Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Could people please take their seats?

Could you please take your seats? Thank you.

All right. So I would like to call to order the regular meeting of the Carmel Planning Commission. And can we have a roll call, please?

Commissioner Alborn? Here. Commissioner Petkoff?

Here.

Commissioner Locke? Here. And Commissioner Roos?

Here.

All present.

Thank you. We do have one absent member. Commissioner LePage is out of the area today, so I am serving as chair. At this time, we'll take public appearances. If there are members of the public who would like to speak on matters of municipal concern not on the agenda, now would be the time. Please limit your comments to three minutes. and stating your name is optional, but we would like to know who you are.

Thank you very much for allowing me this opportunity this evening to speak with you. My name is Terry Hallock. I own a home at now 610 Guadalupe Street. It's aka Northeast Corner of Guadalupe and Ocean Avenue. And my comments this evening refer to the Mardani project that's at Ocean Avenue for Northeast of Guadalupe. I'll specifically address the design study 21-376 dated June 11, 2024. From the very beginning of this project in 2021, the preservation of and access to the shared circular driveway was a major concern specifically for the safety of the residents of the three cottages that were exiting onto Ocean Avenue. From the beginning, the city indicated this driveway was on city property, was in the public right-of-way, could not be blocked, and was to be continued to be shared by the residents of the three cottages as it has been for 80 years. In the June 11th, 2024 staff report that was submitted by Marnie Waffle and approved by Brandon Swanson, it was stated over 27 feet of unimproved right-of-way will be maintained in the natural state between the front property line and the edge of the roadway on Ocean Avenue. And this was repeated in this design study and several times within each one. At the May 13th, 2026 planning meeting, I believe that these were to review plans for a deck, There were no pavers in the plan, but the plan was not approved for other reasons. On July 28th, a redesigned plan was presented with pavers, although they were not the specific item to be presented for approval, but the plan was approved by Brandon Swanson. I did not see the plan until late August, and the applicant had already begun the process of installing the pavers at that time. The city needs to enforce the requirements stated multiple times in official documents and have the pavers removed from the 27-foot right-of-way. In a conversation at the planning window with city staff, I was informed that even after a successful final review, the city could take action on items not meeting the city's directives. But the pavers alone do not block access to the driveway. The applicant has indicated that the 27 feet of public right of way is a private driveway. It appears to be a private driveway with the pavers leading it up to the garage. And it has been indicated that it should not and cannot be driven over by the residents of the other two cottages. So in my last conversation at the window with the planning staff, I was told that the solution to the problem of the applicant blocking the driveway by parking in it, because now the parking space becomes the garage, that the and not allowing access over that paved area to the rest of the shared driveway was to call the police. So the police are the enforcement of the city directive. So I'm requesting also that not only the pavers be removed, but also if the city could take one more step in the process of educating the residents And in writing, provide notice that the right-of-way should not be blocked by parking in it, and that all three cottages still have access to that shared circular driveway, including the applicant, who now does not have to back out over Ocean Avenue with her children in the backseat of her car, which is the beauty of a shared driveway.

Thank you very much for your comments. Yes, I'm aware that there's been correspondence back and forth with the city and we'll follow up, ask staff to follow up and please let's take a look at this. I know this was a lot of discussion that we had on the planning commission as well.

If I could take 30 more seconds or 15, I would say that there was another resident here tonight that's just told me that she and the owner of the middle cottage have asked for another meeting on-site with the city planning and it might take place on Friday so that they can nail down the details of who has access to what. So that's a positive step.

Yeah, that is a positive step. Thank you very much for coming forward. Are there any other public appearances today? Anybody online?

We have one online.

Katherine Carlson. Catherine, would you unmute yourself? She did want to speak.

Yes, can you hear me?

Yes, thank you.

Okay, good. So good evening. My name is Catherine Carlson. Commissioners, I'm back before you because I believe the direction you gave on DS2563 Mardani also has not been taken seriously or properly enforced by city staff. I came before this commission on May 13th with my attorney because of serious compliance issues with my neighbor's property, which is now very close to completion. You considered those issues and gave specific direction regarding the drainage system and the removal of an associated wall that had been built without approval. The problem is what happened afterwards. First current photographs do not show that the drainage pit has been relocated. City staff has also been unable to explain its current design whether the approved plans accurately reflect its current design and the requirements of the Planning Commission or exactly where it is now. This is unacceptable. Second, you specifically required the wall associated with the drainage system to be removed. Although it no longer appears on the plan and is not counted as site coverage, Only the top layer was cut off. The base, approximately two feet high, remains. On August 27th, I provided the city with photographs documenting this. Staff now says a visual inspection determined that the wall was removed. But immediately after my photos were taken, the area was covered by dirt, rocks, and a potted plant. There are no photographs or documentation showing how complete removal was verified. Again, this is unacceptable. I'd also like to comment on the driveway, but I think everything has been said. I mean, the applicant, what she calls her driveway is seven feet long. It's not even long enough for half a car. And yet city staff has approved an additional 27 feet through the right of way, even though the staff report said that this 27 feet had to remain unimproved. That was part of the basis for finding that the project complied with the Carmel residential design guidelines. Commissioners, your decision should not become optional once the meeting is over. I'm not asking you to take my word over the city's, I'm asking you to ensure that your own decisions are actually enforced. If the city believes your direction has been satisfied, it should be able to demonstrate exactly how. If it cannot, compliance has not been adequately established. I respectfully ask this commission to require staff to go back, verify each requirement against your actual direction and approval, and provide a clear factual explanation of how each has been satisfied before final approval is granted. City staff work for the citizens of Carmel and by extension this commission. They are obligated to act transparently, fairly, and professionally. I ask you to ensure that they do so. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Carlson.

Are there any other comments? Seeing none, we will move to announcements. Do we have any announcements? NO ANNOUNCEMENTS. ALL RIGHT. WE HAVE A CONSENT CALENDAR. THE CONSENT AGENDA... OH, I'M SORRY. I WANTED TO TALK ABOUT ITEM E. ITEM E, STONE, IS A PUBLIC HEARING. AS WE GO TO EACH ONE AT THAT TIME, YOU'D BE ABLE TO SPEAK. OKAY. THANK YOU. all right so at this time our consent agenda members of the commissioner public may ask that any items be considered individually for purposes of board commission discussion and or for public comment otherwise we can adopt the agenda in one motion on the agenda today is the august 19th 2026 special meeting minutes and the august 19th 2026 regular meeting minutes Do we have any, anyone want to pull anything? Yeah, I make a motion to move forward.

I'll second that motion.

Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Can we have roll call, please?

Commissioner Alborn? Yes. Commissioner Karapetkov?

Yes.

Commissioner Ruse? Yes. And Commissioner Locke?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Great. Consent calendar has been approved. Now at this time, our first order of business is to receive an update and provide feedback on the work plan for the residential design guidelines 1.5.

Good afternoon, commissioners, Vice Chair Locke and commissioners. I'm here as a representative of myself and Bob Delves, the city council sponsors of the design guidelines project. As you know, we have been working with an internal group that consists of staff Vice Chair Locke and Chair LePage and a couple members of the public to work through some of the issues with respect to where the design guidelines are. So I'm going to talk a little bit about where we are and what sort of decisions that we have been made or what sort of decisions we have made or asking for your approval of. And then I believe that Tom and Jake, I think Jake are going to have a number of questions queued up for you. I wanted to talk a little bit about our goal. So our goal at this point, after a lot of consideration, is to get the residential design guidelines in a form that can be approved by the city council at the December meeting. As you know, I'm not running for re-election. there's going to be a change in December. So first, why December? It's the final opportunity to work with this council and perhaps this planning commission. We're afraid that if the project pushes back through December, the project will take a step back and it will result in the delay of a number of months. And we believe also that if we go past December, the project, those couple months will cause the project to lose a bit of the momentum that we have gained over the course of the past few months. We started with the December goal. So you're going to hear a little bit tonight about the timeline that we are asking for that we are asking for. We started with the December final approval and worked backwards. So that is what you have on your screen, December council meeting approval by the council. November council meeting would be review the document that this planning commission has hopefully approved and make suggestions to staff for that final approval in December. The October Planning Commission meeting, which is five weeks from now, approval of the, of what you, what the final residential design guidelines document. An earlier special Planning Commission meeting which we hope will happen right before or right after that October meeting, would be to make it for you, the five of you, to make suggestions once you see a final version of the document, so anything that is not covered tonight. And I want to say you are certainly free to talk about things that are not covered tonight, but I know that staff has a list of specific questions that the sort of steering committee has been unable to resolve amongst themselves and And then tonight, the September planning commission meeting, planning commission answers staff post questions. That's you. And then staff will immediately prepare a document, sort of a full, complete document for you to prepare. No working. We have a couple of things to talk about first. There's been a lot of discussion about the visual history, which was at the beginning of the document. To recap, as far as I know, the Planning Commission wanted the HRB to review this part of the document before its inclusion in the design guidelines. The HRB wanted a historian to sign off on the document before the HRB would sign off on the document. that turned out to be a bigger and more complicated undertaking that was anticipated and we have been, we staff and the committee have been unable to get to that point. So our proposal, you know, Councilmember Delves and I, in consultation with staff, suggest that we postpone the approval of this section of the document until after the main document has approved. That is a big, that's a big worry for us that we'll get bogged down in this one section of the document and we don't want the project to suffer. Our plan moving forward is that the Planning Commission, you, supported by staff, will now oversee the public process to complete this document for your final approval and the recommendation of approval to the City Council. So we thank Stephanie. We thank Commissioner Locke and Chair LePage for their work and the other members of the committee. But we're now... We are now turning the document over to you and staff as they work for you to get the document into ship shape form and send it to us. And I think those are my comments. I'll stick around for a little bit, hopefully through the end of the hearing. I'm not sure whether I will be able to make that happen or not, but now I'm going to turn it over to Jake.

Great. Thank you, Councilman Barron.

THANK YOU. JUST ONE SLIDE BEFORE I HAND IT OFF TO JAKE. GOOD AFTERNOON, COMMISSIONERS, STAFF, PUBLIC. MY NAME IS TOM FORD. JUST WANTED TO, IT'S UP ON THE SCREEN RIGHT HERE, BUT JUST WANTED TO REITERATE, WE'RE LOOKING FOR DIRECTION ON A COUPLE SIX. six specific sections that we believe will help us complete the draft. It's been a long time coming and sometimes I feel like we've almost teased sending out the whole thing, but we're confident that that we're going to send out a comprehensive, clean package to you very soon. So the actionable input, we're looking for specific, the more detailed feedback is always better. The less interpretation that staff and or sponsors have to do always means a product that is closer to exactly the recommendation that was intended. And the next several slides will be those six specific areas that we're looking for feedback on.

Tom, can I stop you for just a second? Yes, ma'am. Prior to this presentation, we talked a little bit about taking it step by step so that as you ask for direction, we'll pause on that item and then We'll get feedback if there are public comments that want to be made for each one of these six different items. We'll take public comment on that and then get feedback from the commission, if that's all right. Thank you. Go ahead.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, commissioners. One of the first things we want to talk about was the kind of idea of ideal design versus the actual built environment. It was something that was mentioned in feedback from the city council at the May 4th city council saying, I don't want to wink and a nod guidelines, things that are idealistic and would be great to see, but in practice aren't what we see in the town. So specifically, the design guideline that was mentioned was design guideline 2.5.1, design without a fence or wall along street frontage unless special conditions apply. And there's a few guidelines afterwards that go further into this about landscaping walls and fences in front of properties. Currently the guidelines show this is a yellow dash line which means it's you're able to do it the guidelines themselves are discouraging it which goes against the feedback we got from the City Council that we don't want to have guidelines that are just like a oh well you can just ignore that one it's kind of the ideal for the city aesthetic hypothetically but is not in practice what is shown in the built environment. So We were looking for feedback on that. There was another one that was mentioned about plate heights, but that has been removed. This is just one that was something that the production team couldn't come to an agreement on what was the best way to handle this in the design guidelines. So we decided to defer to your guys' judgment and see what you thought would be best in this situation, whether to keep the guidelines as is, where it encourages building without fences, walls, and vegetation screening your houses, or to find something that's a little bit more based in the practical design of the day in Carmel because as staff just anecdotally when people come to the counter and say I want to put a fence in the front of my property we don't usually say we don't ever say have you considered not putting a fence there because the answer seemingly would be yes and that's why I'm submitting a permit for a fence you know I want it that's why I'm asking for it so That's the first one.

OK. So why not? I guess the first question would be, does anyone in the audience want to comment on that particular item? And then we'll talk on the commission level. So Ms. Beach, go ahead.

Hi, everyone. Sorry I'm late. I was at another obligation. I commend you for putting up with the heat. I actually was hoping to comment on that, which is gone now, but also back it up a little bit into a more general comment that you can probably apply to all of these. Is that coming back at all, Jake? Oh, okay, thanks. I think there's been a misunderstanding here about why the guidelines are written the way they are. And I think it's possible that that misunderstanding flows from a part of the document that is still missing. We are still missing a, I don't know if you'd call it a chapter or a segment. It will explain how to use this document and how the work flows, like the steps from when you enter the building with an idea to all the things you need to do. And so as the sort of institutional memory of this project, I know that I've been on this for way longer than anyone ever thought, including myself. I'll just let you know what the original thinking was. The original thinking was along the lines of what Tom just said. Where is Tom? And that is that we wanted to, the original steering committee, the original public process, wanted to take a stab at reducing uncertainty at the beginning of a project. So the idea is that you come to the window and you say, I've got an idea of something I want to do. And the staff points you immediately to the written document. And the written document says, this is pretty clear. You shouldn't do this. You should do this, et cetera. And then the hope was that people would still understand that this is an artistic community. We have a lot of flexibility, we hope, in terms of exploring new ideas, new materials, whatever. But when you're going to have that discussion about how your project does something interesting in that, you'll have it in front of the planning commission. Because that's where the discretionary authority is to interpret the laws or the guidelines. And also because no guideline can possibly capture more than one project, any project. A guideline is a sort of general thing that then this body applies to the work. And so we would hope that, we hoped that every project would be treated individually as it is for their special characteristics. So we sort of tightened the language on the paper that people read before they prepare. And then we loosened the flexibility by saying, and again, this is sort of under development, but you can kindly, if you've gone through the proposal, you'll see it there. By introducing a new segment, which is the six point, narrative defense that every applicant must do of how their project fits in with the six large principles that we all really care about. So when you go down to the smaller things, don't do this, do this, don't do this, do this, the staff can have the sort of power and clarity to say, look, this is how we all feel about the place. If you can do a project like this, you'll be probably fine. And that reduces chaos, reduces repetition, reduces resource spending and time, et cetera. However, if the client or applicant says, actually, I think my idea is better than this. I think I have a special idea, an artistic idea. And I would like to make my case to the planning commission that I still meet those six requirements. And so then the staff can say, all right, have at it. We can't say that you're gonna be successful, but you seem confident and you seem like you've got a great idea. The planning commission will have to interpret that for you. So really was not about, and then I'll just talk about, I know I'm going over, but this is something that applies to the entire thing that is in the staff report. All the things you see I think would be clarified if we had that segment. On this in particular, if you don't mind, I think Chair LePage described it very well in our meetings. It's not that this is a wink and nod guideline. It's that we are saying the local coastal plan, the general plan, asks that you design without offense. These are not out of thin air. This is what the value, this is supposed to be a continuous forest. That is what our general plan says. It's what the guidelines have said for 25 years. However, what we did is create an off ramp is what he calls it. where if you have a special project that you'd like to argue requires a fence or even a wall that has to do with the architecture that you're proposing, go ahead, bring it to the planning commission, explain what the issue is. But the default is keep an open forest top of mind. That's a very unusual one for our guidelines, but we devise this off-ramp as a way to deal with eliminating ambiguity, basically. So that's, thank you for indulging my larger explanation.

Yeah, and I will point out that Ms. Beach has been involved with the smaller group who has gone, and we literally have walked through each one of these, which is why we're here today asking these, for these six questions. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else in the audience? Eric?

I, Eric Dyer, am just speaking for myself today. I basically agree with what Victoria said. I think there needs to be ways to encourage a direction that we, that is based on the guidelines, the principles, and the general plan, the local coastal plan. And I want to bring up just the general principle, overarching principle, that there are design guidelines and there are ordinances. And so I know there's an emphasis and I totally completely understand the Planning Commission wanting to find as many more definitive ways so that they can judge projects in a more objective way. But I think you have to leave enough room for creativity. So the idea of you know, saying, like in this particular instance, the issue is creating a connection between the front yard and the street and the public right-of-way. And yes, fences up to four feet, if they're not solid, can be done, or if they're solid, they're three feet. That's true. That's in the ordinance. But, you know, when they finally do write the narrative for these things, they have to be able to explain how they're connecting the street. If they're not, maybe there's a legitimate reason. And they have to put some sort of context on that. And then that's how you interpret it based on that. I don't know. I should say something about the visual history, which the HRB reviewed. Again, speaking even though I'm a member, to say that we wanted that back at our August meeting. I think it's been reviewed. When it first came to us, I think in the July meeting, there was some errors that were quite fast acted upon by members of the community, Conceiva reviewed it. I don't think we need any more review. We're ready to have it back and approved at our next meeting this month. Great. I would encourage that to happen. Yeah, so I think using the word encouraged shouldn't be off limits in the guidelines because I think that's important in terms of what we're looking for. But again, there's an interpretive part of that that will allow for creativity still to thrive in our community.

Great. Thank you for your comments. Anybody else on this item? Okay. Anybody online, Sheldon?

No, ma'am.

So bring it back, Commissioner Alborn, would you like to share your thoughts?

Sure, thank you, Chair. On Design Guideline 2.5.1 and others that don't really reflect our built environment, I side with Council Member Booter and his points. I think, at least in the way this particular one is written at the moment, I think it's very misleading. And my recommendation, well, first I need to ask, actually, Mr. Olander, what is yellow dash?

Instead of what was... We have red Xs for things that you should not do. We have green checks for things that are allowed. And then we have yellow dashes for things that are allowed but not the first preference.

Ah, thank you. I'm not familiar with those. Good enough. That answers the question about yellow dash. My recommendation on this, I get the sense and I know the sense that there's more than one guideline where these are not clear, where our built environment is in conflict with what the design is saying. I do think it's misleading. Most of you know me well enough to know that consistency is important to me as I sit in this chair. My recommendation would be to look at these guidelines and where they occur, replace them in some way, either revise them if you do not want to strike them, revise them and replace them with some objective and or affirmative design standards if you can. height, transparency, materials, setback. We already have that in other locations in our code. So that this guideline is doing real work instead of pretending that these built forms somewhere else on the block don't exist. You know, don't put a fence in your front yard, but oh yes, we know that your neighbors on both sides have them. I think that it diminishes the city's optics. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Ruse?

I'm all for clarity, too. I think that there is, I mean, I'm just in my head walking around my neighborhood and trying to think how many houses don't have fences of some kind. And so the built environment is, you know, Carmel is what it is. It's not just what it was. And it seems very problematic to tell somebody you can't do to your house what the next five houses on your street have already done. So I would definitely be in favor of something that's much more clear and that reflects, you know, the last several decades of practice.

Thank you. Commissioner Karapetkov.

Well, so I can share my experience with fences in the front of the house. As part of my campaign, I'm doing a lot of door-to-door and have gone through Dolores, Lincoln, Monteverde, Casanova, Camino Real. All houses have fences. That is, I haven't found a single house that doesn't have a fence. Usually it's a small fence, and it's not locked. You don't have a bell on the fence. Usually one or two houses have it, but most of the houses don't. So it's not difficult to open the fence, walk into the entry door, and that's where the bell is. So it's accessible, it's open, but there's always a low fence in front of the house. And that's based on visiting hundreds and hundreds of houses. So I think that's the reality in Carmel. Maybe different in other parts of town. I'm not sure. I haven't walked the entire town yet. But I think we're in a situation where fences are the rule rather than the exception.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, and I have been through this before. Tom, did you get feedback that you wanted as far as, or Jake, enough feedback to proceed with this one?

I think so, yeah. Okay.

I'm not sure, yeah, how we're...

I think from what I've heard, it'd be better to have, instead of just striking it all together, maybe having a specific one that kind of calls to the zoning standards and says four-foot filtered light, preferably grapesteak in the front yard, something like that.

And that's what I'm hearing here.

And that we could just craft the guidelines to look like that. And then when we bring the whole guidelines back to you, obviously provide any comments if you think that wasn't sufficiently addressed.

Okay. Okay. I think we are in agreement on that one. So, okay, let's move on to number two.

Sorry, I'm trying to take notes as I go. Okay. Another kind of ideal design versus built environment. Sorry, I didn't realize that I stopped this after the first slide, but it was actually all part of one point. So I will make sure to check that. This one is similar, though, material mimicking natural materials. Design guideline 2.4.3, select pavers with muted colors and textures authentic to the material, unlike faux stone colored concrete pavers. The guideline goes on to say referenced above right. I left that out because the picture's on the right, but not above. These are pavers we see in town somewhat frequently. It's not the most popular thing, but it's not something that I can say is prohibited by any means. I think both staff and planning commission have approved sand set pavers that looked exactly like this because it's the muted earth tone is more of the focal point as opposed to mimicking natural materials. Faux stone is called out as bad, but it's been approved by PC. I've said that. And we have a lot of materials that mimic other materials. It's a pretty common thing. You see that with from roofing is a big one with the synthetic shingles. Comp shingles is of us, I mean, for historic properties, we allow wood to comp as a in-kind replacement. And that's from the preservation briefs from the Secretary of Interior standards. I know they look very different and don't really look like wood, but they get classified as wood-like for how the shape pattern is on a roof. So let's see. Is that the end of it? Yes, okay, and then materials mimicking natural materials continued 4.4.6 I do not use manufacturing materials that fake or mimic natural or other materials and their textures and finishes and again This is the same thing the synthetic faux wood and slate stamped concrete any number of materials composite decking there's all sorts of things that we approve at both the staff and Planning Commission level that are They're mimicking natural materials because of many reasons, cost, weight, fire code. There's all sorts of things that go into it. But we just see more and more of these as time progresses. And so we couldn't come to a good conclusion at the production team meetings. There's just lots of different opinions on it. And there's a lot of people, especially I was involved in the steering committee meetings. There are people that were in the roofing policy meeting that we had. There's a lot of people that come out and speak out against the mimicry of natural materials. Seemingly a large number of people that also speak in favor of them people that want the synthetic shakes or or they want to I heard some people advocating for stamped metal I don't think I've ever seen that but there are people to advocate for that that mimicry and so Since we couldn't reach a consensus. We wanted again defer to you guys Okay, so that's the rest of point one so we can keep doing point one. I

All right, so at this time, are there any other public comments related to what was just discussed? Come forward.

Again, I'm just playing the role of the representative of the original process. So I was describing this to someone earlier today. We, in the old days when people could only build with wood and rock and straw, hay, you didn't have much need for you know, thinking about what people should be restricting the materials. There were not many materials. Very authentic. Some of our best works in the entire planet are from that age. They last forever. Then we moved into a sort of phase, you could call it the petroleum age, which will come up in a moment, where industry sort of explodes and can do anything. There's an old saw in the ethics profession. Can does not mean should. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it. And we came into an age where now you can do anything because industry is so advanced. I would call it like the middle ages of material development as an architect. So for material selection and development, the world sort of widened open. And now we have all this stuff. Some of it's crud. And we certainly don't want to do a race to the bottom. But now we're in a new age altogether, which is wonderful. It's sort of the generation sort of falling right behind me. which is eco-conscious and sort of infinite variety of advanced, interesting materials. And that opens up the full range of creativity and expression again without having to go back to the Middle Ages where you say, well, I wish I could afford stone, but instead I'll do this sort of plastic version because it's cheaper. That's a standard that we on the steering committee really didn't want to see happen, to sort of race to the bottom. And listen, it's our job as leaders and as professionals, and there were three professionals on that committee and two others, at least two, several others that volunteered on occasion, It's our job to help discern what are the best materials, what are the cheapest materials that are also still good, fireproof, have authenticity and integrity, and do not fall into the trap of wishing they were something else, which all of us can actually feel and see, even if we're not conscious of it. So that was just the logic behind that. Just because it is or we do it or it exists doesn't mean we should do it. That's the whole purpose of a standard is to not just do what comes in front of you, but to do what you think should be done. That's my comment for this one. Thank you. Anyone else?

Okay. Come on up.

Eric Dyer. So I think the purpose of the original ideas behind this being put into the guidelines goes to the core of creating authentic architecture in town and trying to maintain authenticity as one of the prime goals of it. That comes into conflict, obviously, when you're dealing with these older homes that have you know, wood shingle roofs that can't be insured. And the alternatives are, you know, put a metal roof on this classic historic home or do comp shingles. I have been convinced, I guess I almost, I think somewhere in the guidelines, the idea of authenticity needs to be encouraged as the preferred choice. But when you're dealing with roofing materials and fire protection and the choices of having a synthetic shingle that from any distance, now there's some very good quality shingles. I'm sure the Planning Commission has reviewed some of these materials and can say, you know, going back over a year or two or three when they've been installed, how good are they? How authentic do they look? Because roofing material, you're not going to see that and not touch that primarily from the street, certainly. So I think there needs to be some flexibility on that with the purpose of trying to maintain as authentic look as possible. I think the planning commission could be at some point be discretionary in terms of saying, OK, you want to use this material. It's really a poor replica of something and looks cheap and crappy, and obviously so from most any distance. And then you say, no, you don't get to use that. You have to use either an authentic material or something that's already been worked through and shown to work well. So that's I think in terms of other materials I think so roofing maybe needs to be taken as a separate subject that we need to be flexible with because I think again these historic houses that cannot take a lot of heavy roof maybe need some flexibility in terms of that. I haven't seen a lot of good options other than things that really look almost exactly like they are. um materials on the ground different story um jake brought up concrete papers concrete papers are concrete papers i don't see those as not authentic to themselves right and they are encouraged on sidewalks etc so i think that's what my just for that thanks thank you okay back to oh hello

Evans Kohler, resident. I just want to give you one practical example about this one. I built the deck 20 years ago or so. It was in the early days of Trex and I thought Trex was sold to me as a good product, as a product that would be environmentally safe and also environmentally responsible because it was recycling. And I fell for it. And honestly, I wish I had had a commission that would tell me, oh, no, you can't do that. You shouldn't do this. And here's why. It's not authentic. It was mimicking Wood. It was all part of a class action lawsuit that eventually showed that Trex was substandard at the time. They reformulated it since. But more importantly, that deck failed in part, I think, because it was not authentic. And I think, in some ways, the standard would have been helpful at the time. I'm not sure the city necessarily distinguished at the time when that deck was built, said, no, no, no, you can't do this. But I think it would have been helpful for me as an ignorant applicant, honestly, of the problems with this material. Not that you as design as a committee would have to know the answer to that question, but authenticity, in retrospect, I have to say is always better. because it has some longevity attached to it. So I would just say falling for fake or mimicked materials per se, now looking back, would have protected me as a homeowner and as somebody who thought they were improving the home but actually made it worse. And I think that would have been a good use of a design guideline.

Excuse me, what happened with the Trex? I'm sorry? What happened with your Trex?

Oh, it started to fall apart, and Trex was sued by a lot of people, and in the end, it had to be replaced. So it was brittle? Yeah, it became brittle and fell apart. Okay.

Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, back to the commission. Commissioner Alborn, pick on you today.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Olander.

I like what Mr. Dyer just said. Encourage authenticity as the preferred choice. I'm sure if that isn't explicitly already in the guidelines, it surely is an underlying core of what the guidelines will represent for us. With that, there were two specific guidelines mentioned. 243 and 446. And I actually support staff's direction on both counts. The city has been approving synthetic shingles and composite decking and faux stone concrete for years, I believe. 446 as it's drafted today, that's going to prohibit things that this commission approves routinely, which takes us back to our first comment about ideal design versus built environment. And that's going to carry an internal contradiction that this entire process is trying to improve upon. I, when it comes to 243, staff proposed some language and I approved that change going from textures authentic to the material, to textures of natural materials. I think perhaps that's clearer, if folks would think that would be clearer. And for 446, just like my comment above about the fence guideline, can we rewrite that around performance standards? I don't know, something about monochrome or integral color, The integral color, this goes back to our roof samples when we were looking at the roof materials and how some of those have a solid core and then some of them don't. Some of them had an exterior application of color over like a white core or a different color core, things like that. The patterning, rather than a blanket ban on these materials, I don't know how we can do that. We've been approving these materials for years. Somehow shift that focus. As Mr. Dyer says, encourage authenticity always is the first and preferred choice. But choose materials, if we need an alternative, that mimic natural ones as closely as possible. And I know this is also gonna line up with the strategy paper and the request to bring appropriate mention of fire resistant materials. So I just don't think we can say we can avoid them or ban them. And this would be a question probably for staff. I don't know if the committee's meeting again or not, but for staff, I don't know if it might be possible to put together like a preferred list or a green light list. You know, these are materials that meet the standard that we are speaking to and that you would have quick approval for if you choose from this list. And if you have other materials that you might like to include in your project, those might require staff review and or presentation to Planning Commission. And that ends my comments. Excellent. Thank you.

Commissioner Ruiz.

Thank you. I'm actually going to take a position in favor of allowing materials that mimic natural materials. I'm going to say something now that you're going to hear me say several times this evening. And that is that I think affordability needs to be respected in the guidelines. Sometimes I read through the guidelines and I think, wow, that sounds expensive. And I'm thinking, why are we doing this to our residents? And I understand why we're doing it. We're doing this because we believe in the history of the town. The town has a particular look and so on. But some kinds of papers are more expensive than others. Some roofing materials are more expensive than others. And I would like to see the guidelines leave this open without sort of closing doors before people even get to the budget part of their projects. Regarding authenticity, I think it's a very valuable goal. I think it's a little risky to apply it sort of as a blanket requirement, kind of for the same reason, because I get back to what is authentic. Many years ago, we rather famously put a steel roof on our house. And to me, there was nothing inauthentic about a steel roof. They've been around for hundreds of years. But for some reason, they were anathema in this town. That has never been explained to me. And so I think we need to take a measured approach to this. And I know that that fights against the comment I made earlier about clarity in these. I do like Commissioner Alborn's idea of maybe having short lists of these are the no-brainer approval materials. If you choose from this list, you'll get no pushback from either the planning department nor the commission. And I do appreciate Ms. Beach's comment about including a narrative. You know, when people come to me and say, what should I do when I have a project? I said, well, you should tell a story. What is the story behind what you're trying to do with your house or your building? I would love to see that in a I want to be careful here, but I would love to see that as an option in the application process. Part of me resists doing that because I used to be an English teacher, and I know people don't like to be told they have to write an essay. I wouldn't make them do that, but I think that that allows people to explain what they're trying to do and gives us a way to move forward for some of the things that will be exceptions. And the other thing about non-natural materials is that they are innovative. You know, authenticity, I mean, no one is saying that you should build a new house that has single wall construction. Well, it's pretty authentic here. You know, so where do we, I mean, obviously there's the building code and all these other things that play into that. But anyway, that's sort of what I said on this. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Commissioner Petkoff.

Yeah, it's a very difficult question. mostly because there's so many new materials that we have no expertise. We don't know exactly how they're going to perform long term. And you remember our discussion around roofing material when we were looking at dozens of samples and trying to figure out which one is going to look OK on a Carmel roof. The authenticity element, I understand it. It's very difficult to quantify and kind of document what is Easier to quantify and document is longevity, aging, how does the material age based on experience. So what I hear consistently is that Some materials mimic natural materials well when they get installed in the first year, but then after the first year, they start falling apart. And you notice it because you are used to certain natural processes around wood and plaster and all the other materials. So when you see something that looks unnatural, like plastic falling apart, I think there's a process called delaminating, when it kind of starts ungluing because it was exposed to the sun, then it's not pleasant to you. It's not pleasant from an aesthetic perspective. So I think that is a... That is a difficult one. What we can do, I agree with the idea to have a list of non-controversial materials because you can say stone, wood, metal, you know, these are the things that we know how they behave. We have experience with them. We know they're safe. But now if you go into all these composite materials like tracks and the like, then you really have to look at some experience and know how they're going to perform in five years, in 10 years, in 20 years. And it's not only the visual element. It is also some of these materials get really hot when exposed to sun. So there's a safety component. A lot of them would disintegrate and release microplastics, which go into the ocean with the water. So that's the ecological angle of the whole story. So it's all interconnected, you know, the visual aspect is connected to the longevity aspect is connected to the ecological aspect. And we have to be, it requires a lot of wisdom to look at the material and say, okay, looking at all the pros and cons, we think this material is safe enough for our application. I don't know how long it's going to take to develop that muscle given that, you know, these materials are popping up every day. I think that's the reason why we are kind of per default trying to go back to a known material, right? Something that we know is going to perform well and it's not going to create any controversy. But the reality is that these natural materials are becoming very difficult to get and prohibitively expensive as well. So we're seeing in many projects, actually, like over the last couple of months, we saw proposals to bring wood from Portugal. A lot of people are using the Ipe wood that comes from Brazil as for decking, for example, right? If you don't want to use tracks, you know, go high end and bring wood from Brazil. Ecologically, is that, I mean, it's a very strong wood. It's a very durable wood, but... Is that ecological to bring wood from Brazil to Carmel and install it for decking? That is the kind of the question that I'm struggling with. I think on the roofing side, we have made some progress. We kind of figured out that This thin roof shingles do not look good. They don't have the proper shading. They don't behave well. They're not robust. So years ago, we kind of decided to use the thick, what they call the presidential roof flavor. I think that works pretty well. I see a lot of people using them. I have one on my roof and it performs very well. It's really, and it's also easy to use if you need to make changes to the roof, like you need another roof jack or you need to, you know, make small changes to the roof. It's very easy to use this material, to work with this material. You don't need to replace, you know, a lot of the roof to make it work. You just replace a small portion of it and you can fix the problem. That's very environmentally friendly. But on the siding, we still have not spent enough time to figure out how to move away from wooden siding to meet the fire requirements. And decking versus patios is something that we may need to relook because decking, I think we're treating decking as a permeable today.

Space decking, yeah.

Yeah, so we basically give 50% bonus in terms of site coverage if you're using decking versus having a patio. So maybe we need to relook that because patio built with natural stuff or maybe with these concrete blocks is forever. It doesn't go anywhere. And it's going to be... in terms of longevity, is going to be much better than a deck. It doesn't matter if the deck is built out of redwood or tracks or whatever. So I think that is something we can look into. But yeah, it's a process. We have to go through that and identify the... So our role as a planning commission becomes more of an advisor of a homeowner you know, what we have experience with, what we have seen in other projects and where we think, you know, homeowners should not go or architects should not go because we have already made bad experience with that particular material, like the example we had a couple of minutes ago. Thank you.

Great, thank you.

Could I add one more comment? Sure, go ahead. Because both Commissioner Roos and Cara Pickoff gave a semi-thumbs up to a list. I would like to add, I would call that a perishable list, meaning something that's pointed to, but not hard-baked into the guidelines so that it can be easily changed. without requiring an update process. OK. Thank you.

And I'll just add a couple little tiny things. I think the comments that were made about authentic architectures as a preferred choice is important. Maintaining the authentic look, and then if there are some performance standards that people have to meet in order to use different types of materials. That would, again, refer to this list, which I think is also a great idea. And then, of course, you've always got planning commission review if there's something that comes up that's not quite in the norm. And I appreciate the comments about affordability because, yes, I completely agree. innovative products are coming out all the time. We now have fire codes that we're going to be dealing with, which we're dealing with with roofing and like you said, siding, decking, all of these things need materials and natural materials aren't necessarily, I mean the authentic natural materials may not be the best choice in some cases. So anyway, you want, Commissioner Ruiz?

Yeah, I'd like to make one more comment about roofing, especially in regard to steel roofs. There's been comments that I've heard about texture in steel roofs, and I've seen some like this. And I would hesitate to limit steel roofs and say they can't be textured. Maybe there are some particularly offensive textures. I don't know what they would be that we would want to rule out, but To me, what's going to start happening, and yes, it's going to take decades to roll out, we're going to start seeing a lot of steel roofs. They're relatively inexpensive. They're very fire resistant, et cetera, et cetera. And now you're going to have, say, many houses in a row, theoretically, that will have steel roofs. And you can have variety with color, but texture is another form of variety. And so I would hesitate to say we cannot have textured steel roofs.

Great. Go ahead.

Just I think I got all this down.

You can always watch the video later.

Perfect. I'll make sure to draft up something that incorporates all of that. Okay. Next is... Feedback number two, and this one I'll make sure to look at all the slides to make sure we stop at two and not after the first slide. So this one is similar. It's sustainability versus practical considerations. So in many ways, it is still the ideal versus built environment. But this is slightly focused on the sustainability as opposed to the authenticity or Carmel character. Both the Planning Commission and City Council expressed their disapproval of a petroleum ban. So the guideline has been updated where it says with exception to asphalt roofing when approved do not use petroleum based architectural elements. I didn't let this point go during production meetings because I don't think it sufficiently addresses the desire to not have the petroleum ban because while yes composite shingles or asphalt shingles is the most common petroleum product that we see just all the time. There are others. We've talked about the synthetic shakes. We've talked about the composite decking and vinyl decking, fiberx windows. There's many different petroleum-based products that we use besides asphalt shingles that are approved regularly. I do understand that this is coming from an angle of let's be as sustainable as possible. But as you guys discussed on the last item, it can be hard to deem what is the most sustainable, whether it's shipping wood in from across the world or it is products that are petroleum-based that have a carbon footprint. How do we judge those things? I did a little bit of this with our environmental compliance team during the roofing segment, roofing materials that we did. And it seemed like comp shingles and metal roofs were the two that kind of scored the highest for just longest lifespans and kind of off-putting of kind of bad chemicals. I mean, a lot of the wood that was being looked at had its own kind of off-gassing from the pressure treating and chemical treatments that they'd go through. So it's definitely a toss-up. And I know for something we discussed a little bit on the roofing policy, which I think also relates back to what you guys were talking about for lifespan being very important, maybe having some kind of including something regarding if you are using these materials, have something that has a longer warranty. I don't know if you want to set something for 20-year warranty or things like that and try and set it by age limit for them so that you're not having people cycle through these products to make it more sustainable. Just something that I... was thinking based off your previous comments and then for part two sustainable construction this is one that I haven't seen anything ever meet these standards in town so I think if we adopted these guidelines it would be something that would It would be amazing for sustainability, and you'd get some beautiful architecture. But I think it would be quite expensive. So the new guideline 4.4.4 would say use products that meet or exceed the most current national or international ecological building standards, such as cradle to cradle or designed for disassembly. So that would be something as simple as someone wanting to replace their windows with aluminum clad windows, say wood windows with aluminum clad. We've done that for a long time. Now, instead of just accepting aluminum clad windows, we'd require a design for disassembly aluminum clad windows. I think it speaks to the affordability issue and with the, I think there'd be increased times and it's just something that we haven't seen practically in town. So it gave me some pause. And then the cradle to cradle involves things that are either designed for disassembly, recyclable, biodegradable, some pretty high standards for construction materials that don't, again, I don't think there's a property in Carmel that meets any of these standards. So if we want to do that going forward, it would be a departure from the norm, and I think it would be, I could foresee some issues. So I wanted to bring this to you guys. And I think, that's my last one, perfect.

Okay.

There's one house on Torres that has a label leads certified, which is what you're talking about.

There's different types of lead certification, certainly, but even this would be beyond that.

Okay, thank you. Just to let the audience know, this is really important because we can't move forward until we get these things done. Is there anybody in the audience who would like to speak to this speech? Okay.

I think it's important to know, I agree that's a very high standard cradle-to-cradle design for disassembly. Again, the idea of allowing the, not allowing, but restoring the power of the Planning Commission to evaluate projects on their own merits, I think is where this comes in. I just want to remind everyone that the point of being, having a stated standard is so that there's not a lot of unpredictability on the early stages. We already, by the way, Brilliant idea to have a preferred building materials list that will make you so, but we have that already. It's in the packet and it's been there since the beginning of the steering committee work. the content of that is, you know, still, I think Mel, I think you were the one who said we ought to have a sort of separate review of that document itself just to make sure it's exactly how we want it. So that's still pending. But as for roof materials, I don't really think it's sustainability versus practical. I think metal is a high performing roof. So is tile. So is slate. They have new products that are super thin slate. There is also new products that don't require hazardous chemicals to get a Class A fire rating. That's important for us to know that. We have a community that's primarily built of wood right now. It's very important to understand that these advances are being made every day. And as a professional, I look into these and we have products that now are, in fact, what would the word be, like beneficial to the environment that actually provide a class A fire rating. My neighbor just put in a replacement historic kind of wood roof and had no problem getting insurance. I haven't asked her if it. has this treatment on it or not, but just so you know. So I think there's a fear factor here that we don't have to worry about as much as we think because again, we're out of the middle ages of product development and we are now onto, I would, we're heading into a golden age of product development where we get to not have a trade-off between sustainability and practical things and price. So it just takes the research. It takes putting together that great list so that it really is addressing all the types of aspirations we have for the type of project that would sail through, the type of materials. So I just encourage you. I mean, I think that is a high standard. The idea, again, from the institutional standpoint was if we can't do it, then no one can do it. Like this is a community that has a precious ecosystem. It has a lot of resources, and it has a lot at stake. But that doesn't mean you have to go to that standard. But some standard would be good, not just I want it, so give me it. Thank you.

I honestly wasn't planning on commenting on these, but I do have a sense here that what you as committee are being asked to do is perhaps undermining the standards that are there and that the upgrade would have allowed you to actually strengthen, make easier. When I see the previous slide on the petroleum ban and going away from having standards that actually drive us in the direction of, again, more authenticity, more not banning everything, every new material, but making sure that it meets the test of like, try the other things that have been tried and that are more authentic. As a homeowner, if I see my neighbor putting on plastic siding because it's there and it has become somehow the new norm, and then it becomes the norm. I just want to remind this committee that one of the reasons we went to design standards was tourists, the buildings that started to look like San Jose back in the day, at one point somebody said, if we don't stop this, at some point the whole town will look like not Carmel, but some other town, maybe the town that you don't want to live in. Not knocking in San Jose, it just isn't Carmel. And so I think what I would resist as a committee is the undermining of some standards. of reasonable standards that allow us to be held to a common standard. Not everybody's the same. Yes, there is some history. There are some variances that have been approved years ago, and that's okay. We understand that as homeowners. But to do away with some of these standards because they are not always enforced, or have not always been enforced in history, means we can't have any standards. And that, in the collective unwinding that I see in some of these, in the combined total of these recommendations, I see an unwinding and that going back to something that actually is truly a slippery slope that I would encourage you not to go down on. Thank you. Thanks.

Eric?

It's up here. Eric Dyer again. I just want to quickly go back to something Commissioner Roos mentioned, which is about authenticity and metal roofs and things. And I think the simple definition is not about necessarily perfectly natural materials. Concrete is not a perfectly natural material, yet it's an authentic material. So it basically comes down to it is what it is. It's not trying to be something it's not. So that is how I kind of define it, which is I think an important one to keep to if we can with all the caveats we've discussed. In terms of the more sustainability issues that come up, I'm wondering, you know, there maybe should be a review of other jurisdictions' guidelines that have something in them that encourage sustainability and can create some standard that's reasonable. Because, yeah, I agree, some of the sign for disassembly sounds pretty onerous for just being able to construct something. But again, this encouragement of pushing people in the right direction is important. And I think the incentive structure behind it is, I think, what Victoria was kind of talking about is that it will make the process easier. It's an easier set of approval if you're trying to, go with what's encouraged by the city. If you don't, you're going to have a tougher time.

Thanks. Thank you. Anyone else?

Hi.

Keep it short. My name's Marie. I'm a landscape architect. And we really strive to have sustainable materials on our sites. And one resource that came out last year that we referenced often that goes into a lot of depth and technicality on this topic is called Details and Materials for Resilient Sites, a Climate Positive Approach. It's like 500 pages, and it literally tells you what the carbon embodiment of each material is. And if you build it a different way, it has less of an impact or more of an impact. And it's very detailed. So maybe if you have a reference section, that could help. Like, this is so much work to try to figure out between all of you.

Great. Thank you.

Did you repeat the name of that? Details and materials originally in place.

So really resilient sites.

Okay.

Thank you. All right. Back to the commission. Commissioner Albarni.

Well, thank you, Chair, and thank you to everyone who's commented and to Mr. Ulander. On guideline 443, what I would summarize as the petroleum ban guideline, I'm not comfortable with this guideline even if it's more narrowed form just down to asphalt roofs. We approve composite decking, synthetic shakes, synthetic slate looking materials, fibrics windows. We approve them regularly. Our 2015 roofing policy acknowledges synthetic materials. And so a guideline that bans petroleum-based architectural elements, I realized that it kind of took it from inside the house, because then we couldn't have like PEX in our plumbing, right? We couldn't have shielding on our electrical wires. So I recognize that it's been rewritten to bring it to the outside exterior appearance of a project, but I think it's still misaligned with what we do. And I would direct staff to remove 443 rather than keep patching it. That said, I agree 100% with the spirit. You know, there's the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, right? I agree 100% with the spirit behind this. And I would actually call out a representative from AIA Monterey, perhaps, that might be in the room. You know, some of this... can be done really at the professional level and professional training for architects that work in the area to make sure that there's an extended understanding of the preferred architecture and authenticity and building materials that we like to use in this town. So that's my comment for 443. On 444, same logic applies. I would use even more force if staff admittedly can't identify a single project in Carmel that's ever met this standard. It's a standard nobody's been held to yet. To me, it's... It weakens the credibility of this document everyone has been working so hard to create. I would like to have some sustainability language in there somewhere. I'm quite sure that staff can find the correct place for it. But I would rather see a short statement speaking to the preference for recyclable materials and so on, rather than some specific technical standard that this Planning Commission is going to have to have extended hearings on and always wind up compromising. Right. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Ruse.

All right. I am not in favor of completely banning petroleum product based products. And I say that I know a number of people who are firefighters by profession, and they'll just tell me anything made out of petroleum is combustible. And it is. This is true. That goes to composite shingle roofing as well. It will eventually burn. So I think maybe a guideline here that would be more easy to use in real-life decision-making and material selection would be, If you use something that's petroleum-based, it needs to conform to the fire code. And I'm sure they already have to do that anyway. But as the fire code develops, which it's doing in response to recent fires, these things are going to become more strict, I presume. And it seems to me that's a more workable guideline. So I don't think that really belongs in this document. I do think it's a noble goal. I feel the same way about the ecological guidelines. and building standards. I think that is a great idea. I don't think we're there yet, neither nationally nor locally, honestly. I think this is a great challenge for all the architects in the room and your customers to work with them on this. It would be a goal I would keep in mind if I were to build something new. But I think it's, right now, as a building standard in the design guidelines, it seems a bridge too far. It just seems too soon and too hard to do. And it's also, it sounds expensive to implement. Again, that's a cost formed by the people. I'm back to affordability. So I don't think that should be in here either. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Kiripetkov.

Not much to add to that. I think we covered all the main points. If you think about the project we are looking at earlier today, the library project, You know, part of the project, they were going to take down all the roofing material, all the shingles, and change the roof, increase it by four inches, and then put the shingle back on. same happened with the mission, you know, before they did the remodel, they took the shingle down and they broke a couple, but not, not too many. And then they put them back in. So back on the roof. So that, that is ecological, that is sustainable. That's longevity in my mind. Um, we can encourage hopefully use of this kind of products that can be reused and repurpose instead of being dumped on the, um, recycling yard in Marinos. It's actually interesting because if you look at the charges that, how much do you need to pay to dump stuff in Marinos at the recycling plant? If it's a clean let's call it biologically clean material, it's cheap. Like if you only dump brick and stone and concrete, it's 50 bucks for the entire trailer. But if it's a mix, if it has plastic, if it has other materials, if it's a mix, then it's $150 a trailer, same trailer. So it's a three times. So they already figured it out that there are certain materials that are less harmful for the environment, and they can just dump and cover by soil, and they're done with it. And there are other materials that they need to go through and kind of select and try to figure out to separate the metal from the plastic and everything else. So there is already kind of a definition, at least from that perspective, what is good and what's bad for the environment. And if we can figure out a way to encourage people to use this, I wouldn't call them cradle to cradle, but materials that can be dismantled and reused. I'll give you an example. I had a patio built out of brick. And I had to dismantle it to comply with the site coverage requirements. But the bricks are not glued to each other. They're kind of floating. So I took out like 300 bricks and put them next to the fence. And now if I need to do something with it and I need material, I have 300 bricks in a perfect condition. They're perfectly fine. So same applies to concrete blocks. If you have floating concrete blocks over sand, not glued together, not cemented together, you can keep reusing them or if you have a deck that is a made out of redwood and you're using screws instead of nails that's the way to make them reusable screws you can take out at any time and take the entire board out and use it for something else i had a deck like that 25 years ago and then i kept reusing it and reusing it i still have pieces of it because redwood is forever if you if you don't break it so this is kind of the idea here i don't know how to capture it exactly in the language of the of our guideline, but that is the best way to make sure that the materials, the good materials get reused and repurposed and we do not go into that cycle where you buy something made out of plastic, it breaks, throw it out on the dump, you buy another thing made out of plastic, couple of years later it breaks again. That's the worst way of handling building materials. Great, thank you.

ALL RIGHT, JAKE, I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO ADD TO THAT, SO CARRY ON.

OKEE DOKEE.

THAT WAS THE LAST OF MY SLIDES. JUST TO To summarize, there was a lot that was given to us right now, and I think I get a good idea of how to proceed, and I will go back and watch the video, but I will remove the petroleum ban and try and workshop something in there that addresses all your guys' comments, and then again, give me comments. I'm going to give you the whole thing. Please, any comments, little or big, rip the things to shred as much as you need to.

Okay, great. And Tom, are you going to continue then? And the rest of this will be, I think, fairly quick.

I'm actually not going to really spend any time on this one. This is more for the public if they'd like to revisit up there. This was all in the staff report. It's essentially a couple of options for the consistency of terminology. There are three options. These are not the only options. We're just trying to get you get a feel for the type of terminology and the consistency of the types of terminology when it comes to like mandates and requirements and prohibitions.

So anybody from the public want to comment on this? Come on up. Fight for the microphone.

I had to say something. Thomas said I was on HRB for about six years. Real quick story. We designed a house in Decatur, Georgia, in their historic district, where under city ordinance, we were required to design a traditional house. And when they said traditional, it was in an era between 1875 and 1915. It had to fit in that context. My client... who actually founded a firm that deals with building performance, sustainability. He is a national figure in sustainable. He wrote the first college book about it. He spent the better part of a year, minus 30 years in the business as a contractor, to develop a series of goals that go in the construction documents that establish goals for the project as a whole. And then what we do in the construction document specs is indicate a specific product that met that goal. I think for the Planning Commission to consider getting into the weeds like this, a couple of things. When the statement was to use the most current, staff is going to spend the next 30 years trying to chase, well, what's the next current? Somebody on house number one uses product X. Three years goes by, and his next-door neighbor wants to use the same product. Staff would be in the position to say, well, that's not allowed anymore because the new standard is the following. The other thing I would say is when I went through my licensing again, for what, the 40th time, there was a section that you could do online on sustainability. I elected to attempt to do it in the office instead of going to a local seminar. And after about five hours of reading this, my head was spinning. And I'd been in this business 51 years. And I could make heads or tails to make it specific. They would reference a Norwegian standard, then a United States standard, then an Israeli standard, Staff does not want to set foot in this thing. I mean, it's well-intentioned. It needs to be encouraged, but not mandate. We'll never get out of the woods otherwise. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, come on up.

I'm sorry. I just should have mentioned that option two, that was actually the preferred option of the steering committee. I should have said that. The steering committee, they've worked for several years. That was their preferred way of PROVIDING MANDATES. THE REASON WHY WE PUT OPTION ONE IS JUST BECAUSE IT'S COMMON IN GOVERNMENT. IT'S COMMON STANDARD TERMINOLOGY IN GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS. VERY CLEAR DETERMINATION. CURRENTLY THERE'S A LOT OF OPTION THREE IN THE DOCUMENT FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH. JUST WANTED TO MENTION THAT.

Again, just a little history on how we got here. The steering committee and the public felt as though this document should be as clear and undebatable as possible. And we had noticed, and again, I'll remind you of the heavy hitters, three architects, planning commission chairs, Don Goodhue, Marion Chikatans, myself, three practicing architects, a former city manager of Carmel, and a former mayor and planning commissioner. We had noticed over the years, and so had the public, that again, there's a lot of debate upfront about what this stuff means at the staff level. People come to the window, that part takes a long time. I was told a story this morning of coming back over and over again, trying to get in front of the planning commission only to find out that they were on the wrong track because there's ambiguity in the language. we felt that what we should do is take out anything other than just normal verbs so that we're not trying to assert this as some kind of municipal code. It's not a municipal code. The municipal code will tell you what thou shall not and shall do. This is a way to familiarize yourself with how to support those six core principles. And so there's no need to sit there and debate like, you know, which one do we feel 90% or 100% behind? Which one do we feel 75% behind or 30% behind? And to nuance that language, rather than just trying to capture, what is it we're trying to get done here? Again, at that detailed level that's in the sort of what do you call it, like the decimal points of the court. That's where we just try to explain to folks, this is how you support, let's say, principle number one. These are the types of ways. Then the planning commissioner will go ahead and check out your project and see if there was another way to do it to support principle one, two, three, four, five, and six. But to then get into a sort of Talmudic debate, like this one says encourage, and this one says prefer, and this one says a little is prefer stronger than courage is shall. They must really mean this one. And I'm going to go to the window and say, I don't think they mean this one so much because this one doesn't say shall. So we just thought, let's just take it all out. And that way, you guys can be the ones who decide to what degree to foreground a particular sub-principle in any particular project. So that was the logic. Plus it makes the sentences shorter, simpler, more clear. So that was the point. It's not a municipal law. It doesn't have that same force. It's for you all to interpret.

Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Very quick?

Who would like to move on? Real quick. with respect to designing this home in this traditional neighborhood. All the buildings in the area, as I said, were built between 1885 and 1915. They were all wood, horizontal siding. The building that I designed for Carl Seville, the owner, the green building consultant, The only material on the outside of the building that was true wood, authentic wood, were these non-structural outriggers on the second story soffit. Every other product on the outside of the building was an acceptable, sustainable, non-toxic, manufactured product. Boiled at all the siding. The windows were clad. Everything was current materials. It sailed through approval process. And as a result of that process, we not only got House of the Year from LEED, we got five regional, local, and national awards for a traditional building that is anything but. It was cutting edge.

And I owe it all to my client. Thanks. All right, coming back to the commission, anybody want to make quick comments about these?

Yes to option two. State guidance calls out words like shall as jargon. Federal Plain Writing Act recommend must. Courts find shall to be ambiguous. So yes to option two from me. Thank you.

Yeah, exactly what Mel said.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I think that's a good summary. I would agree with that.

All right. Come on up, Tom.

I do want to say one other thing. I dislike absolute terms like prohibited when they refer to nonspecific things. So, for example, all other materials are prohibited is really not helpful.

Right.

Material X is prohibited. That's fine. That's it.

That's clear. Thank you. There is a dedication section and an acknowledgement section. They're currently in separate locations. This is just a format. This is just a question, mostly the formatting. What would you like us to tell to our editor when they're piecing this together, the flow of it? Questions are up there on the screen.

Does anybody want to speak on this one? Yes, yes, exactly. Okay, go ahead.

So the design guidelines is part of a larger set of regulatory documents for Carmel. There are about 22, roughly 23 documents in that set. And Carmel's This set of regulatory documents has a very consistent standard. 90% of them have no dedication and no acknowledgement. Adding one here really means that this document has to step out, and I'm not willing to set that precedent. If it's that important to the committee to add a dedication or some kind of acknowledgement narrative, I suggest that they take that to city council, raise that as a policy question for the entire document set. But I am not willing to set a precedent here and say, yes, this document needs dedication and acknowledgement.

Thank you.

Commissioner Reese?

That's pretty much what I was going to say.

I agree.

All right. Tom? I said I knew we could speed through these last ones.

Yep, I think we're going to. Should be hopefully pretty clear what's up here. We did get... So this goes to the visual history section. I know that Council Member Barron had addressed this. I still think it's worth... bringing up, we did receive a letter, what's the terminology I'm looking for, endorsing the visual history. Victoria Beach, she had said this to our group during one of the meetings. She said, wouldn't that be best if we can, I mean, we have someone who used to be a contracted historian at that moment, and I still think that it was a great idea. I said, yes, absolutely, let's do that. A consideration, something to consider. When I was just preparing this, I didn't mean to be misleading to Ms. Beach. A consideration could be that I happen to do a lot of contract administration and public works, and we get a lot of like PRA, public records requests, and at least in my line of work when I write contracts, I just always make sure that there is a defined scope of work and so that that's like an official document so we can always point to what the person was supposed to do. That wouldn't be the case for donated time. Mr. Ken Seavey donated a lot of time, very gracious, for him doing that. Essentially, the question is, do you believe we need to have something on the books that we can point to that we gave a scope of work and that that person then delivered a product? In other words, should we actually contract someone so that it's on the books with a scope of work?

Any comments from the public? Eric?

I guess I'll comment on this again. Again, I think it's done. There was some, this goes back to when the HIV review did it in July. And there was some obvious kind of slight errors. There was a little citizen group that got together that have firsthand knowledge. That's what's wonderful about Carmel, about the history. and corrected some things and can see if you reviewed it, I think it's done. I wouldn't go back. And I just would also mention how important I think this is, the visual history, to the guidelines. It gives a broad, kind of nicely written narrative of all this history of Carmel and what you're kind of jumping into. if you're from coming from the outside, I think it's just really helpful. It's not saying you have to do this thing or that thing, but it gives you a good broad history of where, of the community that you're coming to. And in a way it's a, you know, there's these kind of interesting stories of how Carmel worked and how the history came together. And I think that's helpful just as a general idea of what do I start with? What kind of place am I jumping into?

Can I make a quick comment? Tom, this will go to HRB for review, correct?

Yes. So I think it should go back. I mean, we asked for it in August. We want it in September.

So when that staff report is written, include that information and that's your documentation. I mean, that would be my suggestion. Anybody else want to add to this? Go ahead.

I'm a process person. We have a housing, we have a historic context statement. That is our city's official visual history. I don't understand and have not understood why this would be included as part of the guidelines. As I say that, I'm not saying that it's not an important part of the city's history. There are a couple of dozen books on the city's history. I think this belongs outside of the guidelines, either as a reference and More than likely actually just a privately published beautiful book.

Commissioner Ruiz.

So for me the review of the visual history is actually my favorite part of this document. It was from the very first time I ran into the design guidelines. That said, I think it's probably best treated as an annex or a reference to document. I encourage everybody I run into who is going to do a project to read this. And yeah, and I would also, I very much agree with council, I agree with what council member Barron said earlier today, which is that we have a way to get this process done by December. I would not want this to be something that would hang that up. there is a way to do that. And if this needs to be updated, I would probably, you know, you have the 20-odd years since it was last updated. Maybe you need to update it to deal with fire code things and whatnot. A lot of stuff's happened in the last few years that is going to change what this document says to bring it up to date. But I would leave this as a separate document. Whether it's official or not is probably a question. I don't understand all the details of that, what would go into that. That's where I stand on this.

Thanks for your feedback.

I understand it's already completed, so there will be no more work on it, is my understanding. So it's not going to delay our December timeline that we discuss. I think it's, how is it like 40 pages? I think it's like around 40 pages. 20. 20 pages. I think it's, if it's 20 pages, we can, we can live it in the design guidelines. I mean, it is something that, it sets the stage for the discussion behind it because some people come to town and they, the first question is why do we need a design guideline? highlighting the history of town and why architecture is so important and kind of the key milestones. I think it's important. I doubt that too many people will read the entire thing. But the fact that it's in the beginning of a design guideline kind of sends a signal how seriously we take architecture in this town. It's too small for a separate book. I mean, a 20-page book is too small. I don't have a problem with having it as part of the design guideline. Thank you.

And my quick feedback is I think it sets the stage in this case, but I'll let you carry it forward. And last but not least.

Thank you. Yes, this is the last one. While the screen is loading, there is at the beginning of each of the six core principles is a background MINI SECTION, THERE'S A BACKGROUND PARAGRAPH AND THERE'S A PROCESS PARAGRAPH. THE BACKGROUND ONE TRIES TO, I'M NOT GOING TO READ WHAT'S ON THE SCREEN. THIS IS ALL IN THE STAFF REPORT. THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE OF THE BACKGROUND FROM CORE PRINCIPLE ONE. And then there is a process. This is also the one from core principle one, just copied and pasted right here on the slide. So we tried to, there is a hyperlink for the process. And then the intention was to give a high level view of the types of. Details. Yeah, details that would fall into the process within that core principle. These were the questions that we had requested.

So I know that was quick, but do you have, anybody have comments on that one? From the public first, thanks.

I'm so sorry, I know you're totally sick of me at this point, if not before this. Just to remind the Commission that this was commissioned by you all as a way to add texture to why we have the six, I mean maybe not some of the newer people, but the original City Planning Commission that was reviewing this, oh gosh, let's tell people why this doesn't just come out of nowhere. So that's where the background sort of verbiage came from, from you. The process section is tied to something I said earlier, which is we still have this missing segment of the document which tells you all about how to navigate this process, the role of this document, the role of coming to the counter, when you come to the counter, when you come to you guys, etc. Since that's missing, you can't quite evaluate how this ties together, which is that under each of those paragraphs when you have the little, here's where you'll probably be in the process when you are thinking about principle number, core principle number one, those would be all hyperlinked into this future document segment that we haven't seen yet. So I think it's a way to navigate the document and kind of keep tying both the process to you know, the core principles are organized like a funnel, which is how all, most design occurs anyways. Let's look at the site. Let's start with the site. Where are we? And then you go down to like, which type of bathroom tile am I picking? And that's down the road. So the funnel, the detailed decisions, those are core principle six. Core principle one is the landscape and where you're landing. So it's just, it's logical to sort of tie it back to this process document that we hope to see at some point. So anyway, just giving you a little more information about what you're looking at.

Thank you. Commissioner Olleborn. Thank you, Chair.

I'll speak to the process part first. I totally, thank you, Victoria. I mean, absolutely, we need support for the applicant through this process. I don't think this is the right way to do it. This is perishable. Even staff mentions about a track three process that's been in our guidelines for 20 years. I just don't think this is the right way to do it. I think it's 2026 and there are better ways to do this so that it can be updated outside of an LCP Coastal Commission update. REQUIRING THE PLANNING COMMISSION. I THINK THE PROCESS IS MUCH MORE OWNED INSIDE THE PLANNING DEPARTMENT AND THE BUILDING DEPARTMENT. SO I WOULD LIKE TO SEE IT REMOVED FROM THESE GUIDELINES. AND THEN ON THE BACKGROUND, I WOULD ASK THAT THOSE SUBSECTIONS ACTUALLY BE REMOVED AS WELL, AND I'LL EXPLAIN WHY. WE HAD AN EXAMPLE. WE HAD THE CORE PRINCIPLE ONE. We've got some narrative claims that Carmel hosts the sole surviving mother strand of the Monterey Pine adapted over 25 million years. I did send out, and it is part of the public record, I sent out an email today and Ms. Gorman made some copies available to everyone here with some journal articles and some technical and agency publications related to these two claims. In my non-scientifically technical or professional review, I find that both of these claims are false. Peer-reviewed forest genetics, there's a 2025 genomic study that talks about the Monterey pine and it's surviving in five native populations. Three of them are on the California mainland, including the Monterey Peninsula. Carmel's part of the Monterey Peninsula. Two on islands off Baja. I can't argue the science. That's not my lane, and that's not my expertise. But the literature, peer-reviewed, states that Carmel is one of five surviving populations, not the only one. The phrase mother strand is used nowhere in... in any of the literature. And the 25 million year figure is actually a little skewed in the way that it's mentioned in the background. It describes something about a lineage diverging. Again, I can't speak to the details, and I'm not here to argue that. My point isn't about this beautiful pine tree that's so much a part of our town. This is the anchor claim in the anchor principle, like the first substantive words of a document that we're being asked to adopt after years of work, and it's wrong. I mean, I'm fact checking just one quickly. Who knows what are inside the other five? And it's not my job to do that. It isn't staff's job to do that. It's outside the scope completely of the purpose of this document. Whatever the author's intent, and I know that it was well intended, and I'd like to state that clearly, for this city to publish factually incorrect claims in an adopted regulatory document exposes the city to real risk. If we base planning decisions on information that's factually incorrect that is later challenged in court on the basis of those claims, we're gonna be at risk. And I don't believe, given the timeline, that Council Member Barron gave us. There isn't time to fact check all five background statements, nor are they required by the Coastal Commission. There's no state mandate for that sort of thing. And so my recommendation would be to delete them.

Thank you.

I just wanted to talk about the second point, which is the process. The background I don't feel strongly about, maybe we should remove it, but I want to talk about the process component. Now we have a flow chart on the building and planning department web page that explains the design review process. And there's one that is labeled projects in the R1 residential zone. And it's a pretty substantial flow chart that explains the whole process includes the site assessments and the reviews and the concept review and the final review. So it has all the steps. The only issue is that it does not provide the link or any reference to a design guideline. So if we can add link to the design guideline in that flow chart, we should be covered from a process perspective. That's a great suggestion.

Yes, and Commissioner Ruiz?

Yeah, I agree with what Commissioner Karapetkov just said about the process. I think the process here is really where the Planning Department and the Commission and the City can have real wins in terms of making this process more effective, less painful, faster, reduce staff overhead work, et cetera. But again, I'm not sure that that needs to be incorporated into this document per se. And Commissioner Alborn mentioned some of the updating issues that have to do with the regulatory documents. The background session, I don't have strong feelings about that either way. It's nice to have some background, but again, if it needs to be reviewed so rigorously, then perhaps we just leave it out this time think about it some other, you know, the next time we do this.

Okay, thank you. I think that concludes this item, finally. It's 725. Should we take a break at this point? 20 minutes or 15 minutes? 15 minutes? Okay, so we'll reconvene at 20 till 8. Thank you.

I know, but . That's the Syrian problem there. We're on to number nine, so we won't make it to the next round.

I mean, I think all of a sudden it's a good process. I don't see your question.

Thank you.

But there should be

I know, I know. Thank you, it will. I'd like to reconvene the Planning Commission meeting at this time. Can we have roll call, please?

Commissioner Alvord? Here. Commissioner Karapetkov?

Here.

Commissioner Ruse?

Here.

And Commissioner Law?

Here.

Great, thank you. So the next order of business is our public hearings. And... Item number four is DS26293 Maroto. I don't know if I said that wrong, sorry. This is consideration of a combined concept and final detailed design study and it is for construction of a new 247 square foot detached garage AND THE STREET SIDE YARD SET BACK TO REPLACE AN EXISTING PARKING PAD LOCATED ON THE NORTHEAST CORNER OF MOUNTAIN VIEW AND GUADALUPE IN THE SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENTIAL AND PARK OVERLAY DISTRICTS. STAFF, WOULD YOU HAVE A PRESENTATION?

Thank you Commissioner Locke and for that project description. This is for a new 247 square foot detached garage. So the code only requires a property of this size to have one parking space and the applicant is proposing a second detached garage. The proposal is for a detached garage access from Mountain View. The finished materials for the garage are board and batten, comp shingle, wood divided light windows, and those are all in line with the design guidelines. We can return to this if needed, but a preliminary site assessment was completed for this property. We do have the forester's evaluation of the trees, as well as a follow-up correspondence from the forester. We can come back to this as needed. Here are the findings that the commission will need to consider this evening. On the left side of your screen are the concept findings, so we'll start there. Staff has found that concept findings three, four, five, six, and seven are met and that the commission needs to further consider one and two. for this reason. The code says that grading ruts and fills around significant trees shall be limited to areas outside the root projection zone identified by the City Forester in the preliminary site assessment. The project does propose fill within the root zone of significant tree number one, as indicated in the preliminary site assessment. Moving on to the Municipal Code, which speaks to Site coverage says that sites not in compliance with site coverage limits shall not be authorized to increase site coverage and sites with excess coverage may add floor area only when A and B are met. So I'll start with A. The site complies with the tree density provisions established in section 17.48080A. And that table is provided at the upper right hand side of your screen. And this lot size is 7,000 and some square feet. So we're looking at a tree density of five upper canopy trees and four lower canopy trees. The project site only has two upper canopy trees. So while the city forester, and I'm going to hopefully not confuse you, I'm going to go back a slide. The city forester later came to staff and applicant and said that they are satisfied with just nine trees. and not divided into the five upper, four lower. However, the table in the code specifies five upper canopy and four lower canopy. So then moving on to B, excess site coverage will be reduced at a rate equal to two times the amount of floor area added to the site. The applicant is doing that. They are reducing their site coverage two times the floor area of the new garage. However, the applicant is also proposing 12 square feet of new asphalt as like a driveway extension in front of the garage and is additionally proposing to essentially lift up the pavers of the parking pad, a section of the parking pad, install the fill underneath to level it out and put the pavers back and based on a director's determination of this code language, once you remove hardscape, even temporarily, you may not put it back. When it goes back, it's considered new site coverage. And so the site is nonconforming in terms of site coverage. Here you have the numbers. We can come back to this if needed. So now I'm going to move on to the findings the commission must make to authorize a detached garage in the street side setback, which this proposed garage is. It meets these standards here. It's less than 250 square feet. It doesn't exceed 12 feet in width and it's lower than 15 feet in height. So no issues here. Moving on to our other findings, the right-of-way is sufficiently landscaped. This finding speaks to how the proposed setback encroachment would not impact significant or moderately significant trees. And as I mentioned, the project does propose fill within the eight foot zone of tree number one. And here's that code reference that I already spoke to. We also have the Forester's opinion that fill in this instance would not impact the significant tree. So the planning commission shall consider whether the project meets this standard. The next finding speaks to free and safe movement of pedestrians and vehicles in adjacent rights of way being protected. The proposed garage is set back three feet, seven and a half inches from the property line. The speed limit traveling south on Forest, turning that corner by the park entry there is 10 miles per hour. There are no pedestrian sidewalks. Planning staff contacted the police and the public works departments for feedback regarding the safety of the proposed garage location. That feedback was provided as an attachment. Here's a photograph of the story polls, and here is that feedback from Public Works and the Police Department. We can return to it, or if you'd like me to read each one specifically, I can certainly come back to it. The other findings are findable. The development is in scale with adjacent properties and consistent with the design guidelines. and placement of the garage in the setback will add diversity to the streetscape as there are no other detached garages in the vicinity. So planning staff recommends that the commission either continue the project, I apologize that should have been option one as it is always an option to simply continue a project, or you may make the findings to approve the project or adopt a resolution of denial. That concludes my presentation, and we have the architect and homeowner with us.

OK, thank you, staff. At this time, would the applicant like to approach?

Good evening, commissioners. Staff, my name is Adam Jeselnik. I'm the architect for the Marudos for this new detached garage. Thank you for your attention to this project tonight. I know it's been a long evening and it's a warm night here, so I'll just try to keep my comments as brief as possible and then be available to answer any questions you might have. This house, like many houses around town, has undergone quite a bit of transformation over time. The Marutos specifically have made improvements to the home in terms of the exterior materials and the landscaping and have really beautified this quite a significant home on the corner, very visible from the forest theater and on your way to the Mission Trail Park. So it is an important site, and I think it deserves your careful attention as a reason why we're here. The parking pad in question where we're proposing the garage has been used since predating the Maruto's ownership of the property. In fact, a previous design proposal for this house that was approved included a garage accessed from Mountain View. It was attached to the house so it was further back from the street, but it did utilize the same location in terms of a new driveway. So what was ended up being built was a relatively compact parking pad with permeable pavers and retaining walls to keep back the surrounding earth. So essentially the design intent for this project was transform that parking pad from what it is currently being used for into a more beautiful addition to the property, a garage that matches the style and materials of the house, and also provide a safe and enclosed place for the owners to park their vehicle. With that being said, there were questions raised throughout the review of the project as to the significant pine tree that's located immediately to the east of the proposed garage. I think hopefully as you were able to see on your site visit today, the retaining wall that's probably about four feet from that tree has been there for quite some time. And the existing cut in the grade has also been there for quite some time with no apparent impacts to the pine tree. So I'm supportive of the City Foresters findings that what we proposed in terms of both the construction of the garage and the improvement to the walkway that connects the garage to the existing walkway to the house will not have any detrimental impacts to that pine tree. This does, again, bring up the question of site coverage that staff raised. It's our position that repair of the surrounding permeable pavers by leveling them and creating that safe exit from the garage that connects to the walkway to the house and to the street should be approvable by this commission, again, on the basis of simply repairing what already exists. And in combination with the removal of other site coverage, we believe that that's consistent with the city's ordinances and with the design guidelines. So with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have about the project.

ANY QUESTIONS FOR THE OPPOSITE?

SUPER QUICK. THANK YOU, ADAM. KATHERINE, COULD YOU PLEASE TAKE US TO SLIDE 14? DID YOU DO, ADAM, DID YOU DO ANY, MAYBE IT'S NOT 14, LET'S SEE, MAYBE BACK A LITTLE BIT MORE. I GUESS THAT'S GOOD, RIGHT THERE. EGRIS FROM THE NEIGHBORING DRIVEWAY. YOU KNOW, THIS WILL DEFINITELY CHANGE THE VISIBILITY OF It looks to me as though any car exiting the neighboring driveway is going to be able to see downhill traffic coming up, which would be the lane that they would be entering into. Did you consider that? It appears to be fine to me. I'm just asking you to confirm that egress from the neighboring driveway will be safe.

Yeah, I think there were comments that were provided of support from the neighbors regarding this garage structure. We didn't have a specific conversation about visibility. But as you pointed out, anybody backing out of that driveway or pulling forward out of that driveway would be able to see down Mountain View and see oncoming traffic fairly clearly. Thank you.

Any other questions? Is it possible to move the gutter back maybe another couple of feet because right now it's only three feet seven inches from the property line, right? Is it possible?

Yeah, so again, going back to, you know, sort of the design intent, a simplest path is sometimes the right one, not always, but we fit the garage within the constraints of the current parking pad, which meant leaving the retaining wall that exists for the stairway that continues up to the house. So, you know, that wall Again, it follows the stairs, but it goes up to about six feet in height, and there'd be a considerable cost and grading impact to moving the garage further back.

Okay. Any other? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We'll open the public comment at this time. Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak to this item? Is there anybody online?

No, ma'am.

Okay, thank you. We'll close the public hearing, bring it back to the commission. Were there any questions for staff? I'm sorry, I forgot to ask that question.

Just a quick question, which is, excuse me, I'm unfamiliar with this. When the forester says, I'm okay with this, even though it's something that's not supposed to happen, how do we normally treat that? Is it like, I mean, because my thinking is, well, if the foresters are okay with it, why wouldn't I be? I'm not the forester. But I don't know how that works in practice administratively. Either it's within the planning department or even for this commission.

And I actually had a related question, and my question was 17.48.1110A3. You said it said shall be limited to areas outside the root zone. And again, this goes to the shall and shall not, but... Does that give us leeway? Because, I mean, it seems to me that that's pretty straightforward that you have to be outside that area. Are you nodding agreement? Okay. Well, on that then, who would like to speak to this matter first this evening? Some people are forced to move.

I'm very concerned about the garage. It's very close to the street and we actually had a project like that a couple of years ago. If you remember the yellow house on San Carlos and 14th next to the bus stop where they had a path, right? And they wanted to build a garage and we approved it. It was kind of a weird garage because it was like only two feet away from the house. There was no real separation, but that's less of a problem. The problem was that in the front it only had about six, seven feet maybe until it hit the San Carlos and that house then went on sale and couldn't sell for a long, long time. I don't know if it's still on the market. And I talked to the neighbors a while ago trying to figure out why they didn't sell. And they didn't sell because it's dangerous. This garage, nobody wants to be forced to park in this garage. Well, there are other issues as well because it's a corner lot and there's a bus stop close by. It's not the only reason, but one of the concerns that buyers list close to the top is that the garage is very close to the street and it's unsafe to park your car in there. Now, admittedly, San Carlos is a busier street than, which is that Mountain View, but at the same time, This other project had seven feet, I would say, eight feet. We can go back and look at the documentation and see how much space they have. While here we only have three feet and seven inches. It's very tight. So the short story is really that whatever works for a path does not work for a garage because you need more space and more more visibility to be able to, I guess you have to be able to get the car out and be able as a driver to see on a side before you continue going back. If you cannot do that, you are blind. You don't see what's going on. And so that's my concern about the garage. So that's why I asked the architect if it's possible to move this you know, a couple of feet towards the back. I understand the concern. I understand the desire to keep the retaining wall. It's very unpleasant destroying retaining walls. It's dirty and it's noisy and it's very unpleasant, but I don't feel comfortable with the location of the garage at this point, unfortunately. So thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Ruiz.

Okay. I understand the concern about the garage and visibility. That is a very difficult spot. There's a hill there that's effectively blind. All these things are true. But they've been backing out of this driveway pad for a long time, right? So that for me is not really a deal breaker. It's clearly a suboptimal driveway situation. And I'm kind of troubled with a bit about the Forrester and the guideline. And I guess the reason it troubles me is not that, to me this feels like one of those places where, well, if the Forrester says it's okay, well, I don't know if that's really our domain. I prefer in making decisions to take the facts from the experts and go from there. So, and again, I'm the freshman here, Commissioner Alderman always says, I think you're the sophomore now. I'm not certain if this falls under commission discretion or not. Do we take the word of a city official who's an expert that this is not an issue? Or do we dig in on the word shall, which was a conversation we had earlier this evening and tonight? I'm kind of a two minds here. I'm not really sure what to do. Conceptually, it doesn't bother me. You know, just in relation to the mandate and the guidelines and the rules about tree roots, that seems like a stumbling block.

You're all burning.

Thank you, Chair. Commissioner Roos, let me help you with shall. Courts, when I was looking at the consistency of terminology for the design guidelines, I came up with a couple of things, including the way that courts tend to use the word shall and the reason why they don't like it, exactly what you're talking about. But courts have found shall to be capable of meaning must, may, will, or is. May is in there, may, okay? Grading ruts and fills around significant trees may be limited to areas outside the root protection zone. I agree with your inclination. My lane is not as a forester. If he's determined that the tree will be all right with this project plan, then I side with the forester on that. I am very pleased that staff spoke to Public Works and the Police Department and had them have a look at safe passage of pedestrians and vehicles. I think that's awesome. That's the kind of thing that we need to reach out to other experts to help us make the decisions that we need to make. They've been parking in and out of this location FOR YEARS. I THINK THEIR SAFE PASSAGE IN AND OUT WILL BE FINE. SURE, I WOULD LOVE IT IF IT COULD BE DEEPER INTO THE PROPERTY, BUT I AM ALSO QUITE CONFIDENT THAT THE ARCHITECT, COULD HE HAVE DONE THAT, WOULD HAVE DONE THAT AND GIVEN THEM A LONGER DRIVEWAY THAT THEY COULD POSSIBLY PARK TWO CARS. So I trust that the architect has designed precisely what is best for this lot. Site coverage, that needs to be addressed. We have a condition of approval 30 for that. So I know that that will take care of that. And yes, and I am convinced that there is safe egress for that neighboring driveway. So with that, I'm ready to move that we approve this as conditioned, but Chair Locke, you first are going to make your comments. I don't have anything further to add to that.

So do we have a second to the motion?

I'll second it.

Okay, we have a motion and a second.

So this is to approve or to deny?

To approve.

To approve. Okay. Wasn't your recommendation to deny?

I think it was clarified that the legal jargon of shall may be more permissible than...

Okay.

You can vote on it. I can say no. All right. So shall we call for question or roll call, please?

Commissioner Alborn?

Yes.

Commissioner Karapetkov?

No.

Commissioner Ruse?

Yes.

And Commissioner Locke? Yes. Motion passes.

Nice big termite. All right, on to number... Number five, the Smith and Chee DS26040 consideration of a combined concept and final design detail and coastal development permit. And I will let staff give the rest of the description, please. I should have gone ahead, huh? Okay. All right, well, you're trying to get that up there. Okay, so this is 1,025 square feet of attached additions, a 273-square-foot detached garage, and a 351-square-foot detached ADU at the historic John L. Hines House located on Monteverde to northwest of 12th in the single-family residential district. Mr. Allender.

Thank you. We'll just get right into it. Thank you for the introduction. This is the John L. Hinn's house. It's at Monteverde to northwest of 12th, and it was constructed in the early 1900s. It was added to the inventory in the early 2000s, and there was a rear addition approved in 2004. You can see here is the proposed layout of the property with the proposed additions. That's a 700 square foot lot. They're proposing to max out their floor area inclusive of the ADU that will be processed separately and concurrently once this has been approved at the building permit stage. This is also a pipeline project. They're also proposing conforming site coverage. So it's meeting the zoning standards regarding floor area and site coverage. In addition to the attached additions, they're proposing a detached garage and ADU. THIS WAS NOTICED AS A COMBINED CONCEPT AND FINAL, BUT WE DISCOVERED THAT THERE'S AN ISSUE ON SITE WITH THE ONLY ONE PARKING SPOT WAS BEING PROPOSED. PREVIOUSLY THERE WAS ONLY A SINGLE CAR GARAGE ON SITE, BUT IN THE REDESIGN WE NEED TO BRING THAT INTO COMPLIANCE. And there's several different options for how you can get there. We'll look into that in a little more detail. I think the next slide actually helps illuminate that point a little bit. We'll talk forest character, and then I'll take a brief tangent on parking. So forest character, there's 18 trees identified on site. 12 of these trees were rated significant. The city foresters approved the removal of tree 15 and 17, deeming them not significant. And those have been deemed acceptable to be removed. If you can see on site though, 15 and 17 are over at the back of the site. All the majority of the trees are at the front half of the property. Make it really hard to add additional parking on site. So we've been trying to brainstorm ways to create a second parking spot. There is an exemption for a parking if the property is on the Carmel historic registry. That would require going to the Carmel Historic Resource Board and requesting the property be added to the registry. It is already on the inventory, so that would be an additional step. And then an additional Historic Resource Board meeting requesting the waiver of the second parking space. I think the idea behind that is having those additional structures and mass on the building could detract from the historic character of the building and could potentially obscure the view of it. As we mentioned briefly in the site visit today, this did have two phase two evaluations. The first one was determined that the design was not subordinate enough to the main house and there's a few character defining features that were being modified. So the applicant SAT DOWN, THE APPLICANT AND HOMEOWNERS SAT DOWN WITH MYSELF AND A QUALIFIED PROFESSIONAL AND WE REVIEWED SOME IDEAS OF HOW TO MAKE THE PROJECT MORE COMPLIANT WITH THE SECRETARY STANDARDS. AND WE FOUND THAT THE DESIGN AS CURRENTLY PROPOSED DOES MEET THOSE STANDARDS. SO THAT WOULD BE WITH THE ADU AND GARAGE DETACHED FROM THE HOUSE, SET FURTHER BACK AWAY, ONE STORY, AND THEN ANY TWO STORY EDITIONS ARE MINOR AND TUCKED BACK ON THE OLD NON-HISTORIC EDITION. So all that's to say is trying to switch up the design by adding additional accessory structures or bigger structures could have a trickle-down effect on the determination of consistency. So I just want you to keep that in mind while we're talking about this parking issue, and I'll get back to the main thrust of the presentation. TOPOGRAPHY. WE RECEIVED THE PRELIMINARY DRAINAGE AND GRADING PLAN. THERE'S GOING TO BE USE OF CATCH BASINS, BIOSQUALES, AND DIFFERENT TYPES OF DRAINAGE FEATURES TO MAKE SURE THAT RUNOFF ISN'T BEING SENT OVER TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PROPERTY. THERE'S FEATURES THAT WE SEE ON SOME HOUSES MORE COMMONLY, SOME LESS COMMONLY, BUT ALL MEET OUR STANDARDS AND REQUIREMENTS. AND THERE'S MINIMAL SLOPES ON SITE. IT SEEMED THE MOST I SAW WAS TWO TO SIX. The applicant can correct me if I missed anything, but it didn't seem like there's any major slopes on site. And as you saw from the site visit today, it's a fairly flat site overall. For privacy and views, we did have, as we talked about, the rear neighbor had some concerns about the primary suite's windows. As the applicant mentioned today, the bathroom window is now going to be removed, and the closet window will be frosted. So it will be obscured of some kind so that it will mitigate that privacy concern. So and I haven't received any feedback about concerns about view blockage and from just looking around the site today on site and when I was there on the preliminary site assessment, I didn't identify any apparent view concerns with the development they're proposing. HERE IS A PICTURE OF WHAT'S EXISTING ON THE BOTTOM LEFT AND THEN WHAT'S PROPOSED ON THE RIGHT. SO THIS IS FROM THE STREETS FROM THE STREET VIEW. SO YOU CAN SEE THE HISTORIC THERE THE 2004 EDITION IS ALMOST ENTIRELY OBSCURED BY THE COTTAGE. I THINK THIS RENDERING DOESN'T SHOW BUT THERE'S A MAYBE A LITTLE BIT THAT'S VISIBLE FROM THE STREET BUT I'M NOT SURE. What they're proposing is to have this two-story portion behind the cottage and then the detached structures to the right and then the rest of the additions at the rear. This was, again, we had a determination of consistency from the Historic Resource Board and a qualified professional determining that the additions were subordinate to the historic cottage and didn't obscure the view and didn't compromise any of the character defining features. So in addition to that determination of consistency, they also have met all of our zoning standards regarding plate height and heights. And then in addition to that, they also passed volume. A maximum allowed volume was 36,000. They are proposing 32,000. So that gives them a buffer of about 4,000 cubic feet, which to bring it back to the biggest sticking point of the project right now, the parking, whether parking is provided onsite or not, 200 square feet of floor area and 2,200 cubic feet of volume are required to be counted for every parking space that's required on a site, whether provided or not. So right now, they have that with the garage because that was already calculated. But if they did get a waiver for their parking, they still would be able to meet volume. We wouldn't even need to do an additional volume study because it would just be a hypothetical 2,200. And the floor area, they are showing maxed out on floor area, but 350 square feet of that is there. ADU, WHICH, SINCE THIS IS A PIPELINE PROJECT, THEY WOULD BE ABLE TO UTILIZE THAT, RESERVING THAT 200 FOR PARKING AND STILL BUILD THE ADU THAT PUTS THEM OVER THE FLOOR AREA BECAUSE IT'S A PIPELINE PROJECT. BUILDING AND ROOF FORM. They're keeping a very similar roof form with the, we discussed on site today, the hips with the kind of shed roofs that come off of them. And then in addition, the design guidelines call out that rectangular L-shaped and U-shaped building forms are most common, and those are nice and simple. This does have a little bit of, you know, breaks here and there, but is roughly a U-shape or L-shape, depending on your perspective on the building form. SO OF STAFF'S OPINION, IT MAINTAINS A SIMILAR LEVEL OF COMPLEXITY TO THE ORIGINAL WITH THE OFFSETS WHILE MAINTAINING AN OVERALL SIMPLE BUILDING FORM AND ROOT FORM. PARKING, I'VE BEEN GIVING YOU GUYS THIS A LITTLE BIT AS WE GO JUST TO MAKE SURE WE'RE GOING TO THIS PREPARED. THEY'RE PROPOSING ONE SPOT. 8,000 square foot or greater lots require two spots. We need to figure out how to provide parking prior to final details. So whether you guys, and you're under no obligation to give direction, but if you have thoughts on it or things that you think would be more acceptable than others, I'm sure the applicant would love any feedback you have. So that could be something as simple as what I outlined, going back to the HRB and getting that waiver of the second parking space, or it could be something like, like a variance for a parking pad in the front setback. The variance findings can be hard to make because it's typically the need for the variance isn't caused by the current or previous owner. It's always the finding that I get caught up on. This one, because of the trees themselves limiting where you can put accessory structures, it's a little tougher to provide parking. So that might be justification for the variance. But again, just options. With that, I recommend that you adopt the resolution as presented by staff, which would be accepting the concept design. Again, we're not going to do the combo final and concept, just accepting the concept, finding that the accepting of a concept design is not a project, and proceed forward with the special conditions requiring them to have parking figured out prior to final details. And I'm here for any questions.

Do we have any questions for staff?

I have a question, again, for my education. Does a parking pad have to be paved and does it have to count as site coverage? What if it's just dirt?

We don't double count. So if your parking pad is something you're using to provide parking, we'll count that towards your floor area and not towards your site coverage. Does it have to be paved? I don't have a good answer to that off the top of my head. I don't. I think it has to be designated. I don't know if it has to be paved. It might be acceptable to have compacted dirt, but I'd need to look into that further.

Okay, so the second question to that I have is, and I'm not finding that sheet right now, paging through the plans, but how much space is there between the north side of the garage and the north boundary of the lot? Because I don't recall seeing a significant tree there, and I'm just wondering if that's 20 feet. And you've got maybe. I'm just thinking out loud.

The difficulty is for detached garages in the front setback, there's a limit on what you can do for size. It can only be a single car garage, and it has limits on size and height and width. I wasn't talking about making the garage bigger. I'm talking about just having . I see. The other issue is the parking pads. While the code allows for a carport or garage in the front setback, the code doesn't allow for a parking pad in the front setback. So that would require the variance for the parking pad. Got it. Thank you. Yeah.

Okay. Jake, could you please talk us through again historic waiving of parking requirements? Just again for my education and I'll preface this by saying we are a parking starved city and no one is least likely to waive required parking than me.

Fair point. Unfortunately, honestly, I don't have a lot of details on this. This is something that I wanted to address with the applicants after this so I can get more details on it. But through conversations with Marnie and Catherine, who have had more experience with historic properties than I have, the Carmel registry has the ability for properties on the Carmel registry, you can request a waiver of, I don't know if it's just parking or other certain requirements for the zoning code. so that is an avenue that people can take i do understand that parking is at a premium in the town and so not requiring someone to have parking is not something it's too many negatives approving the waiver of parking is not something that's a priority of this commission okay thank you um any other questions good maybe one more so

I see the big redwood tree on the left side of the parking. I guess that would be a problem to build on that side. What is the tree on the other side of the proposed parking?

I don't have the tree evaluation in front of me currently that actually ranked all of the different trees. And I would hate to be dismissive of a tree that appears smaller and to determine it not significant because there's, you know, if it meets the proper diameter for the trunk and rates high enough on this scale of species, overall health, maturity, all these different factors, then it can be significant regardless of the size. But there are these four trees that you can see in the upper right of the proposed and existing. And so I'm not sure if any of those or all of them are significant. That would be something that I would review with them. Also, if there are trees that maybe were not significant, we could talk to the city forester to see if he deemed it acceptable. The site is certainly over the required tree density, but obviously we don't like to encourage the removal of trees, whether significant or not.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right. At this time, we would ask the applicant to come forward and give a presentation.

Good evening. Thomas Hood, architect for Doug Smith and Ana Chi and former HRB member. It really is with great pleasure that I'm actually bringing this project forward. I started working with Doug and Anna a little over two years ago. And then basically we made our application in February. And then the city historian, consulting historian came back, Meg came back with what I would view as sort of the first negative review of any project I've ever designed. So I really took careful notice of what she was saying. What we found is we had a meeting with the project team and we had a second meeting with Meg and this guy right here. And it went great, because we basically came in and said, she's right. Our first design was a two-story garage with an ADU up above, 20 feet high, 19.6 inches high, connected to the cottage. And we thought, there. That's how we solved all the problems. We had room for the garage and the ADU. We didn't have room for a second parking space. Well, let's see what we can do. And she came back and said, it's dwarfing the historic resource. Work on it. And we basically said, well, we're going to do everything you're recommending. She goes, if you do that, I can support the design. So basically, in a blistering two and a half week effort, we redesigned the project. With his guidance, we resubmitted the documents. Meg looked at it and said, you bet at 1,000. A couple of things I just want to point out is one correction. The garage is actually 250 square feet as maximum in the ordinance, where the staff report says 273. That was an oversight on our part. When we were over by 23 square feet, we fixed that. And we got that. And I'm sincere about this. I want to compliment Jake on the staff report he just gave. We've had a number of long conversations. And I sent you a very detailed email, what, yesterday? Basically saying, here's how we, together as a team, with planning staff, with Meg and the design team, here's how we arrived at this design. As a result, we have no damage to any trees. The one significant tree that were within a 12-foot diameter not a six-foot diameter. We'll use a foundation system we used on six other projects, which essentially are helical piers, no grating within that 12-foot circle. And that applies to the ADU. And it's a successful means that we hover the building just so off the existing grade. And the ADU has been designed to do that. Another thing that I think is really important, just from a general planning sense, is whereas the first design we did, there's a big addition onto the cottage. What we've done now, and this is really as a result of Meg's thought and Jake's feedback, if you get down and you look close at the model.

Could you bring up the model?

What we ended up doing was by separating the ADU and the garage from the cottage, it gave the cottage the space it needed because it's a long horizontal building parallel to the street frontage. But the other thing that came out of it was when we broke these pieces up, I realized that the scale of the garage and the ADU is very much in keeping with the oldest houses up and down Monteverde Street. This goes back to pre-1913. Two doors down is another cottage with the same roof profile. I think that's around 1925. So what we end up doing here is the proposed detached structures and the bedroom are roughly in proportion to those earliest Carmel cottages that I've worked on for the last 10 years. They're about 400 square feet. They're about 20 feet long, 16 to 18 feet wide, one story, hip roofs. And there it is right there. That's 1913. So that's what our effort is, is to do the same thing. The other is to try and bring in an aesthetic that recognizes Carmel's architectural history. At the same time, the owner says, we want you to stress a little bit. We do like elements of arts and crafts. But we also like a very subtle Japanese influence in terms of site planning or materials. And they also like Scandinavian design. So we went, OK, no problem. Arts and crafts, schematic. What did I say? Scandinavian design and Japanese. I think we've done it. And what it really comes down to is, unlike the project I mentioned a while ago that we used all manufacturing materials, Everything on this project is natural, raw redwood, cedar siding. The only issue we're looking at is confirming the selection of an asphalt shingle for the roof. Other than that, the historic windows, single glazed, all wood. We're basically attempting to take this and highlight this building by giving space around it and pushing everything to the setbacks and to the edges as far as we can go so you maintain as much space around the building as possible. The last thing I want to say is with this issue of the second parking space, it was an oversight on my part and then on Jake's that in our first meeting from over a year ago, I was always thinking 9,000 square foot lots required two parking spaces. It's eight. And it really didn't come back up until about 10 days ago. And the two paths that we've talked about, one is a variance for the parking bed parking bed or parking dirt, and there's only one place we found that it could actually work, which would be on the north side of the garage. We took the site plan and we looked at every possibility of a parking pad, that given the setback in the placement of the historic cottage, there isn't one place on this site where we could put a ordinance-compliant second parking space, either because of trees or the setback in the property lines in the existing, whoops, in the existing, kind of break my own model, the existing cottage. Having said that, I'm looking forward to working with Jake and I guess with the HRB that if we go back that route and seek the waiver, that's one path. I personally prefer to seek the variance. That's where I would like to stand. I think that's about it. The neighbors seem to like it. I knocked on doors at least three times for them to see this. We did address the concern about view to the west, and I met with the Bader's last week. They're asking questions about the second story windows. We came to a resolution on that that don't require changes to the building. So as far as I know, we have a lot of happy neighbors. With that, I'm available for any questions. Does anyone have any questions?

Go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mr. Hood. In this picture, which doesn't actually appear in your elevation drawing of the east view, what is all of the glazing that you have there?

What is all the what?

The glazing.

Glazing on the cottage?

I'm looking through to the buildings that are deeper into the lot. Are those solid walls or are those glass windows?

The only that you can see from the street.

I think it's the bridge area that she's looking at.

Yeah. Thank you. quite a bit better and it's answered to the existing footprint which is this it starts to make the building work too great so like where you know you can actually stay if i say it's a 15 foot stand the building doesn't actually touch the ground the whole idea here is we're trying to minimize the connections between the buildings and keep it the same

Are you familiar with Carmel's design guideline that speaks to windows and doors at human scale? Six foot eight? And what is the height of the glass that you have in that bridge? Okay. And for that second parking space, you have an 8,700 square foot lot. Yes? As proposed and as shown here in the model, sure, there isn't any space for a second parking space. But there is room for one. It would just require a great deal of redesign. We are a parking-starved town. And the HRB might grant a waiver. I'm not sure if the Planning Commission would need to approve that or not. I hope so. And the Planning Commission approves very few variances. So, thank you.

I only pursued three variances . Yeah. I know . I'd love to have the possibility of being able to see the current lighting here, even if it's just on the ground. Because they respect the fact that there's linings parking along the frontage that can't be used. So I fully support the idea of two parking spaces. I'm literally looking where I could actually put them on the site. If it doesn't destroy it, they start picking up the front. It still needs maintenance. And that's where I think, of course, when the practice has to be discussed.

Any further questions for the architect? No? All right, thank you. Thank you very much. And at this time, we'll take public comment. If you have comments, please come forward. Please, no more than three minutes. Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners. Adam Jeselnik, architect. I'll keep my comments brief. I think that Thomas and his team have done a beautiful job on this historic property. The renderings, the plan, the model all illustrate a really careful attention to detail and a very modest proposal for a site that could otherwise probably support a much more massive, ultimately, project. The question of a parking variance is one that's come up on numerous projects that I've been involved on. There has been strong support in the past from previous commissions for a variance to allow a parking pad, for example, in the front yard setback. In my opinion, it's an oversight in the existing code that does not allow for a parking pad in the front yard setback that should be corrected. And because of the historic structure, because of the tree canopy, because of all the existing site constraints, including the pretty significant setback from the street frontage, I think this would be a prime candidate for that. So I offer my support for the design as presented. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else?

Hi, everyone. Thank you for being here for so long in the heat. And my name's Marie. It's the Wildland Workshop. We're the landscape architects. And I worked with Thomas and the clients to really help preserve the historic and forest character of this site from the very beginning. Right now, it's sort of these really beautiful oak and cypress tree, upper canopy trees. What we were trying to do is really just use the site, the ample site that we have, to nestle the historic cottage and the proposed architecture into that site in a layered naturalistic setting using natural materials and stone, wood, mulch gravel native plantings and creating a layering between the street and the back of the proposed addition that you point out has glazing that's very visible to provide screening between the road and the back of the site. So the staff report is great. There are some revised renderings that we've provided that show that that are not available in the staff report. I can show you here. if you'd like, but that was the intent was using the landscape in a very naturalistic way, not in a structural way or in a way that would compete with the historic structures on the site to help create outdoor rooms for different purposes around and throughout that garden setting. And then I do have a diagram that just shows where We, you know, just heard about the parking requirements this morning for me at least, where we could fit those within the existing. site and if it's helpful to you I can show you where that how that could work and how it would impact the site. I'm not sure if now is a good time because we're gonna have to come back anyway, but it just shows you the challenge of the preserving the existing trees the existing historic resource and complying with that parking requirement is to say the least very challenging on this particular lot and I understand completely that parking is incredibly important so I would say at least having some flexibility in terms of parking in the front yard setback would really help to solve this how softening that regulation I think we could make something work where it would not compete with the historic resource or the natural character or the tree canopy. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Would anybody else like to address?

I'm going to just add context. My name is Douglas Smith, owner with my wife, Anna. I was born in Carmel at the community hospital here. My father taught at the postgraduate school for over 10 years, was a department head. And we lived out on Carmel Valley Road. The house is still there next to the Sotheby's real estate agent. I'm sort of imprinted with sort of the smell of the river down there. And sort of my happy place is the river beach area. We had, although we moved when I was very young, my elder brothers went to school in the Carmel Valley Schools and in the Monterey School District. We moved directly from Carmel to Morocco, so it was a big change for there. But since then, my parents lived here long enough, we had ongoing friends. And that's why I sort of imprinted on the area, too, with going to the beach because of friends that lived down near the elementary school. The whole process of doing this project has been very interesting because it's a historic process. It was a bigger challenge than I expected. And so we've been at it for two years. I appreciate the responsibility we have with the existing historic asset. And that part has actually also been a fun challenge too. And I've come to appreciate the cabin-like atmosphere in the older part of the house with the super tiny bathroom and the squeaky floors and all that stuff. And I also wanted to have a house that represented sort of the village nature of Carmel with incorporating the landscaping and the house together, interspersed. And I think that Thomas has done a great job, Thomas and Marie also. So anyway, that's my part of this. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Does anybody else? Anna?

I want to say something, because earlier you said you wanted to hear stories. So my name's Anna. and I'm the homeowner. And first of all, I want to thank all of you. I can't believe how dedicated you are and doing this every day, every month or every week. So anyway, I was born and raised in China and in 1992, my boyfriend then, husband now, Doug, took me to a place, he said that's where he was born. And I just do remember driving down Ocean Avenue and parked at the beach in this white sand, turquoise sea water, and this cypress tree, I didn't even have a name for it at that time. And just falling in love with this place. I told Doug, my boyfriend at that time, I said, one day I would like to come here where you were. So it would be making a full circle. And I loved it enough. I actually wrote Carmel into a project. I'm a filmmaker. And in 2019, just before COVID, I actually shot a movie here. And if you want to watch it, I'm going to shamelessly do a little marketing. It's called The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu. And it's ended because Mrs. Wu's last wish is to go back where her home was, which is Carmel. And we ended. the Carmel Beach, and the Carmel Film Commission gave me a lot of help. And I really am in debt for the opportunity actually to shoot in this place. Now I call home. So I appreciate all your concerns. And I want to make this my home. And I want to make this as beautiful as it fits in this environment. So thank you.

Thank you. All right, at this time we'll close public comments, bring it back to the commission for discussion. Who would like to start? Commissioner Ruse?

Okay, thank you.

You can always say no, but.

Yeah, I'll start by saying that I think this is a very respectful treatment of a historical property. I think you've really done a great job and preserving what that evokes and balancing the rest of the new development with what's already there. So congratulations on that. I still have concerns about the parking. I'm sympathetic, but at the same time, as has been pointed out, this is a parking challenge city. I don't think we can soften our response because this is so far from the business district. I mean, I live up on First and we have people parking there now. So it's only a matter of time before visitors are parking down there, down at 12th as well, so. I'm gonna listen to what everybody else has to say about the parking, but. I do want to talk about the fenestration a little bit. So apart from my real enthusiasm for this design, I'm concerned about the size of the windows in the bridge. Because it's not just the size of the windows, but there's an upper and a lower window. And let's see if I read the window schedule right. It seems that if we look at Windows with a rare elevation, but Windows 29 A, B, and C, 30 A and B, and then Windows 14 and 18, together these are way more than six feet, eight inches, or whatever it is. If you add the top and the bottom, are they not? And that strikes me as, so one of the things that we try to balance is we have big windows. It isn't just that there are big windows. It's that light comes out of these windows at night. And it seems like this lovely corridor, this bridge, as we're calling it, is going to sort of glow like a caterpillar at night, you know, and a lightning bug, whatever. And it's sort of always going to be there when you're going down the street. So I'm not sure what I would recommend to mitigate that. So I'll leave it as an observation for now. Other than that, I mean, apart from those things, I really like the project. It's very pretty. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Karpetka.

Yeah, I share the concern about the windows. I was just trying to imagine a couple of scenarios. This bridge with the big windows is basically connecting kind of private areas of the house. So I guess people walking down the street will be able to see people walking back and forth here with their pajamas or whatever over the bridge. So that's not really a problem. that are attractive, I think, from our community experience perspective. But the good news is actually that we have space for a second parking lot. So whether it's going to be a garage, or it's going to be a path, or it's going to be something else, but to the right of the existing proposed parking, or to the proposed parking, there is space. Now the question is, we need to sacrifice a tree on that side to make it work do we need to move that parking a little bit to the left closer to the redwood and then have space for another parking spot next to it these are the questions but the lot is big and luckily the historic part is kind of in one part of the lot, so the other part is free for negotiation and planning. I'm sure there will be things that can be done with the ADU to rearrange the space so that there's enough space for a second parking. So I appreciate the proposal, and I think it's a good idea to try to work on the historic designation, and maybe that will solve the problem. But if it doesn't work, I guess we have options here to play with that space in the corner to the right of the proposed garage. What else did I want to say? Actually, it's a very interesting house. Now, I'm not quite sure about the rules about historic properties. It looks like the rule is that you should keep the outside, the exterior of the property intact, but you can rearrange the space inside. Is that how we treat historic properties? So you need to keep the exterior intact, but inside you can rearrange the space.

Sort of. You can rearrange the internal space and you can even do some modifications to the outside. I defer to our qualified professionals when they do the review, but it's like you can't be destroying character defining features and things of that nature. And I think the amount of work you can do on the exterior is pretty limited. But yes, for the most part, interior rearranging shouldn't be an issue.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Good to know. Yeah. I'm sure we're going to figure out a way to solve the garage problem. And on such a big lot, it should be a problem. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Commissioner Alderman. Thank you, Chair. Agreed. On an 8,700-square-foot lot, you have to be able to find room for those two parking spaces. You don't have to find room for a 351-square-foot ADU. You don't. If you want to put it in, yes. We cannot hear that. That's a ministerial approval. Absolutely. And on a lot that's greater than 8,000 square feet, you need two parking spaces. That's just how it is. If this commission approved something less, I would be very disappointed. That said, what a stunning project, absolutely. I am confident that the architect can look at that glazing down in that bridge in that primary bedroom and find a solution. I, even though I heard that those windows are to human scale, that isn't how they appear in the renderings at all. They appear to be eight, eight and a half feet tall. And we will actually at times, we will approve glazing that's a little greater than human scale. We've done it several times, but we do so depending on the architectural style of the building. And this is a cottage style. And you can see in the historic portions and the second story addition, that fenestration is absolutely honoring the historical nature of the property. And then the glazing that we see in the new addition in the primary bedroom and in the bridge is very different. So those are my thoughts. two comments with the additional comment of really stunning property. I look forward to seeing finals that bring those two areas into compliance.

Thank you. I agree with the comments made. I think that in this case, the parking situation does need to be addressed. We just, like she said, we don't have parking in Carmel, and so it's really important when you have a big property to meet the requirement for two spaces. I also agree that the bridge windows are too intense, would suggest perhaps narrowing them down and reducing the height so that it's not, as was mentioned, watching people walk back and forth at night, but to give yourself privacy as well as the people from the street not being able to really see what's going on in there. So anyway, I would like to see those two things done and I'll go ahead and make a motion on this one to except the resolution and CEQA findings for the proposed design and project with, and right now we have two conditions of approval, parking and volume. But I would also add the windows for the bridge area AND, YEAH, IN THE PARKING SITUATION. I GUESS THAT'S PRIMARY. DO WE HAVE A...

I HAVE A SECOND TO THAT MOTION, PLEASE.

OKAY, WE HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND. DO WE HAVE ANY DISCUSSION ON THE MOTION? OKAY. OKAY. ROLL CALL, PLEASE.

COMMISSIONER ALLBORNE? YES. COMMISSIONER KARABAKOV? YES. COMMISSIONER ROOS? YES. AND COMMISSIONER LOCK? YES. MOTION PASSES.

GREAT. Thank you. So moving forward now, we're at item number six, DS26174. And this is consideration of a combined concept and final detailed design study for Novi and the coastal development permit for a 324 square foot addition including the enclosure of the front porch, storage and expansion of the second story into the existing enclosed portion of the residence on mission to northwest of Santa Lucia. Go ahead Jake.

Thank you. As stated, we're reviewing the concept and final for DS26174 Novi. A little background on the project. This is a 4,500 square foot lot with Existing 2,000 square feet of floor area, the applicant is proposing to, under a similar, I know I keep giving this caveat, but they're converting the garage into an ADU. It's a pipeline project. This is acceptable per our old process for processing ADUs. The main reason this is, no, the only reason this is before you guys tonight is because of the CDP, Coastal Development Permit requirements, that if there's an increase in internal floor area of more than 10%, CDP is required and then if CDP is required there's a public hearings required unless it is meets the qualifications for a waiver of public hearing this does not qualify for that so we're here as we talked about in the field the front portion of the house has high two-story ceilings and the applicants are proposing to expand the second story into that area turning the high ceilings into just two floors, so that increases the floor area. In addition, they're enclosing the front porch and then they're converting part of one of their two parking spots into storage. Because the lot is 4,500 square feet and therefore below 8,000 square feet, only one parking spot is required. So they're maintaining that parking spot with the caveat that it will be converted to an ADU at the building permit stage. But with all that said, they are conforming to floor area and site coverage requirements in the zoning code. Next, well, we just talked about the garage and ADU conversion. Here's the garage as currently exists. For the purposes of this project, the right stall that we're looking at there is gonna be converted to storage. And then the rest of the garage is being converted to an ADU under a separate permit. I don't know abundance of caution because the storage conversion was happening and there's the ADU and we just didn't want any confusion. The applicants did story poll the proposed ADU just says there, but it doesn't really have bearing on this project as it'll be processed separately. Here is the front elevation. It's where you'll see any of the changes to the actual home as part of this permit. You can see the enclosing of the front porch, the covered front porch currently into a closed entry. And then there's a slight expansion to the upper story windows as part of the expansion of the second floor into that space. The applicants are proposing to replace all windows and doors. They're proposing aluminum clad and we'll get into the design details now. They're proposing cedar shingle siding to be consistent throughout the property. The aluminum clad windows will be that Marvin cashmere in the Marvin windows in the cashmere colorway. And then the wood trim will be this urban jungle. So all very muted earth tones. In addition, they're proposing a new comp shingle roof in the autumn blend colorway, all sticking with the muted earth tones in all colors and materials that have been approved in the past. We have received some concerns about the neighbors, about view blockage from the proposed expansion of the garage. As discussed previously, the only portion of the garage that's been converted as part of this Track 2 is the right stall for storage. It wouldn't increase the height at all. So I wanted to bring the neighbors' concerns to your attention, but it seems hard for us to address these concerns when the reason that the increase in height to the garage is the ADU conversion itself. With that, staff recommends you adopt resolution as presented. And I'm here for any questions.

Thank you. Are there any questions for staff?

I have a question. Understanding that the ADU is being processed separately, In the correspondence from the neighbor, it was suggested that the measurement was incorrect. Can you validate that?

Whenever we have height or setback, well, whenever we have a Track 2 project, it's part of the building permit stage. They're required to provide an affidavit certifying that setbacks and heights are correct. In addition, with the story pole work that was done, the... they're required to provide an affidavit of a surveyor that confirms that the story pole heights are correct and accurate to the plans. That's for the proposed height and for the finished construction. As for the existing garage, I haven't gone out and measured it with the tape measure, but the architect has provided the the details in the plans, and from what I can tell, they seem accurate. I know from the front of the street or maybe even from the neighboring property, it doesn't appear to accurately represent the height, but we're measuring from the highest point of the roof to the lowest of the structure. So there was nothing in the plans that indicated to me that the height was incorrectly measured.

Okay. Any other questions? The applicant, come forward, please. Thank you.

Good evening again. Adam Jeselnik, architect for the Novi-Hutter project. Thank you, commissioners and staff, for your report on this proposal. I'll keep my comments relatively brief. Essentially, the design program here for this house, which is a relatively unique house in Carmel-by-the-Sea, we don't see a lot of barn-style structures with a gambrel roof. But the idea was to essentially maintain that unique exterior character of the home. and to sort of take advantage of the fact that we had this double high ceiling in the living room to incorporate some more interior floor space, which is basically meant to accommodate their young family. So the owners do live full-time here in Carmel-by-the-Sea and intend to stay here. The design intent behind the ADU is, again, related to family need. And essentially, that existing structure that you saw today was built originally as a carport. There's really not much to it structurally. It was later enclosed to be a garage. And somewhere in the evolution of those drawings, we did note it. last week after the neighbor brought this to our attention, that that existing measurement of the garage roof was off. So what you saw on site in terms of the proposed ADU roof height and the story poles is consistent and correct. But because of my client's intent to be good neighbors, we've opened a dialogue with them about the height of the roof, and we intend to work with them to help resolve their concerns. Specifically, to my view, I haven't been inside the neighbor's house. It's not so much of a a view blockage. The roof is more, you know, sort of presently it's more or less invisible from their house based on the landscaping and the significant grade difference between the two properties. And this new proposed roof will be somewhat less than invisible, but will certainly not be in the way of their view looking sort of to the south Carmel Valley and the mountains. But we do want to be responsive to that. We designed this sort of offset gable roof to sort of, again, be deferential to the neighbor and also to maintain an existing solar panel configuration that exists on the garage. So we'll want to keep those as part of the project. But again, I think we can accommodate and be responsive to that concern without really making any significant alterations to the location or placement of that ADU structure. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have.

A quick one, please, Adam. The conversion of the garage Will the driveway now serve as parking, the required parking, replacement parking?

Yes, exactly. So I don't know if you're able to scroll back to the photograph of the existing garage, but essentially we're not coming any further forward than that garage is located now. The two parking spaces, you know, we are required by code to slightly narrow the driveway width so that's reflected in the plans, but there will be still plenty of space for the two cars to fit there. Yeah.

I have a question, sir. Have you explored other rule forms to address the concerns of the neighbor to the north?

We are, we are. You are still exploring? Yeah, so basically you have, you know, a traditional gabled roof form, which we sort of ruled off because it brought the ridge up higher. You have the shed roof form as it exists now, and you have that sort of offset gable form. Those are the three. We didn't really explore matching the design of the house because that would be a much taller roof. And so basically the principles that we're trying to hold to are, keeping the roof height to the minimum code standards for interior ceiling height, accommodating the solar array, which is important to the owners, and then just sort of keeping that roof form to a slope that can be maintained, that can be waterproofed, and that sort of meets those requirements of the code. So a flat roof is not preferred for all those reasons, but You know, we have a 3-in-12 slope roof and we'll explore slightly reducing that if it helps.

Yeah, I remember when this house to the north was remodeled. I think we went to that house back then. And it had this panoramic window that is overlooking kind of south. So it has a view on the Santa Lucia Mountain, right?

Okay.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, I know the two neighbors are in a good relationship. They know each other very well. So we, from a planning commission perspective, want to make sure that neighbors are happy with the design. If there's any alternative that would kind of address the issues listed here in this letter we got from the neighbor to the north, I guess we would support that. Is there any functional reason to have that group or is it purely aesthetics? It is both functional and aesthetic.

So as I understand this, this is an ADU and this is out of our purview so we really can't

The shape of the roof and views and privacy.

But it is not part of this application. So this is not something that we need to be addressing right now. Will that be treated separately?

No, ADUs are not. This is a pipeline project. So the ADU is going to be continued ministerial as a building permit only. If Adam chooses to adjust the roof to help address neighbors' concerns, it's certainly something that we can review as part of the building permits middle. And he can revise the roof and we can discuss that further. As this is a pipeline project, we have been historically not providing design feedback for ADUs.

Yeah, and I think it's a mutual interest from the two neighbors to figure it out, right? It's not, we don't need to get in between.

Yeah, it is, and they will work on it.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks. At this time, I'll open public comment. Is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak to this item? Shelby, anyone online?

No, ma'am.

All right, thank you. Closed public hearing. And back for discussion. Go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. I'd first like to acknowledge the communication we got from Mr. McDermott. He had three points. The first was the baseline error and staff and the architect have addressed that. So I'm very glad that that has been done. The second is he quotes as a significant impact on a historic protected scenic mountain view And we were there on the site. We saw today the story polls. The architect has spoken also to his sensitivity to that and how that has been included in his design choices. So I believe that that has been addressed. And then the third point has to do with what Mr. McDermott is saying is a feasible compromise under the residential design guidelines and what he's quoting as the heavy visual impact on our property. And I actually would perhaps not necessarily agree with that characterization. The design seems to have taken rather extensive steps to minimize as much as possible. ANY VISUAL IMPACT WHATSOEVER ON THE NEIGHBORING PROPERTY. SO I SIMPLY WANTED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT. THANK THE ARCHITECT FOR EXPLAINING THE REPLACEMENT PARKING. I KNOW WE HAVE A CONDITION OF APPROVAL 31 ABOUT THE COPPER GUTTERS AND A MATERIAL CHANGE FOR THOSE. AND WITH THAT, I'M VERY HAPPY TO APPROVE THIS PROJECT AND MAKE A MOTION. BUT I'M A LITTLE EARLY IN THE PROCESS.

ALL RIGHT. COMMISSIONER ROOS?

I have no problems with the project as presented.

Okay, thank you. Commissioner Karapetkov.

Yeah, I think it's a good project. I think it completely makes sense to separate that huge space in the front of the house into first and second floor so it is more space for the kids. On the ADU side, we're always struggling with that. It's like, you know, What can you say and what cannot you say? So that's always a challenge. I would just hope that the two neighbors will figure out how to design that part of the house to address the concerns that are listed in this letter we received. On a side note, I am kind of on the far end of that neighborhood, and it's a very close-knit community. A lot of people in this area, we meet on Friday afternoon at 4 PM to talk about stuff. And I know the applicant and also the neighbor show up from time to time. So it's a good opportunity to discuss roofs and slopes and things like that. So I'm sure we're going to figure it out. It's a very nice neighborhood, very close to the community, and it's great to live there. Thank you. Thank you.

Would you like to make a motion?

I'd love to make a motion for DS2617 for Novi. I make a motion that this commission accepts the design study as conditioned.

We have a second. We'll second it. Thank you. All right, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, roll call, please.

Commissioner Alborn? Yes. Commissioner Karatkoff? Yes. Commissioner Roos? Yes. And Commissioner Locke?

Yes. Great, thank you. Ah, and now we have a new planner up here, huh? All right, moving on to... DS-26085, Stone. This is consideration of a concept design study for the demolition of an existing 2,462 square foot single family residence inclusive of a 443 square foot attached garage. and the construction of a new 2,588 square foot dwelling with the 443 square foot attached garage. Southeast corner, Camino Real and 4th Avenue. And, Evan, are we ready? Not quite. See, I'm trying to give you time.

All right, so staff recommends Planning Commission continue the concept design study for preparation of a new design that achieves consistency with the applicable zoning standards and design guidelines. There's also some alternatives that we can discuss. So subject site is located at the northeast corner of Camino Real and 4th Avenue. It's just over 9,000 square feet. The allowable floor area is 3,202 square feet. As noted in the description, all improvements are proposed to be demolished and the applicant is proposing to construct a new 2,588 square foot single-family residence inclusive of a 443 square foot attached garage. What's being illustrated on the top Site plan is the overlay of the existing residence footprint with the proposed residence footprint. So even though it is a demolition, the two building locations are similar in form and location. And just to point out, The project is well under the allowable floor area. I'll get to this in a moment. We are shy a parking space. However, notwithstanding that, there is plenty of room for an additional parking space on the site. So we will be discussing setbacks as well as a requirement for the Forest and Beach Commission to make a recommendation on the tree density as the site does exceed 8,000 square feet. That's really that entire discussion right there. But we'll be getting to a discussion on setbacks later. And then as I just noted, the parking is shy one parking space as the site is over 8,000 square feet. Two parking spaces are required. With the minimum dimension of 10 by 20 for each parking space, the applicant has proposed to maintain a 400 and change square foot garage. However, even though it does meet the minimum square footage requirement for two parking spaces, it does not meet the minimum dimensional standards. And then there also isn't enough room in the driveway to accommodate an additional tandem space based on the existing distance between the property line and the garage. So there is a requirement for the applicant to address parking. So the primary purpose for the staff recommendation for the continuance is the proposed grading on-site. There is a outdoor terrace that is being proposed. There's actually two. There's a, you know, I'll call it a primary patio and then there's an adjacent one up off to the the right-hand side off, I believe it's a bedroom. But there is some extensive site work being proposed. What you're seeing here is the existing topo lines in the dash. And then the solid line is the corresponding finish grade. So the blue dash line, that's an elevation point of 114 foot. And then the solid line is where that 114 grade elevation would result. And then the dashed red line is 112 feet. And that gets pushed all the way up to that tree, for example. The top of the retaining wall is at an elevation point of 117 feet. So we have about a five foot grade change between the top of the wall and the existing grade. And you can see that in the corresponding photos. based on the story posts that we evaluated on site today. So staff's concern is that we have a finding for concept approval that sites that the project is consistent with the city's design objectives for protection and enhancement of the urbanized forest, open space resources, and site design. The project's use of open space, topography access, trees, and vegetation will maintain or establish a continuity of design, both onsite and in the public right of way that is characteristic of the neighborhood. And then we also have site design further defined. That's just our concept finding for approval. As we go through the project, we also have findings that we need to make before we approve the project. So the 172160A1 is a finding for projects in the beach overlay. and then the one below it is a just general design study finding and staff was not able to make these findings. And then because the project is in the Beach Riparian Overlay and it is a lot larger than 8,000 square feet as well as irregularly shaped, the Planning Commission does need to make a determination on the setbacks. So there are a few options. We can do a project-specific setback determination, that being case-by-case. Basically we look at the site plan. We say these setbacks are fine for the proposed project and then every project moving forward we'll just return to the Planning Commission, say Does this make sense? Or we can, you, the Planning Commission, can direct staff to prepare findings to support basically a future development standard. We can either look into a standard setback, that's a 15-foot front setback, a 5-foot street side setback. So that would be the figure on the bottom left. That does get tricky with the curve. It's where does the front become the street side. Or we could look into a modified setback where it's just a 15-foot setback for any street frontage. As I pointed out on the site visit, there is a steep slope area. along basically the entirety of the frontage. There's about five feet of elevation change over a, if you were to apply a 15-foot setback, there's about five feet of elevation change. That's a 30% slope, which you really couldn't build anything there anyway. So just a couple options to weigh there. But in respect to mass bulk building reform, all of the typical concept stuff that we usually discuss, really no notes from staff except for address the parking and the topography issues. Staff is supportive of the general design of the house. And with that, staff recommends the Planning Commission continue the project with direction to the applicant. That concludes my presentation. Happy to answer any questions.

Any questions for staff? Thank you. No? Go ahead.

I don't think to be answered today, Evan, but perhaps when this comes back to us for a discussion about setbacks, it might be helpful if you could provide a few examples of how setbacks have been determined in town on a corner lot, for instance, other oversized lots like this, whether a 15-foot along street frontage made sense. or splitting that, trying to create a front setback versus a side setback and determining which sides of the lot would be front and side, that sort of thing.

I could provide a brief explanation. Sure, please.

I don't know if I could provide. I mean, it doesn't have to be now, but just I know that it would be helpful for all of us to do that.

Yeah, just in general, the way we determined street side versus front setback is on a corner lot, the front is always the shorter of the two. So if we were to apply a standard setback, the front would be... Wow, the street name is escaping. Whatever is not 4th Avenue, Camino Real, thank you. So that would be the front. And then 4th Avenue would be the street side because it's the shorter of the two frontages, regardless of the orientation of that.

Thank you. All right, could we hear from the applicant, please?

Good evening, Chair, Commissioners. I applaud your stamina tonight. I mean, I really, really do. Unbelievable. So do we. What a journey you've been on this evening. I'm going to try to keep this brief for you guys. I really appreciate the report, Evan, and working with me on this project over the last six months. I do hope that we can reach a provisional acceptance of our proposal this evening. And I'll outline why and see if we can get there. So first off, I agree with Evan on the house. intentionally proposing something that's under size, under height, under coverage, we're really trying to fit into the existing fabric of this property. In fact, I think as you guys probably saw on site today, we're almost sticking to the exact same form factor that's already there. The house is almost the same size. It's laid out in basically the same place. And that goes for the site features as well. I do think it's worth mentioning, and this wasn't brought up in the report, we have been working on this, so we have made some concessions already. And I know that's something that you guys typically appreciate and has some merit. So I would just mention that we did propose this project in March. Evan came back with an incomplete, and among those things that he called out was the topography at that point. We revised our design. We eliminated about 100 lineal feet of proposed new walls that did include more grading. And we reduced our fill from 87 cubic yards down to the roughly 50 cubic yards. So we were hoping that making those concessions would gain more staff support. But here we are. I would just say that also we understand the guidelines and the intent to both kind of honor the original topography of our forest and also not build homes that present as compounds or that are walled off from the street. And I think that in this case, you know, we are stepping with the grade. As I mentioned on site, we're taking the existing home, we're choosing a kind of median height for most of the new home, and then we're stepping down a bedroom wing. So we are with the home following the topography. Similarly with the courtyard that you guys stood on when we looked at the story polls today, we have two heights. We have a small area that's adjacent to the house, then we go down two steps and we have a small seating area. And although that does require some fill to accomplish that seating area, I would just point out that that area is about the size of this area right here. It's a very small space that we're talking about filling up so that it becomes usable space. A couple of other points. I would say that seeing from the public right of way, because 4th has a walking path that's on the south side of the street, this home is going to be viewed from a greater distance. And it is going to appear as a terraced garden. This isn't going to appear as like, large wall that the public is pressed up against, you know, and they're wondering, you know, what's behind here? What compound is this? This is a this is a terraced garden on a very difficult building site, and I think it'll read as that. Additional changes that we made where we took the top of the the wall that serves as the guardrail or fence and we proposed to change that material from a continuation of the stone or stucco to a wood fence. And furthermore, I actually produced a couple of diagrams here for your consideration if you felt like it were necessary. I'm sorry I didn't get these done sooner. You can pass them around though. What I have is the proposed design with the fence on top of the wall and then a provisional kind of plan B if we need to set the fence back from the face of the wall 15 inches to allow for vegetation so that there's more of a visual break between the two vertical elements. Why do we need that? You know, there wasn't a... really an instance of this when we were all on site, but there were a couple when I was standing there and Commissioner Locke came and we were standing out front for a couple of minutes before the rest of you got there and a couple of cars sped by. If you know this area of Carmel, this is the cut through for Carmel Woods. Fourth Street is a very busy street. And it actually can be a little bit dangerous. There's no stop signs going east-west. And also there's no stop signs going north-south for the feeder streets. So like in this instance, you're at this corner where there's no stop sign on Camino Real. There's no stop sign on 4th. People are speeding by right there. There's a bottleneck in the road where it's a little bit of a blind... CORNER AS YOU'RE HEADING TOWARDS THE BEACH, AND THERE'S A LOT OF INSTANCES WHERE THERE'S PEOPLE THAT ARE GOING FAST, THERE'S SUDDEN BREAKING. IT'S A LITTLE BIT CHAOTIC. AND THIS YARD IS RIGHT ADJACENT TO THAT. SO IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT THAT THE OCCUPANTS, MY CLIENTS, HAVE SOME USABLE YARD SPACE THAT'S SAFE FROM THAT FOR THE DOGS, GRANDKIDS, AND THE LIKE. I HOPE YOU AGREE. THE OTHER THING THAT CAME UP IS THE GARAGE.

SO WE DID MAKE A PROVISIONAL RENDERING OF A SIDE BY SIDE TWO CAR GARAGE.

AND AS I SHOWED YOU ON SITE, IT WOULD ONLY REQUIRE WIDENING THE EXISTING GARAGE BY FIVE FEET. WE COULD INCLUDE THAT IN OUR FINAL DETAILS ALONG WITH THE LANDSCAPE PLAN. With that, I am asking for a provisional acceptance of the project. I would like to just come back one more time, not two. I hope you agree that we can include these refinements into the final details. And I'd love to answer any questions that you have.

Thank you. Do we have any questions? Go for it.

Thank you. Thank you, Harlan. We have four really big findings that we need to make that Evan listed out. No one would be happier than us, of course, to move your project forward for you. It is beautiful. One of the issues that I have looking at your plans has to do with the visibility of all the topography. And it looks like hardscape. And it's difficult for me to delineate between hardscape and simple grading or landscaping that's going to be in between. I'M GLAD THAT YOU CAN EASILY ADD THAT SECOND PARKING SPACE. THAT'S TERRIFIC. BUT I NEED TO HEAR FROM MY OTHER COMMISSIONERS AND ALSO ACTUALLY FROM MR. COURT BECAUSE WE HAVE FOUR PRETTY BIG FINDINGS WE NEED TO MAKE IN ORDER TO SAY, SURE, YES, THUMBS UP CONCEPT, OKAY?

I WOULD LOVE TO INCLUDE THE LANDSCAPE PLAN. enough detail with the plantings and rendering so that you have the clarity when you do look at the project of what's planting and what is hard.

Do you have a question?

Just a quick question about the garage and the driveway, which will presumably be wide enough for a two-car garage. You have enough square footage and side coverage left to do that? We do. Okay.

Nothing? Thank you.

Thank you. Actually, let me say one more thing really quickly, because when I reviewed this, and before we went on site, you explained how you were scupping down the bedroom and removing some of the linear walls and so on. My first thought was that there's really sort of no way that this would meet... I'm losing my memory for which term it is, yeah. Yeah, that I would not be willing to make a finding that the project minimizes alteration of landforms. And personally, I would like to see this on a plan that shows that that has been minimized substantially. And I gather you've addressed that considerably. So I think that that is potentially a, I don't know, it leaves me thinking a little bit. Thank you.

Thank you, Harlan. Is there anybody in the audience today that would like to address this item? Please come forward. No? Okay. Anybody online? No? Great. Public hearing is closed. And back to discussion. Stefan.

Yeah, I think for concept hearing, we're getting sufficient information to make a decision. The design of the house is stunning. The location is very interesting. It's very important to get the right house there because it's visible, right? It's visible from everywhere. You can see it from the fourth street. You can see it from at least three different angles, so I think it's important to get it right. I'm pleased that it's on one level. The quality of the material, stone, clay tile, as far as I can see here, is persuasive. The two-car garage is important, so I'm glad to see that that's now embedded in this concept. I agree that it's a little bit difficult to distinguish between true retaining walls and just this indication of the topography. I think it's going to look much better and softer if we remove the topography and have real landscaping in the project. I understand the argument for the fill. I'm just trying to figure out where the soil is going to come from. Maybe from the second garage, there will be some excavation there. I'm not sure if that's going to be enough for filling that space where now the sitting area is outside. I didn't hear anything about the neighbors. Have we received any communication from the neighbors?

I apologize. There was one correspondence that was provided to you earlier today.

Okay. Is it from the north?

Admittedly, I'm not sure where they're located relative to the project.

I can actually speak to that.

Okay.

Yeah, they, this is really something actually. So this is from Mr. Armstead. And his comments have to do more with construction management, trucks and traffic congestion and parking and how many workers will be working. So that, and that is managed, of course, in the building department. And the management plan is put together.

But nothing about privacy or views or, okay. Well, that's wonderful, because usually that's what we get. That close to the ocean, we get a lot of complaints about privacy and views. And if the neighbors are OK with that, that's wonderful. Yeah. Yeah, no other comments.

So how about the findings that we need to discuss the setback question, correct? Yeah, terrace and grading, garage. Yeah.

Chair, the section 176408082 This is what we need to find for this. The project is consistent with the city's design guidelines for protection and enhancement of the urbanized forest, open space resources, and site design. The project's use of open space, topography, access trees and vegetation will maintain or establish a community of design both on-site and public right-of-way that's characteristic with the neighborhood. We have the building form, but what we don't have is the topography and the grading. I think that might be too big of a step for us to take, but I can be talked into something else.

Well, would we, I mean, I think in this case, perhaps we do need to think about continuing this item. So what are your thoughts?

I guess it's more of a procedural question for this commission and I guess for staff as well. Is it, is it customary for when these combo submissions, when that's both, both concept and final for those to be submitted without a landscape plan? Yeah.

So it typically landscape plans can be deferred until a final details review. The code actually allows landscape plans or the defer landscape plan submittals to the forester. Typically we want to see the landscaping plan as part of the design study in order to make findings to support project approval that the project will do these things. But generally landscaping isn't considered until final details review. What we're looking at at this stage is does the project protect existing trees and is there room to accommodate new trees? But we aren't looking at the minutiae of a landscaping plan. What plan species are going where?

Okay, another question is on page 195 in the agenda packet. It talks about a tree removal permit that was ambiguous. Has that ambiguity been resolved? It is still ambiguous. It's still ambiguous? Correct. That seems problematic as well. Okay.

If we requested to continue this, can we fast track it on behalf of the applicant?

What happens next? Well, we could set to our next meeting. Would that be possible?

The purpose of the continuance would be to allow the applicant time to revise the project based on whatever direction you give. So the applicant wouldn't need to respond to that direction, resubmit plans, and address that direction that you give.

OK. Yeah, I'm not sure where to go at this point. I mean, Harlan, do you want to come up and speak to this?

Yeah, I can say one thing.

Yeah.

TO CLARIFY, WE DIDN'T INTEND FOR THIS TO BE A COMBINATION HEARING AND A ONE SHOT. WE KNEW WE WERE GOING TO COME BACK AND GO OVER ALL OF OUR MATERIALS AND GO OVER OUR LANDSCAPE PLAN. I WOULD LOVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO WORK WITH STAFF, ADDRESS THESE CONCERNS WITH THE GRADING AS PART OF THAT LANDSCAPE PLAN AND THEN COME BACK AND PRESENT A COMPLETE PROJECT TO YOU GUYS. particularly because staff has also called out the need for the Beach and Forest Commission to weigh in on the tree density for this lot. We already have basically two hearings in front of us before this is done.

Got it.

I really do think we can accomplish something that you're happy with between those two efforts.

So then I guess I think I would move to continue this.

No, I think he's asking that we go ahead with the concept and have it conditioned such that the grading be part of the next step.

Yeah, Evan worded it on the alternatives in his recommendation, staff recommendation.

Provisionally accepted design contact, provide direction on plan revisions necessary.

I'll just make the comment that this is copy and pasted from the code.

Okay.

These are not my words. But this is the process that the code outlines when you're scheduled for a concept design. And I'll also clarify, this is not a combined. This is just a concept. When you're scheduled for concept, the process says option A or 1 is the Planning Commission can continue. You can provisionally, or option 1 is accept as proposed. Or you can continue if you need more information or changes are needed. You can provisionally accept the concept with direction to make changes. And I think that's, that is it. There is no, like, denial of a concept. It's either you pass, you provisionally pass, or you just accept it as.

So plan revisions would be reduction in fill and grading, reduction in... Meet the four findings that Evan said he couldn't meet yet, right?

So if, so I would move then that we provisionally accept this design concept with the conditions that findings can be made by staff for Sections 1710-010C, Section 1764-080-A7, Section 1720-160-A1, and Section 1758-060-C3.

Does that sound okay?

Does that sound? I have a comment if that's okay. Of course. They are your findings to make.

Okay. Oh, they are findings to make. Well, then you have to queue them up for us.

Correct. And that is the challenge that we often face as staff.

We'll hold the club when you put the ball on the tee. Exactly. So rewrite that so that it reads correctly.

So I think we're going to continue this item then.

Well, I made a motion that we conditionally accept.

Well, except that I think he said we can't do that without providing that information.

We can't do that without those findings. So if we can make the findings here, we can go through them, and we can try to work through that, then alternative one would be... would be the one if we're sitting here looking at the plans and we cannot do that, then I would recommend the staff recommendation. Could I try to articulate that?

Okay, well... I think in the interest of time and efforts here that this is probably premature in terms of our consideration. So, I mean, I would move that we continue this item to a time uncertain until you have... Yeah, can I ask a question, I guess, for you, Evan?

In regards to... we can make findings according to the plans. What would it take for me to get to these findings? I would have to accept the dialogue we've had here as the equivalent of plans. And I don't think I'm comfortable with that. So, I mean, I believe everything you said. I understand you're going to get this done. I just don't think that, I'm not even sure I have the authority to proceed here.

Well, and I think the staff report needs to reflect what was said today, so yeah.

Yeah, okay.

So there was a motion to continue and I would second that motion.

Okay, any further discussion?

I would look to the applicant and ask, do you feel like you've received sufficient direction from the Planning Commission that you could go back and make changes such that when you return, do you feel confident that the findings could be made?

I would love a little more clarity on how much the patio should be reduced for you to find that I've adhered to the grading and the topography adequately. And by that, I'm just talking about very broad strokes. Reduce it a little bit further.

or I would reduce it back to where it's actually fitting in with the topography. And I think right now, because of the amount of fill, you're extending it out. And I do understand in this case, you're challenged because of the steep slope. And so there's not a lot of options for outdoor area, but I do think you've got outdoor area. You've got the two levels, even though the second level might be smaller. And I think that would make me comfortable. Thank you. Appreciate that. Anybody else?

I could go with that.

So we have a motion and a second. No further discussion. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Alborn?

Yes.

Commissioner Karapetkov? Commissioner Ruiz? Yes. And Commissioner Locke? Yes.

All right. Our next item. Next item is DS 24325 ANC properties. This is consideration of a track one design study referral and coastal development permit for conversion of a carport, site alterations and a determination of setbacks located at Second Avenue to northwest of Lincoln. In the residential, single family residential district, archeological significance overlay district and beach and riparian overlay district. and staff has recommended that this item be continued to a date uncertain. Staff, would you like to speak to this?

Correct. I can give you the details if you'd like, or you can...

I think if there's anybody who would like to speak to this item, they can come forward at this time on the request for continuance. We have no one. So...

I'll make a motion that for DS24325, ANC Properties, that we continue this to a date uncertain.

Second. Okay, we have a motion. Second. Any further discussion? None. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Allborn? Yes. Commissioner Karapetko? Yes. Commissioner Ruse? Yes. Commissioner Locke? Yes. Motion passes.

Thank you. And to our final public hearing today, This is use permit 26154, AW Shucks, consideration of use permit amendment, use permit 26154, application in accordance with city council resolution number 2026-023, amending use permit 93-45, updating the ancillary use From limited food service to full-line restaurant as an ancillary is greater than 10% located at Ocean Avenue 3 southwest of San Carlos Street in the Central Commercial Zoning District. Staff, do we have a presentation?

Hello. Well, there's a typo on the screen already. That's UP 26154. Sorry about that. I'm going to go through this very quickly. If you have any questions, please let me know and I'll be happy to answer. There was a direct referral last year, starting last year, and this item of the drinking place designation of Auschucks went to the Planning Commission in October, December, January, and February. The Planning Commission determined the drinking place use had been abandoned. both the property and business owners appealed the project to the City Council and so it was taken forward as a joint appeal. In April of 2026, the City Council granted the appeal, Resolution 2026-023, and directed the owners to submit a use permit amendment to update their use permit to reflect the operations of the business, namely that the drinking place is the primary use with a full line restaurant as the ancillary use as opposed to limited food service and have the ancillary use greater than 10%. The updating the use permit would align with the current business operations, changing the entities to a full line restaurant and expanding that to greater than 10%. So just a couple operational standards there is the number of seats and the hours of operation. I know I mentioned this briefly in the resolution, and I don't have the slide for it here, but I think it's worth noting that if you have the primary use as a full-line restaurant, there's a limit on the number of seats total at a bar so that the drinking place is still subordinate to the full-line restaurant. When you have a drinking place, there is no... standard that is limiting the number of seats that aren't at a bar so for the other drinking places in town we're not counting the number of high top tables or low top tables or anything non-bar seating and saying well you're serving food and you have these low top tables so that's we don't do that kind of percentage split so it's a little bit more tricky to figure out subordinate versus primary And that's just a caveat I wanted to throw out there, just so we didn't get lost in the seat count. Because I started getting lost in the seat count and then realized I didn't have to. So I wanted to save you from that headache. With that, I'm proposing that the Planning Commission adopt the resolution as presented by staff. And I'm open to any questions.

Questions for staff? Go ahead, Commissioner Rusk.

Is the US permit as submitted? in accordance with the City Council resolution?

Yes, it should be. I would move that we accept and approve this use permit as specified in the staff report.

I'd like to ask another question or two before. Do we have a second to our motion?

Oh, wait, did we do public comments? Oh, we haven't done public comments yet. Sorry.

Yeah, all right. You're jumping the gun. I know it's late, but yeah. Okay, staff questions. Yes. So is the council unable to approve use permits? Is it just the Planning Commission, or can the council approve a use permit?

I have to look this up, but I don't see any reason they couldn't. Marnie, I'm not going to guess at this. Marnie.

The City Council delegates the authority to approve use permits to the Planning Commission.

But that does mean that they could approve a use permit. Is that correct?

They have delegated this use permit to the Planning Commission. And certainly they would hear it should it be appealed.

So the action that was taken by the city council, this wasn't really clear to me in the staff report, that's why I'm, so the action that was taken by the city council was to uphold the appeal but to refer it back to us to adopt a use permit that is essentially the same thing that we reviewed prior to this or is it?

I think that the key to this is that the original was the director referral determining whether the use had been abandoned and the applicant had never applied for any kind of use permit amendment. So while they accepted the appeal or granted the appeal and said no the drinking use hasn't been abandoned they further gave the direction to the applicants that they needed well while they didn't think the drinking use was abandoned they did agree that the use permit was out of date and therefore a use permit amendment did need to be filed okay so um I would defer to Marnie's judgment on this, but I don't know if the City Council did have the ability to just approve a use permit amendment at that appeal hearing because they hadn't actually filed for a use permit amendment.

I think that's a fair characterization. A use permit amendment application was not before them at the time. Okay.

Do we have one now? Now we have one. Correct. Yeah, that's what this is. Okay.

Yeah.

Okay, so it kind of sounds like we're back at where we were in February. Is that a fair review?

Kind of. It's like the options that the former director of planning presented of either determining that the use was abandoned or directing the applicant to apply for a use permit amendment.

But in this case, what we're considering tonight is amending that use permit for the primary use is a drinking establishment and the ancillary use is full serve restaurant.

Yes. Well, maintaining the primary use as a drinking place. But yes, just because the use is currently designated as a drinking place for primary. So we are amending the ancillary use. That may be nitpicking, but I just want to make sure to clarify.

And ancillary use is a secondary activity that directly supports and is subordinate to the main purpose of the property.

Yes.

So in this case, then the drinking establishment is the primary use and the restaurant use is the secondary use. Yes. And we're finding that it's greater than 10%. Is there a, if it's over 50%, does that mean it is no longer a subordinate?

I would think that is a good delineator, yeah.

Okay. Would the applicant like to come forward if anybody has no more questions for staff?

Evening, commissioners, staff. John Plastini, TSD Carmel Properties, property owner. I represent the family. First of all, thank you all for being here. It's a long night. It is confusing. All we've done is gone back in a circle. At the very beginning, when the tenant purchased the business, we met with the planner. Fill out this application, but we don't understand. They've helped fill it out. Then an inquiry was made. Said, well, you're out of compliance. Never received a notice of compliance. Don't understand it. You're struggling with it. And this is your commission. We were told, I was told, all we need to do is fix the paperwork. That's what they're presenting here. The land use doesn't go with the business use. As Brandon Swanson, we sat down with him, if you remember the memo, he determined it was legal non-conforming. That's done in town quite often, and that was the way to resolve this. The city council could not approve it because we didn't have an application because we didn't know what you wanted us to fill in again. We've done that, correct, Marty? The applications before you, it's whether or not you're going to approve it, okay? I can tell you this. We've always dealt in good faith with the city. I've always respected your decision. May not have agreed with it, but I respected it. This process is dysfunctional, and I don't know how you correct it. But I can tell you this, there's a trust we have with the city. And it's very difficult as a property owner to negotiate with a tenant. When we go back 10 years and have a meaningful conversation, they determine, yes, you're a drinking establishment. And 10 years later, it comes back in the different commissions. Well, you know what? They made a mistake. We're going to change it. I don't know how I do business. I've got a tenant here. And I can tell you, they have no idea. What to do? And I said, well, the city will work it out. And that's what you're asking to do. And that was the city council's recommendation. I can just tell you personally, a commissioner on the page sat there and said that we would not be harmed. That would be the land use if the drinking establishment should be taken away, but Sadie's would. And I don't want to bring Sadie's into this. But I can tell you we've been damaged. OK? We've been damaged myself. 40 years I've been managing that building. People come up to me. I'm responsible for closing Sadie's. That's unfair. That wasn't me. It's the ordinances. We work within the rules. The second thing is, in order to defend our vested rights, our legal fees between our tenant and myself, close a little over $250,000. That's monetary damages. We accept that. I don't like it. We're back here again. Now, if you don't approve this, which is your right, it goes back to city council. We're all tired. Do you want to see this again? Really? And in addition to that, I don't think we were treated fairly. I went in and did the application. I followed the rules. I've always worked with the city, had a good relationship. While I'm doing that, working in a city council meeting, the inquirer will mention his name, submitted an application to open up a new bar before I was even noticed. This is back in January. No, July. I'm sorry. With An accompanying letter addressed it to the city saying that A.W. Shucks, the full-line restaurant, virtually the next hurdle has already been crossed. The future of A.W. Shucks as of August 8, 2023 has improved as a primary full-line restaurant which effectively voids the primary drinking establishment use. I don't know where he got that from. But this is all before I was notified. And the reason that date's in there is because the tenant went down there and worked with a planner who no longer works here and helped him fill out. And he didn't even understand it. We need to fix this. We really do. And I'll work with you. I mean, that's what I'm here for. I'm not a problem person. I'm a problem solver. We have a problem. And I don't know how to move on from there. You have two choices. You approve it or you disapprove it. Or you go back to city council. I've been here four times, city council once. The attorney fees keep going up. So please, I don't know what we need to do. An application's in. I would ask you to approve that application, whatever the number is here. We had it down here somewhere. There it is. It was... What is it? The approval of the council's resolution 2026-023, amending the use permit. That's what they said at the beginning. Fix the paperwork. This is what they're saying we need to do. This fixes the paperwork. In addition to that, I would ask that Bassey's fee for that application be reimbursed. And the reason being, this should have been taken care of at the initial stage. It wasn't. That's not their fault. They came in for a business. If you wanted to correct it, why didn't we correct it then? They're being charged twice. In addition to that, city council returned our fees because they agreed unanimously that it was never abandoned. Brandon Swanson was asked by one of the city council members, Brandon, was it abandoned? No, never was. So here we are. So I ask you, let's work this out. Let's all go home and get a good night's sleep. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Does anybody have questions for the applicant? No? Thank you. Nope, I think you're fine. And I was going to say, let me open it up for public comment at this time.

Yeah, just to be clear, this is where it gets confusing. We're the landlord. We have the land use of the property. They're the applicant for the business license. So technically, correct me if I'm wrong, Marnie, they are the applicant. But it affects our, well, it doesn't change our, I don't understand it. It doesn't change our land use. It only changes their business use. Our land use will stay the same. It's their application for business that they're asking for an amendment to. If I'm confusing you, I'm sorry. I'm confused, but that's my best understanding of the situation.

Hi, good evening. Thank you guys for everything that you do. I'm Randy Bassett and me and Karen own our shacks. We bought it a little over three years ago. And I don't know about you, I'm absolutely exhausted. I'm exhausted trying to run a business, trying to plan, and being run through the whatever it is. All I'm trying to do is operate a really good business and keep this thing going. I have tons of plans and I can't implement any of them because of all this uncertainty. And I'm sorry, I'm just sick of it. I'm tired. And I think I'm just extremely exhausted. So I appreciate everything you guys do. I just want you to approve the findings.

Thank you. No, I know this has been a long road. that we've gone down. All right, if we have no further comments, do we have anybody online, Shelby? Okay, closed public hearing. Back for discussion. Who would like to start?

I'll start. Thank you, Chair. When this was heard here at the Planning Commission, the Planning Commission used its lanes to evaluate what was before us. And that's how we came to our determination that was then appealed to city council. And city council did their hearing and came to their determination, which leads us to a use permit amendment to approve. I respect the decisions of City Council. They have policymaking, expanded policymaking responsibilities that go beyond what we do here at Planning Commission. I regret significantly hearing the the hamster mill of administrative frustration on the part of Mr. Plastini and Mr. Bossi, the business owner. And so I absolutely support the city council request that we approve this use permit amendment and hope that that will move us forward in the proper way.

First, I would like to thank these two gentlemen for staying here this long. I appreciate your patience, not just today, but through the entire process. And I say that as a resident, not just as a commissioner. As far as I'm concerned, the council has spoken. I believe we're basically executing an administrative rubber stamp here. And that's what I propose we do.

I think the process worked exactly as designed. I mean, it is painful, it's long, but that's how it's supposed to work. We look at the facts back the last time we discussed this use permit and the situation there was a little bit different. You know, we had a lot of citizens in the meeting. asking us to make sure that we have three bars in town, if you remember. So, and we look at the facts and we look at the whole history of permits, et cetera, et cetera, and we made the best decision we could at the time. Now, the council, I watched actually the council meeting recording from April 7th, and First of all, they got additional information and then they look at that from a different perspective. They said, well, basically mistakes were made back in 2008, 2015, etc. We have to go back and fix it. So that's the policy decisions and we need to follow it. I don't think we have to discuss any alternatives. I just wanted to ask one question for staff. How many bars do we have today in town? Do we have three? So it's Sharks. It is Barmel. What is the third one?

The Bash Bar.

Which one?

Bash Bar.

The Bash Bar?

Yeah, it's the business that's taken over at the location of Sadie's.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Okay, so we have three bars. Yes. Okay, good. So in terms of following the three bar policy, we're okay.

Thank you. I just do want my comments. I am still in the same place that I was the last time I considered this. I think that the business does not change in any way if it is a full line restaurant. I spent time going through this. Most restaurants in town have a bar associated with them. They're not considered bars. 23 restaurants. So there are very few restaurants. I think there were only two or three that I found that didn't have a bar associated with the restaurant. And so in my opinion on this, the primary use of this is a restaurant with a bar and And I think that that's shown by the type of license that A.W. Shucks has, which is a type 47 liquor license. which is for a restaurant with, and it can have a bar. And that I think that type 48 and type 42 licenses are what should be characterized by the city as drinking establishments, and they do not allow minors. And they are strictly places people go to drink. And so anyway, I'll go ahead and, Somebody would like to make, you want to make your motion again, or somebody wants to second your motion?

I will make my motion again. Thank you that we accept, we adopt a resolution finding this project categorically exempt from environmental review pursuant to CEQA and approving use permit amendment UP26154, all shucks, in accordance with city council resolution 2026023 amending use permit in 9345.

I'll second it. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Nope, okay. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Alborn?

Yes.

Commissioner Karapetkov?

Yes.

Commissioner Ruse?

Yes.

And Commissioner Locke?

No.

Motion passes.

Thank you. So, apologize. In accordance with the Planning Commission Rules of Procedure,

Sorry, I corrected myself. You what? I said motion passes, and I said motion fails immediately after, sorry.

The motion fails. In accordance with the Planning Commission Rules of Procedure, in order for a use permit motion to pass, it needs four affirmative votes. So the motion fails.

Can we open additional discussion at this time, or what then happens next? You have a quorum, but that does not count.

Correct. The applicant does have 10 business days to file an appeal to the City Council. Can we continue it?

A motion must be made. We can continue.

Can we continue this hearing until next month?

It just has to be a little different.

Is there a reason we can't continue this? I'm afraid the motion has already been made and the vote has already been taken.

Okay, Shelby, can you speak into that? Yes.

Thanks.

We do need a motion. You can continue, you can deny, or you can try another one for approval if additional information is brought before you. But that would require another discussion, public comment.

OK. So further discussion? Chair, what is your direction on this?

Sure, come on up, Mr. Plisting.

I understand the licensing issue, but if you were to do this to A.W. Shucks, you would have the same problem with Barnell. So therefore, you're going to have three drinking establishments in town, no one under 21 allowed. Is that what the city wants? Because that's the direction that we would go, because you would be treating AWFX differently than we pull Bar-Mellon, who just sold their business. And the last thing I think we want is a new owner of a business being pulled into this process. I understand your point, okay, but that's something the city created, and the understanding at the time is they wanted to limit the drinking, and they introduced the food for bar mail and AW shops to cut down on the drinking. That's the only point they wanted to make.

Right, and I was not there, and I don't know what the record shows as far as what happened at those hearings. But I do know that yes, you have valid, you did bring up a valid point. And I have continued to ask that staff bring forward an opportunity for us to provide further direction on the actual what we would consider the definition of a drinking establishment. And I think I feel very strongly that that limit was set for places like Sly McFly's, which is the previous bar that was in the place before Oshkosh gradually became more food service. And that when I say I have 23, restaurants listed that are all basically operating the same as A.W. Shucks. I can't, you know, to me it, the concept that it's, quote, a drinking establishment, I just, I can't get my head around that.

And that's totally understandable the way the city is written, but your timeline's a little off.

I didn't try to give you my timeline.

No, I'm just saying Simon Fleiss was gone.

No, I understand that. No, I understand.

And then Bar Mill adopted our model.

Right, but I don't think you need to bring anybody else into this.

No, I'm just saying that this is what happens going down that road. It's going to be a domino effect. That's all. Right. Okay, thank you.

So could I ask for maybe just a three-minute recess? Sure. Thank you.

So we will reconvene at? 10-10. 10-10. 10-10. Thank you.

That's what they call a twist. I don't know.

.

OK. Thank you. Do you have to pick the hottest date?

Yeah, really.

I'm ready whenever you are.

All right, let's come back in here and reconvene the Planning Commission. Do we need a roll call again?

Mm-hmm. Commissioner Alborn? Here. Commissioner Karapetka?

Yes.

Commissioner Ruse?

Here.

And Commissioner Locke?

Yes.

All are present.

Staff, would you like to provide some comments?

Yes, so because the motion failed, the commission does have an opportunity to make another motion if that is your desire.

Okay.

And can I ask a question? Yes, ma'am. Was there a actual new application filed for this use permit?

Yes, they filed a, yeah.

Is it in our packet?

The, not the application form. I never include the application form, but the supplemental materials that were submitted with the application were included. Okay. That's the, I believe, attachment.

Well, and again, this goes to kind of the confusion of the application here, or consideration of the application, because... We don't have an application to actually look at right now. Oh.

Yeah.

The supplemental materials are a seating capacity diagram, a menu, and which is very good food, by the way, and a checklist.

Yeah. The use permit application requires a business description, a floor plan, and the application itself. So that's the completed application for use permit.

And it does say in here under number two, typical operation of the business, cocktails and oyster bar primarily, drinking establishment with full line restaurant as an ancillary use that is greater than 10% of the primary use as a drinking establishment.

Yeah. Okay, so we can make a new motion on this? Yes, you can entertain another motion. All right, I would like to move that we continue this item until we have a full complement of commissioners. And I would also request that we get a copy of the application so that we could review the current application.

This might be, is attachment to, excuse me, Chair, is attachment to the full application?

minus the application form, but we never include the actual form in our packets. It's just the materials that come, like I never submit the general planning application, whether it's a Track 2 or a CDP.

Okay, well I would like to see the complete application.

Yeah, we can do that. We just do some reductions on there, but we can provide that. Okay, that's fine.

And I would also like to include that we, if they paid a processing fee for this, application, that that be refunded to the applicant. I think that they've jumped through enough hoops and staff has spent enough time on this. At this point, I think our delay is, that would be the appropriate response.

Would you like to continue to a date certain?

I would. Yeah, I'd like as soon as possible that we have a full. At our next meeting, whenever we have a full. If we have a full. October 14th. Sure. Yes, please. Do you want to? Is that your complete motion? I would second that.

Yes. Thank you. Okay, we have a motion second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, roll call.

I'm so sorry, who was the second? Thank you. All right, Commissioner Alvord?

Yes.

Commissioner Petkoff?

Yes.

Commissioner Ruse?

Yes.

And Commissioner Loff?

Yes.

Motion passes.

Thank you very much. And again, thank you very much for sitting here and listening to this. And next time we'll try to move you up on the agenda so you might be first.

I didn't want to ask you that.

I didn't want to ask you that.

That would be also appreciated, I'm sure.

You guys, thank you for everything you do. Thank you. We really appreciate you.

Okay. And seconding that, could they be number one on the agenda in October, please? Yeah, please put them first on the agenda.

Yes, thank you. I'll follow up on that.

Okay, at this point, we are now to our director's report. Do we have a...

I have one very important item. Okay. which you might have already heard, but I'm going to share it anyways. So we are pleased to announce that a new director has been selected for the Community Planning and Building Department. The director will start on Wednesday, September 30th. His name is Andrew Myrick, and he is currently the Economic Development and Community Planning Manager for the City of Seaside. He comes with over 20 years of experience. in the field of planning and economic development. He is certified by the American Institute of Certified Planners, and he also holds a master's degree in applied economic and finance. And so we are looking forward to welcoming him to our team at the end of this month. All right, outstanding.

And I guess the next meeting is October 14th, and we shall adjourn. Thank you. Sorry for the late, late, late meeting.