior accessory dwelling unit is created from existing living space within the home.

Okay. And is that the scenario you envision where there would be a balcony, like on a... you attach a junior ADU to make, because somebody else asked a question about a balcony. And I thought by definition, the ADU has got to be detached from the home, no more than 16 feet, can't have a second floor. So I was trying to imagine where you would have a balcony in that scenario.

So the carriage house is the example where it's above the garage, so it's a second story. So if you have a two-story home that has a balcony, the way that you match the ADU with the home

I understand that.

Yeah, to introduce the balcony.

I'll need to go back and refresh my knowledge on the state law. Maybe things have changed since we built our ADU. I think just the other thing, and I provided some comments to Marnie, I just wanted to make sure that whatever guidelines we come up with, Carmel, it doesn't encourage the demolition of existing ADUs. In other words, there's some comments made, I think, about the ADU matching the house. But at some point, the property owner may want to update or remodel the house. So you don't want them to be dictated by the ADU. And there's got to be some flexibility there. But also, there could be scenarios whereby If the way, and Marty provided some comments on this, the way the policy is written, it could encourage the destruction of ADUs. I think that's contrary to the state mandate. I can get the specifics on that. Maybe we could talk separately, but that's the comment I just wanted to make.

Thank you for your comments. Okay, any other comments from the public? We have a...

Hi, my name is Maria Roos, and I have a couple questions. Just to go back to the carriage house, the one thing is if there is a single level home, how high can the carriage house be compared to if it's a single level home and you have a carriage house? What's the height maximum of the carriage house? Single level home, single level garage, carriage house on top. What's the height maximum of that?

It would be 18 feet plus the roof.

18 feet plus the roof and the roof has to match the house. Right. Okay. Now second question, the building entries. There's a lot of designs that you shared. How do those, what do those count against? Do they count against the ADU or they count against the hard floor, the hard cover of the house? Because you have like a little balcony, you have a little path. Where does those count against?

Typically, site coverage. So a balcony is the site coverage? It's not floor area if it's open. So if you have an open porch, that's not floor area.

Okay.

But typically, well, depending... I mean, if you just had an area that was ground cover that was allowed, it wouldn't be site coverage. But typically, you're going to have some type of a hard surface. It's going to be deck, concrete, rock, stone, pavers, and that counts as site coverage.

So is that the case for this, what they're proposing?

Yeah. For the building entries? I think so. This is more the discussion here isn't about site coverage. It's more about the design of the entryway and access to it. At least that's what I got out of the posters for this slide. Is that correct, Maureen?

It is. And that's where the design standards and the local ordinance need to coordinate. And we need to kind of have a conversation about do we want to modify our site coverage standards to grant some allowances for ADUs? or do homeowners need to factor this into the current allowances that they get? So that's kind of a separate conversation that we need to have, but it's good to kind of talk about that now because if we're thinking that we don't want to increase our site coverage allowances, maybe we want to rethink porch sizes as part of the odds.

I think we're also going to get into a potential conflict with the state because we have to allow access to the ADUs that are required to have an entry. And if the material that provides for the entry goes over our site coverage, then I think we're going to have a conflict.

Yeah, I agree. Thank you. Appreciate that.

Okay, we had a hand up online. You want to... Oh, it's Adam. Adam, do you want to talk to us? Unmute yourself.

Good afternoon. Hope you can hear me all. Adam Jeselnik, local architect. Appreciate all the good work being done on this topic. As you know, you've seen a lot of ADU projects over the past four or five years, and I expect that will continue based on the state housing mandates. So just a couple of things that I noticed for consideration. Again, I haven't spent as much time on this as the consultant has or staff, but there do seem to be a few things that might be still need to work out at this stage. One of the things that I think is missing is when it comes to an attached ADU, how the composite setback or percent of the lot with the composite setback. So where that comes into play for an attached ADU or JADU for that matter, conversion of existing space. And then the other item that I thought might be interesting just to sort of talk through, I noticed that there's a suggested requirement for carriage house or a detached ADU to not obstruct more than 50% of the main house. And again, on these 40 foot wide lots, as you know, it's pretty difficult in some cases to site the ADU building And in a lot of cases, we have garages that exist that already obstruct maybe 100% of the main house because they line up, you know, if there's a small cottage behind a garage. So... I'm just curious about how that might be interpreted and whether or not there's some area of that or aspect of that we might want to consider addressing. The last topic I just would bring up is roof slopes is something that we talk about a lot at the Planning Commission for new projects and existing houses. I think that there's probably, again, there's probably some more flexibility warranted in the roof slope. I heard both eclectic and eccentric mentioned earlier as sort of some defining characteristics of Carmel houses. And I think that there's probably space for a house that is say craftsman style and, you know, it's got a three and 12 pitch cause it's a bigger volume and it sits back on the lot. And then maybe the ADU in the front, you know, has a slightly steeper roof because, you know, that's a way to increase the usability of the space, the interior volume. And I don't find that to be sort of in conflict with any sort of overarching design principles or standards. So. Those are my comments, and thank you for the chance to speak.

Thank you, Adam. Okay, I don't see any other hands up. Anybody else here want to make any comments? Okay, I'm going to close the public comments again, bring it back to the commission. So, Marty, you were talking about the feedback. What I got was the staff report wanted feedback on the table of contents. And there was another item. Wake up my computer here. Was there something there, Marnie, that you were?

Essentially, it was all of the key concepts that were presented this afternoon.

Okay. Yeah. All right. So I just want to make sure we start a discussion that we... answer those requested topics. Yeah, go ahead, Commissioner Locke.

Thank you. Yeah, I'd like to say that I actually was very impressed with this document, and I think there's a lot of work done on it, and look forward to seeing how the ADU ordinance harmonizes together with the odds. Comments regarding the odds, the table of contents to me was fine. I think the principle of trying to keep the ADU matching the main house I think is very important. Other comments, I think the question about the second floor ADU is something that we might need to think further about. In terms of privacy on some second floor ADUs and some of the other things we've come up with recently in the Planning Commission, I'm not sure how, I know that there's not a lot of oversight on being able to look at how privacy issues may be affected by an ADU, but I think we need to think about that because if the Planning Commission doesn't have oversight of how those may impact neighbors, that's a concern to me. I also noted that there was a comment on roof forms about copper and weathered copper, and I think we've said copper, we don't want to get copper in there, so I thought I'd point that out. And then a question just in general about trees, landscaping, and this goes to our fire issues in Carmel too, but how do ADUs, do they have fire? Can they set a precedent for removal of trees and landscaping just to be able to put them in and then not have the landscape coverage that we've got? So anyway, just kind of something that I was thinking about. And we answered the question that Nancy posed, which I also thought that was a great question, Nancy. And yeah, I just think this is a good product, and I'm looking forward to seeing this move forward. Thanks.

Commissioner Allen, you want to make your comments?

Yeah, I feel the exact same way. And I really appreciate the time that was put into this. And it's so refreshing to have people working with us that really truly appreciate the community that we have here. And so I am very impressed with this work. And I agree with the focus areas that we talked about tonight. I didn't see anything of concern. I did like the example that Nancy said around putting like a little vehicle into the image because that makes a lot of sense to me. But otherwise, I love the direction that this is going and this addresses all of the concern areas where we as a local establishment and commission can still address. So I think it's fantastic. I'm all for this.

Commissioner Alburn, your comments?

Thank you, Chair. I agree with my fellow commissioners. Excellent work, thank you. This gives us a great foundation But now's the time I think we really have to dive into some of the details so that when we start seeing these percolating through both the planning staff and approvals that they have the clarity that they need and we have the conformity that we absolutely are required to have. I would very much like to see a lot more clarity around when an ADU goes on a second floor, you know, or second story. you know, can we do a carriage ADU if there's a single-story building? You know, if the main is single-story, can we do the carriage? And so on. You know, all of those different options, I think we owe it to anyone wanting to build an ADU to have that clarity for them straight out of the gate. I would like my fellow commissioners to have a conversation about this building entry area. I can see a lot of gray and conflicts relating to whether it's included in the square footage of the ADU, how that impacts our city site coverage concerns. Do we wanna consider having or setting a standard for a minimum building entry area that is adequate and what those standards need to be and then a larger area is then to be included in site coverage so meaning exclude a certain square footage from site coverage as a requirement as part of the ADU and then anything additional to that a larger porch. I mean some of what's given in the examples while looking rather beautiful would kind of take up the entire remaining area in a 4,000 square foot lot. So I would like to see us spend actually quite a bit more time defining how that how the building entry area supports an ADU while also recognizes the reasons why Carmel has site coverage concerns in the first place. And then lastly, the talk about trees and tree removal. You know, our sixth cycle housing element has a program, 13K, and it talks about streamlining tree removal for multifamily, I believe. Is that right? Multifamily projects. We may want to consider whether or not we want to expand that to include... tree removal considerations when an ADU is being proposed, just as a thought, because we already have a mandate for Forest and Beach to consider some language for multifamily, so perhaps we want to include that for ADUs. Those are my comments for now, and thank you.

Commissioner Karapotkoff, your comments?

Thank you, Chair DePage. I think we need to step back and kind of talk a little bit about the purpose of the whole ODDS. And I missed that in the workshop. We didn't state clearly what that is. And today we kind of missed it in the beginning as well. So the whole process that we're discussing today is kind of a a path to bypass certain reviews and certain discussions. So basically, if you follow the rules in this document, you can go through the process quickly, automatically, and there will be no other scrutiny. So that means that if you don't, if you like, do not meet one of the many requirements that we have in the document, then obviously you go through the regular review process, right? That's really the thinking behind that document, but that's at least the way I understand it. So it's really, you follow all the rules and then you're not going to go for the planning commission for a review in any shape and form. you miss one of the rules and then I guess there's some discretion on the planning department side, whether they want to refer it to us or just say it's a minor thing that can stand the way it is. Now, if you look at that from that perspective, the key question is, is it too restrictive? Is it too relaxed? Or is it right where it's supposed to be, right? So if it's too restrictive, nobody's going to use it. So everything is going to end up just not going through that process. It's not going to help us in any way. It's not going to accelerate anything. It is not going to have any impact. It's just going to sit on a piece of paper and nobody's going to be using it because it's just too restrictive. And people will say, in my case, and the architects and the owners will look at that and say, well, on my lot, with my house, I cannot use that. I cannot meet all these requirements. The other thing is, if it's too relaxed, then everybody will rush for that kind of opening to bypass any scrutiny. And then we can end up with situations where we actually want to have a say on certain design elements or the privacy concerns that we addressed with the second story carriage house thing. And it may be just we get lucky and we're right where it's supposed to be. It's like the balance kind of thing that 20%, 40% of the applications will go through that accelerated process. And maybe 70% will come to us at some point because they do not fit the requirements. And then we can possibly in the future adjust it depending on where we want it to be. So that's really the way I understand that whole process. And we can be wrong in the beginning, I guess. And it's probably safer to be wrong on the more restrictive side. And then after a year, we do a pilot. And then after a year, we find out that only two applications went through the process. 98 did not, then we say, well, it's too restrictive. It's not practical. It's not applicable. So then maybe we need to go and do another review and relax it a little bit and find a number percentage that's comfortable for us. What is the comfortable number? Is it 20%? Is it 40%? Do we want to have 50% of the applications to go through that fast lane is the question, right? And you can adjust that by relaxing the requirements or making them stricter. So that's the way I understand how this can work. And maybe I'm completely wrong. So I think in this review process with the community and with all of us, each of us is kind of trying to imagine how that's going to work for their property and for their house. And I'm doing the same thing, and I'm looking at this and saying, OK, so can I go for that process if I decide to build an ADU in the back of my house? Hmm, maybe. Maybe I can meet most of the requirements if I stay on a single level. It's not quite practical. This blank wall stuff, for example, is probably going to kill my project because I have two sites that are hills and there's nothing to watch there. So I don't want to put a window. I don't want to put a balcony. I just want to have blank walls because there's nothing to see on that side. But I could go around that. I can just put some small windows just for the purpose of complying to the requirements and go for that process. It's going to cost me two additional windows that I don't need. So that's kind of the thinking behind it is just requirements maybe used for architects and homeowners to kind of modify their designs to comply and go for the fast lane. And maybe at some point they will say, well, adding this additional stuff is going to cost me so much money. I'm better off not doing it at all. I'll just go through the other process. So if I misunderstood anything, please correct me now because I'm completely confused now.

So there's two different phases to the odds. Phase one is the odds for ADUs and phase two is for the multifamily mixed use. What you described about the option to either use the odds or go through the discretionary review process applies to the multifamily mixed use phase. For the ADUs, state law says we have to approve them. And if we have objective standards, we can apply them. But if we don't, we still have to approve them no matter what they look like.

When you say approve, you mean ministerially. That's what we're talking about.

Right. Through the building permit process. Right. So the benefit of having the odds is we can control what they look like.

Mm-hmm.

but they still have to be ministerial. So the odds for ADUs, whatever we create is what homeowners have to work within, but the odds for multifamily mixed use is where the developer can choose, I like your odds, I wanna use them, or they're too restrictive, I'd rather go through your discretionary review process.

One follow-up question. So let's imagine the scenario, I submit an application for an ADU, but it has two blank walls that are bigger than 100 square feet, right? What happens then? Do I comply with the odds or not? And will that be approved or not?

So you do need to comply with the odds to get approved.

Okay. And if I'm not complying with the odds?

Then you don't get approved. I think we have some exceptions, right? We're building in some exceptions to allow for some deviation. Right, Tony? Yes. But in general, the concept is like your ADU needs to match the house. So unless there's an exception built in, that allows the director ministerially to waive a very small component of the odds, you need to follow them.

So I'll need to go and build these additional windows that I don't need and put big curtains on them because I don't need nothing to see just to comply with the odds?

Maybe.

That would be a good way of doing it. OK.

Okay. Tony, is there anything you want to add to that?

Yes.

Okay.

That if the standards that we're considering right now are asking you to consider, again, they're in administrative draft. These aren't ready for publication yet. That's why we're talking. If the standards result in a situation that the Planning Commissioner is identifying where windows would be in a useless situation, then we don't want to have such a standard. We would not write that standard. Right now, we don't know that that's the case. If we're shown situations where that is the case, then we don't want to write a standard like that. So I just want to offer that for any of the standards we've prepared. If there are situations or nuances to the standards where you say, yeah, but here's a situation where this wouldn't make any sense, we want to know about that so that we can either revise it or, in the scenario you laid out, not even require it in that case.

Yeah, but the requirement makes sense. Like the requirement to have a window or a balcony or whatever on a blank wall makes sense from a design perspective in general. But how do we handle these edge cases, like my case, for example, where the logical location of the ADU does call for no windows and no balconies on one or two walls. How do we handle that? You don't want to completely just drop the requirement because they're like 1% of the cases where that's not applicable.

Right, but that's what I'm saying. It's either the standard needs to be adjusted to recognize something that will happen more than once, and if it's a very rare situation, then it's what Marnie was talking about. It goes into the adjustments or exceptions that we can write into this set of standards, which we have not written yet. which would accommodate that and say, if this happens, then don't apply the standard or reduce it in this way. I just want to make very clear, the consultant team is not out to apply standards that would produce... frustrating results or frustrate applicants. That's not what we're trying to do at all. So we need your help to tell us, oh, that requirement is headed toward frustrating an applicant in this way or a design in the following way. And we would need to know that so that we can adjust accordingly.

So just to finish here, one more comment. So really the call to action here is for every member of our community to think of a potential ADU that they want to build at some point on their property, look at the standard and tell you and us if there's anything that would prevent them to do it by following the ODDS. And if there is something, we can figure out a way how to include it in the standard. Is that what you're thinking is?

I mean, yeah, it'd be great to have more people involved reviewing these, yes, certainly, Commissioner, yeah. But not everybody has that time, so we appreciate everybody's time that can be put into this. At the same time, we will do some eternal thinking further and try to foresee those situations as much as we can. But you're right there. You know your community way better than Ben will ever.

Okay, thank you. Okay, good. All right. There's a lot of information here and a lot of good comments, too. Yeah, my focus on this was in a few directions. First of all, I was looking for the fire compliance, and I think they did a good job with that. It's woven in throughout the document. They talk about using fire resilient, combustible resilient materials on the roofs, the windows, siding, so that's in there. Did a good job with that. The table of contents, I thought it was fine. I mean, it's a developing thing, but they've covered it all. The focus of this document is to give us control over the design of these ADUs. That's the whole point. And they correctly identified, I think, three topics. It was, you know, the placement, that they are subordinate to the style of the architecture on the lot. There was one other one. I'm not quite sure where it was. Maybe just the design. But that's really what I see these being. I mean, the ordinances are going to have more language in them. I'd like to see... definite language which says that the height of an attached ADU cannot exceed the height of the existing building, you know, the residence attached to. If it's detached, then it should meet whatever the state allowance is or whatever ours is, whichever is less. We talked about some potential issues about site coverage and entrance. If you have ADUs, which are in the back of the property, we're probably going to have to modify our site coverage, and that's going to have to be, it's addressed here, and they've talked about it, so I think we're fine here, but we are going to have some conflicts with our existing site coverage. Also, I think Adam brought up the issue about composite setbacks. Basically, the way I understand the state law is, on the sides and rear, you can't make it any more than four feet. Ours is less. It's three feet, so we don't really have an issue with that, but we do have the composite setback. So I think the state is going to take the position that if we are using our composite setback and that violates their minimum four-foot setback allowed, then I think we're going to have to modify the the ordinances, and also I think it could affect the design element of this as it's being presented. Because there's a lot of information here about placement. And if we get into conflicts with that hard and fast state set back on the sides and the back, then I think we're going to have some problems there. So we need to look at that a little closer and see if that works out. The other thing which we're trying to do is maintain village character. Now, I want to ask a question of staff, because when we had presentation about the proposed ordinances, staff was talking about eliminating the size of these ADUs because of our LCP. Where did that go? Is there any? I mean, it was sort of a theory. a working theory. The way I understood it was our LCP defined the floor area. So if we go over and above the floor area, we're violating the LCP. And the whole community is in the coastal zone. So how do we reconcile that?

That is a great question. We're still working through that. If we must require ADUs of a certain size, which would put floor area over on these residential lots, then part of adoption of the ordinance would require an amendment to existing policy. So then it's just kind of like working that out, how much is enough to both be compliant with our LCP and state law. So we're still working on balancing that.

Yeah, I think that's going to be huge. Definitely. Because state laws, I understand it. I mean, they've got very objective numbers, you know. It's 150 minimum for a junior ADU, 500 max for a junior ADU, one bedroom detached or attached ADU, 800 square feet. you know, and then max 1,000. That's the way I understand it. Actually, I think the state goes up to 1,200. I'm not quite sure where this 1,000 and 1,200 is. Can I? Yeah, go ahead, Tony, if you've got any comments.

So, yeah, in state law, it says 1,200 if you have a noncompliant housing element, 1,000 if you do.

What was that again?

The 1,200 is a provision about a non-compliant housing element.

Okay, all right. The other one was 1,000. Yeah, and in the county, certain overlay districts, they're limiting square footage there, too. So, because I submitted a 1,200 square foot ADU to the county, and it was in the Toro Park overlay, and they have a special... condition there that you can only have 800 square feet in Thorpe Park overlay. How they got there, I don't know, but that's what they're enforcing. So there are apparently some conditions where they can't, you know, square footage can't be deviated or limited compared to, you know, with regards to state law. So one reason why I bring this up is because we are, we have a document here. We've got a letter from from I think it's called the HDF. It's a housing defense. I don't know what that F stands for. Is it fund or? whatever. But they're taking a pretty hard line here, accusing this document of having a lot of conflicts. I did a little preliminary analysis. I didn't come up with as many conflicts as they had. It was really only, really kind of had to do with size limits and potential height and a couple other things, but not anywhere near what they're claiming. So I'm not too worried about that, but But it does bring up the larger issue that we have to stay within the state mandate in the attempt to have some type of control over the character of these buildings, these ADUs. The other thing I wanted to bring up the last year is just that And there's a little bit of this camp today. We need to always be aware of simplifying the language for clarity. And a lot of these technical terms and ratios are a little complex. I think the window ratio was pretty complex. The measurements about finish grade, you know, and there's a concept they're thinking there about horizontal expression line. You know, we need to look at those. We need to be consistent. There's abbreviations that are about max and minimum, and then there's also maximum limitations, so there needs to be consistency through the document. Also, with the visual glossary, there needs to be some explanation. Oh, the other thing while I'm at it, The porch section really needs some work because those giant porches, we're just not going to have that. I mean, that's not really applicable to this. And the photos of these sort of Victorian area houses with big porches, you know, we're dealing with 40 by 100 square foot lots. And really, we've got a house on there. If you've got a house on there that's 1,000 square feet, you're not going to end up with a house on there, an ADU on there that's got a big, huge porch. You know, it's not that we don't need those definitions, but I don't think they need to be up front in the porch. I think they're right up front. You know, I think we should be emphasizing how do you design ADU entranceways that have to do with the types of ADUs we're going to be seeing, which is going to be smaller ones, you know. And, you know, but there is, you know, I don't know if on the state level, but on the other municipalities I'm dealing with, they have a requirement that you have to have a defined, you know, entry. Not just a separate one, but defined. So it has to be some definition. So we need to look at that. Yeah, and just the visual keys need to be a little better and have some labels on them. And then also to expand the quick user guide, ensure that this section includes plain language. you know, summaries of the most common terms, such as setback and differences between, you know, closed and opened, things like that. So just to focus, to keep the language simple, and really focused on, can a layperson read this and figure out, you know, how to do this? You know, because if it isn't a useful document, we're not going to get what we want here. You know, people are just going to, you know, look at the AD ordinance and the... the code, and they're going to come in with that. And that may work, but it may not lead to the best design that they would submit. So it may be approvable to the administrator or whoever, but they won't get all the nuance that we're trying to put into this document. So those are my comments. Any other comments you want to close up? Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. Chair, could we please talk about the porch and the dooryard building entries?

I want to bring that up.

Given the standard size of our lot, this doesn't make any sense to me.

You think so?

I'm sorry.

I thought when I first saw that, this is ridiculous. But it's just, you know, I understand what you're trying to do, but it doesn't really, it's not applicable to what we have going on here.

Oh, it isn't?

What am I trying to do that's not applicable?

Oh, I thought what I'm trying, I would like to support the ADU builder in having suggested building entry designs that support the need of the ADU and to suggest that you can have a 12 foot minimum by 20 foot maximum porch, that's almost our whole lot. You know what I mean? How can we address this section so that... Well, the size of the lot kind of addresses it.

I mean, you can't really do this on most of the lot.

Precisely. So let's...

So that's all I was saying is that rather than putting it up front, they've got a separate section here. It's got ADU building entries. Well, that's what I'm... Yeah, rather than putting it up front in the examples, you know, you know, move the other, you know, they've got the stoop last, you know. And the stoop is really more applicable to what, you know, the types of ADUs that we are going to be seeing.

Well, either raised or at grade level.

The dooryard was kind of an interesting concept.

I mean, they're lovely, but I'm not sure how well these apply. I think they need to be caramelized.

We're going to get into site coverage, setback issues.

And we need to figure that out.

That just needs a little more thought in what we're really trying to achieve here. But it's, you know, I brought up because it's just problematic the way it is right now, and it isn't necessarily relevant to what we're dealing with. So I would suggest a little more from the, you know, the consultant's part here, I would suggest that you put more emphasis on developing some ideas around smaller entryways, you know. I know in... You know, one of the things that I've run up against is they want a covered, you know, in other words, if you have an existing, like if you have an attached ADU, or when you're doing a garage conversion specifically, that's not a junior ADU, the entryway has to have some kind of definition. So typically, you can't just stick a door on the side of a garage. You need to have a definition in terms of the roof line that says, this is where the entry is. There's some indication. So it isn't just the roof overhang needs to be extended over that door area to create an architectural element that signals that this is the entry to this particular attached ADU. So that's one thing that I've run up against. And that's been pretty consistent. And that's, you know, that's more relevant to what we're going to be seeing.

I agree.

Yeah. Detached is more flexible. But a detached ADU, you know, is going to require more space. It's going to require a bigger lot. And we have seen some of those. You know, we've seen some, you know, there are a few bigger lots around town. Not a whole lot. There's, interestingly enough, there's some down by the beach. You know, there's some pretty big lots down there right on the beach side of Scenic, you know, when you get up closer to Ocean Avenue.

Right.

Yeah, there's some big lots in there.

Somehow we're going to have to balance our LCP, our site coverage. We know that the floor area ratio, we understand how that works. But we have to fold all this in so that we have clarity when these projects come through. And I don't quite see that as yet. But I know it's on its way.

Well, it's been a lot of good objective work done here to define a lot of things. I think we're on the right track. We just need to get focused on some of those areas. So I'm going to, there seem like fewer hands up. Let's get a few more comments. This is really just a kind of a workshop. So come on up, make your comments.

Very quick question, Mary Gifford. You might be able to tell me if we built hypothetically 200 ADUs and we have a requirement of 300 units, is that right? For the city of Carmel? 349. I think you're right. Yes, 349. How many of those ADUs, let's say we build 100, will they go towards that 349? They will, yes. That's a really good thing because Woodside just did that. Very similar in feel to Carmel with the city of Woodside. And they did, but I wasn't sure that was true here. That's good to know. Yes, they do count. Thank you.

Come on up. I have a follow-up question to that. So if an ADU is destroyed, it'll be taken down for whatever reason. It's deducted from the state count, right? This went less towards your 349.

It is not, no. It's not? No. Our responsibility is to create 349 new units. Right. Like I said before,

One of my comments was to implement guidelines that would not encourage the destruction of ADUs that already were built. Because there are scenarios whereby if you're looking to rebuild your home, the ADU then is considered your primary home.

I don't think you would count that. You know, the way that Salinas handles this is every single ADU has a deed restriction. And it says that that ADU has to remain an ADU. So you can't, if you get a permit in Salinas for an ADU, it's an ADU forever. Until it, doesn't matter if it's, you know, and it's a notification to the next property owner that this is an ADU. It cannot be sold as a separate property. You can't subdivide the property, sell it off as a separate property. I appreciate that. You cannot change the use of it. It's always an ADU. Got it.

So it's your...

So it is effectively, because it cannot be sold, it is effectively, it is either a rental or is in an additional space that the property owner can use it. If they want to use it for a family member, you know, something like that. But it's always going to be designated as an ADU and cannot be sold.

So in a hypothetical situation where there's property with an existing ADU and the property owner wants to build a new home or just, you know... modify their home or tear it down and build a new home, the ADU continues to be an ADU.

You can't tear it down with this particular deed restriction. We don't have that. But I would suggest to Carmel that we put a deed restriction on every single ADU because that is a way that municipalities can control these ADUs.

That's what we're trying to do here is expand our control. You could tear down the primary home and build a new home while retaining the ADU. And the ADU stays the ADU. Okay. You could remodel it. That's not the advice I got from this office.

You could remodel the ADU. You could do repairs to it. But it's always an ADU. And it can't be... And with a deed restriction, it's always acknowledged and recorded as an ADU. So any state restrictions that apply to ADUs, those are going to be maintained in perpetuity. Any ordinances which the city has, those are going to remain in perpetuity. It'll be treated like a residence, like any other structure, if it needs maintenance or if you want to do some upgrades on it. It doesn't mean you're going to be able to expand the size or it still has to meet

No, I get that. I just want to make sure that the ADU tails that were in wagging the dog of the other primary home and to come up with a perverse, I think, scenario that the state of California had not intended. Yeah, and I've given you some comments to Marty on that and we could talk separately after that. Okay, thanks.

Thanks for your comment. Come on up.

Kevin Roos. I guess this is a question in relation to you know ADUs you also described deed restrictions. We're saying I think you said Marnie correct me if I'm wrong that basically every ADU that's built counts toward the housing element requirement for 349. How is the requirement that those be different levels of income accommodated by that statement?

That's a $64,000 question. Pardon? That's the $64,000 question.

I know. Well, it's the one that needs to be answered. Absolutely. It is.

Is that a rhetorical question?

No, that's a real question. No, because, and let's be, and if you, I mean, I know we're gonna have an update on the housing element, and I'm not a believer in counting ADUs against the 349, because right now, out of the 300, out of the 70 that we're counting against the housing element of ADUs, only one is being rented, where I have found that there's maybe a second one. The other ones are empty spaces, that people are just building to expand the space of their houses, but they're not being used to create new housing. So I would ask that we continue to believe that this solution is not necessarily an applicable one to the housing element requirements of building housing for all affordable levels. And I know we have 144 requirements for very low income to low income. So those that we have even separated the housing element should not be even considered as part of a DU solution, even though we say that every one that we're building is going to be a solution for that. So I will continue to speak out to this because I don't think we're doing the right thing by counting them against the housing element. Thank you.

Well, we're kind of in a, we're in a legal position here. You know, we have to provide this housing. So whatever means we can do it in terms of the legal definition, that's what we have to do. Is that correct, Marnie? I mean, I understand exactly what you're saying. Right. And we, you know, the dilemma is we can't tell property owners that they have to rent their ADUs.

Unless you de-restrict, like you said.

So they have, you know, in many, you know, because we're in an area where we have higher real estate values and we have property owners that don't need the income, you know, they're not motivated by income. You know, now you go to different communities, you know, like Salinas or the communities in South, you know, Monterey County, Greenfield, Gonzales, you know, those places, they're really motivated.

Right.

You know, and they're not just building one ADU. They're building a detached ADU, a junior ADU, you know, an attached ADU. And they're trying to maximize, you know, the... you know, the income and also a lot of them are already in situations where they were already renting out their garage illegally and they want to get legal. So there's a lot, you know, it just, it depends on the demographics.

Right. Or your deed restriction solution, maybe like you say.

That gets you partially there. It doesn't get you all the way there, but it gets you partially there.

I agree. Thank you.

So I will provide my serious answer because I do take this very seriously. And I want to get my numbers right because I have a little bit of dyslexia. Our market rate obligation is 118 units. And as of right now, all of our new ADU construction is counting towards that market rate obligation. Our lower income, is the remainder, the difference between the 349 and the 118, which I think is 281. That is gonna be the most challenging for us to get, and we have multiple strategies in order to achieve that. In order for us to be able to get lower income ADUs, we're going to have to incentivize property owners in some way that they will voluntarily deed restrict their ADUs. A lot of the ADUs that we see are conversions of existing structures. They're smaller ADUs, less than 400 square feet. So they lend themselves to being more affordable in a market like ours. But getting property owners to agree to a deed restriction and agree to renting them out to a lower income household is a huge hurdle. And we have to find the right incentive in order to be able to start counting those towards our lower income. So right now, Homeowners are, you know, they're stepping up to the plate to create the ADUs. So we're able to count them towards our market rate RENA. But the inherent problem is that the vast majority are likely vacant and they are not lower income.

Yeah, I asked you this question early on in this process. I said to you, I said, isn't deed restriction the only way you're going to get a low-income ADU? And you said, yeah. And there's just not a lot of incentive for people to put a deed restriction on their property. There really isn't. I mean, I've probably designed 30 ADUs, and not one person has ever said to me, I want to put a deed restriction on this. I mean, there's a lot of incentives, and a lot of them are great. One of them I love was I had an extended family. They had the mothers living there, the daughters living there with some kids. There was an aunt there. They were using the garage as a bedroom. So she was able to make a junior ADU out of the garage, which you can share a bathroom inside the house. Now, most people wouldn't want to do that, but if you have an extended family, you're already doing it. You know, so you just stick a utility kitchen in the garage. It's a junior ADU. She, and then she, uh, built a detached ADU for herself. She's going to move into that. And, you know, so really, but you know, the, the, uh, you know, the low income deed restriction, I don't know, it's going to be a huge hurdle. I mean, there's some of the, you know, the different programs we have, it's going to be interesting to see if those work out, you know, the work share program downtown or the work live program, you know, the conversion of underperforming hotel rooms, you know, where you can switch the keys to a different location, you know, I have to see if this, and the churches, the churches I think is a big potential. You know, they're one of the organizations which, you know, theoretically would be motivated to put a deed restriction on.

And, you know, we're not giving up on ADUs. You know, the Affordable Housing Alternatives Group, AHA, of which, you know, Nancy has been an instrumental part of, you know, the ADU subcommittee in coming up with some innovative ideas on other ways that we can count ADUs as affordable without deed restrictions. Like we're still exploring ways to do that. So we have not given up on them. The deed restriction is the most challenging, but there are other ways to be able to count them for affordable housing.

Yeah, the rent would have to be at a certain rate The scenario... For a bedroom, for just a bedroom with utility kitchen in Carmel, you're going to get between $2,500 and $3,000 a month.

So that is the traditional rental model.

And we're getting a thumbs up over here.

Right. But there's the home caretakers, right? There's the elderly family member that you're caring for. There's those different types of... those living situations.

So if they aren't paying rent, then that would qualify as low income.

If that individual would otherwise be occupying another housing unit, but instead they're living in the ADU.

Would they have to file a tax return to the state agency every year to maintain that without doing a deed restriction?

We still need to explore those options. But Just to say we haven't given up on it. Yeah.

Come on up.

We're getting a little sidetracked.

We're starting to hit our momentum here. We may get out of here for a while.

It's just a quick question, because you mentioned the deed restrictions in Salinas, which strike me as a very interesting model. And you used the words in perpetuity. I'm not aware that there is a requirement that deed restrictions be in perpetuity. I think you could impose a deal.

Yeah, that may be the wrong term. Once I say it, I realize it may be the wrong term.

Deed restricted for low-income families. for X number of years, and I don't know what X is. So there may be other ways to skin this cat that would make it more palatable. And I imagine the AHA group has thought about this. Thank you.

Okay, any more comments? Any more comments over here?

CHAIR.

COMMISSIONER CARVILLE. AND, OH, WE HAVE, WE DO HAVE ANOTHER ITEM ON OUR AGENDA. I THINK WE HAVE A HOUSING ELEMENT.

I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF THE PLANNING COMMISSION WOULD ALSO LIKE FOR US TO DISCUSS OTHER POTENTIAL THINGS TO LOOK AT IN TERMS OF THE ODDS FOR ADUs. AND THESE THINGS WOULD BE ISSUES THAT HAVE COME UP recently within the last couple of years, like a second or a rooftop deck on top of ADUs. There are other things. It might be a little bit tricky, but how does ADU or do, should we account ADUs into volumetrics? That gets a little messy because we can't

I don't think you can count on volume metrics. As far as the rooftop, my understanding is anything that is outside the ADU, that's under the purview of design review. So if your ADU, once you get outside of it, then it's under design review. Is that correct?

That's my understanding as well.

That's what we've been doing. But as you can see with what we've presented this evening, we've given this allowance for a balcony in the odds. So I guess maybe the question is, some of these other items, do you want us to incorporate them into the odds as objective design elements?

To be honest with you, I was kind of surprised to see that there.

Yeah, I would prefer.

Because it's outside the ADU and it does, you know, and we struggle so much with these second story, you know, balconies, decks. And some of them are pretty small, but they still have, you know, impact. So it almost seems to me like that moves into the area of design review, discretionary design review. And I don't know if that really should be in there.

I mean, it's not a state requirement.

It's just kind of a design element that I think the consultant put in there to try to create some opportunity for character. Was that your motivation, Tony, for the balconies?

Yeah, simply to address the element.

So if it does start to then creep out into the outside of the ADU, or like it opens a door to us not having control over what goes on around the ADU, then I would suggest removing that.

Well, I think also because the ADUs have so much potential for impact, you know, on the surrounding properties, that I think it's a better strategy that we just don't make an objective design, you know, standard for something which is exterior to the ADU. I think that's probably a better strategy.

Unless, do you agree? No, I agree.

Does the balcony have any feeding into the fire escape option?

I'm sorry. Sorry to make you get up, Nancy, but...

So does the balcony help with fire escape options for an ADU at all? Does it help fire code?

You have to have your egress requirements. Any sleeping room has to have an egress requirement. They're pretty specific about size of the opening, the height of the sill. But if they're on a second story, there's no requirement to have a balcony or a ladder or anything like that.

You just have to be able to jump to your death.

Or into a dumpster, you know, you always see that. Okay, all right, enough of this nonsense. So we have a director's report on the six cycle housing element amendment and implementation.

I have a short PowerPoint.

Marnie, before you start, I just want to say thank you to the Planning Commission. We're going to sign off, but thank you very much for having us tonight. Thank you for your input and direction. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Tony. We appreciate it.

Thank you.

Okay, so under the director's report this afternoon, I just wanted to use this opportunity to give the commission an update on our six cycle housing element, both the amendment as well as our implementation efforts of the adopted housing element, excuse me, So as you may recall, we adopted our housing element back in April of 2024. It has been certified by the State Department of Housing and Community Development. And then in July of 2024, we started working on exploring an amendment to our housing element. So tonight is just a brief informational report on the amendment and our implementation efforts. So I'm gonna start with an update on the amendment and then I'll follow with an update on some implementation efforts. So regards to the housing element update, housing element amendment update, we did submit a revised housing element amendment to the state towards the end of March for their 60 day review. They did reach out to us with some minor revisions. We did make those minor revisions and we actually resubmitted this morning back to them. They are still within their initial 60 day review period. So we are still on track to get a formal comment letter from them by the end of this month. Once we receive that formal comment letter, we do expect it to be a substantial compliance letter, which means that we can proceed with our adoption hearings. So we've tentatively scheduled those for the Planning Commission in June and then the City Council in July. Following the adoption hearings, we would then submit back to the state for final certification of the amendment, and then we would shift our implementation efforts to the amended housing element. All of our housing element amendment update efforts are posted on our website. So if you go to our housing page, there is a tab for the 2023 to 2031 housing element. There you can see the initial amendment that we submitted to the state, the state's original comment letter, and then the revisions that we have made and resubmitted. Each time we make revisions, we are required to post them for a seven-day public comment period. And then any public comments that we receive, we are required to... provide written responses as warranted, and then submit those comments and responses back to the state with our resubmittal. So all of those are posted on our website. This morning's submittal will be uploaded tomorrow. So moving on to just some implementation updates. Some of these may sound familiar to you. PROGRAM, AND THESE ARE, AGAIN, THESE ARE UPDATES ON OUR EXISTING ADOPTED HOUSING ELEMENT. PROGRAM 1.2.A, OUR WATER DISTRIBUTION PRIORITIZATION, THE CITY COUNCIL DID ADOPT A RESOLUTION IN NOVEMBER OF 2025 FOR THE WATER ALLOCATION UPDATE, SO THAT IMPLEMENTED THAT PROGRAM OF THE ADOPTED HOUSING ELEMENT. B is our objective design and development standards, which is in progress, which is also part of what you participated in this evening. Then program 3.2.A was an update to our reasonable accommodation procedures. We actually completed that program in September of 2025, when the city council adopted an update to that policy. Program 5.1.a regarding fair housing services. This was a requirement to post some information to the city's website. We've really put a lot more effort into making sure that there's more resources online for residents who are looking for information about housing resources. And then program 5.1.D is a requirement specifically for information with respect to resources for farm workers, even though we don't have a farm worker population in Carmel. State law is state law. And so we've posted some resources that point people back to some information that's available on the county's website. We have it up in both English and Spanish. So anyone who happens to come to our website looking for any type of information or resources, whether it be for themselves or for someone that they work with, one of their loved ones, that information is there and available for them. So, Also on the implementation side, we've been working on some general municipal code amendments for quite some time. We had made a presentation to the planning commission back in February of 2025. and then got kind of busy with the housing element amendment and these municipal code amendments kind of sat on the shelf for a little bit, but we're dusting them off. And our schedule is to bring them back to the planning commission at your August meeting. And these are the real sort of general municipal code amendments that state law requires that we implement. They're not affected by the housing element amendment, so there's something that we can take care of right away. This includes adding definitions related to employee housing, manufactured homes, addressing the Forest and Beach Commission finding that Commissioner Alborn mentioned earlier this evening, looking at potentially some adjustments to our parking requirements, just specific to residential uses. Regarding establishing minimum densities, so some of these programs we can only implement in part at this time because they are affected by the amendment. So this program is just a prohibition on the construction of new single family dwellings in the commercial district. And this really is just to make way for more multifamily housing. Also, again, more definitions for different housing types. We do have a requirement under state law to adopt some regulations for emergency shelters. The more I sort of delved into this, the more complex it started getting, so that may or may not be part of the package that you see in August. I'm still working on that, and hopefully I can include it, but it's still to be determined. Regarding implementation under the amended housing element, just to give you a little bit of a preview since we are trending towards adoption hearings, we have been discussing prioritizing certain programs under the housing element amendment with the idea that These programs are the most likely to produce housing units the quickest. So we want to try to get these programs kind of stood up as quickly as possible. And that's the Hotel to Residential Transfer of Development Rights Program, the Mixed Income Incentive Program, and the Live Work Program. So we have started some preliminary ordinance drafting The AHA group will be reviewing some early drafts in June and giving city staff some feedback. And we're working on some pretty ambitious schedules to try to get all ordinances drafted and adopted by the end of this year. So just to kind of summarize the next steps under the housing element amendment, State should complete their review by the end of this month. We're working on doing the environmental review in-house and trending for adoption hearings in June and July. And then for implementation, the odds for ADUs that we kind of talked about this evening, we do hope to be back to the Planning Commission in July with a full public draft. and then moving that forward to city council later this summer, and then bringing those general municipal code amendments to the planning commission in August. So lots happening on the housing front. You'll be seeing more of me in the next couple months than you have as of late.

Okay, any questions for staff? Go ahead.

Riveting. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. So very exciting. So much work that we don't see that has gone into this. A sincere thank you. I do have one question primarily for my own clarity. Just understanding, I mean, we had this excellent workshop today about the odds and the progress with the odds. But us reviewing the odds and accepting them, that's not the end of it. There's a whole series of steps that need to take place and interdependencies as well. We have interdependencies with the ADU ordinance, right? And are there other municipal code and zoning changes that we're going to need to make? I mean, what does the whole package look like so that, what are all the different parts that go together so that these objective standards, and I'm speaking right now specifically just to the ADUs. What are all of the steps that need to take place in order for that to be solid inside our planning department?

Good question. Sorry about that. Excellent question. So the odds for ADUs is trending for adoption in, what did I say? I think it's coming to us in July, right? In July. And then on to city council in August and September. I think our ADU ordinance is trending towards the end of this year. At least our housing element has a timeline of a goal of getting that adopted by the end of the year.

Well, and the draft is well under underway.

Yeah.

For the ordinance.

Yeah. So the hope is that by the end of this year, both the odds and the ordinance are going to, they're going to meet up together. Awesome. And ideally go to the coastal commission together. But if we need to take the odds out in advance of the local ordinance, we're prepared to do that so that we can start implementing the design guidelines right away.

So, oh, I see. So you could take the odds to the Coastal Commission separate from the ordinance if the timing, if that just makes more sense. Well, that's excellent to know. And then do we have to do, and CEQA, in what part does... Director Jeanette, what part does CEQA play in all of this?

So I guess I can tackle it piece by piece. There is an exemption for local coastal program adoption and amendments. But the housing element is really a general plan implementation. and not really our local coastal program implementation. So CEQA for adoption of the amendment, that will be done similar to how there was an environmental review for adoption of the original. Of course. For individual ordinances, I would say unless we can clearly exempt it under the LCP exemption, then there would have to be some level of environmental review for each ordinance. It's more of a programmatic review, though.

Rather than an individual project review.

Right. So it's a lot of assumptions of what this ordinance would result in in the change to the physical environment.

Got it. Thank you. You're welcome. And thank you. So well done.

Okay, I think we're finished up. Our next meeting is, regular meeting is June 10th. We're adjourned. Thank you, everyone.