Regular City Council and Housing Authority* - Regular Meeting

All right, order everybody. Now I call the meeting to order. It's the regular meeting of the City Council and Housing Authority of Tuesday, September 15th, 2026. Now, please join me in standing and we're going to sing the National Anthem together as they play a video and then say the Pledge of Allegiance together.

O say can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Ready begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Well, I just want to say that was about the best timing and pitch that I've heard from a group, an audience this year. So congratulations. Okay, so now is the time for our moment of solemn expression, led by Pastor Christine Nelf from the Redemption Church. We're always happy to have her. Pastor, you have the floor.

Thank you, good evening. Hello, council. Hello to my neighbors, Costa Mesa neighbors. Tonight I'd like to make an invitation to all of us, particularly to the council as you step into this meeting, to surrender our burdens and worries. I'm gonna read from Jesus' most famous passage, well, his most famous sermon in Matthew 6. Do not store up for yourselves Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life? And at the risk of being labeled a heretic by my colleagues, I have taken the liberties to rewrite this for our Costa Mesa community. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your position or the election or even about our community. Is not life more than policies in the city more than regulations? Look at the California poppies of the field. They do not campaign or advocate and yet your heavenly father sustains them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life? So my prayer tonight for all of us is that your decisions may be from a place of surrender and trust and not fear or worry, amen.

That's exactly what we needed, thank you. Okay, Madam Clerk, would you please do the roll call?

Mr. Mayor, the record will reflect that all council is present.

Great. City Attorney, do you have a closed session report?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. No reportable action was taken in closed session this evening.

Thank you. OK, we don't have any presentations tonight, because we knew it was going to be a long meeting with a lot of public participation. So we're getting right down to it. Public comment is next. Now, with respect to public comment, you can speak about anything other than what's on the agenda. So basically, the Climate Action Plan and FDC. Anything else is fair game. You've got three minutes within which to speak. At two minutes, you'll hear a tone. Wrap it up. At three minutes, your mic will cut off. We'll first go to the people who are in the chambers, and then we'll go to Zoom. Sir, you have the floor.

Good evening. My name is Tom Treen. I'm a 60-year Costa Mesa renter resident, so I'm here by choice, pretty much. The other day, I had a pleasant boost to my civic pride. I was in kind of a modest political meeting in Newport Beach, and while they were bemoaning the operation of their city council and the lack of priority towards real citizen needs, they were very complimentary about Costa Mesa, which I wasn't expecting, but in our little rivalry or whatever, that was pleasant. I guess I want to share one of the jewels of Costa Mesa, one of the few jewels of Costa Mesa, which is the road from Estancia to Adams. That's one of the few open spaces in Costa Mesa. The only two places I like to drive my motorcycle or that I will go the speed limit is Irvine by the back bay and Placentia from Adams. It's the only place where you can kind of get a little respite from the suburban sprawl. And that's super important. Every once in a while we need a little downgrade of our just... So I hope, and I guess that's kind of an issue on how that is going to be developed or not. I'm hoping that that area will generally be left to kind of just nature, at least for the 20 seconds it takes to go from Adams to essentially, actually I would like more streetlights because I wouldn't mind stopping there. My... Another issue, like I frequent the recreation center and the senior center. And at the recreation center, I'm one of the pickleball players there. And occasionally, it's a rowdy crowd. And I have every confidence in Jose, who's the manager there. But some of the underlings in the staff need a little refresher on the difference between conflict resolution and problem solving. Conflict resolution is not just talking it to death. Problem solving is seeing an issue and actually using some management skills to address a problem and solve it. I know they want public buy-in and like the public to be part of the process and that's for sure the way to handle it. But sometimes sitting in a cool office while other people are kind of squabbling is really not good management skills. And it's not, Jose was absent the day this kind of conflict happened. And I spoke to him today and I'm confident that he will deal with it. But for all public servants, talking issue to the death.

Thank you, sir. Yes, sir.

Good evening, Mayor, members of City Council, and fellow Costa Mesa citizens. My name is Noah Nunez. I hold an associate's degree in history and my goal is to dedicate my life's work in politics and public service. I am here tonight representing my fellow students and college living experience right here in Costa Mesa. There's even some CLE staff amongst us here. Across California, working adults with disabilities face an unemployment rate of 10%, more than double the rate of non-disabled peers. Nationally, only about one in five adults with disabilities are part of the labor force. Finding meaningful employment isn't just about financial independence. It's about dignity, community, belonging. Yet for many disabled residents, the path to finding a job is filled with unnecessary barriers. That is why organizations like College Living Experience are fundamentally determined to show kindness and compassion beyond imagining. But non-profit organizations cannot carry this responsibility alone. The fundamental role of local government is to provide opportunities and protect its people. I am asking Costa Mesa City Council to build on the incredible spirit of our community by actively supporting job searchers with disabilities. Like myself. Whether through expanding Target City internship programs, partnering with local vocational organizations, or creating hiring incentives for local businesses, our city has the power to bridge this gap. If Costa Mesa extends this kind of compassion to all regions of influence, we will not only improve the lives of our disabled and struggling residents, we will set a golden example across cities all across California, the Golden State, and the entire nation. When we enable every resident, regardless of financial means or physical ability, to find work, We build stronger, more resilient cities. Let us make Costa Mesa a shining example of what happens when a community chooses to invest in all of its people. Thank you for your time and leadership. Who is with me? And now one of our own wishes to finish for me.

All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Great job. Anybody else want to speak during public comment in the chambers? No? And then what about on Zoom?

None, Mr. Mayor.

Closed public comment. Now we'll go directly to the council member committee reports, comments, and suggestions. First up is Mike Bewley, District 1.

Thank you, Mayor, Councilmembers, and members of the public. I'll be brief tonight as well because we've got some items of significant public interest that we're going to get into. But just a quick shout-out. I had a great time this last weekend at Segerstrom Performing Arts Center's 40th anniversary. Kudos to them. Mayor was there, Councilmember Reynolds, City Manager, Councilmember Guimaraes, Just a great event and what a great community member the Segerstrom family and their performing arts center and the museum and just a great day in the city and additionally I was It was a somber and meaningful Ceremony on 9-11 I got over to fire station one mayor Stevens and some other dignitaries and things were there in remembrance of THE FALLEN INDIVIDUALS, CITIZENS, AND PUBLIC SAFETY MEMBERS THAT DAY. AND IT WAS JUST NICE TO BE PART OF THAT. AND THAT'S ALL. I JUST WANTED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THOSE TWO EVENTS AND THANKS.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU, COUNCILMEMBER. NEXT FROM DISTRICT 2 IS COUNCILMEMBER LAUREN GOMEROS.

THANK YOU, MR. MAYOR. I AS WELL AM GOING TO BE BRIEF. I JUST WANT TO COVER A COUPLE THINGS. The first one is I had the chance not only to attend but to speak at the art venture and I got to actually deliver the award for the people's choice to an individual named Kingsley Ahrens. It was a great honor to be there. I love art in this city. We are the city of the arts and to have the opportunity to attend It was a great experience. We had several hundred people in attendance and it was well worth visiting. It's still going on. So get over to the Noma Herzog Center and check it out. The second thing I wanna talk about, and I know I always bring this up, I always talk about cooling stations and staying cool and being careful, and in my line of work, I work outside, and I regularly see people that become heat incapacitated and experience heat-related illnesses. One of the things that I will say is if you're ever outside and you're feeling flushed or you're feeling thirsty or dizzy or whatever, get in some shade. It's been very hot recently and I had to actually dial 911 for someone that I was with outside at a park. And here's what I want to say to everyone. If you ever are with someone who's experiencing a heat-related illness, dial 911 and say i'm declaring a medical emergency that's it i'm declaring a medical emergency and that will trigger an immediate response don't say uh someone's acting weird at the park or i'm not sure medical emergency is the word you need to use and that could save someone's life that's all i have thanks thank you councilmember next from district three is councilmember andrea marr

Yeah, thanks, Mr. Mayor. I wasn't going to comment tonight, but I just wanted to respond to the public comments we received. To the gentleman who spoke about Fairview Park, no, there are no plans to develop Fairview Park. There's actually a citizen's initiative called Measure AA that passed a couple of years ago to keep that park natural. without a vote of the citizens. So just wanna, before I start getting angry emails. And then the second point, Mr. Nunez, great job. Thank you for raising that for all of us, very important. And then last, I'm just so glad we've got a packed house for the climate action. I know that's why you're all here. Thank you.

All right. Next up is Council Member Arliss Reynolds from District 5.

Yeah, thank you. It's always great to see a crowded room. Welcome to City Hall if it's your first time. Glad you're here. Thank you to the team from College Living Experience. I remember visiting the facility probably three years ago or so. Met some of the team members who bused to the facility. I think someone had an electric scooter. So, you know, we definitely had you in mind when our team was working on some of the safer transit on that road as well. So it's great to see you here. We want to get you all engaged. I think we did meet Mr. Nunez. Okay. And I know our staff has done a great job in the last few years. I've seen More all abilities programming, so I love the idea of continuing to lean into that maybe Bring in a team to do some focus groups on additional ways. We can collaborate a Few thanks, I just want to I want to spend some time to get some acknowledgments out I don't know if he's left, but the first public speaker who just said I It was great to hear good things about Costa Mesa. Thank you for saying that, wherever you are. I've been my eighth year serving, several of us are in our eighth year serving, and certainly we know the challenges of the city, probably deeper than anyone else. But one thing you also learn is just how wonderful the city is, people across the city doing great things, whether it's inside City Hall or out. AND SO I JUST, YOU KNOW, IT WAS GREAT TO HEAR THAT COMMENT AND I DO HAVE SO MUCH PRIDE IN THE CITY AND OUR WHOLE NETWORK OF PEOPLE WHO ARE CIVICALLY ENGAGED OR COMMUNITY ENGAGED. SPECIAL THANKS TO STAFF. I HAVE SPENT MORE TIME AT CITY HALL I THINK IN THE LAST MONTH THAN IN PROBABLY THE PRIOR SIX MONTHS. AND I REALLY, REALLY APPRECIATE YOU ALL GOING LINE BY LINE THROUGH DOCUMENTS WITH ME. APPRECIATE ALL OF YOUR WORK AND ATTENTION TO DETAIL. And finally, thank you to the team at Fire Station 4. That's where I was on the morning of September 11th for the 25th anniversary anniversary on whatever the 24th commemoration. I don't know whatever the right word is. Captain Torres allowed me to jump on the engine. They got a call shortly after the ceremony and it was really great to have the experience of riding over to Northgate Market with them on a fire alarm call. Really great to see them in action and we should all be very proud of our fire department as well. Last thing is an invitation. Miss green if we can pull up that flyer The Historical Society if you're not a member of the Historical Society, I think it's only $15 a year to join They've really been ramping up their programming and it's so fun to see these historical photos for the city one thing I've been working on with them is historical focused bike rides around the city and we have our fourth annual SORT OF HISTORICAL BIKE RIDE SCHEDULED FOR SUNDAY NEXT WEEK, STARTING 2 P.M. AT THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY. OUR ARTS COMMISSION CHAIR ELISA OCHOA IS JOINING AND DESIGNING THE RIDE, SO IT WILL BE A FOCUS ON THE HISTORY OF ARTS AND CULTURE IN COSTA MESA. SO SOME DETAILS ON THE SCREEN AND IT'S ON THE CITY CALENDAR AS WELL. WOULD LOVE TO SEE YOU. THANK YOU.

OKAY. NEXT IS FROM DISTRICT 6, COUNCIL MEMBER JEFF PETTIS.

Thank you, Mayor. Only thing I have tonight is I want to extend my appreciation to Public Works. Yesterday I had a resident contact me via email regarding a disturbance and a mess being made in the in the public right away at the apartment complex they lived at. And the response was same day pressure washer cleaning up and clearing out. And I thought that was an extraordinary. RESPONSE THANK YOU TO PUBLIC WORKS AND I ENCOURAGE THE PUBLIC TO UTILIZE THE COASTA MESA 311 APP IT REALLY IS AN EFFECTIVE TOOL SO THANK YOU VERY MUCH OKAY NEXT IS OUR MAYOR PRO TEM MANUEL CHAVEZ FROM DISTRICT FOUR THANK YOU MAYOR STEPHENS THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR JOINING US TODAY I LOOK FORWARD TO HEARING YOUR COMMENTS IN THE MEETING THOSE ARE ALL MY COMMENTS FOR TODAY OKAY

Well, you all might think you're helping us, but we can't start the public hearings until 7 o'clock. So... Yeah, sure, sure. If anybody wants a second bite of the apple, you can have it.

I'm taking a second bite. Take a second bite. I don't remember his name. This is another thank you to a public works team member who was on call this weekend. On my morning bike ride on Sunday, I passed a house that overnight had had a truck drive into their front yard, knock right through their chain link fence, knocked over four trees, Thankfully they had those trees because that's probably what stopped the truck from hitting the house. I'm so glad I stumbled upon it. We immediately called in a request. Oh, and they had knocked down the stop sign at the intersection. So we called in to get some temporary signage because vehicles were now driving through the intersection, not stopping because they couldn't see the stop sign. And I think it was within 30 minutes, someone was out there with a placard. So thank you so much to the team. I was really, really impressed with that responsiveness. And we've got to send some folks out to look at how to prevent trucks from driving into people's property.

Thank you. ANYBODY? IF YOU THINK ABOUT SOMETHING, THAT'S GOOD. JUST FOR THE PUBLIC TO LET YOU KNOW, WE CAN'T START OUR PUBLIC HEARINGS UNTIL 7. WHAT WE HAVE AFTER THIS IS THE CONSENT CALENDAR WHICH USUALLY GOES LIKE THAT. WE HAVE THE CITY MANAGER. SHE HAS A REPORT SO SHE CAN VAMP FOR A WHILE AND THEN I'M SURE YOU KNOW, CITY ATTORNEY HAS A REPORT. SHE MIGHT BE ABLE TO STRETCH A BIT, BUT WE CAN'T START UNTIL 7, SO AT THAT POINT IN TIME, WE'LL HAVE TO TAKE A BRIEF BREAK. THIS IS MY TIME TO TALK. I JUST WANT TO, AGAIN, LIKE COUNCILMEMBER GOMERO SAID, THANK EVERYBODY WHO WAS INVOLVED IN ART VENTURE. THAT'S A REALLY WONDERFUL EVENT AT NORMA HERZOG COMMUNITY CENTER. SO MANY PEOPLE FROM OUR ARTS COMMISSION WERE THERE, OUR PARK STAFF, BRIAN GRUNER WAS THERE WHO IS THE DIRECTOR OF OUR PARK STAFF, AND THANK YOU TO COUNSELOR GOMEROS FOR STEPPING UP AND DOING THE AWARDS CEREMONY. IT IS GOING ON, RIGHT, UNTIL IT'S STILL BEING DISPLAYED, IS THAT RIGHT? CAN ANYBODY ANSWER THAT? IS THE ART VENTURE, IS ART STILL ON DISPLAY? Yes, I get a thumbs up from Director Brian Gruner himself. Okay, so you should go there. It's at the Norma Herzog Community Center. There's beautiful art on display. And as Councilmember Bewley said, we had a really wonderful time at Sagerstrom Center of the Arts. It was their 40th anniversary. They gave us an opportunity to present a proclamation to them. You know, when you just think of all this great stuff that Sagerstrom Center of the Arts has done for our community, we are the city of the arts, and I'm sure you all have had some great times there. Special thanks to Casey Ritz and John Phelan, who we presented the award to, and Casey in particular has been a really great partner of the city. There's a very good partner relationship going back to when he first started, which was during the pandemic. And we spent a lot of time getting them up and running. Thank you, Mr. Nunez. You're right on point. I love your message. And we'll try to follow up and do that as much as possible. I'm glad you're here. So this is a big meeting. There's a lot of people here, and there's overflow in the community center. So if you guys want to go, you know, maybe if like you spoke and you want to go listen over at the community center, get a little community room, rather, community room, which is back around this way. And so go that way or that way, either way. Either way, you'll get there. And if you feel more comfortable there, you can go there. And if you're listening in the community room, you'll get the opportunity to come and speak. Everybody will get a chance to express themselves. who gave us a nice compliment. I mean, I don't want to sound, like, egotistical, but I agree with whoever said that. You know, I think that this, as you'll see as this meeting unfolds, you're all here for a very important issue. You'll see how we work together, and it's very good. And it's different and, in my opinion, better than in a lot of cities, including our neighboring cities. But you can judge that for yourself. Then finally, and sadly, I've got an adjournment at the end of the meeting for a guy who is just a legend in the city of Costa Mesa, Jim Ferryman. So Jim dedicated more than three decades of service to the Costa Mesa Sanitary District, serving on its board of directors from 1988 to 2020. and five times as its president. During his 32 years on the board, Jim helped guide important improvements that continue to benefit the community today, including the transition to automated curbside waste collection, the introduction of innovative organics recycling and household hazardous waste products, the development of the district's corporate yard, and investment in backup power to protect our wastewater system. Jim's commitment to public service extended to several other local agencies. He served for 24 years on the Orange County Sanitation Board of Directors, including as board chairman from 2006 to 2008. He also served as a trustee of the Newport Mesa Unified School District beginning in 1996, and then I think he was on there into the 2000s, 2004, I think. But Jim's service to Costa Mesa went far beyond his work in local government. For 40 years, he was an active member of the Costa Mesa Newport Harbor Lions Club, serving as its past president and helping lead the beloved fish fry and fish fry parade, which everybody seems to want to bring back.

So let's bring back the fish fry parade.

Many in our community will remember seeing Jim behind the fryer himself cooking fish and doing his part to raise funds for local charities and community organizations. Jim's roots in Costa Mesa ran deep. He was a graduate of Costa Mesa High School, a standout member of the football team, and then he went on to play college football at San Diego State, sorry, San Jose State University. For decades, Jim dedicated his time, energy and wit to serving the community he called home. Whether through local government, our schools, community organizations or simply volunteering his time, Jim demonstrated the lasting commitment to Costa Mesa and its residents. On behalf of the City of Costa Mesa, our city council, and our entire community, I extend my deepest condolences to Jim's family, friends and colleagues, and those who had the privilege of knowing and working alongside him. Tonight, we're going to adjourn the meeting in his honor and memory. Jim Ferryman, great guy. And since we have time, I'll tell a brief personal story. We have this thing that we do called the district meeting. And every quarter, we get together, the city council, the sanitary district, the water district, and the school district. And we get together and talk about things that are important to our districts and our community. And the first one of those meetings I ever went to was in 2017. And Jim brought up this idea of having a poor porta potties or small bathrooms around the city because there were so many people that were relieving themselves throughout the city and it was a problem back in 2017 so I said you know that's a great idea so I I took that on and brought it to the city council and we were going to do a joint venture Roger's laughing and it became known as my porta potty pilot project AND IT PASSED UNANIMOUSLY BECAUSE JIM HAD SUFFICIENT POWER AND INFLUENCE OVER HIS BOARD, PASSED UNANIMOUSLY, THE SANITATION BOARD, AND I WENT DOWN IN FLAMES. SO THE OTHER COUNCIL MEMBERS DIDN'T WANT TO GET INVOLVED. NONE OF THESE FOLKS WERE ON THE COUNCIL. I'M SURE THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN ON THE PORT-A-POTTY PROJECT. And so it failed rather miserably and was a little bit of a political embarrassment for me, but I had my heart in the right place. So we end up now with this crew. Fast forward, we voted to build a shelter, our bridge shelter. So I went back to Jim and his colleagues at the sanitation board, and I said, would you please... Give us that money that you were going to give to the Porta Potti pilot project and give it to us so we could build bathrooms in the shelter. And they could have told me to go buzz off, but they didn't. And through Jim's leadership, they gave us that money. And so now if you go to the bridge shelter, it has a plaque thanking them.

So that's the type of guy Jim was. Great guy.

Anyway, that's all I have. I stretched pretty good. City Manager Gallardo-Dailey, it's time for your report.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. I have a few items to update you on tonight. Tony's going to bring up the slides here. Okay. So the city is pleased to announce that construction of mobility and safety improvements on Adams Avenue between Harbor Boulevard and Fairview Road is now complete. Over the past few months, the crews have worked to narrow the center median, add new landscaping, slurry seal the roadway, and install new lane striping. For the first time, new bikeways are separated from motorists by concrete curbs, and new equipment has been installed that pedestrians can activate with a wave of their hand to trigger the walk phase at the Fairview Road-Adams Avenue intersection. So I want to thank our Public Works Director, Rajasetha Rodman, and his team for completing this project. Thank you. All right. And congratulations to city staff and the public and everyone who participated on another successful art venture. We had a lot of people in attendance this past weekend. That included our mayor, John Stevens, and Councilmember Lauren Gomeros. Congratulations to all the winners and all the participants, and we thank you for sharing your incredible art with us. Councilmember Gomeros mentioned this. He gave a shout out to Kingsley Ahrens, who was featured in the first photo here for winning the People's Choice Award. He had a really stunning mixed media piece called Mrs. Smith. I also want to thank our Parks and Community Services Director, Brian Gruner, Parks Manager, Monique Villasenor, and the entire Parks team, especially Recreation Coordinator, Angel Bear Franco, and our Recreation Specialist, Katen Weigler, for putting on this great event. And finally, join us this Saturday for our annual Hispanic Heritage Month celebration. It will take place at the Lions Park Event Lawn on Saturday, September 19th from 11 to 3 o'clock. We'll have musical entertainment and performances, including a mariachi band from Whittier Elementary School, along with great food. So bring your family and friends, and there will be something for everyone. Okay, well, I actually do have one more thing I wanted to share. We're going to play a reel that we posted on social media showing all the great work. that is going on right now in our parks throughout the city. A lot of this work is also being undertaken by Raja Setharaman and his fabulous public works team.

Our parks are getting an upgrade. Our public works and parks teams are working with contractors on exciting improvements across three local favorites. At Skate Park, a transformation is underway. Shalimar is seeing exciting updates that will create an even more inviting space for neighbors to gather and enjoy the outdoors. Meanwhile, Katcham Leibold is nearing completion, with upgraded spaces taking shape and the park getting ready to welcome everyone back soon. Stay tuned as we continue investing in our parks for our Coast to Amazing community.

That's it for me. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. Okay. Our city attorney, Hall Barlow.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I have been asked previously to give an update on the FLOC camera agreement. I do have some proposed revised language from FLOC. I'm working my way through it because it's a substantial change from the prior agreement language so it's not just a few little paragraphs. So I'm working my way through that and I'll be working with FLOC. They've been very cooperative on that score. I also wanted to address a question that Council Member Reynolds asked about the city's compliance with SB 34. There is a provision in SB 34 that requires a public agency that will be using an automatic license plate reader system to have basically a public meeting like this to discuss it before it is implemented. Unfortunately, that did not happen when we first implemented the flock program however in 2024 when it was expanded there was such a public meeting and That included not only the new locations, but also addressed the existing locations that had been previously approved so IN ESSENCE, ALTHOUGH THERE WAS INITIALLY A VIOLATION, THAT VIOLATION HAS BEEN CURED. THERE HAS BEEN A PUBLIC MEETING, WELL, MORE THAN TWO YEARS AGO. AND OF COURSE THERE HAVE BEEN SEVERAL PUBLIC MEETINGS ON THE ISSUE SINCE THAT TIME. So that's my progress report. I do hope to have the amendment to be able to come forward in October as we originally talked about. As I said, because it is such a substantial revision, it may take a little bit more time. But I just wanted to give you that update. And that's all I have tonight, Mr. Mayor.

Okay. Thank you. All right, so now we're going to move to the consent calendar. Consent calendar is going to be voted on in one motion unless somebody from either the public or the staff or the council pulls an item. Madam Clerk, have any consent calendar items been pulled?

No, Mr. Mayor.

Okay. Council Member Gomeros, do you need to recuse on three? Yep. Okay, so Councilmember Ramirez has to recuse on consent calendar item number three because his wife was formerly employed by Priceless Pets. And so, with that, I'll accept a motion for the consent calendar.

I'll move to approve the consent calendar.

Okay, a motion by we'll say Councilmember Maher, seconded by Councilmember Chavez. Call for the question.

Council Member Biele, please. Motion carries 7-0.

Okay. Does anybody have anything they wish to say before we go on a short break? Mr. Mayor? Yes.

Can I request that we pull public hearing item number two from the agenda so we can prioritize our focus on the FDC item and postpone it to a date certain?

Oh, completely pull it?

Yes.

I'll second. Third. Yeah. Okay. All right. That sounds good to me. So let's call for the...

Does the city manager have a date that she'd prefer?

Next meeting.

Sorry, I'm spanking this on you. I also feel like it's not a terrible item to push to a second meeting in November, given the...

THAT'S FINE WITH ME TOO. YOU WANT TO MAKE THAT YOUR MOTION?

AS LONG AS THE CITY MANAGER. POSTPONE IT TO NOVEMBER 17th.

AND SECOND, CHAVEZ CONCURS. LET'S VOTE ON THAT.

MAYOR PRO TEMPS, CHAVEZ, CAN YOU SECOND, PLEASE?

I KNOW MOST OF YOU WERE HERE FOR THE CLIMATE ACTION ITEM SO I WANT TO MAKE SURE WE DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME.

SO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT WE DO, IF THERE'S ANY QUESTION ABOUT IT, IF YOU'RE HERE FOR THE CLIMATE ACTION ITEM MATTER, THAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN IN THE in the second Tuesday, sorry. November 17th. Yeah, November 17th, whatever that is, the second Tuesday of November, just before Thanksgiving. Okay, good stuff. We're gonna be adjourned until seven o'clock and then we'll come back and we'll start our one item. Well, actually we have one item before that and the short one and then we'll do the Fairview Developmental Center item. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're back on the record, please. Please, order, order, order.

Everybody. There you go. There you go. All right.

Okay, so anyway, so we just did this continuance of the climate action plan public hearing number two. We need to revisit that. So I'm going to make a motion to reconsider that and have it be continued not until November 17th, but October 20th.

Second.

Okay, second. Okay, let's call for the question. Yeah. Yeah.

MR. MAYOR, WE SHOULD OPEN THE PUBLIC HEARING AND THEN CONTINUE IT.

OKAY. I'LL ACCEPT THAT AS THE MOTION. SECOND. LET'S VOTE.

I WOULD HAVE KNOWN ACCIDENT. IT WAS GOING TO BE A YES.

Okay, good. So we have two public hearings. One is very short. Public hearing item number one. Madam Clerk, please read the title.

This continuation request of the consolidated master fee schedule and staff recommends the City Council open the public hearing and continue the item to the October 20th, 2026 meeting pursuant to the department's request, Mr. Mayor.

All right. That's fine. So moved. Second. Okay. Moved by me. Seconded by Council Member Chavez. Okay. Everybody, let's call for the question on that.

Motion carries 7-0.

Okay, good. So now we're going to public hearing item number three. Would you please read the title?

City of Costa Mesa Safety Element Update. Climate Action Plan. Oops, sorry, went to the wrong one. Here we go. Public hearing to consider adoption of the Fairview Developmental Center specific plan and related amendments to the zoning code land use element of the general plan and certify the environmental impact report including introduction of an ordinance titled an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Costa Mesa, California adopting the Fairview Developmental Center specific plan and amend sections 13-20, 13-28, 13-30, Chapter 5, Article 7, and add chapter 18 specific plans to title 13 of the zoning code and amend the zoning map to change the zoning designation of the 110-acre Fairview Developmental Center site located at 2501 Harbor Boulevard to refer to the 95-acre FDCSP and change the remaining 15 acres to institutional and recreational. Presentation by Ms. Stacey, Principal Planner, and Ms. McGill, Advanced Planning Manager.

Okay. Just if you could just I just want it because we have such a big group I'm so glad to see all of you many of you I've seen before but some of you it might be your first time that have come into City Hall and you're all very welcome I just want to give you an idea and the expectations of what's going to happen in the timing so first we're going to have a presentation it's a PowerPoint presentation And it's got 52 slides. So we're going to listen carefully to that. During that time, we're just going to let them flow. Then the council has an opportunity to ask questions. The council members all here have been very engaged in this issue. And we've asked a lot of questions. But we have an opportunity to ask them in public here. This is our time to do it. After the questions are answered, then we're going to have time for public comment. You can come to either one of these podiums, and we'll go back and forth between the podiums. You'll have three minutes within which to speak. Three minutes is the maximum. It's not a goal. So if you think, just with so many people, if you can get your point across in less than three minutes, sometimes that's effective. And the only thing I would also say when you get to that point is pretty much if you want to clap, if somebody says something at the end, you can. But be respectful. Don't disrupt each other. Whether you agree or not, it's important for us to hear what the person's saying, and there's no interruptions or disruptions. And we'll promise, of course, obviously, not to interrupt or disrupt you. and then we'll go to the zoom and then we'll stop public comment we may take a break if it's a long time during the public comment but at the end we'll take a little break we've got some business we're going to do and then we'll come back and deliberate so that's what we're going to do that's the plan and then we'll make a decision one way or the other most likely tonight on something and i like i say i'm glad you're all here and you get to see us in action with that you have the floor yes

I'd like to just make a recommendation. There's a lot of folks here just doing some simple math. Everyone getting three minutes means 20 minutes per hour. 60 people speaking means three hours of public comment, and it's 10 p.m. I do not want to be voting on this at midnight. I think that's poor practice for public policy. I think it makes it really difficult for most of us who work during the day to attend and listen, and so I'd like to request that if we get to 10 p.m., we reduce time to two minutes.

ALL RIGHT. WE'LL TAKE THAT UP AT THE TIME. HOW MANY PEOPLE WISH TO SPEAK TONIGHT? OKAY. ALL RIGHT. WELL, YOU KNOW, AND SOMETIMES THAT CHANGES AS WE GO. PEOPLE HAVE SAID WHAT YOU NEED TO SAY AND STUFF LIKE THAT. SO BUT, YEAH, THAT'S WHEN WE GET TO 10, WE'LL MAKE THAT DECISION. STAFF, YOU HAVE THE FLOOR.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening. Mayor Pro Tem as well as city council members and Melinda Dacey, the principal planner with Community Development Department. With me this evening, I have Ana McGill, planning manager, and Carrie Tai, community development director. In addition, we also have our consultant team, Placeworks, with Molly Mendoza and Jennifer Kelly in the audience. She will also be getting up to the podium at some point in the presentation to speak. And then we also have consultants and additional city staff in attendance to assist with any questions. This has been a very involved project with the rest of the city team as well. With that, we will go over the following items in the presentation. We will go over the background of the specific plan, including legislative actions that have taken place, the community visioning and outreach efforts to date, the specific plan itself as well as environmental analysis, next steps, and recommendations. So with that, we'll go into some background on the specific plan. So there have been several actions taken by the city and state. Back in 2015, the state had passed legislation signing specific number of residential units for Shannon's Mountain, which is part of the project still, but it is being relocated to the northeast parcel that you can see in the map here that's along Merrimack Way. In addition, the state has gone through a process to initiate the closure of the Fairview Developmental Center State Hospital and dispose of the site. State has adopted Senate Bill 188, which approved the disposition of the property in 2022. Subsequent to that, the city and state entered into agreement for the local planning effort of developing the specific plan. I'll have some details on what that agreement entails as part of the deliverables under the agreement for public purposes, as well as just reminding everyone why we're undertaking this process. Part of the requirements of SB 188 indicated that the FDC site is primarily supposed to be developed for housing and allowing for affordable housing to the greatest extent feasible. In addition, SB 138 was processed and this kind of takes over the Shannon's Mountain component of the project and that is currently under construction off the parcel off of Merrimack. Um, the state had also pursued the emergency operations center that is in the Southwest corner of the FTC sites is currently under construction and the EOC is proposed to have construction completed by the late 2027 or early 2028. And in that timeframe, um, we'll have another slide talking about it, but the city council has also adopted the housing element in 2022 with amendments in 2023. which kind of spurs on to the process. So the city began officially kicking off the specific plan development in 2023 when we had selected our consultant for the project. And in addition, the state has in the end of January of this year, beginning of early February this year, has began the initiation of their disposition process. So they have an application portal that's currently open with a rolling basis for any interested master developers to submit applications to the state. At this time, we are not aware of any current applications being submitted to the state DGS portal, but anticipate that that may be relating to the actions waiting for council consideration tonight. So with that, the state and city agreement outlined the specific items bulleted on the screen. I'm not going to read through all of them in the effort to save some time, but we are at the last three bullets of the planning process and the deliverables that are required by the city within the agreement with the state. So we are Having the public hearing tonight for council consideration of EIR certification, specific plan adoption, that includes the final environmental impact report, mitigation monitoring reporting program, and any other updates needed for consistency. As I mentioned in the prior slide, some of the other actions that have taken place since the legislation has occurred With the State Department of General Services, they had done a 2021 infrastructure assessment where they analyzed 2,500 units on the site, which was capped at that number because of the roadway infrastructure. Their assessment also assumed 500 affordable units, but subsequent to that, the city adopted the housing element, which identified 920 lower income units, 690 moderate income units, and 690 above moderate income units for a total of 2,300 units units minimum on the FDC site. Part of the reason why this is important is because the state legislation that was passed in SB 188 does specify a range of unit count for the site that was under consideration at the time when that legislation was passed. However, the intent of that language and the subsequent letter that staff has received from the Department of General Services in July of 2026 reiterated that the Units identified in legislation We're not beholden to only adopting something up to those numbers And they also support 4,000 units And then the city and state agree that housing shall be a priority use with supporting uses for the property I Excuse me, I'm getting over a cold from the weekend. But we've been getting a lot of questions about what is affordable housing, what does that look like, who are the people that can qualify for affordable housing. So the state HCD publishes on an annual basis the annual income limits for the the state, um, orange counties area median income for a household of four is $138,000 lower income household of a family of four is 148,000. Um, recent, uh, American community survey data indicates that in, um, 2024, the average household size in Costa Mesa was 3.26 people. So, um, With that information, the affordable rents associated, so an affordable rent rate is assuming that a household is only paying 30% of their total earned income towards rent. Anything higher than that is considered rent burdened. And right now, an affordable rate for a family of four for a three bedroom at lower income is $2,079. I think the average rate for rent in Costa Mesa is far above that. And part of the city's process with preparing for the specific plan, we were tasked to complete a financial feasibility study. That analysis found that at 2,300 units, the feasibility of construction of the number of affordable units on the property as identified in the housing element is not feasible. Um, the break even point based on the financial feasibility analysis is about 3,450. It still doesn't meet the industry standard of a 15% internal rate of return. Um, so that, that, um, there's still a gap in the project financing that would need to be made up of $5 million. And this will kind of play into some future slides that we have in the presentation. So with that, as well as with all the legislation that's taken place in the housing element that's been adopted, the size of the FDC-specific plan has shrunk over time. Originally, the city was looking at 115 acres with the Shannon's Mountain site, which was including the parcel up on Merrimack, is no longer part of the project. The EOC has come into play in the site, and that has also been removed from the site. So the specific plan area is really boiled down to just 95 acres with 15 of those acres dedicated to the Department of Developmental Services needs for future housing development there. So the master developer will have about 80 acres left for development for housing, open space, parks, and supporting retail and non-residential uses. So next I'm going to touch on the community outreach efforts that the city has undertaken throughout this process. The flow chart here on the screen shows the entire planning process related to the development of the specific plan. At each stage of the process there have been five workshops in total. Each of those five workshops were held on three different nights and three different locations within the community and some of them were also held online only as well as in person to allow a variety of community engagement and feedback on the process. In addition, the planning commission had held several study session meetings as well as city council to talk about the preferred land use plan back in 2025. The public specific plan was released back in March of this year for community input for workshop number five. In addition, prior to going to planning commission, there was also a community Q&A or a town hall type event that was put on by the city as well as getting the public to engage and have that conversation with staff and answer the questions and get their questions answered. In addition to all of the outreach, there were multiple outreach efforts that were utilized to engage the community. That included social media posts, newspaper advertisements. We did postcard mailers to 46,000 households within the community. And all of these different variety of options were utilized for getting the community engaged in the process. So as noted, we had five different workshops. The first workshop was the kickoff of the project and to also start to get the community's input on their vision. Workshop two involved the vision and guiding principle refinements based on feedback received during the first workshop. There were also open houses held to get feedback on the progress of the project to date as well as some draft land use concepts during workshop number four. And then we had the draft-specific plan available for community input and engagement back in March. With all of this, there was also engagement around the environmental impact report with a notice of public... We had a scoping meeting related to the notice of preparation for the environmental impact report. And all of this was part of the engagement activities that we held with the public and the community. We also had a stakeholder engagement meeting with the golf course groups back in July of this year as well to get their feedback and let them know that with the secondary access road on the project, that's not necessarily the end of the discussion with the golf course and that there's been some updates to the specific plan to incorporate that information. In two dates, there's been nine planning commission and city council meetings. We have eight here on the screen, but in total, we are at nine now with the meeting tonight. As well as with the engagement, we also have a project website where all the updated documents and everything has been kept and stored. So during the public review draft, there were several stations placed around each of the facilities where the workshops were held. We also had an engagement activity with some blocks to let the community engage with those to see if the building heights increased, how much ground floor open space would be made available with the densities that are proposed. And so we had three open houses for that effort. Based on all the community input and feedback that we've received to date has informed the specific plan and the contents within it. As I mentioned that we've done multiple avenues for outreach and this is kind of a summary of the feedback that we've received to date. We also did a survey during one of the rounds of workshops and that input has also been folded into the land use concepts. We held the community Q&A open forum July 23rd, where we had the questions and answers discussed with the public and discussed the specific plan, environmental document, answered questions around emergency access, Merrimack, the number of housing in the site, open space requirements, and any kind of traffic-related issues. And so we are now at the hearing draft specific plan. I'm going to turn it over to Molly and she's going to talk about the specific plan document.

Thanks, Melinda. Good evening, mayor, mayor pro tem and council members. Um, I'm going to cover the key contents of the specific plan. Um, and I do just want to reiterate what Melinda had noted is that there were some refinements and changes that have been made to the documents since the posting of the public review draft. And these are related to, as she stated, public input, community feedback, and then feedback from the planning commission. So the specific plan is organized around the contents that are required by the state. So these chapters include an introduction and a vision, the land use plan, a set of development and design standards for future development to regulate that development, A CIRCULATION OR MOBILITY PLAN AND AN INFRASTRUCTURE PLAN AND THEN, IMPORTANTLY, THE IMPLEMENTATION, PHASING AND FINANCING PLAN OR THE ADMINISTRATION AND IMPLEMENTATION CHAPTER. SO I'M GOING TO GO AHEAD AND WALK THROUGH SOME KEY CONTENTS OF EACH OF THESE CHAPTERS. So the first two chapters are the history and introduction chapters. These chapters lay out the purpose and the intent of this specific plan. So they touch on the history of the site, the history of the Fairview Developmental Center, and discuss the relevant legislation associated with both the site and the specific plan. These chapters also discuss consistency with existing city policy and regulations. And then something to note, you'll see on the screen, as a part of this specific plan, the existing land use and zoning will be updated to Fairview Developmental Center specific plan to be implemented by the standards and the regulations that are set forth in this specific plan. Chapter three is the vision and guiding principles. And the vision and guiding principles have been refined and updated throughout this process. As Melinda noted, this has been a long process filled with community participation and input. And throughout the development of the plan, refinements have been made to both the vision and the guiding principles based on some feedback that has been received. The vision guides both the preparation of this specific plan and then will also continue to guide future development by a master developer when selected. So it acts as sort of the true north of this specific plan as a reference to point back to for what the goal of the requirements and the regulations of the plan are. The vision, as high level outlined on the screen before you, will focus on allowing for a diverse range of housing types, as well as focusing on all levels of affordability for future housing. It identifies the importance of long-term sustainability, both economical and physical sustainability. It intends to create a collection of new neighborhoods that will create a desirable place to live. It focuses on walkability and bikeability along with connections to both offsite trail systems and onsite trail systems. And then finally, it requires the design of future development to integrate nature through passive heating and cooling, green infrastructure, sustainable materials. and outdoor spaces that mitigate heat, as well as the restoration of a tree canopy and native vegetation. So there's a lot of really important things that the vision touches on. The next chapter, chapter four, is the land use plan. And this provides a conceptual land use plan for the Fairview Developmental Center specific plan. So there's a couple of really important key components of this chapter that I'll touch on here. First and foremost, the land use plan requires a minimum of 2,300 units and allows for a maximum of 4,000 units. The 2,300 units is in alignment with the city's housing element, and the maximum 4,000 units, and it also includes the DDS housing that Melinda had touched on earlier in the presentation. The land use plan also allows for a range of neighborhood serving commercial uses. This is a minimum of 10,000 square feet, but a maximum of 35,000 square feet. And as you can see on the screen, there is a red hatching along some of the main corridors that shows some options for configuration of future commercial uses on the site. And these can be developed in either a mixed use format or a standalone commercial format, as long as they remain within the minimum and maximum requirements that are set. But ultimately, the location of future commercial is flexible, so it's not set in stone. The specific plan also requires a minimum of 14 acres of publicly accessible open space. So this would include designated parks, trails, or plazas. And a very important note is this is not private open space. There is an additional requirement for private open space that's associated with the housing units. But at a minimum, there is 14 acres required of publicly accessible open space. As a part of the land use plan, we also outline development regulations or development standards. So these focus on regulating how development can occur in the future. So we look at things like building height, specifically restrictions that are associated with the radio tower, and other design standards that are related to building form or layout on the site. This illustrative here just talks through how those development and design standards work together to create a livable and inviting environment and incorporate things like open space amenities, both public, private and common and comfortable walking paths for future residents to enjoy. Chapter five is the mobility plan. The mobility plan covers the location, design of roadways, off-road paseos, and requirements for a multi-use trail, both on and off the site. The roadways that you see on the left in red are considered backbone roadways, and these are going to be required. So this includes that main promenade entrance, as well as the existing shelly circle that will serve the EOC. Other roadways that you'll see in yellow, both on the left-hand side and the right-hand side in both those images, these roads are flexible in how they can be developed and how they can occur. So long as those backbone roadways are implemented, there is flexibility for how internal roadways can be laid out. The mobility plan also includes the secondary access road. This is from the signalized intersection at Harbor Village Shopping Center and that goes through the golf course. So based on the traffic analysis that was done for the project, this road will be required to support the development of 2,300 units or more. And it's really important because it's needed to maintain the city's level of service standards for the existing roadways. The final design is to be determined, so it will happen at a later stage once a master developer is selected and on board with the project. At that time, there will be a separate agreement between the city and the master developer that's related to all aspects of the design and construction of the secondary access road. So this includes things like compensating the city for the value of the land that is to be used for the roadway. It will also require additional public outreach and coordination that is associated with the realignment and how it could impact golf course holes. So I want to touch on the traffic analysis that was done for this project as a part of the mobility plan and developing the circulation plan. A traffic analysis was prepared and it evaluates the level of service along existing and future city roads. The analysis studied 26 intersections, including 15 along Harbor Boulevard. With the build-out of the project and with intersection improvements the only intersection that will operate at a level of service D is fair and Harbor And this is the minimum level acceptable level that's adopted by the city standards And it is important to note this this analysis the traffic analysis that was done for the project It did include all other housing rezoned sites. I Okay, so touching back on this secondary access road, because I know this is really important to both the city and the community, and there were some questions about some alternative options. So in response to questions that we received about other potential locations for the secondary access road, we put together this slide to show some other options that were considered, but ultimately were not feasible. The first being Merrimack Way, which you'll see to the north end of the image on your right. So it was initially assumed that Merrimack Way would be available for use for the FDC development. But through coordination with DDS and DGS, we learned that it is designated as a private road in the lease between the state and the developer of the existing harbor village. And then as noted on a letter that was received on September 4th to the city by DDS, Merrimack will remain a private road with access that will only serve the clientele that's already existing of over 300 individuals with developmental disabilities, as well as the existing staff for the area. In the future, Merrimack can be used for access in case of an emergency only. The second option that was considered is the road that you'll see in the south end of this image that extends and connects to Shelly Circle. So this alignment would impact operations at the city's corporate yard for fire and rescue training. It also is infeasible because there's no public access from Shelly to this road. So that Shelly circle connection to the SREOC, um, is private and only for use by the EOC. Um, this alignment in addition would also impact, um, more holes on the golf course than the alternative, um, and preferred options shown connecting to Harbor. Okay, so chapter six is open space and open space requirements. So this outlines the minimum requirements for open space as well as a conceptual plan for how that open space can occur. So as previously directed by the council, the plan will require a minimum of 14 acres, which I had previously mentioned. This also includes open space such as parks and trails. In addition to dedicating the land, the master developer must build the parks and also pay the remaining in lieu fees that are based on the city's public open space requirement of 4.26 acres per 1,000 residents. In addition to the public parks and trails, the specific plan has requirements for private open space that is related to future housing that would be developed on the site. So private open space would include amenities such as pools, recreation centers, courts, rooftop decks, or private balconies or patios. So this can be provided as common private areas or private to the individual units. And the requirement for this open space is 90 square feet per unit. So that equates to 360,000 square feet if calculated at the 4,000 units, which is about eight acres of additional private open space that could occur on the site. All right, in addition to land use and open space, we also have an infrastructure chapter. This chapter addresses both wet and dry utilities, such as electric, gas, water, sewer, and storm drain facilities. So as a part of the future development, all new infrastructure systems will be required. That was determined in the analysis that was done by the city's technical teams, I'm sorry, the project's technical teams. And conceptual layouts for future infrastructure is included in the specific plan and analyzed in the EIR. As a part of the infrastructure improvements, a financial analysis also considered the cost of providing these systems. So the service needs associated with the future site also include fire, EMS, and police and schools. So these were all evaluated in addition to those wet and dry utilities. And the need for new facilities on site are permitted. So it is allowed for future additional facilities should they be determined to be needed at a future time when development applications come in for the site. In addition to these requirements and studies, the city is also undertaking a nexus study to update the development impact fees and this will be in place when the master developer is brought on board. I also wanted to note that there has been communication with Newport Mesa Unified throughout the development of this plan. So this includes coordinating with them through development of the plan and then including the preparation of initial alternative plans and also for comment on the draft EAR. And they have confirmed that there is capacity in the schools that future students would attend. These include Adams Elementary, TWINKLE MIDDLE SCHOOL AND ESTANCIA HIGH SCHOOL. OKAY, CHAPTER 8. WE'RE ALMOST THROUGH THE WHOLE SPECIFIC PLAN. Okay, chapter eight is really important. It includes the tailored development review application that city staff developed. This is the process for the future master developer to go through prior to submittal of a formal tentative map. So there's a list of requirements that the master developer will have to go through before submitting that map. And this is really to ensure consistency with the provisions and the requirements that are set forth in this specific plan. In addition, and as required by state law, this chapter also identifies the various steps that are related to implementation including responsible parties for funding and maintenance. Based on the specific plan and the flexibility that it allows, the master developer will then prepare a more detailed master plan with a final road layout, mix of location and housing types, location sizing of parks, and other important amenities. This will also include a phasing development, and this will lay the groundwork for the submittal of that formal tentative map. As a part of this submittal, a formal housing plan is also required to ensure that the project is in alignment with requirements of this specific plan as well as the housing element and then following this process project specific applications for areas such as blocks or larger planning areas can then move forward. I'll pass it back over to Melinda.

Thanks, Molly. Next we'll go through some of the refinements that have been made to the specific plan and consistency updates related to the release of the public review draft back in March and through the hearing process to date. So based on the feedback received at the March 2026 workshops, the public comments resulted in refinements to the vision and guiding principles and purpose statements of the specific plan. In addition, there were refinements to the phasing details and implementation processes, which Molly just went over those and those updates as well. Um, city staff had also conducted some updates to the document in relation to some land use classification updates that were some ongoing city council, uh, adopted recently, um, back in the end of August. for some consistency with zoning code updates for that scope where additional economic land use definitions and things were incorporated in the land use matrix in the city's municipal code. So we did some updates for consistency with that work. In addition, residential parking minimums were removed with city council direction for housing element sites at the March and April meetings of city council where that direction was provided to staff And so this was made for consistency with that direction because the FDC site is a housing element site. As well as adding some information about the master developer continuing to conduct outreach around the secondary access road and how that connects through the city's municipal golf course and what kind of future redesign may be needed to the golf course to address that road cut through. In addition, city staff held a planning commission study session in July. Updates from that meeting resulted in corrections to typos, the land use and urban design. We added a definition to extremely low and consolidated the land use identifications for commercial spaces in the land use table of the specific plan. The Chapter 5 mobility, there's additional flexibility incorporated around Merrimack Way in the event that a new lease agreement allows for access. The Harbor Village operator and state DDS has a lease in effect through December 2036. And so if in the event there's the possibility to negotiate access through Merrimack Way and that flexibility was added into the specific plan But subsequent to that we also got a letter from DDS from on dated September 4th indicating that they do not intend to allow Merrimack Way to be utilized for daily public access So that could be a consideration for council discussion tonight in addition there were other updates made for additional clarifications relating to some maps that needed to be updated and then the fire topic for the infrastructure and public services it was just noted to include emergency services and the heading of that item And then the administration and implementation in Chapter 8, there's an ownership column clarification for who's responsible for certain utilities and things like that in the future. And there have been further refinements made to this specific plan subsequent to the Planning Commission recommendation to City Council. Some of those are for internal consistency of the various chapters as well as some updates to the mobility chapter, including reference for allowance of street furniture in the right-of-way and the parkway areas. All of this information is included within the ordinance version of the specific plan before council this evening. There's also a strikethrough version available and linked in the staff report. In addition, clarifications were included around application requirements for the secondary access road and those needing to get city council approval for that process. In addition, there is some affordable housing prioritization requirements included within the plan to specify that a certain percentage of the affordable units should be prioritized in dedicated for first responders, public service employees, seniors, et cetera. Some other updates that the city needs to complete in order to have a consistent general plan and zoning code include updates to the city's land use map and zoning map updates. The current land use is identified as multi-use center with the adoption of the specific plan. It is proposed to change that to refer back to the specific plan because it establishes its own land uses and as well as identifying the EOC as a public institutional designation, which is consistent with their operations for the city's established list of uses. And in addition, there are zoning map updates that correspond to these general plan updates. So some of the updates for consistency include an update to the land use elements of the general plan, which will remove the existing land use designation as indicated in the prior slide. And then there will be a new section added to the land use element for specific plans. And then the zoning code amendments will also be doing similar items with the zoning code designation for the site. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Jennifer Kelly and she's going to come up to the podium to talk through the environmental analysis.

Thank you. Good evening, Council. Jennifer Kelly with Placework, serving as the project manager for the ER component of the specific plan. I'll be providing a general overview of the environmental impact report and summarize several key CEQA findings. Next slide. Regarding the CEQA process, the city first issued the notice of preparation in October 2025 and held an in-person scoping meeting the following month. The draft EIR was made available for a 48-day public review period from May to July of 2026. A total of 14 comment letters were submitted by various agencies and organizations and community members. Next slide. I'd also like to highlight key findings from the draft EIR. The EIR was prepared at the program level to analyze the build-out, guiding principles, development standards, and implementation programs identified in the specific plan and analyze the project against 20 topics pursuant to CEQA guidelines. Four topics studied in the EIR, including air quality, biological resources, cultural resources, and greenhouse gas emissions, or GHGs, were determined to result in significant and unavoidable impacts, notwithstanding implementation of mitigation. Next slide. Regarding air quality, construction would generate short-term emissions exceeding the South Coast Air Quality Management District or AQMD thresholds. Long-term operations would exceed South Coast AQMD thresholds and contribute to regional non-attainment status. For biological resources, construction and operation could affect an aquatic resource, which refers to the concrete-lined irrigation-fed pond at Costa Mesa Country Club, which is outside the project site but within the off-site improvement areas. Regarding cultural resources, the project would remove contributing FDC historic district structures and features, resulting in a substantial adverse change to a historical resource. for GHG's project operation would exceed South Coast AQMD's Brightline GHG threshold. Next slide, please. With respect to alternatives, those evaluated in the draft DIR were selected in part for their potential to reduce or avoid the project's significant impacts and attain most of the basic project objectives. Alternatives that were considered but ultimately rejected included the alternative site, reduced density below housing element, full adaptive reuse, increased parkland, and removal of secondary access point alternatives. Three alternatives were studied in the EIR, which include the no development alternative, under which the project would not be approved and the site would remain unchanged. The no project alternative, under which the project would not be adopted, leaving no comprehensive planning framework or master developer for redevelopment. And the partial adaptive reuse alternative, under which the contributing FDC historic district features would be preserved and incorporated into redevelopment. Next slide. The final EIR responds to comments and includes related corrections, additions, and specific plan updates. The comments and corrections did not create any new significant impacts beyond those disclosed in the draft EIR. They also do not substantially increase impact severity or otherwise require circulation pursuant to CEQA guidelines. Next slide, please. The final EIR also includes the mitigation monitoring and reporting program, or MMRP, which provides the city with a guide to track implementation of mitigation as development occurs throughout the planning horizon. Next slide, please. The findings of fact and statement of overriding considerations found that the project would advance public benefits including housing production, mixed income development, open space, mobility improvements, and redevelopment of an underutilized state property. And with that, I'll turn it back to Melinda for next steps.

Thank you, Jennifer. So for city council consideration, This is alternatives that are presented to City Council that is included within the staff report. This information was presented to the Planning Commission as well, but this basically identifies some other alternatives to adopt in the specific plan rather than a 4,000 unit threshold. Subsequent to the Planning Commission recommendations, there's been a lot of public comment and engagement around the total housing units in the FDC, traffic impacts, open space impacts the golf course. So this alternative feasibility That's financially, so the alternative units that are financially feasible on the screen and as identified in the earlier PowerPoint slide, 3450 is where there's a small gap in financing, but a developer could make that pencil. 3500 units rounds that up and makes that a nicer number and that the 50 units would most likely get the developer out of that 5 million gap in financing. So the council could consider a 3,800 unit alternative with that. Uh, there would be potentially two additional acres of ground floor open space that could be incorporated into the specific plan, increasing the 14 units or 14 acres up to 16. Alternatively, a 3,500 unit threshold could also be considered by the city council. That would equate to potentially five acres of ground floor open space being made available and increasing the 14 acres to 19. And I wanted to just note that when City Council and Planning Commission directed staff to prepare the environmental report, It was to study the 4,000 units to understand those impacts, but not commit the city to any future action and utilizing the council's discretion to choose to adopt a lower unit threshold. So then you're not beholden to the 4,000. That's just what has been studied and what's included in the specific plan. and council can utilize their discretion to reduce that number accordingly. These alternatives are also consistent with the legislation, the agreement with the state, and meets the housing element criteria outlined by HCD. In addition, there is a 2300 unit alternative, but as noted earlier in the report, that is not financially feasible. It is still consistent with the housing element if the 920 affordable lower income units remains in the project scope. It's not financially feasible as noted. It does not meet the 15% internal rate of return. The remediation and site preparation cuts will remain the same at that unit threshold. It would potentially propel use of state density bonus law, waiving development standards, as well as other requirements that are currently incorporated in the specific plan, which is the city's local control over a future development for that site. It still requires a secondary access road. It would not be consistent with legislation or the agreement with the state. There's also been some discussion potentially about reducing the affordable units option. If that is considered, there would potentially be a need to conduct another housing element amendment, which the city council has just adopted a revised element on September 1st. It would significantly reduce or eliminate the city's buffer for the lower income categories and also risk the city not getting a certified housing element by HCD. With that, we'll talk about next steps. So we are on phase four after the meeting tonight. If the specific plan is adopted by city council, the master developer would be selected by the state, and then we would go through the application process and see some entitlements and potential construction activity on the project site. With that, the staff recommendation is to adopt the resolutions as identified as well as the ordinance for the specific plan as currently drafted. However, as noted in the presentation, City Council could use their discretion to modify some of those contents at the meeting tonight. With that, that concludes staff's presentation and we're available to answer any questions.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR PRESENTATION. COUNCIL, DO YOU HAVE QUESTIONS?

I HAVE A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS. I ORIGINALLY HAD A LOT OF QUESTIONS BECAUSE I SPENT A LONG TIME TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THIS. But my question set has changed a little bit based on we received a legal implementation memo showing that the base density we authorized may not be the ultimate density. Staff has modeled a theoretical scenario which 4,000 units could reach 7,850 units. through state bonus density laws. So that changed the trajectory of my questions. My first question is, if council adopts a 4,000 base units, what legally enforceable mechanism guarantees the ultimate development cannot approach the 7,850 units stacked density bonus scenario out of the memo that we received?

Thank you, Council Member Pettis, for that question. So the scenarios that are being referred to just for the benefit of the public were staff trying to work through some potential state density bonus options. State density bonus law allows for stacking of density bonuses. So depending on the income category that is provided, you could utilize a state density bonus in more than one income category, thereby stacking those bonuses to achieve a higher number. So back to the question at hand, which is what options are available to the city to potentially limit the use of state density bonus law or an increase in the unit count? A couple of things to consider. While there are a lot of restrictions in our ability to reduce or to limit state density bonus law, the master developer may enter into a development agreement with the city. We anticipate that that could happen in this particular case because the master developer will likely want to negotiate some type of phasing plan for the project over a longer period of time, somewhere between 12 and 18 years. And the process of going through a development agreement would allow the city to negotiate. So it is not uncommon for cities to try to negotiate as part of a DA a maximum unit count, even if state density bonus law would allow more than that. So that is a potential option. In addition to that, and just for the benefit of the public as well, there are other, they're not legal parameters, but there are other, I'm going to look to the city attorney to see if she wants to, okay, there are other additional parameters that may prevent development of over 4,000 units up to that 7,000 unit mark. Those include, one, just the development parameters of the specific plan. So an applicant would still need to meet high requirements, setback requirements. So there is a constraint on the site as is. When we were doing financial feasibility assessment, we identified that 4,000 is about the max capacity that could be allowed on the site. In addition to that, going much higher over 4,000 units would change the construction type. So at the moment, the financial feasibility identifies what's called wood frame construction, I mean, that's a type three construction. Anything above that to get to a 7000 unit threshold would require a type one or type two construction at a very high level. It utilizes steel. It becomes significantly more expensive. And that's why in a lot of cases around Orange County, you don't see these huge like 20, you know, story towers. And so I often like to say there's a sweet spot for development, and that is typically the case. We have had a lot of current planning projects EVEN THOUGH THEY CAN UTILIZE STATE DENSITY BONUS LAW, THEY HAVE CHOSEN NOT TO OR NOT TO MAXIMIZE THE STATE DENSITY BONUS LAW OPTION. I CAN GO INTO THOSE EXAMPLES IF YOU WANT. BUT WE RECENTLY HAD A PROJECT THAT GO TO PLANNING COMMISSION 2075 BROADWAY JUST LAST MONTH, TWO MONTHS AGO, SORRY, IN JULY. THEY UTILIZED STATE DENSITY BONUS LAW TO USE WAIVERS AND CONCESSIONS BUT DID NOT ASK FOR A DENSITY BONUS.

So if density bonus materially increases the ultimate unit count above 4,000, what traffic, infrastructure, public safety, water, school noise, and other environmental analysis applies to those additional units? At what point would an additional CEQA review be required?

Thank you for that question. It's a little bit of a nuanced answer. A PROJECT CAN POTENTIALLY UTILIZE STATE DENSITY BOTUS LAW AND POTENTIALLY NOT HAVE TO DO ADDITIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS. WHERE WE NEED TO ANALYZE THE POTENTIAL FOR DOING MORE ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS IS WHERE THERE'S A DISCRETIONARY ACTION. SO FOR EXAMPLE, LET'S SAY THEORETICALLY THE MAXIMUM UNIT COUNT WAS 4,000. THAT WAS WHAT WAS STUDIED UNDER THE EIR. Any potential application to increase that amount may require a revision to the specific plan that is a discretionary action It's outlined in the plan as a discretionary action And so the city would have the opportunity to review that development application and potentially it would trigger additional sequel review depending on the application and

Okay. I'm going to leave it there for now. I've got other folks who want to ask questions. So next up.

Thank you, Council Member Pettis. Who wants to go first? You said, so Council Member Gamero, you have the floor.

Thank you. If you could turn to page 40 in the slide, I'd kind of like to direct everyone there. Under the CEQA findings here, we have some significant impacts that could be mitigated to less than significant impact. So let's talk about geology and soils, first of all, in regards to hazards and hazardous materials. It's my understanding that there's asbestos that was discovered or anticipated. Can you speak to that? Can somebody speak to that, please?

Yes, I can. Is it so regarding the materials found on site? There would be asbestos and lead due to the age of the buildings associated with the former FDC But those impacts would be mitigated to less than significant due to regulatory compliance with state regulations regarding the disposal of hazardous materials Okay, let's back up

REPEAT WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT REGULATORY COMPLIANCE LESS THAN. WHEN YOU SAY ASBESTOS AND LEAD I HEARD 300 MILLION FOR THE REMEDIATION PROCESS. THAT SEEMS PRETTY SIGNIFICANT. SO CAN SOMEONE HELP ME OUT WITH WHAT I HEARD AND I HEARD YOU SPEAKING ENGLISH BUT I'M NOT QUITE SURE IF THE REST OF THE FOLKS HERE COULD UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT MEANT. SO.

COUNCILMEMBER GRIMIEROS LET ME TRY TO SAY IT ANOTHER WAY THAT MAYBE WILL HELP FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PUBLIC MAKE SENSE OF SOME OF THE TECHNICAL TERMINOLOGY.

THANK YOU.

So asbestos, both asbestos and lead were found on the site, project site. As part of remediation and the number that you noted, 300 million is the total cost that we anticipate to remediate the site and get pad ready. So that includes removing asbestos, it includes removing lead, it includes putting in dry utilities, electricity, wet utilities, plumbing, all of that kind of stuff to make sure that the master developer can actually start building. There are county and state regulatory requirements for removal of asbestos and lead um it needs to be bagged up this is not a technical term but bagged up in the right way it needs to be taken off site so that that is um the mitigation that's included to bring that from a significant impact into a less than significant impact thank you um and we need everybody in the room to understand what's taking place with this as well i don't mean to be offensive but

Smarter than a sixth grader works good for me. Okay, so with that said, do we have a geotechnical report on what we actually discovered? Do we have that yet? From a geotechnical engineer, have we done any exploratory work? Do we have any findings so far?

I believe we do. I'd like to check the EIR if I may have a moment.

Oh, yeah, no problem. I can go on to something else while we're waiting for that.

Council Member Gamero, there was a Phase 1 and Phase 2 environmental assessment that were conducted for the disposition by the state. They did some... borings and testings of the soil with that work effort and they did find the presence of those materials as well as some diesel particulate and like oil leaking into the ground as well. So there has been some boring analysis that was done based on those assessments.

Okay. With that said, were these boring or trench logs? Excuse me. Oh, yeah boring logs or trench logs, you know, they're noted as borings and they have a certain depth that they went down Okay, do we know to what depth this is important information? I don't mean to get in the weeds, but We need to know this one.

I mean we're being handed something and I feel like it's uh It's ready to go I Have to look at the details in the EIR, but it would have been to 40 or more feet depth for zero. Yes, I

So are we to expect that we have a 40 foot remediation in depth that we have to remove and replace?

No, that's just the level at which we that is tested under to to find the answer to that question. But we'll make sure before we get to public comment that we find the exact answer.

OK, I would like to also know how far we intend on going down to make this place safe to build on where we plan on putting playgrounds and stuff like that.

Yeah, we'll get that answer.

Okay, my other question is, we're coming up with a number of 3,800 units before this can reach a profitable margin. Is that, any of that based on the fact that there's a $300 million cost to remediate this stuff?

Yes, Councilman Montgomery, that's correct. So financially feasible was determined at 3,450 units. That's kind of like the break even point where There's some small modifications that could be done to the project to make it financially feasible, and that assumed the $300 million in remediation and getting the site ready for construction.

Was there a number in which if we did not have to assume that burden and it was, say, assumed, for example, by the state, where the profit margin would be there at that point?

We didn't analyze that specifically, but at a high level, any potential inclusion of some sort of hypothetical subsidy would change the financial feasibility and potentially make a lower unit count more financially feasible.

Okay. For now, that's all I have. I appreciate you digging into this for me. No pun intended. Thanks.

Yeah, it's a good one. I just have a really quick question about just following up on his questions. I read the financial feasibility report and it said it was going to take $30 million to do the remediation, but of course I just heard $300 million, which is quite a different number. Can you reconcile that for me?

Yeah, of course. Thank you for that question. That's a really good question. $30 million is the remediation of the harmful and hazardous materials that are noted and 300 million is that total number to get the site ready for vertical construction. So that would include putting in the roadways, the utilities like electric, plumbing, everything that's needed so that houses can actually start getting built.

So the $30 million is the cost associated with remediating the lead and the asbestos and stuff like that? Correct. Okay. And just one last question I want to get on this topic while I'm at it. So who introduced the toxic substance into the site? What agency?

It was the institutional buildings that were on the site.

It was the state of California? Yeah.

Yes. Yes. Okay. All right.

Who's next? I'm up. Mayor Pro Tem Chavez.

Thank you, Mayor Stevens. Thank you, staff, for your presentation. I want to focus a little bit on the affordable units just because you mentioned during your presentation that you might need a buffer. So could you elaborate on why we have to hit a certain level of affordable housing units and for what buffer you're referring to?

Apologies, bear with us one second, we're getting to the right slide. Can you clarify, Mayor Pro Tem, are you referring to the RENA capacity or just the number of affordable units that are in the specific plan?

So I think, maybe I'm misspeaking, but I was under the impression that it was implied or said outright that we need to have a certain number of affordable housing units for a buffer. So I just want to clarify that for the public.

Oh, I see. Thank you so much. Okay. Now that I understand the question, and thank you for going to that slide, Melinda, This is what was presented to the City Council as part of the September 1st housing element revision item and This identifies where we currently have a buffer in the city under each income category for the regional housing needs assessment So as you can see here We actually have a fairly healthy buffer in the above moderate and moderate categories where we have more of a slim or a tight buffer is in the low and very low and currently We only have additional buffer capacity of 454 units, which is approximately 10%. So, you know, any decrease in, and this was part of the presentation in the number of affordable units considered for the FDC specific plan or any future project would potentially remove some of that buffer and require the city potentially to have to do a housing element revision to identify new sites.

So to reiterate, if we were to go any lower, we would have to come back with another site to offset those very low or low units.

Yeah, that's right. 10% is about as low as a buffer as HCD will consider and accept. So if we were to remove it much further than this, they would likely ask us to revise our housing element and identify new sites to make sure that we maintain a buffer.

So if, hypothetically speaking, in this discourse, eventually we're talking about lowering, you know, we're looking at different options for unit sizes. You're saying if we were to lower anything, we should not lower the very low and low income because that would eat our buffer.

Yeah, thank you. That would be staff's recommendation so that we don't need to go through another 180-day housing element revision process.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions? Council Member Reynolds? Oh, sorry. Let's go with Council Member Reynolds, then we'll go to Council Member Bioli. Thanks.

I'll pass it back to you and probably ask for it back again at some point. I wanted to do a quick follow-up on some of the affordability questions. So, you know, if we had to do this additional process of sort of refilling the buffer THAT WOULD MEAN FINDING OTHER SPOTS IN THE CITY THAT ARE NOT CURRENTLY IN OUR HOUSING ELEMENT ALREADY. SO ADDITIONAL LOCATIONS WHICH WE TEND TO FOCUS ON THE CORRIDORS LIKE HARBOR BOULEVARD. SO WE WOULD BE POTENTIALLY IF WE CHOOSE TO REMOVE AFFORDABLE UNITS FROM THIS SITE WE WOULD NEED TO MOVE THEM SOMEWHERE ELSE IN THE CITY. AND MY UNDERSTANDING FROM LOOKING AT THOSE HOUSING ELEMENT those locations would likely be Harbor Boulevard, Newport Boulevard. Yes, that's correct.

Yeah, any of those Measure K sites that enabled the city to rezone them and they would not be subject to Measure Y or to potentially a voter initiative. So we would look at those Measure K sites for identifying new sites.

We can't, per state law and compliance with HCD, we can't just scratch affordable units. We've got to replace them somewhere else.

Yes, correct.

Thank you. I'm going to stay on the affordability for a bit because I have a couple of follow-up questions there. And thank you for, I think it was slide seven. It's helpful to go back to that because I also lose touch of what we mean by affordability. And it is quite striking how expensive it is to live in Orange County. If you jump to slide seven, I just want to emphasize what I understand and make sure that's correct. I know you've got a lot of slides. So this is showing, for example, how we define a low income household. So on this slide, that's the second to last column. A family of three is low income if they make $134,000 or less. A family of four is considered low income if they make $149,000 or less. A couple empty nesters or a senior living alone making $120,000 are considered low income, right? Am I reading that right? Yes, that's correct. It's quite straight. And well, okay. Was it just a couple weeks ago when we had our housing element in front of us again, which had a chapter on the study that was done in, Where are we, 2020, when we did kind of the current state of housing in Costa Mesa? My recollection from that is about 50% of the current Costa Mesa residential population is considered housing burdened, right? Is spending more than 30% of their income on housing costs.

Yes, that's correct.

And that was part of the calculus that got us to these RHNA numbers, but that was also a driving factor in terms of why PROVIDING DIVERSE AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING SOLUTIONS IS ONE OF OUR COUNCIL GOALS AND WHY WE'VE HAD SO MANY HOUSING DISCUSSIONS. OKAY. THANK YOU. THAT SORT OF TABLE SETTING IS IMPORTANT. ONE OF THE THINGS I REALLY LIKED THAT HAS BEEN ADDED TO THIS PLAN SINCE THE LAST TIME I SAW IT REFLECTS A LOT OF COMMENTS THAT I HEAR IN MY DISTRICT AND I THINK IN OTHER AREAS OF THE CITY AND THAT IS, OKAY, LIKE, YEAH, WE KNOW PEOPLE WHO ARE STRUGGLING WITH HOUSING. I MIGHT BE STRUGGLING WITH How do we make sure these units prioritize Costa Mesa residents or people who work in Costa Mesa and are having to drive, are adding to that traffic? And I know we've had a number of conversations around this. I saw language in this plan now that says a minimum of 10% to 20% should be allocated for Costa Mesa residents or workers. Why not a minimum of 20%? Can we say a minimum of 20%? If I see a minimum of 10 to 20, then isn't that just effectively a minimum of 10%?

Yeah, the intent was to allow for some flexibility and back and forth with the master developer as they submit their affordable housing plan. But it's within the city council's discretion to change that to 20% if they wish to do so.

OK, we could move that to a minimum of 20%. Could we make that higher? I know we butt up against some fair housing laws, Can we make that higher?

Staff wouldn't recommend increasing beyond the 20%. There's been some other jurisdictions that have done that, but when they go through the prioritization process and selecting available applicants, they sometimes don't meet the criteria. So providing that range of 10% to 20% allows the flexibility for that and doesn't preclude other potential affordable housing applicants or future residents to the community outside of that threshold. So it would open it up to countywide too, which is also meeting fair housing requirements.

Okay.

But if we set it to 20%, there's still 80% that could be create that flexibility for others, right?

Yes, but not in most cases. you may not get up to 20% for that capacity. Got it. You're saying if there's not enough applicants. Right. So you have 20 dedicated for those, and if you can't fill those, then you don't have the flexibility to go down.

Okay. Is that considered sort of a common practice or best practice, or is that range based on sort of analysis of our numbers? Where did the 10% to 20% come from?

It's based off of other jurisdictions doing something similar, not dedicating a full 100%, but a certain percentage to still meet fair housing laws.

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. OK, I want to pivot to open space. This is another thing I hear a lot about as a former parks commissioner, I care a lot about. And I'm not going to remember what slide it is, but if you can jump to the open space slide. I want to make sure I understand what the rules and requirements, understand and curricular articulate the rules and requirements in the current plan for open space. So any plan as written has to provide I'm trying to get there. OK. So there's an open space. There's kind of three things that contribute to the open space requirement. Residential open space, for every unit that's built, there has to be 90 square foot of open space, which could be private to the resident, it could be common space in that residential facility, or it could add to the public open space tally, right? OK. And whatever that number is, I think you said what the total is based on the current plan, 100% of that requirement must be done on site.

Sorry, I'm conferring.

Sure. Yeah. I want to make sure.

Yeah. The answer to that is yes, where we could potentially consider offsite open space would be publicly accessible, but the requirements for common have, they have to be in the building and accessible to the building. So I'm not sure how that would even work offsite. And, And for the unit itself, it has to be accessible to that private unit.

OK. And then in addition to that, there is a minimum of 5,000 square foot of open space tied to any commercial build out. Even if there is, I think the commercial build out has a max of 35,000 square feet. Let's say they just do 20,000 square feet of commercial. They still have to meet 5,000 square feet of commercial open space.

YEAH, OF OPEN SPACE.

AND THAT HAS TO HAPPEN ON THE SITE? ON THE SITE, YEAH. THAT'S A SMALLER NUMBER RELATIVE TO THE OTHERS, I KNOW. THEN IN ADDITION TO THAT, THIS IS THE BIG NUMBER AND THIS IS WHAT COMES FROM OUR GENERAL PLAN. FOR EVERY THOUSAND PEOPLE, RESIDENTS, THE SITE ACCOMMODATES, OUR GENERAL PLAN REQUIRES 4.26 ACRES. SO DEPENDING ON THE SIZE OF THE FINAL PLAN, THAT ADDS UP TO A BIG NUMBER. MY FIRST QUESTION IS, HOW DO WE DO THAT MATH? IS IT EARLIER IN THE PRESENTATION YOU SAID WE HAVE AN AVERAGE OF I THINK 3.2 RESIDENTS PER UNIT? IS THAT THE RATIO THAT WE'RE USING?

THE RATIO FOR HOUSEHOLD SIZE IN THE ANALYSIS IS 2.4. THE 3.26 THAT WAS REFERENCED IS THE 2024 AMERICAN COMMUNITY SURVEY RESULTS INDICATED THAT THERE'S 3.2 HOUSEHOLDS AVERAGE FOR THE COASTA MESA COMMUNITY.

Why do we use a different number than what's in the most recent?

The American Community Survey is just a small sampling of responses, whereas we are using the census data average, which is 2.4, and we get more of a response on that.

Okay. I did read in the plan that the average household size is shrinking as well. It's probably a combination of age and aging community and fewer children. Okay. So to get the math here, we would get, you know, what is the total number of units in the future master plan for the site times 2.4 divided by 1,000 times 4.26. Okay.

That seems small. She said 23 acres.

I think it's a bit higher. The number in the EIR identified a population based on the number that Melinda referenced in the 9,000 range. We can go back and take a look at it so you have that exact number. But it was on the higher end of 9,000. Yeah, I'm getting 41. Got it.

OK, OK, OK. All right. IT COULD BE 20 ACRES, 40 ACRES, IT'S GOING TO SCALE WITH THE NUMBER OF UNITS IN THE FINAL PROJECT PLAN. AND THEN IN THIS CASE, BECAUSE THE SITE IS ONLY SO BIG, ALL OF THOSE ACRES CANNOT BE ACCOMMODATED ON THE SITE, BUT THE PLAN RIGHT NOW HAS A MINIMUM OF 14 ACRES MUST BE ACCOMMODATED ON THE SITE. THE REST STILL HAVE TO BE PROVIDED FOR, BUT THAT CAN BE loofies that sort of equate to the the what it would cost like find and buy that land or Park improvements for equivalent value. Am I missing one or land dedication, right? Yes, those are okay, but there is a minimum number right now. It's 14 that has to be provided on-site. Okay, okay what is our expo there's been a lot of discussion in the last few weeks about density bonus and really trying to understand that what is our exposure on density bonus that could negatively impact the open space requirements can density bonus be used to reduce that the the large acreage open space requirements yeah that's a good question i'm going to give a similar answer to what i mentioned before for council member pettis's question which is that

you know, very likely the developer is going to ask for a development agreement to enter into a development agreement. And if the developer requests that it's voluntary and they, they need to request that with the city, we would have an opportunity to do some negotiations. So with that being said in order, you know, it is possible that the master developer could ask for a concession. And if we, Can we go to that backup slide just to kind of explain the differences between concessions and a waiver? Like a concession is more like an incentive. I'm providing affordable units, therefore I get a bump in height, for example. A waiver is I cannot build these affordable units unless this standard is waived. So there may be an opportunity for a master developer in theory to ask for a concession of some kind for open space, in which case we would likely utilize negotiation and the development agreement to highlight our city's priorities and you know ensure that the minimum amount of open space is being provided for I think it would be difficult there would be a difficult justification for using a waiver you would have to say I can't provide those affordable housing units in any other way and with additional height that's allowed for in the plan the setbacks I think it would be a hard test to sort of show although I will say State density bonus law has changed. The burden of proof is on the city. There's some really refined standards. The burden of proof is on the city in order to potentially deny a waiver. And so you see here at the bottom of the slide, there's some key topics where the city could potentially deny a waiver. It would be health and safety. Emergency access is a really good example of that. IT'S A HISTORIC RESOURCE OR CONTRARY TO ANY STATE OR FEDERAL LAW. SO OPEN SPACE DOESN'T FALL WITHIN THAT. BUT THE APPLICANT STILL HAS TO SHOW THAT THEY MEET THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE WAIVER WHICH IS THAT THEY LITERALLY CANNOT BUILD THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNLESS THAT STANDARD IS WAIVED. TYPICALLY YOU CAN MEET THAT FOR LIKE A SETBACK. It's a little bit more open on open space. So I don't have a fantastic answer to your question, but these are all the things that we contemplate and we think about if we were to receive a concession or a waiver request for open space.

And council member, sorry, Carrie Thai, community development director for the benefit of the public. And I know this was covered in the presentation, but I wanted to add some context to this topic. The first thing out of the gate that happens when a master developer is chosen, and this is, Ms. Dacey covered this, is that there's a development review application that comes in for the entire specific plan. And that lays out the development of each planning area as well as the location of the backbone infrastructure and the open space locations. And specifically with regard to the minimum amount of open space as well as the method by which the master developer plans on providing for the overall 4.26 acres per thousand population in actual form or one of the equivalents that were mentioned. In other words, land dedication, park improvements, in lieu fees, etc. That application is likely when the development agreement that Ms. McGill mentioned would also come into play. But that application is subject to review and approval later. in a discretionary manner by the Planning Commission and appealable to the City Council. And I go to the length of saying that because it's that application that future individual projects on planning areas must also abide by. And so that means if, for example, the master developer has included certain density bonus projects, and if they come in with something concurrently, to ask for something like a waiver and concession, they may be able to ask for a waiver and concession on an open space. However, if it's just on a development review level application and they're identifying maximum units, those larger open space areas end up being part of the development review application, which means when a project level application comes in and includes at that point a density bonus application, their concessions would only perhaps be for the project level open space. So you may be talking balconies, patios, common open space within the project because the minimum open space has already been approved as part of the development review application. So there are layers to the approvals here and I want to be clear also that The way master plans work is that a master developer will have the overall development and then they sign individual agreements either with subsequent developers or they keep planning areas for themselves. But in all cases, they have to abide by the approved development review application. In short, it means that when the open space on the public level is identified, the only way that changes is if then that development review application is amended And and that's discretionary which means it has to come into compliance with the specific plan and it goes back through the public review process and I hope that lends a little bit of Certainty to how as a master plan is built out how that works.

Thank you Okay, um, thank you what I think I'm here is it's complicated and There's some exposure, but pretty unlikely that we would not be able to defend the, that we would even be asked to, but not able to defend the public open space requirements. If density bonus was used, it's likely gonna be at the project level and sort of a subset of the plan area and impacting that, I think it was 90 square foot per unit. COMPONENT OF THE OPEN SPACE?

RIGHT, IT WOULD BE ON A PROJECT LEVEL MORE SO, ON A PROJECT LEVEL NOT ON AN OVERALL SPECIFIC PLAN LEVEL, CORRECT.

OKAY. I WANT TO STAND ON THIS POINT JUST A LITTLE BIT BECAUSE THIS IS, YOU KNOW, GETTING We're already at a little bit of a deficit in terms of open space in the overall city. This particular location was one of our big hopes and dreams to help address that gap a little bit. And so we certainly don't want to increase the deficit more. I've been thinking about how do we maximize open space. MEETING STATE REQUIREMENTS AND THEN DEFEND THOSE REQUIREMENTS. SO I KNOW THERE ARE WITH STATE DENSITY BONUS THERE ARE THINGS WE ARE SORT OF LOCKED INTO. I'M TAKING AWAY AND TELL ME IF I SHOULDN'T TAKE THIS WAY. I'M TAKING AWAY THAT THE MINIMUM ON-SITE OPEN SPACE THAT ENDS UP IN THIS PLAN IS PRETTY DEFENSIBLE FOR A NUMBER OF REASONS. ONE, BECAUSE IT'S PROBABLY A DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT AND IT would have to give that away, which I hope would be unlikely to happen. Two, because of how the 12 to 16 year sort of build out happens, it's unlikely that that would affect the larger open space. Any sort of wiggle room in terms of losing open space due to density bonus, if it happens, would happen in the private open space part of the calculation. Am I right? Is that fair?

Yeah. I think that's a good summary.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. And then the plan, I'm going to go a little bit into the nitty-gritty on the open space piece, which I think is covered largely in Chapter 3. We're not really, other than the acreage requirement, we're not defining in the plan specific types of open space. There's a lot of flexibility there. We include examples like sports fields, the paseos. I really like the language that's been added in around accommodating all ages and abilities, which is great, because a space for toddlers is gonna be very different than a space for seniors or a space for teens. I didn't see, I know one thing that's become really, there's a lot of interest around is community gardens. We've had discussions about the need for dog parks. Those things aren't mentioned in the plan, which doesn't mean they can't be included. Is there any harm in including those things, just examples of amenities the community may be interested in?

There's no harm in specifying. It's part of the parks spaces and how those end up getting utilized. The parks and community services director can defer approval of those to the parks commission and they can go through that. The applicant will go through that process to, um, work through identifying the specific actual types of park amenities that can be put into the plan. Um, but as, as I mentioned, it doesn't hurt to specify if you want us, if we get direction from council to do that, we can do that. Okay.

There was something else there's some language in the plan that concerned me a bit Because our open space master plan is is quite out of date The language this is on page six six we say that the I forget exactly where it is, the open space plan, quote, shall be consistent with the city's adopted and future updates to the park master plan. So that concerned me a little bit because our current adopted master plan for open space is like 20 years out of date, right? And so I don't know if it really reflects current community interests and needs. What would you recommend in terms of how to adjust that language? Like I don't want a developer to feel like they're locked into a plan that,

i think most of us would agree is not up to date that that specific provision you had you had just read that it's or as amended so if there is an amended document that becomes effective prior to the city getting applications submitted and things like that for site-specific planning area development then we would utilize the most current version of the documents rather than looking for a parks director maybe where are we in updating that are we going to have an updated plan in

Um, before that gets answered, I'll just add, um, Melinda, as Melinda stated earlier, the community development director has the authority to raise it to the parks, um, committee. So in the event that our current master plan is in effect and the new one hasn't been adopted yet, maybe we don't think it's the right fit to assess against. We would have that discretion and then internally in our department to refer it to the parks commission. Um, We brought this project to them back in October, and they were excited about that and future opportunities on the FDC plan. They noted that there's a good discussion that needs to happen between quantity and quality of open space, and they want the opportunity to be able to review the project once it's submitted and understand what those spaces are. So we wouldn't just only look at the master plan and say it's consistent if it's outdated. We would provide that additional opportunity for input.

Okay.

Excuse me, do you have any more questions?

One more on this topic, and then I was going to let someone else go.

I'm just trying to do some time management, because I know we've got two other council members who haven't asked any questions. We've got the public that wants to talk.

Yeah, I mean, this is the challenging part of the public process, right? So we don't get to confer with each other outside of a public meeting. So procedurally, I get it, but procedurally, We can't make recommendations without having discussions about them. So happy to. Figure out how to do that. Let me just do this last one on open space. There's a language that requires fencing for patios and porches, which seemed a little bit odd to me. I understand having a maximum height for fencing, but why would we require fencing? As I look around in other areas in my neighborhood, people have great patios and porches that don't have fences around them. Any concerns about striking the fencing requirement?

That standard is included to delineate the private open space for the specific residential unit. That doesn't necessarily mean that a developer can't come in and say they don't want to do that, but that is indicated to just outline where that specific private open space is for, you know, if there's a townhome and have that style of walk-up type of unit. Yeah, so we could say delineation instead of fencing.

Okay.

Councilmember, or that shall can be changed to a may, and it allows either one.

Okay, good. Okay, yep, that's it on open space. I'll give the mic back.

All right, thanks. Councilmember Bewley, you had questions.

Sure, just a couple questions. And thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. Thank you, members of the public. I mean, it's awesome to see this level of engagement and outpouring. It's been my experience prior to coming to Council that oftentimes the community gets engaged after the big event happens and the effects are felt. So the fact that we're down here near the finish line and we've got a packed house, I think that speaks volumes and it's a good thing. Thank you, staff, for all your effort and everything that we've put into this. I'm going to ask kind of some bigger picture questions, and it's not an indication of where I'm going with this, but tonight we're being asked to kind of make some sausage. And I want to make sure that, again, in kind of reference to what Councilmember Reynolds just said, as a result of Brown Act, we can't get together and have these discussions. So we have to have them in public. And so we get to ask some of these questions. And I just want to be certain that tonight, as we're trying to craft some motion, some solution, something here that all of us are fully informed, the public's fully informed of the tools at our disposal, the consequences. So, anyways, that's where some of these questions are going that I'm going to put out there. First and foremost, My understanding, under the Fairview Development Agreement we have with the state, we have until December of 26, based on the most recent continuance they gave us, to finalize this plan. Is that correct?

Yes, that's correct.

And then we're doing this juggling act because we also are trying to get our housing element certified. And we recently received a letter that kind of set tonight is the night to get this plan approved and as a potential condition to get our housing element certified. So tonight's the night to get this done for purposes of getting our housing element certified. Am I kind of correct on that?

Yeah, the letter that HCD sent the city on August 21st indicated that the way that the housing element was drafted meant housing element law for the benefit of the public. I'm just going to walk through that quickly. And that all housing element sites needed to be rezoned for certification. That includes all the sites that were already rezoned back in March of this year and that was done on September 1st. as well as the FD site, which is a housing element site and would need to be rezoned.

Right. So to make this process not complicated enough, we're balancing these two very important, very significant interests. and each of them, if we don't hit these deadlines or whatever, there could be consequences, and I'll get to that next. Where I'm going with this, there has been a certain good level of community outreach, public outreach. Recently, we had the town hall that was great. Mayor Stevens invited the community in to express their concerns, and a lot of the council were there at that, heard a lot of good things. There was one stream of community commentary that night that struck me. Here we are getting this level of engagement here down near the finish line, and there was some commentary about why don't we continue this thing now that we've got the community sufficiently engaged, sufficiently involved, and we now see that there's a lot of good, valid questions, a lot of good, valid concerns. Is there any way, what would happen if we continued this? So I just say that as a windup, here's the pitch. What would be the consequences to this council, to this city, if we were to continue this process another three or six months?

Yeah, thank you. You can't smell mobility. That's a good question I'm gonna just outline some possible scenarios And we don't have all the answers to these questions because we're not entirely sure how some of them could potentially play out in a hypothetical scenario I think from a staff perspective our Recommendation would be if there was any continuance to know with some good clarity What what would be achieved during that three to six month time? Is there specific? Analysis that there's a hole in additional information that is needed so that staff has clear direction on what would need to be Done and brought back to the City Council for future consideration with that being said potential implications So right now we have already sent our revised housing element to HCD We did that on September 2nd right after our hearing so that Timeline the 60-day review is already in effect. They said that they would continue to review it on a rolling basis so Oh Oh, I'm sorry.

I will look to the city attorney if she wants to respond Thank you Other legal consequences is that what I'm saying yes, okay good So so one is that we are contractually bound to finish by December so that puts us you know well less than six months and But yes, we have provided that adopted housing element to HCD. We have been notified that should we move forward with the approval of the sufficient number of units in the fdc plan that will satisfy the housing element that's been adopted that we will receive housing element compliance confirmation that's very important because we have two pending lawsuits one from the state which is basically because we haven't completed the zoning, and this is the last piece of that. And the second is from Disability Rights California over our housing element on the whole. So until we have certification from HCD, not only are we vulnerable in both of those cases, But we continue to be vulnerable for builder's remedy projects that could go well beyond whatever it is we've zoned in any particular place. And finally, there are fines and fees and penalties that the state is seeking. And ultimately, and they have requested this in the lawsuit, we would be suspended from issuing any building permits except for residential if we are not in compliance with our housing element.

I think I'll follow you and I just want to synthesize that a little bit. My understanding is let's take the housing element and those potential lawsuits. If we don't complete this, we don't get certified. Based on what I've read in the paper with other cities, just to put a dollar amount on it, could be looking at 50k a month in penalties, setting aside the other problems that you mentioned we may be facing. Correct. Okay. And then just My review of the fdc agreement the agreement that's got the december date uh... i couldn't find a specific consequence uh... in the event we missed that deadline i did see time of the essence clause as attorneys and for those who are here for the first time tonight i have to be an attorney that don't don't go in his uh... but time of the essence and if we were to go six months were about three months beyond the december date maybe a material breach, maybe not a material breach. Um, but there weren't any, I didn't see any spelled out consequences for missing the FTC deadline. And they granted us a voluntary extension already. Correct.

They did, and that voluntary extension was largely due to our inability to begin the process until the state had completed its determination of where its EOC would be and where the permanent supportive housing for DDS would be. However, while there may not be anything specifically stated, we could be theoretically sued for breach of contract. Excuse me.

I don't know if anybody else feels this way, but I respect you. I know you're a lawyer. Counselors, councilmen, counselor, I'm uncomfortable with this dialogue. If we're going to have this dialogue, then let's break and go to closed session.

I'm fine with that.

Okay, let's move. Can we move on to something else and not talk about the lawsuits?

Okay, fair enough. If we were to continue this back to... staff's question, what would we do with that time? Here's a few scenarios and you can tell me if this would make sense. You constitute an ad hoc committee comprised of stakeholders, renters rights groups, different members of the community, liaison from council, liaison from planning commission, that could happen during that timeframe.

Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, staff would want clear direction of the steps that would need to be taken, the timeline, and what we would return to the city council with.

And to make this not a restarting of the whole process, we could limit this ad hoc committees to review the work product that's been done to date. They don't get to engage in new research, new reports, new studies, but they review everything that's been completed up to date. That would be a potential scenario.

Yeah, the city council could direct that. And then I'm just going to hand over to Melinda quickly because there is some language in the contract about what happens if the city doesn't adopt a specific plan. I'll let her talk to that quickly.

Okay, but I think we're heading back down to the legal.

Language in the contract?

Yeah, in the agreement.

Okay, okay, okay. No, no, no. I'm sorry. Excuse me, everybody. I mean, we cannot be talking about language in the contract and what if we breach it and stuff like that. In my opinion, that's stuff that needs to be discussed in closed session with our attorney.

And that's fair enough. I didn't want that level of legal analysis. I'm just saying if we have more time, I just really want to stay on target here as to what could be accomplished. And then should this ad hoc committee come up with a recommendation that actually reduces the specific plan amount from $2,300 to a recommendation that is something below that, and that winds up being the recommendation, comes before council, we decide that's something we wanna consider, and then I believe I heard Council Member Chavez allude to this, or somebody, if we did dip below this 2300 threshold that's currently in the housing element, At that point, staff may have to be put to the task of trying to find a way to reallocate and find those affordable housing or those housing element numbers at other locations around the city. That's a potential scenario.

Yeah, HCD's review would look to make sure that the specific plan is consistent with what was adopted in the housing element, so that's 2,300 units. And anything that's below that number would require staff to make no net loss findings and potentially most likely revise the housing element and identify additional sites.

Okay. And cognizant of the time in the community here, just last year I want to talk about this 2300 number. I've been hearing that for months now that... That 2300 number, we go one above it, you get the second access road. We stay at the 2300, we avoid the access road. I've heard that, but tonight, I think on slide 48, it says the 2300 unit alternative requires a secondary access road. Can somebody explain that to me?

As noted in the presentation the traffic study indicated that around 2300 units the secondary access road is needed in addition There are fire safety access requirements And the fire chief is able to speak to that on when the secondary access road is needed as well if we need to expand further But is the number 2300 or not that's that's my $64 question I It's 2,300 based on the traffic analysis. Fire access requirements may have that number be a little bit lower than that.

Okay.

And then, another thing that I recently learned, and Councilman Pettis and some of the others alluded to it, if we were to go forward with a 2,300 number, I've seen some analysis that shows that sets the base. And then with the housing density bonus, that could realistically under one scenario get us to 3,825. So the fact that we were to select 2,300 tonight, it's a realistic expectation that something between 2,300 and 3,800 with a housing density bonus is what could actually be achieved out there.

Yes. If an, if the master developer elects to utilize state density bonus law, that is a possibility.

Are you guys in a position tonight? And this isn't to put you on the spot, but it's a critical number. We've got a lot of people here. I'd like to know what is that base number that you probably can't give me an exact scenario. Cause I know the housing density bonus depends on all kinds of different conditions, the master developer plan, and then the sub plans and, this guy decides to seek the housing density bonus. The other guy doesn't. Um, but are you guys able tonight to tell me what is that base number that we could, um, approve tonight with a level of certainty or comfort that when all housing, uh, density bonus are applied, keeps us at 2300 or below.

And we don't, we don't have that answer. Unfortunately tonight, the reason is that there's a multitude of different, um, state density bonus loss stacking options to get different density bonuses. So we'd have to go back and kind of reverse engineer and think about what those options would be. So I can't give you a general number.

So tonight you couldn't, if you had additional time, would you be able to give us something with a 70% degree of certainty or 90% degree of certainty?

In all likelihood, what we'd be able to give you is some potential scenarios again. Like we would just pick other unit count numbers and run different scenarios at the max stacking options.

I can say with reasonable certainty tonight that if we approve 2300, we're going to get a developer where the housing density bonus is going to go beyond 2300.

Yeah, and you know we this question has come up at Planning Commission and again I'll keep saying that we're trying to use a crystal ball to identify and understand what a master developer might do in the future That was the purpose of the financial feasibility analysis to understand Where that project is financially feasible and what we with the best of our knowledge today? We anticipate that a master developer will do so if the unit count is below what's financially feasible OUR BEST ASSUMPTION TO DATE IS THAT THEY WOULD UTILIZE STATE DENSITY BONUS LAW.

I'M NOT TAKING FAULT. YOU WERE WORKING WITHIN YOUR PARAMETERS. YOU HAD TO PUT TOGETHER A this specific plan or this recommendation that we're reviewing tonight based on economic feasibility and what's an actual plausible outcome. So again, I'm not casting aspersions or pointing fingers. I'm just trying to get accurate information before we jump off this plank tonight, myself and my six other council members up here.

Sorry, Mr. Wright, can I follow up on that line of questioning real quick before you?

I think that's perfect segue. I was just wrapping up. Go ahead.

Okay, pulling that thread on density bonus. I know that's the boogeyman in the room, right? That we get much higher densities than the 2300. That assumes that a developer chooses to add more than 920 affordable units, that they stack additional affordability on top of that, and that's how they're triggering density bonus. Go ahead. Correct me, please.

Yeah. Thank you, Council Member Maher. By virtue of providing the 920 units on site, they would be eligible for all sorts of different kinds of density bonus stacking scenarios, which is why I responded with, we did, you know, in all likelihood, we would just have to run a bunch of different scenarios to try to understand what those options would be. It's similar to like, you know, you have an inclusionary ordinance by virtue of meeting that they're also eligible to utilize state density bonus law.

I think the thing that's hanging me up on this, though, is that at the end of the day, this is not intended to be 100% affordable development. We are very likely to encounter a master developer who is also a nonprofit accumulating tax credits for the purpose of solely building affordable housing. Like there were also economic feasibility constraints that will cap the likelihood of the density increasing, particularly under the scenarios with increased affordability, correct?

Yeah, that's absolutely correct. As I mentioned before, there is typically a sweet spot. I have seen several affordable housing projects in various jurisdictions actually in some cases reduce the number of affordable units because of the tax credit that they can get. The financial structure of their plan to build has changed the typology of construction that I noted earlier whether they're going wood frame or to a steel construction and the financial feasibility identified that like there isn't really space and capacity for more than 4,000 units on that site without MAJOR CONSTRUCTION CREATIVITY.

PARTICULARLY IF WE CONSTRAIN THE OPEN SPACE, RIGHT, AND WE CALL FOR A HIGH OPEN SPACE NUMBER, THEN WE'RE FURTHER POTENTIALLY CONSTRAINING THE FACILITY. GO AHEAD.

COUNCILMEMBER MAHER, JUST FOR CLARIFICATION, THE ADDITIONAL DENSITY BONUS UNITS THAT CAN BE would be market rate. They would not be additional affordable units.

Understood. But nevertheless, I mean, this is a high percentage of affordability. And that plays into the economics in a way that does not suggest that we're just going to keep stacking units on units. Anyway, all right. For the benefit of the public, I've got three lines of questioning. I think they're all things that you were curious about. Number one, fire station and public services. So looking at page 7-12. It is important to note that the specific plan does not identify or propose new public safety facility sites, but also does not preclude the siting of future public safety facilities, and then goes on to say that the master developer will have to do a Nexus study to figure out what those are. Explain to me how that works. Is the master developer coming in from the jump and we're planning for fire stations or other public safety, or are we thinking about this in a phased way over potentially 15 years?

Based on the responses that we got to the service letters from fire and police, there is a need for additional substation or fire station within the area. The specific plan allows for those uses in the use table. And based on the feedback we received, about two acres minimum is what was identified as being needed. The city is doing a nexus study to identify potential fees that can be paid or going through a process of any type of improvements that would need to be incorporated into the project based on that nexus study.

Why not just force the issue? Why not just say a fire station is required, period, full stop, if we think we're close? I mean, we've got a 2019 to 2023 standards of cover study that basically says that we're pretty maxed out.

I would defer to the fire chief on that question. OK.

I'm going to keep going for the sake of time here. You know, I think that there is a number of components in this public services section where we're using shoulds and not shalls. Is there a reason for that? Like, can we be far more prescriptive in terms of what we're requiring, both on the emergency services side and then also in the library, right? And some of these other amenities that we've heard from the public are important.

We certainly could include that. I think the intent of having it being flexible based on potential negotiations in the future through a development agreement on where that could physically be placed in the plan area and what makes the most sense. But we certainly could make that more of a mandatory requirement than optional.

Okay. And then back to Councilmember Buhle. So you've got a 2300 unit alternative. Are you saying that if we had a 2299 unit alternative, we would not require a secondary road?

So the traffic analysis identified 2,300. However, I would again refer to the fire chief because there is some additional fire code gives them the authority to identify when potentially a secondary access road is needed. A general rule of thumb is over 200 units, but it's very specific to a project. So they would look at a project in its entirety to make that determination. They can speak to that a little bit more, but it's that fire requirement for emergency access doesn't have a clear identified unit count in the fire code.

But my understanding is we could use Merrimack as a secondary access for emergencies, correct?

Yeah, for emergencies, yes. But there is a requirement to come in and out of the project just to have fire apparatus. on a day-to-day basis. So again, I'll refer to the fire chief to speak to that a little bit in more detail on that requirement and what exactly it means.

Okay. Chief Pyle, you might want to start walking down to the podium here. So, all right. But again, we're talking about a phase 12 to 15 years, in which case the plan says 2300, when we cross that 2300 threshold, then we're talking about a road through the golf course. So they could build a thousand units And then in 10 years, build another 1,299 units. And then in another five years, build two more units. Something like that, right? And then we would say, oh, now we need a road through the golf course?

Yeah, you're correct. Through a phasing plan, we would be able to identify that requirement at the 2,300 unit count. So it would likely say at which point you get to 2,300 and or exceed it, that is when a secondary access road needs to be put in place.

Okay. So there are multiple scenarios in which this is not happening for 15 years. Yeah, that's correct. Okay. Thank you. And then last, I told you I had three things like last train of thought here, commercial. There are so many numbers in here about commercial space. There's, The back talks about page 6 in the appendix talks about 29,000 to 55,000 of retail. That seems to be the range. If we built 2,300 units, 10,000 units becomes the minimum. I'm unclear if that includes the other commercial category. And then there's another section where we're back to talking about 29,000 to 55,000. It seems like really broad ranges of commercial that I don't have my head around what like what those numbers are based on. Sorry, I'm looking at 4-5 and 2-27 in the plan.

So 2-27 is the market analysis that was done that said that these types of amenities are feasible for inclusion in the specific plan, and it identified a specific range of square footage for that. So the specific plan on the other page that you're referencing on, And chapter four is just identifying that minimum and maximum threshold based off of the market study that was done for commercial component within the specific plan.

Got it. Okay. Uh, chief, if we had 2,299 units and you had the existing access road off of Harbor and emergency access through Merrimack, would that be sufficient?

Very precise question.

Yes.

I would answer it with the knowledge through Mayor Mack as it's a private access road. It does not belong to us. I would defer to a legal question and have to ask for legal opinion as to whether or not we will be able to.

I mean, the plan literally says we can use it for emergency access.

They say that we can use emergency access, but in order for it to qualify as an emergency access lane, we have to be unabridged, unburdened, and not be able to be deterred from it. So they would have, as it is a private road, we would have to have a legal, I would need a legal to determine based on the report as to whether or not we will or will not comply with the landowner allowing us to have that. So it is a possible access point, but until legally reviewed as to whether it will qualify, I could not answer yes or no.

OKAY. ALL RIGHT. I'M DONE. THANK YOU. THANKS.

I HAD A LOT OF QUESTIONS. I'M GOING TO JUST ASK A FEW. REALLY FOCUS ON THE GOLF COURSE. IT'S BEEN TOUCHED ON BY SOME. SO IT'S A PRIVATE ROAD OF MARIMAC, RIGHT? PRIVATE ROAD OF MARIMAC. RIGHT NOW IN THE GOLF COURSE GOING THROUGH MESA LINDA THERE'S NO ROAD AT ALL, RIGHT?

Yeah, there's currently no road.

There's currently no road. And if there is a road, according to figures 5.7 and 5.8 of the specific plan, it would be either 58 feet or 64 feet, correct? If we adopt a specific plan that includes one of those options or both of those options, what's the likelihood, do you think, that there would be a secondary access road through the golf course if the project is built out?

What's the likelihood that a secondary access road would be built?

We would have an access road through the golf course, right? IF WE HAD AN ACCESS ROAD THROUGH THE GOLF COURSE, IF WE VOTE ON THAT HERE IN THIS SPECIFIC PLAN, WHAT'S THE PROCESS FOR US TO GET COMPENSATION FOR THE real estate that we're giving up and the goodwill that we're losing and the redesign of the course and how do we get that and how can we be assured in this vote that we're taking today that we're doing everything we can to maximize that compensation.

Yeah, I would defer to the city attorney to add anything that I'm going to say here, but there would need to be some sort of regulatory agreement for the use and access with the master developer. It potentially would be in a development agreement or some other sort of regulatory agreement. It could include an appraisal, doing some sort of fair compensation to the city for the use and construction of the road. Okay.

If I may add to that, Mayor Stevens, in the specific plan before city council consideration, the FDC development review application includes a new item for city council consideration, number 16, which outlines the process in which the city would undertake for city council approval of any kind of use of city land on the golf course, which may include appraisal and a fee that's paid.

WE DID A FEASIBILITY ANALYSIS. WE HIRED PLACEWORKS AND STUFF LIKE THAT. IN THAT PROCESS, EVEN WITHIN SOME ORDER OF MAGNITUDE, DO WE HAVE ANY IDEA like within a range or within 10 million, how much would be an appropriate compensation for the grant of land and the lost goodwill and the impact of the golf course?

The feasibility analysis didn't analyze the cost of the secondary access road, but that is indicated as a requirement that would need to be completed as part of the application for city council consideration with future road access through the golf course.

SO THEN IS THE ANSWER WE DON'T HAVE ANY ORDER OF MAGNITUDE?

YEAH, WE DON'T CURRENTLY KNOW. PART OF THE REASON WHY IS AN APPRAISAL IS ONLY GOOD FOR SIX MONTHS SO IT'S FAIRLY TYPICAL TO DO IT CLOSER TO THE TIME IN WHICH THE REGULATORY AGREEMENT IS PUT IN PLACE.

RIGHT. I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT AN APPRAISAL. I'M TALKING ABOUT AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE, NOT EVEN APPRAISAL. THERE'S A LOT MORE TO IT THAN THAT. HOW MUCH IS IT GOING TO COST TO We do have a golf course architect that we've retained, right?

Yeah, that's correct.

Has he provided any numerical or any idea about how much it's going to cost to fix the golf course?

No. OK.

Okay, Placeworks. Is anybody here from Placeworks that did the write up in the EIR pertaining to the golf course? Do we have that person here? Okay, come on. Ms. Kelly, I think it is. Couple of quick questions. So the ultimate conclusion as I understand it from the EIR is that really the golf course is not the type of golf course that you would consider environmentally sensitive. Because as I read it, even though it's a William F. Bell course, it's not like Torrey Pines or Sandpiper or one of his significant designs was one of the rationales. I think another rationale is really nobody's played there of note. You know, there's no Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus and stuff like that that's played there. I read that in your report, correct? I'm just asking her a question. Be nice, be nice. I'm asking a question. I read that in your report. Did I get that right?

The golf course was not recognized in the EIR as having any type of historical significance tied to the criteria under CEQA that would make it eligible as a historical property or cultural landscape, rather, pursuant to CEQA guidelines.

Did you talk to anybody from Mesa Verde Partners? the operator of the golf course in preparing the EIR?

I believe in the cultural assessment that was prepared for the EIR that the golf course was considered under the eligibility criteria of a cultural landscape. and it was confirmed that it was not eligible as a contributing factor to the historic district for the Fairview Developmental Center. In terms of the specific criteria that was analyzed and the details of that, I'd be glad to review the cultural assessment and what was specifically provided in that, like the exact text. Um, but no, there was no historical significance, uh, contributing to the golf course.

Okay. Do you have an experience in prior EIR studying roads being cut through golf courses?

Um, I can't specifically speak to that exact scenario. Okay.

Thank you. Um, in 2020, January of 2020, the City Council voted on a recommendation. We had 1,500 units, which included 311 units for veteran housing, 200 units for affordable housing, permanent supportive housing. It had open space of 25 acres. What else? It had multifamily, single family. Okay. And we prepared this and we voted on it unanimously. Did you review this?

Yes, we took a look at it.

Okay. And then... Whatever happened to it? Was there discussions with the state that any current member of staff participated in where this vision that was voted on by the city council was discussed, advocated, anything like that with the state? Because we're way off of this now.

Yeah, that's a good question, Mayor. You know, I'll just go back to the slide of the actions that have taken place since then. And one of the things that's not noted on this slide, in addition to the state legislation and the contract that set parameters for the specific plan process, is the city council adopting a housing element that identified 2,300 units on this site and identified, you know, affordable housing income parameters, too, for the site, units for the site.

SO FROM THE STAFF'S PERSPECTIVE, THE VOTING ON THE HOUSING ELEMENT AND WHAT WE INCLUDED IN THAT BASICALLY SUPERCEDED FROM YOUR PERSPECTIVE WHAT WE HAD VOTED ON IN JANUARY OF 2020.

YES, CORRECT.

NOW, LAST QUESTION. SO THERE ARE THREE DEVELOPMENTAL SERVICES SITES IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA HISTORICALLY. THERE'S ONE IN PORTERVILLE WHICH IS STILL ACTIVE. THERE'S ANOTHER ONE IN SONOMA WHICH SHUT DOWN IN 2018 AND THEN THERE'S COURSE COAST MESA. THE ONE IN SONOMA, THE SPECIFIC PLAN, IT'S A 945 ACRE SITE. The specific plan calls for 1,000 housing units, 200 affordable units, 410,000 square feet of non-residential use, and a preservation of open space of 755 acres. And to my knowledge, it's in litigation. What I mean and anybody can answer this what's the explanation for how come Sonoma? In a much bigger site almost gosh almost ten times nine times the size of our site Has like 25% of the units attached to it. I mean what what happened?

Yeah, that's a great question a couple of different things. I mean obviously a different site and different and constraint considerations and you know, different city council direction under the housing element for unit type. What I can tell you about that project is that originally the city adopted a plan that was in like the 690 range. And then the application that was submitted by the developer was more in the 900 range. And so there was a lot of community concern about that discrepancy between what was adopted and what the application came in at. And as you stated, there's still litigation, so we're not entirely sure at this point where that has all ended. But, you know, at a high level, every site is a little bit different, density, market conditions, all of that, you know, and that's why we conduct a financial feasibility analysis to try to understand those things. CONSTRAINTS AND PARAMETERS.

YEAH. AND NONE OF THIS IS ADDRESSED TO YOU. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN? IT'S LIKE NONE OF IT. I'M JUST KIND OF GRUMPY BY OUR TREATMENT BY THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA. SO ONE LAST THING. ARE YOU ABLE TO PUT UP A SLIDE FROM THE SPECIFIC PLAN? ARE YOU ABLE TO DO THAT? CAN WE DO THAT? DO WE HAVE THAT TECHNOLOGY? WE CAN PUT THIS UP. THIS IS SLIDE FIGURE 6.1 ON PAGE 6.3.

GIVE US A SECOND TO TRY TO PULL THAT UP.

THIS IS MY LAST QUESTION. I PROMISE PUBLIC WE'RE GOING TO GET TO YOU. MY LAST QUESTION. I THINK IT'S WORTH IT.

While we pull that up, Mayor, I do have a response for Councilmember Gamero's question earlier that I can respond to. Did he step out? So based on the environmental assessment that was done, there were borings taken throughout several locations in the site where there's known types of that we were able to test. We were able to test some of the carcinogens such as the diesel particulate and lead based paint and things like that based on the operations that were known at the state hospital. Those borings in some cases went to a depth of 50 feet. During the boring testing based on what is included in the environmental assessments notes that there were soil samples down to 15 feet indicated in those borings that would need to be remediated and removed from the property. Um, accordingly, if in the future when a master developer does submit an application, they, we would have a site specific grading completed and we would know the full extent beyond what's in the environmental assessment for how much depth is throughout the rest of the site. Um, for those, uh, areas for remediation.

Okay. You have the figure up, OK? I just want to ask some questions about this figure. Uh-oh. I lost it. Uh-oh. Now we've got a green screen. Whoever was perfect before, stop touching it. It's up there? Oh, it's not on mine. OK, good. So I look at this. And of course, up there in the corner, it's the Emergency Operations Center site. I read in the EIR that there have been 3,000 golf balls hit into that facility during construction. I look at all of this housing that is around the golf course and adjacent to the golf course. There doesn't appear to be much. by way of setback, how are we going to avoid golf balls being whacked into the homes of the people that are going to be residing there?

So we are working with Cal OES.

Hold on one second. Hold on one second. It's important for her to answer the question. Yes.

We are currently working with Cal OES on potential safety netting for the site.

Hold on. Don't do this. Don't do this. You've been so good. Go.

Based on the information, the tee box, the orientation of play, that information, You get errant balls from golfers that miss swing sometimes. Based on an analysis that Cal OES and DGS has prepared and shared with the city, most of those golf balls are going towards the open space area in the northern corner of this image. and also strike the roadway area. There's additional netting that is currently on site that is in need of repair and we're currently working on that with the golf course operator as well as potentially modifying holes or installing trees to help prevent future golf balls encroaching into the EOC site specifically where they've noted there's been a 3,000 golf balls hit in there.

Have we considered the impact on the marketability of the residences if there are large nets right outside their residence?

So if there's a golf course hole reconfiguration that's needed for the secondary access road, part of that process of redesign would ensure that the errant balls don't necessarily get hit into the residential areas of the FDC site. So there's an analysis that can be done to identify where those balls in their trajectory fly.

Thank you. At last, let's open it up to the public. And by the way, we're going to keep going. You get three minutes. You're going to get the beep at 2. And then remember, no interrupting or disrupting. Thank you very much for being so good during the discussions. We're not going to take any breaks, but the council might go to the restroom. It's not disrespectful. It's just that we're human beings and we have biological needs. Go.

Hi, my name is Jackson Madonna. I'm a part of the Newport Harbor men's golf team along with some of my teammates and my coach here. I'm speaking on the behalf of our community as well. I just want to voice a couple concerns. Obviously for the golf course, that's my main stance. Me growing up in this area, not being a member to one of the country clubs, Um, Costa Mesa country club has been one of the main places, you know, that I've learned how to play golf and golf's a pretty big part of my life. It's taught me a lot of things actually. Um, you know, the relationships I've built, you know, my friends and all of it. Um, I just feel like what it does for, you know, a young man almost when, you know, they're getting into the game, you know, it's a new opportunity taking that away almost, um, It's not beneficial to a young man like myself. Obviously, they're saying you can still keep some holes open, but it's not the same. I'm on the high school team. There's plenty of high schools that play here at the Coast Mesa Country Club, not just my high school. Obviously, it's the argument that they're not taking down the entire course, but As many people in this room know how busy Costa Mesa Country Club already is, it's really just not going to work with how many people want to play. The high schools, it's already pretty packed. I don't know what it's going to look like. with, I don't know how many holes they're keeping open, the exact number, but I just don't think it's going to work, you know. And a big part of the CIF high school, you know, in Orange County, a lot of high schools play out of Costa Mesa. I don't know, with Oak Creek, you know, Newport Beach Golf Course, Costa Mesa shutting down, you know, golf's the, it's a growing game. It's growing, you know, the most it ever has. And for courses to be shutting down almost every, You know, at a rapid rate, it feels like I don't, you know, it feels like, you know, the courses are shrinking and the game's growing. I don't know what it's going to look like, you know, in our county without, especially Costa Mesa. It's been here since, I believe, 1967, actually. But, yeah, that's my final question. TO THE BOARD AND THE COUNCIL, THANK YOU FOR HAVING US, OBVIOUSLY. MY FINAL ARGUMENT IS WHAT IT CAN DO TO THE YOUTH TRYING TO GET INTO THE GAME OF GOLF IN THE HIGH SCHOOLS IN THE AREA, ESPECIALLY IN OUR OVERALL COMMUNITY. THANK YOU.

Hi, Council. My name is Walter Reese. My wife and I are residents of Mesa Verde. We actually live off of Country Club Drive between Mesa Verde Drive and Giesler. We moved to Mesa Verde from southeast Huntington Beach because we love the area. We love the quietness of the area. But one thing we found is that Country Club Drive is a major cut-through area. to the freeway and to points north for a lot of residents of southeast Huntington Beach as well as west coast of Mesa. In fact, due to the traffic in our neighborhood along our street, I contacted the City Transportation Authority back in February and they did a study and there are over 3,400 cars that go past Country Club Drive on a daily basis. It is so bad that my grandkids we cannot have them outside With the garage door open you could hear the traffic going by Recently the city put chevron so that it would slow down the traffic But that does not impact the volume of traffic that goes down that street. So now imagine that many more homes in our neighborhood are with Harbor Boulevard being impacted, Adams being impacted, how many more cars are gonna be driving through Mesa Verde, along Mesa Verde Drive, along Country Club, and what does that do to the residents who have lived here for a long time, who have continued to support the city, who pay high property taxes, and now we have to settle with even more and more traffic through our neighborhoods? I say vote no. on the high density that you're operating here. Get back to where you started, where it was the 2300. Make it fit for the neighborhood. That is way too much for what we have here in Costa Mesa. Vote no. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Laura Lyons. I'm also a resident of Costa Mesa, was born and raised in Mesa Verde, and now I have the privilege of owning a home here. But as a high school English teacher, the only reason I can afford that home is because of the financial assistance of my parents. I am raising three daughters and I have loved Costa Mesa especially because of the diversity that we have here. I'm sorry to say I'm terrible at golf and so I might not have a popular opinion or say on that but I was happy to see young people here because this is my first time coming to a city council meeting and it has been very informative for me and I loved hearing a young person speak and I hope that he can speak about something beyond golf like what would happen if we can bring in people to afford to live in Costa Mesa who are not golfers or millionaires because I know that my nanny has dreamed of living near here and has never been able to make that a reality despite even the most affordable units here. She will continue to commute by bus every single day to get here. And I do hear the traffic concerns and busing could help with that, especially people living in low income. Many of them take the buses and she would be someone considered extremely low income in your chart here. So I know I'm speaking against what many are here to say, but I want my three kids to grow up and be able to afford to live here themselves. And so as a younger person in the room, I want you to know that I am paying attention. I will live here for hopefully until I am a gray hair and can live and say I'm so proud of the decisions that our city council made to make this affordable housing possible. So please vote yes and get these families the affordable housing that they need.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. My name is Scott Grady. I'm a Costa Mesa property owner and Costa Mesa Golf Club member. I wanted to start by emphasizing what a huge asset the Mesa Linda Golf Course is to the community and especially to our high school teams, many of whom are in attendance tonight. That includes golf teams from Estancia, Costa Mesa, Newport Harbor, Edison, and Pacifica High Schools, Vanguard, and OCC Colleges that all practice and play matches here. The women's teams from Estancia and Newport Harbor couldn't be here tonight because they were actually playing a match this evening. This course is the backbone of junior golf in Orange County. There is no scenario where a road should ever be cut through the middle of this golf course. And how we got here is an abomination and a planning disaster. This plan does include new language allowing Merrimack Way to become a secondary access road if future negotiations allow it. I appreciate the progress or the attempt by staff, but the timing of the DDS letter that posted last week alongside of tonight's agenda stated that the department will continue to limit utilization of Merrimack by the general public as the main thoroughfare. This letter arrived on September 4th, just 10 days before this vote. The timing is very hard to ignore, especially after years of planning. No one wants to compromise Harbor Village resident safety, neither do I, but safety and access are not mutually exclusive. Fencing, controlled crossings, access management already do this job around our schools and hospitals. One letter 10 days out should not take Merrimack Road off the table without asking whether mitigation could resolve DDS's concerns. It also doesn't answer whether a prescriptive easement predates the Harbor Village lease altogether. That road's been there since 1965, 20 years before Harbor Village was ever built. Now, we all know everything driving this decision is unit count. The state's own study, well, really where we're getting here is that the number of units needs to be reduced significantly. We need to get to a fair affordability standard that's not three times that typically justified in a city. The best course of action is direct staff, find a unit count that's closer to 1,500 units at a lower density and at a reasonable affordability level, and absolutely no road through the golf course. Thank you.

Yes, ma'am. Hello. I'm Nancy Gasperik. I want to push for focusing on protecting the current Customized residents that are your constituents. I live in College Park. I live on one of the cul-de-sacs about 100 yards from Fair Drive. So I am extremely concerned that Fair Drive is going to turn into a highway. And very, very concerned about that. And I want to point out what Councilman Booley said. If you do have an ad hoc committee, may I request that at least one, if not two members from College Park be a part of that. because we are the ones that are most severely affected by what decisions are being made. Thank you.

Hello, I'm Caleb Hogg. I'm representing the Estancia golf team. A lot of high schools use Costa Mesa Country Club. Every school in the district use it, including out-of-district high school teams. Shutting down Mesa Linda means that high school teams will be harder to get out on the course because of the high traffic Costa Mesa Country Club gets. In the spring when the season starts, you guys won't get a lot of revenue because there's a lot of high school teams that will need to play the course also. The course brings in $4 million a year. Cutting my cylinder would make it $2 million. And if you ask me, that's a lot of money. But yeah, I mean, I'm for affordable housing, but Costa makes us too overpopulated, and I want to golf. Thank you.

Cynthia, you got the floor.

Good evening, Cynthia McDonald, Costa Mesa resident. The redevelopment of FTC is one of the most consequential land use decisions Costa Mesa will make in our lifetime. The vote before you tonight is not just about housing, it's about establishing a framework that will guide development on the site for decades. We must respect the state requirements for affordable housing, supportive housing and housing opportunities for individuals with developmental disabilities. However, the project's density increased from 1,500 units in 2020 to 4,000 units today. residents deserve a clear explanation of why that increase is necessary and what additional community benefits it will deliver the benefits of high densities that are being justified to support affordability and site improvements must be measurable and enforceable critical infrastructure remains unresolved the state rejected the city's request to use Merrimack but if development exceeds the low lower density scenario a second roadway is required and that's going to impact the existing recreational asset of the golf course. Traffic is another concern. The EIR estimates more than 20,000 additional daily trips, more congestion at key intersections such as Fair and Harbor, Victoria and Placentia. during the peak afternoon hours. We need greater clarity on how these impacts will be managed, funded, and mitigated. Housing goals and transportation realities must be planned together. Open space must be a priority. FDC presents a rare opportunity to preserve meaningful community space while accommodating housing. The difference between higher and lower density scenarios could mean several additional acres of open space. Those benefits must be secured now through binding commitments, not left to future negotiations. The ERR identifies significant and unavoidable impacts related to air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, biological and cultural resources. We deserve a clear explanation of why the benefits outweigh the environmental costs. No master developer yet, but what you are approving is a foundation for which all future negotiations will occur. That means the city's leverage is strongest today. Community benefits, affordable housing, open space protections, infrastructure commitments, design standards should be established now. Decision is about more than housing units. Protections of the community must be secured today and not left to future negotiations. Thank you.

Good evening, my name is Tiffany Sumner. I'm a resident here of Costa Mesa. I grew up in Newport Beach. I helped find, I was one of the founding members of the Newport Harbor Golf Team as well. Let me just start off by saying I'm a mother of a young boy with profound level three autism. I serve on the advisory board of Chalk Hospital's Thompson Autism and Neurodevelopmental Center, and I'm actively involved in the autism advocacy throughout Orange County and our community. My son is nonverbal, requires 24-hour care, lives in a residential care home immediately adjacent to the Fairview Developmental Center property. We are in dire need of more residential housing and services for individuals with developmental disabilities. As a mother of a child who will require lifelong care, I understand that need personally, and I strongly support continuing this property's legacy of serving this community. My concern is the overall scale of this development and how it could affect the profoundly disabled individuals who already reside here. The specific plan allows 2,300 to 4,000 residential units for families like mine access around development, of this scale isn't simply a matter of convenience. Access is a part of our care. As we heard tonight, secondary access road is required beginning at 2,300 units, but its final location has not been yet determined. We were told it would require further study and ultimately be finalized with a master developer. I recently experienced firsthand what happens when access around Harper Boulevard and Fair Drive is restricted due to construction. A detour added approximately an additional five minutes reaching my son's residential home. For a nonverbal, profoundly disabled child experiencing a medical or behavioral emergency, five minutes matters. And this isn't only about emergency vehicles. My son depends on caregiver school and medical transportation and reliable daily access to his home. I'm also concerned about the air quality and hazardous materials for the profoundly disabled residents living immediately adjacent to this property. The project's environmental impact report identifies air quality as a significant and unavoidable environmental impact even after mitigation. We've also heard about asbestos and lead that will require remediation. Some of these individuals with profound disabilities live in with complex or compromised health conditions that may make them particularly vulnerable to environmental exposures. I ask that protections for these residents be rigorously enforced throughout demolition remediation in every phase of construction. I appreciate the specific plan includes measures addressing emergency response and public safety but those protections need to be enforceable and in place throughout every phase of construction. Tonight, I'm asking you to not approve the specific plan in its current form, but instead revisit the proposed density and ensure clear protections.

Ma'am. Yes.

Hi, Council. Thanks for hosting this Barn Burner tonight. My name is Colin Cody Waters. I'm a College Park resident and a College Park Elementary parent. And I want to talk about the real impact of housing in our city. My parents retired this year and moved into an apartment in the Mediterranean Village Apartments directly adjacent to our neighborhood. It's an amazing community and we're lucky to have found something that fit our budget and their moving schedule. And not only that, we can walk there. If there had been an option to buy an apartment like in the proposed FDC plan, then we definitely would have considered that. Because they had access to housing in Costa Mesa, our family is closer than ever. My kids get to spend more time with their grandparents, and my wife and I have more flexibility to volunteer at our kids' school. We get cookouts with the family in the backyard. We get play dates and date nights that wouldn't be possible without the support of our village. None of this would work without the denser housing of an apartment complex nearby. Access to housing keeps families together, it makes communities stronger, and it helps strengthen local economies. Let's not waste any taxpayer money getting sued or paying fines or reworking plans with an army of consultants, no offense consultants, great work, I'm sure you don't want to do it again. And I ask you to approve the proposed housing, to move this forward, and to help Costa Mesa continue to be a thriving city built for families. Thank you.

Excuse me. Two years. Oh, sorry. Sorry. You want to make sure your mic's on. Go ahead.

Okay. I've been a resident here for 42 years. My grandparents purchased a home here in the 1950s. And I just want to shine some light on exits. So I know we've been talking about the two exits, but I just kind of want to thoroughly explain a few things. So with this secondary exit that will be carved into the Costa Mesa golf course, which is eight holes, by the way, A lot of you guys might not know that if you don't golf there, but it will be eight holes that are affected here. And these two exits are going to be 0.3 miles apart from each other. 0.3, okay? On Harbor Boulevard, those are the only two exits for 4,000 units. So if I do the math, that 51.21 acres is for public space. Someone said it was 25, but it's actually, if you do the math, three people per household, 1,000 people require 4.26 acres. It's 51.21 acres. acres for the public just so you know that also I just want to mention we haven't been talking about the housing track that consists of 32 homes which is directly next to the FDC if you drive in there you can see the 32 homes also cornerstone neighborhood is right there cornerstone consists of 37 homes are we taking those two neighborhoods into consideration with our number of units probably not but they will also be coming out of that fair drive exit So now I want to highlight four neighborhoods. I grew up in the Hillcrest neighborhood. There are 700 homes there, 80 townhomes, which is in French Quarters. They have a Giesler and Harbor exit, Baker Street exits that equal to eight. Okay, 700 homes, 80 townhomes. We also have three exits onto Fairview Road. Polarino neighborhood, there's 860 homes with apartments and duplexes mixed in. We have two Fairview exits, Baker Street, three exits. College Park, 1,790 homes. We have Princeton exit to Harbor Boulevard, Fair Drive, seven exits. Fairview exits three and Wilson exits seven, which we all know Wilson is very impacted. Mesa Del Mar, I live in Mesa Del Mar, we have 2,630 units. That's a mix of duplexes. We now have ADUs being built in the Mendoza apartment area, taking away all the green space there. Five exits in that community. We have Bear Exit leads to Bristol. We have Adams and Fairview. We have Presidio and Newport Boulevard leading to the freeways. We have Junipero and Arlington. We have Mendoza and Baker Street. So please consider those breakdowns of those neighborhoods to help you guide with your development and the units you want to have built there. I think there should be 1,500 if you're only going to have two exits.

Good evening, council. My name is Daniel Morgan. I live in College Park, one of the neighborhoods most impacted by Fairview. Tonight I want to focus on two issues. First, public safety. The transportation study projects harbor and fair at a level of service of D. The city's minimum acceptable standard, but this does not consider traffic during the OC fair. The roads that are police, these are roads that are police officers and firefighters and paramedics use to respond to emergencies. Costa Mesa Fire and Rescue reports an average travel time of eight minutes, 25 seconds to the Fairview site. According to the National Library of Medicine, permanent brain damage can occur in as little as four minutes when the blood flow stops. That's four minutes, and we're already at more than eight minutes for average travel time before adding thousands of units with additional traffic. We need to have more resources for our police and fire departments, and we should not be increasing intensity without dedicated resources to make their jobs Easier second tonight staff acknowledge for probably the first time that I've heard that we can amend the housing element Potentially allowing some of the affordable housing sites to be used to move elsewhere in Costa Mesa not eliminate but moved elsewhere This is something I've been asking for for months and this is the first time that we hurt hurt that we've heard about it And I do understand that it requires 180 day review So this should have been something that was brought to our attention probably more than 180 days ago and Let's take the time to explore the alternatives and get it right. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and it's also we have to live with these consequences. These buildings are going to outlive every one of us in here. The traffic impacts are going to outlive everyone in here. These aren't easily reversible decisions. Thank you so much. You guys have an incredibly hard job tonight. I appreciate all of your effort, staff and council. Have a good night.

Thank you, Council. Thank you, Mayor. I'll go quick. I'm Portia Fisher. I've lived in Costa Mesa for 30-something years. Anyways, I thought this plan was bad when I came here, and now I feel like it's abysmal. It is absolutely atrocious after hearing all of the things. I had to write notes on my hands, so I'm going to go quick. The first thing I do want to say, though, is that I understand how important it is for affordability, and I don't think any of this addresses the real need or why most of the people who want affordable housing are here, which is those really low people. These houses are going to be for... You know, people who are children of some of us that might be, I mean, the fact that a very low is a $90,000 income and the fact that out of all of those 4,000, you're only going to have maybe 900, which we're supposed to have 5,000 according to that plan. This does not address our affordable housing need. It just makes for more dense buildings, more people. I don't know why you have to have any commercial in there. That's just going to make more traffic for workers trying to come in if they're not the workers that are living there. I don't think we need any of that. But now I'm going to go to my hand. Okay, so I never got any mailer at my house, so I didn't know about any of this until I saw somebody post something on Instagram when they were at the environmental... you know, review thing. So then I started waking up. But there's a lot of people in Costa Mesa that really still do not even know what's going on. And I know the little diagrams look pretty, but once we start having that many people there, it is not going to be okay. I don't know if everybody realized what that emergency center is. If it is still as it was, it was going to have a military grade helicopter landing pad, not anymore. Okay, that's good because that would not be good with all those people. That's one good thing. Thank you very much. I am concerned that eight acres of outdoor space considers balconies and rooftops. I don't think that's an American dream to have balconies and rooftops as our American space. I think that American dream means houses, not high density. And I do think that people who can't afford it should have them take away all those units and build some tiny houses and let some people who really need to afford it live there. Right. Okay. And lastly, I want to say, I think it's atrocious that anyone should say that golf course isn't historical when it was built as a little sanctuary surrounding the Fairview developmental center to keep them alive. safe and enclosed, and I'm sad that that's going away. I think that's what we should have more of, and so I don't think anything should go through the golf course. And lastly, if we get fined $50,000 a month because we need a little more time, I bet you 50,000 people in our city would give a dollar a month. I would. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Stevens, City Manager Daley, and council members. I'm here tonight because I am concerned about this Fairview Development Center, which to me sounds like it's more going to be, I've been to a few meetings, and I think it sounds more like a logistical nightmare and an expensive one. uh... the people here in Costa Mesa if we wanted to live in a mini LA we would have moved to LA we want to live in a more quality of life community which Costa Mesa offers right now So besides the fact that it would be a traffic nightmare, from what I understand, it could generate an additional 20,000 vehicle trips in the city. Now, just imagine what that would be like on Harbor, Fairview, Victoria. That traffic is going to end up some of it going alternative routes, which means the entire city is going to be impacted and a lot of people are going to be very unhappy. Not just the traffic. What about parking? Is there going to be enough parking for that development? What about the people who visit the residents there? Will there be enough parking for them? Where are they going to park? The overcrowding is definitely going to affect the community. Schools and parks will also be affected as well. Roads here already are in disrepair. Now, I know from Greenbrier, from Princeton to Oxford, that road was repaired. The rest of the roads, as far as I know, haven't. And we have potholes. I guess I have to say goodbye.

No, no, no. You've got one minute.

One more minute. Okay. So not only that, you were talking about making it vertically where you can fit more people. It will be an eyesore. If you look at that senior living community apartments on 19th Street by DMV, it's an eyesore. Even the condos on 17th Street across from Trader Joe's, I mean, they're cute and everything, But they're high, they're like at least three stories. We don't wanna see three stories. Like I said, we live in LA. What about law enforcement and the firefighters? We're gonna need more of them. We have to consider how much everything's going to cost and what our quality of life is going to be like. And from what I can see, if you do 4,000 years.

All right, now that's, now you're done. Mayor Pro Tem Chavez is going to take over. I've got to go, but do what he tells you to do.

Go ahead.

Thank you. Honorable Council Members and Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem, FOR THE OPPORTUNITY TO PROVIDE MY COMMENTS TONIGHT ON THE FAIR VIEW DEVELOPMENT CENTER SPECIFIC PLAN. MY NAME IS JONI ROLANITIS AND I AM ONE OF THE RESIDENTS OF THE UPPER BIRDS NEIGHBORHOOD JUST NORTH OF TANNINGER DRIVE. FROM MY UNDERSTANDING OF THE PLAN, MY FAMILY COULD VERY LIKELY EXPERIENCE ADVERSE IMPACT FROM ITS IMPLEMENTATION. FOR THIS REASON, I FULLY EXPECTED TO STAND BEFORE YOU IN VEHEMENT OPPOSITION. THEN I READ THE PLAN. AND I SLOGGED THROUGH THE GENERAL PLAN. three plus hours, I'll never get back, of really complicated stuff of which I had little prior knowledge and even less interest in understanding until my nimby senses were awakened by some of the activism around this issue. First, I'll tell you that I've changed my stance to one of support and approval of this plan at the lowest possible density possible, And from watching all of you in action tonight, I can tell that you are very much interested in this same concept and will work diligently to see that it is enacted in that way. Thank you very much for that. First, but more importantly, it enacts this vision of, and I quote here, creating an affordable, desirable, and inclusive place to live for families, young adults, and seniors. I also appreciated the comprehensiveness of the planning process that occurred over the better part of three years and did incorporate input from hundreds of stakeholders. So sadly, not me. I wish I had been there because I would have really liked it. But what I could see is the managing of all of these conflicting priorities. the state from whom the parcel originated the city as well as business owners and residents well yikes I'm telling you as from the corporate world we would have said cost quality schedule pick two right In this case, it's city, state, county, residents, business owners, pick two, right? But you didn't. You actually are trying to incorporate everyone. The fact that you've managed to balance this tangle of priorities while incorporating much of the vision is worthy of very high praise. I also note that the primary pushback of nearby residents, of which I am one, is that the density exceeds the standards of the general plan. So if you're doing everything to mitigate that, I appreciate that. There's one area that I think deserves more thought. Will I applaud the vision of the FDC being a pedestrian-forward community? The area's designated medium-density units don't have sufficient parking. For the cars, they'll need to commute, and I'd ask you to consider the surrounding residential neighborhoods.

Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Sue Lester. I've lived here about 17 years. I currently live in College Park. I have a family member that lives in Hillcrest and friends that live all around the city. I try to stay away from here. I think that makes, for those of you that know me and like me, it probably makes you happy. And for those of you who don't, you're probably good with it, too. I try to stay out of here as much as possible. I volunteer. I talk to a lot of people. And this is what all of my neighbors and all the people I know are concerned about. They're concerned about the traffic. I walk, I ride my bike, but I like to get in my car and drive. The new bike lane on Fairview, I actually have used it. Most of the time I see tweakers driving in at the wrong direction, but the impacts it had on our neighborhoods during the fair were out of control. And I worked at the fair, and I walked there every day, at least twice a day. So taking thousands more people and jamming them in at the end of the street really concerns people. When you say things like environmental impacts are unavoidable, that scares people. Everybody has seen stories about groundwater seepage and asbestos in the air that people breathe in, and that makes people extremely uneasy. What you guys need to decide on today basically boils down to Not whether housing should be built. I really don't think anybody is arguing that point. It's the issue of whether the plan adopted today before you is clear, enforceable, financially realistic, environmentally responsible, and protective of the community's long-term interests. And the way that it is right now with a lot of the things that all the council members have brought up with state-mandated density, if they want to go up to 7,000 units, and yeah, the likelihood that it may not, but no guarantee that it won't, and all these other things floating around, I don't think you should approve it the way it is. Does anybody want to get sued? No. But at the end of the day, people only do to you what you allow. The state is ramming this crap down our throats. Everybody's known about it for a long time, and I know everybody's been working on it, but here we are at the 12th hour, and I don't think if anybody up there is being completely honest, you're happy with what is before you and the choices that you have. You have the choice of one of two crappy decisions to make. So I would vote... Come back with something better. If we have to suck up 50K a month because we're getting sued to fight back against something that is not in the best interest of our current residents, our golf course, our traffic, our environment, and future residents, then I don't think you should pass it. So please don't. Thank you.

Thank you.

yes good evening hello council um first i want to start by thanking the staff for your hard work and all that um even the way that you were engaging with the comments tonight, and I appreciated having the definitions of affordability and the rents included tonight. I think it's important for us as a public to understand what we're talking about when we talk about affordable housing. I've come here tonight to ask you to adopt the Fairview Development Center specific plan as it's submitted by the staff and recommended by the Planning Commission, and for you to plan for the max affordable housing that we can include. Um, the number that sticks out to me from the discussion tonight is 53%. 53% of our current residents in Costa Mesa are burdened by their housing. Um, and I think I want to just, I don't often like usually when I get my public comments, I come as a neighbor, but I am going to put my pastor hat on again. Um, somebody saw fit to put in God, we trust on the wall and fruits. For some reason, we thought that was important at some point. And I just, I want to speak to my brothers and sisters in Christ. Like, this is where our faith really comes alive. This isn't something that we just study or that we talk about or that we believe. It's something that we live. And we have the opportunity to love our neighbors, which is to... defined by Jesus as those who showed mercy. It's to, in honor, prefer the others, to treat others as we would want to be treated, and to not look out for our own interests, but to look out for the interests of others. And that number of 53% keeps sticking out to me of those who are burdened by their housing costs. And so I want to just seek the council's wisdom to remember not only what you're hearing tonight, but also the decades that we have been advocating for affordable housing, that it's been prioritized by the residents of this community. And each time it comes up, um, there's a reason that we shouldn't do it. And I just, I do want to point out that it, the housing element was not at 180 day process. This is like a 10 year process that many of us have been engaged in for many, many years. And it's been a four-year process or three-year active process that we have been working on this as a community. I'm really glad that my neighbors are engaged and I hope you're gaining a better understanding of how this works. But this was not a rushed thing. And to ask for more time would be kicking the ball down the road. And we have had those people that you proposed, Councilman Bewley, those people have been invited into the process. And so I just want to really, I'm coming begging you like the persistent widow to remember the poor. Someone made room for, I've lived in this community for 50 years. Someone made room for all of us in here and will we make room for others? Thank you.

All right. Yes, ma'am.

Good evening mayor Stephenson members of the City Council. I'm Elizabeth Hansberg with people for housing. I've been with you many times So I'm sure that you probably recognize me. I really cannot echo any better the the previous speaker I really Echo everything that she said this is this is a long time coming. I think the reason that I will double down on why this needs to happen tonight and why it needs to be the version that was submitted and recommended by your planning commission is because the HCD, uh, sorry, the arena subcommittee at Skag, they're on meeting two friends. That was last week. We are planning for the seventh cycle. It's coming. In October, HCD is going to release to SCAG the RHND, the number for the entire six-county SCAG region, 191 cities. And we get to start this all over again. For reasons some of which were beyond your control, you are now redoing your housing element for the third or fourth time, right? I understand nobody thought Redondo was going to happen, right? We didn't know that that decision was coming and it really upended it and you guys got the raw end of the deal. And I was here in March when those two major sites said, yeah, we were good with an overlay, but not so much anymore. So you don't have time. You don't have time. And this plan is a good plan. It gives the maximum amount of flexibility for a master developer to be able to make the numbers work. To the requests for more parking, we're not even at that stage. I think one of your council members said this is going to be like a 15 year build out. If 20, right? I mean, depending on the economic cycle, right? We don't have to account for every parking space, right? This is probably going to be, you know, four or five different sets of entitlements that go forward to make this project into the Fairview developmental specific plan. So, I'm going to ask you to move it forward in its current form, as it was recommended by your planning commission, as your staff and your consultants have brought it to you, as the most feasible way to achieve your goals, because we don't have any indication that the numbers for the seventh cycle are going to be significantly different, and you don't want to be back here again.

Hooray.

Yes, sir.

Good evening, Mayor Stephens and council members. My name is Steve Smith and I'm a resident of District 5. I've been here a number of times to speak against this measure and before the Planning Commission as well. The decision you are about to make tonight will have major effects on the city for the foreseeable future. We will be chasing the consequences of this bad plan for years to come. I believe you should vote against it for two reasons. First, our streets can't handle this many new cars. Harbor and Fairview are already backed up. Adding 25,000 trips or thereabouts on Harbor will result in lost time for residents and more importantly, slower response times and critical situations for emergency responders. Second, as we've heard here tonight, the golf course isn't just a little green space on a map. It's 59 years of community history, a place that brings our city together. Cutting a 60-foot road through it is not a small change. It will knock a leg out from under the course. So my ask tonight is simple take a hard look at the number of units Against what our roads and emergency services can actually handle commit to a citizens advisory committee as a number of residents here at the Meeting you were kind enough to hold a mr. Mayor previously as well as members of the body here today have advocated for to oversee this going forward We can house our neighbors and protect what makes this city worth living in. This is not the path forward for that, though. Please make tonight's decision reflect that. Thank you.

Thank you. Hello, Council. I'm Kathy Esfahani with the Costa Mesa Affordable Housing Coalition, lifelong resident of Costa Mesa and Mesa Verde. There are undoubtedly lots of golfers in the room tonight, but as many people have tried to remind you, there are a lot more families in our city who need affordable housing. 53% of our existing residents cannot afford the rent they pay. So it's really a crisis in our city, and you have heard that through many, many public hearings and meetings, And it's not just at the end of the road that the last people who speak matter. Everyone who's contributed to this process matters. they want affordable housing. I'd like to remind you of a little bit of history. Many of you worked on Measure K, as I did. I worked with you, and the message we delivered to the population was, vote for Measure K because rents are too damn high. We need affordable housing. And that measure passed, the city population decided that they wanted to accept more density because they were promised affordable housing. Well, unfortunately, the inclusionary ordinance that we adopted was too weak. And so the only way we're going to get affordable housing is through the Fairview developmental site, where 40% of the minimum, the 2,300 units, will be affordable to low and very low income families. You can talk about shifting affordable housing to these other sites, other measure case sites, but guess what? Because there is not a strong inclusionary ordinance, we will not get affordable housing there. It will not happen. If you want affordable housing in Costa Mesa, you need to approve the plan at the higher level of density that is recommended. Because if you don't, if you only do 2,300, guess what? The housing will not get built because it's not financially feasible. You have to adopt the higher number of at least 3,500. And if you don't do that, it means you really don't care about affordable housing. It will not happen in our city. So I encourage you to follow staff's recommendation and do what the majority of Costa Mesa residents want, which is build affordable housing. Thank you.

Everybody be respectful. Go ahead, Jen.

Good evening, City Council and staff. My name is Jen Tanaka. I'm a resident. I have followed this process from the beginning, and especially to the staff, I understand the difficulties of the constraints. You have DGS running through an inscrutable state surplus land process. You have DDS trying to do what it can for people with profound developmental disabilities that still need parts of this site. You have Cal OES meeting its needs at EOC, and now you have HCD with its affordable housing mandates added to the mix. But no one can serve two masters. So it's equally impossible to serve four. And it certainly leaves no room to serve us, the residents, or the future residents that might live at FDC in the future. And honestly, I've been deeply impressed by the generosity and patience of my fellow Costa Masons to even entertain this process when it has been clear for more than a year that public input is not a priority. I think you know how I feel about building housing in Costa Mesa. I think you know that I'm pretty minded about what Fairview might become. But when this was in front of the Planning Commission, I begged them to fight this plan. And at the most recent town hall with Mayor Stevens, I implored Mayor Stevens to buy us more time. It was frustrating to hear staff say in its staff report that, quote, public input has informed the specific plan to date. I'm sorry to say that this is just not true. I cannot think of one substantive change that has been made to this plan due to the concerns that have been raised by the public. In fact, I can think of several material pieces of input, concerns about the golf course, desires for open space, concerns about connectivity that have not just been rejected but made progressively worse as this plan has developed. I have been beyond anxious about how far behind we have become in our housing element for a long time. So I can't believe I'm saying this, but I am here to beg for more time. We need time now to build a real plan to stitch this intentionally isolated property into our city. The hour is late, but it's not too late. unless you close the door tonight. I, for one, can stomach some risk if it leaves room for a better result. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Dr. Kelly Brown, I'm a Westside Costa Mesa resident. I'm also chair of the Parks and Community Services Commission. And I just want to first start by saying thank you all for the questions that you've had around this. I really appreciate all of them. and the way in which you're wrestling with this because it's very, very complicated for so many reasons. So I just want to start with that and say that I'm actually here to advocate for two things. The first is affordable housing matters. I really appreciated that English teacher who got up and acknowledged that she owns a house because of the generosity of her parents. I think it's really important that we develop affordable housing for our veterans, for our seniors, for our young professionals. So I just want to say that that's something that I really center and that matters. But I do want to talk about what makes for thriving neighborhoods. And I want to share a personal anecdote in relationship to how important it is for open space, and that I really hope that you do more to move this plan into more open space, more green space. So my husband and I, when we moved here about 14 years ago, we moved into a neighborhood Fairly high density, no park, over a mile away to the local park, no gardens, not as many trees. And when we were raising our young daughter, we would have to get in the car and go to another park, right, on the east side or another part of the west side. I want to make sure that for this center that there is ample green space, that there are ample, I mean, I'm a little nervous about community gardens at this point because of the environmental issues, but I do think there's room. to pursue gardens, to pursue sports fields and all of that. I think it's important to think about those as more than just amenities. When you live in a neighborhood that's high density without green space and without parks, let me share with you what it's like. It's really noisy, right? So that's something that more green space, more open space helps protect against. It's hot. You don't have as many trees. You don't have as many places to cool down. That's something that I think is really important for this neighborhood as well. And the last thing I'll say is that when you live in a neighborhood without those kinds of spaces, it's hard to develop belonging. So there's sort of relationships among community members. So as you're deciding what to do tonight, my plea is for affordable housing and also to really privileged green space, open space, things like that. They lead to a quality of life. They make it much more manageable for residents who live there, and I think that that's especially important when you consider that, and here's where I'm wearing my hat as chair of parks, a lot of our parks in Costa Mesa need renovation. Let's make sure that we're planning now for the residents that live in this center. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Chelsea Cody Waters, and I live in College Park. As my husband mentioned, when my in-laws decided to move across the country to be with our family, We spent an extensive amount of time searching for appropriate housing options close enough to our home. One factor in this for our family was stability and the other affordability. We would have preferred to purchase a small apartment for them, but none were available under $800,000 within biking distance. We ended up finding a good apartment within walking distance with a fantastic community, including many of my daughter's friends from College Park Elementary. But I worry about the cost of rent rising and creating instability in their housing. Ours is just one story, but I ask everyone here to consider that diverse housing options creates opportunities for a community. Costa Mesa is a city that can handle extra residents. The population already doubles during the day. And as Councilmember Reynolds pointed out, there are guidelines for local residents to live there, which would help with traffic. I live there. It is a very walkable and very bikeable area. We've seen the city step it up lately with infrastructure that makes growth work, including bike lanes, parks, and traffic updates. Additional housing means people who work here will also have an opportunity to live here, shop here, go to school here, and positively impact our community. Let's use our power as a community to accelerate the changes we want to see in our infrastructure and to welcome more people into the fold. I would ask that you vote to move this item forward so that Costa Mesa can start the process of building the best housing opportunities we can to help families and our community grow. Costa Mesa knows how to grow thoughtfully, and I trust the city to guide the process so that more families like mine can put down roots and stay. Thank you.

Good evening, Council. Jay Humphrey, Costa Mesa resident. First, I'd like to thank the public who came here tonight to finally get engaged. It is nice to see that engagement, and hopefully it will expand even further. I want to thank the Council for asking questions, tough questions tonight. I would have liked to see those questions a year ago. They would have probably led us to a different end product at this point, but we're where we are because of where we are. So I would love to see that happen. There's so many issues relative to this project. You've heard about a bunch of them from many people. I'm not going to try to reiterate their comments. I'm only going to talk about open space because this project is going to be not only the largest project in Costa Mesa for housing and buildings and what have you, but also set the standard for what we do about open space with any other project we do. So now that we're gonna put 25% of the open space available for a project to what it should be relative to our own general plan goals, we will now set that as a standard for every other project in the future. We're going to get Probably somewhere between 30 and 40 million dollars in park fees from this project Depending on what you guys approve $10,000 per unit is what the park fee requirement is for all housing units whether it's apartments or or Condos or houses. So the bottom line is is that we're going to get somewhere but to around 30 million dollars and I have not seen anything in this plan to talk about what we're going to do, how we're going to put the park space that we're not putting into this plan, how we're going to put that someplace else in the city. I see no plan of any kind. I see no plan of any kind that says how are we going to increase park space in the city even though we're going to get fairly large sums of money for the new units we're going to put in. You have a plan to put 22,000 more housing units in Costa Mesa. That's a lot of money, but I see no plans about how we're gonna deal with open space. And as was previously just said, the more people you put into an area, the more need you have for actual open space to keep the community healthy. And that's part of your job for 50, 60, 100 years from now. Your job is not just today, Your job is to make sure that going forward we have stable expected growth. Thank you very much.

Mayor Stevens and members of the council. My name is Craig Kessel. I'm not a resident of Costa Mesa. I'm executive director of an organization called the California Alliance for Golf, which is an organization of all the golf organizations in the state, including the Southern California Golf Association, whose representative is standing behind me. First thing I want to do is thank this council for the commitment you have made to maintaining as much of the integrity of the Costa Mesa Country Club as feasible. But the reason I'm here tonight goes very much, Mayor Stevens, to the answers you got to some of your pointed questions about the golf course. It is going to be, whatever happens ultimately, it looks likely there will be a second access road that goes through at some point whether it's five years, 10 years, or 15 years. Yet there's been an incredible amount of due diligence and staff work that's gone into making it good for a developer to be named later to be able to make money off the project building anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000 homes. But when you ask the question, We've hired Origins Golf Design, but did you ask them to do any feasibility studies? Did you ask them to scope out what might be the costs of perhaps continuing a golf course over a road? I have a lot of experience in the golf industry, and that just may not be possible, and that has nothing to do with your will or your commitment to the golf course, but it has everything to do with just simply the facts on the ground. However, that leaves remnant holes And that leaves another piece of land that then can be repurposed into something maybe based on the needs of the high school teams, which need nine holes of golf, maybe something else. I would leave that not to me or not to golf organizations, but to the golf community here in this council and the residents and so forth. But none of that has gone into any of this analysis. And that's really our concern. And our other concern is this sometimes has been housing versus golf. They're not mutually exclusive. You're going to have both. I'm convinced of that. I don't know the level of the housing. And again, it's not our business to tell this community what that level will be or this council. how you should reflect the will of the community. But we would plead with you that as one of the council members said, or maybe it was a member of the public, your leverage on getting the information you need to make intelligent decisions as to how to best effectuate the commitment that you've made to as much of the integrity of the golf course as possible, whether that's part of the action that approves this tonight, or 30 or 60 days, or whether that's the day after, that really is the ask, I think, of the golf community here. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. This has been an eye-opening process. I'm Kara Stewart. I live in Mesa Del Mar. And I want to start off by repeating a couple of statistics that have been shared time and time again, but I think we're missing it. Nearly half of our renters and nearly one third of our homeowners spend more than 30% of their income on housing. Our latest consolidated plan identifies more than 13,000 households already experiencing that housing cost burden. We need housing. We need affordable housing. And we need to get serious about building it. And we need to stop the grossly irresponsible talk about fighting the state and wasting taxpayers' dollars at a tune of perhaps 50K or more per month. We've heard tonight that we don't want to be another Los Angeles. Well, there's more of us who do not want to be another Huntington Beach and become a laughing stock of the United States and fighting the state in efforts that are only going to lose. Earlier this year, we had to cut senior transportation because we didn't have enough money, but we suddenly have money to fight state. Having said that, I caution green lighting a plan for 4,000 units that doesn't take into account our needs. I'm asking for three things based on what I'm hearing from the community in District 3. First, preserve and reserve space for a fire station now. The specific plan itself recognizes that the project may require an on-site fire station or another acceptable location. Make that a requirement, not a suggestion. Determine who will pay for it to bill it, equip it, staff it, and operate that station. Second, we need a second access, but we should not simply carve a road through Mesa Linda and call the problem solved. Before that happens, we must require the developer to fund a final design that preserves a playable 18-hole municipal golf course and evaluates the alignment, timing, and every reasonable access available including more fully exploring the use of alternative spaces. And finally, create a 20-year Fairview infrastructure plan that looks beyond the property line. Harbor and fair, neighboring traffic, active transportation, parks, and everything, with measurable milestones the public and the council can review as development proceeds. And while we're at it, reimagine our city. Don't hold on to the past structures that speak to yesteryear. We're robbing the next generation of opportunities that everyone in here has afforded. This simply isn't a housing project. It's an opportunity to reimagine this entire part of Costa Mesa and really our whole city. And we should build it for the next generation, not just approve it for one council meeting. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor and Pro Tem, and council members. I'm Kevin Fitzgerald, Director of Public Affairs at the Southern California Golf Association. First, I want to state, as you just heard from the California Alliance for Golf, that this association does not weigh in on housing matters. We're simply here to support Costa Mesa golfers, the city courses where they play, and the game of golf in general. And we're also here to thank you for your continued support of the game of golf. While we appreciate that the city remains committed to providing 36 regulation holes in perpetuity, it remains unclear to us whether meeting that objective will actually be feasible based on the exact proposed location of the secondary access road. Based on our experience with similarly situated golf course projects, we recognize the price tag for a course redevelopment project like the one required here would be extraordinarily high. A reputable golf course architecture firm answered a number of questions for the city, but what we didn't see were analyses of what the cost would be to reconfigure the golf facility and make it as close to whole as possible. It also seems that it would be difficult to confirm whether or not the proposed location of the secondary access road is the best available option without that analysis of the redevelopment costs. And if it isn't feasible to connect the remaining golf acreage once the parcel has become divided, and if it isn't feasible to restore a 36-hole complex, what is feasible? While sadly it appears unlikely to us that 36 holes of regulation golf would be available post the construction of the secondary access road based on its current location in the proposal, that is our opinion, but we do believe it to be an informed one. Our association will continue to support the city as it pursues the best available outcome for its golf complex and for the golfers here in Costa Mesa. And thank you for considering our comments.

Good evening. My name is Jim McFeely. I've lived in Costa Mesa for almost two years now. And I'm a substitute teacher with the Newport Mesa School District. And I believe that the goal of government and the goal of this city council, one of those goals, is that if you work in a community, you should be able to live there. And if I didn't live with my partner right now, I wouldn't be able to live in Costa Mesa as a substitute teacher. And I'm in favor of this project. I was glad to see it expand up to that 4,000 number. And I hope the city council keeps finding ways to build more housing. I don't know how many people studied economics, but when you build more supply, the cost of housing is going to go down. And that's not even just those affordable units. That's all those units. And before I close, I just want to say thank you to the council, to the members of the staff. I know that it takes a lot of hard work, and I appreciate your dedication to public service. And I leave you with this thesis, that people who work in Costa Mesa ought to be able to live in Costa Mesa. So please support the plan. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. I'm Diane Russell. This has been a very long process, and I want to commend the staff for diligently working through everything and keeping it on track and listening to the interested residents who have given their input. I feel like we're nearing the end of the beginning, really, and I want to speak in favor of moving this item forward tonight. I do so for a number of reasons. This is a plan that will give the It's a good plan for creating a framework to create a new neighborhood in our city. The initial designs will not be the final ones. There will continue to be changes in input from the city staff, councils, and interested residents during the years of development and construction, which is 15, 20 years. There are some things that will not change. One is the need for housing. As the previous speaker said, people who work in the city deserve to live in the city. People should not have to move to Corona and then drive back into the city because that doesn't cut down on traffic. We like having new businesses and services coming into the city. And as long as we have a vibrant job market, that's not going to change. Two, the need for housing for low and very low income people. We keep talking about making it nice for the people that live here. 53% of the people that live in our community are probably not here because they're too busy working to make enough money to pay for their housing. Many of the jobs in the city are service related. They're the clerks, the security guards, teachers, and healthcare workers. These jobs are important and create a diverse and healthy economy. Those families belong here too. Many things are going to change in the city in the next 15 to 20 years. I hope OCTA does a better job of transportation system to get us around. So I'm asking you to approve this at 4,000 units. Fewer than 3,400 may not make economic sense to a developer and we won't get any housing. We must also ensure that the affordable component of 40% is memorialized in the development agreement and the developer complies with it in a timely fashion. We don't want 15 years down the road and still have no affordable housing. We will always have artists and young families that need a foothold in our city. Certify the EIR, amend the general plan, and adopt the Fairview Development Center specific plan tonight. I'm really, if I have a second or two, I'm really offended that people are just blithing saying, oh, $50,000 a month.

Thanks.

Yes. Hello, Mayor and City Council. My name is Roseanne Eichenbaum. I've lived here in College Park for 27 years. I have heard everyone's objections and suggestions. What I have heard no one even acknowledge is a little phrase that only 10 to 20 percent of this affordable housing will be available to Costa Mesa residents. How can that be? 10 to 20%? That's obscene. I mean, you're knocking out all seniors, people who lose their jobs, people who already can't afford to live here, and to only give us 10 to 20%? How did that number come to be? And how can it be justified? We're going to let 80% of people from other communities who know how great Costa Mesa is come here for our affordable housing, but we don't get to have it. That is just wrong. I can't see any justification for such a small amount being allocated to us who live here. So I will not belabor the point. That is an issue that I really feel is mandatory that needs to be addressed. It is just sinful. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. I'm Steve DeZita. I've been a resident of Costa Mesa for 40 years. During that 40 years. I've also done a couple of other things one is I spend a fair amount of time Out on our courses impersonating a golfer And I've also spent a lot of time as a real estate attorney representing developers who do projects like this so I understand what you're talking about density bonuses and setbacks and all this stuff And I know that you have to consider all of those factors, but I'd like to ask you tonight to think about this from a different perspective. When you get to be older like I am, and for you guys it'll be another 30 or 40 years, but when you get to be older you start thinking about things a little bit differently. And I would like to suggest that everybody here has had a person, whether it was a parent, or a teacher or a law school professor or a Navy commanding officer or an after school program supervisor who has made a special impact on your life and in many ways could be said to have made you the person that you are today. I think, I know that I've had that blessing. Also, maybe it would be another 30 or 40 years. I've already got there. I have eight grandchildren You guys I hope you will be blessed with them also So I'd like you to think about this from this point of view When you're all done doing what you're doing here, and you're gonna vote on this tonight. God willing and the creek don't rise and You move on to the rest of your lives And you're sitting back and that special person comes to your mind and asks you the question, what did you do back then with that FTC project? How did you vote on that? You know, you could theoretically say, okay, I voted to approve that thing with the maximum density and with the maximum affordability. And on account of that, there is an elementary school teacher who was able to live in Costa Mesa because she was nearby, didn't have to drive a long way. She was able to raise her family and she could concentrate when she was teaching. And you know what? her students became master craftsman, they became teachers themselves, they became professionals, they contributed to our community in a way that never would have happened before. And also, there was a rookie firefighter who was able to get into that project, and because he was living locally and didn't have to drive an hour each way to and from work. In his EMT job, he saved a bunch of people. In fact, one of those people, let's just say, grew up to cure cancer.

Maria.

Good evening. It looks like the golfers have cleared their room. I suspect that many of the people who showed up tonight have come very late to the journey and don't have a full appreciation for the enormous amount of work that all of you and so many unseen people, I'm sure, behind the scenes have been putting into this project for many, many years. So my heartfelt thanks for all of that. My husband and I have had the privilege of living here for over 40 years. We live in what's called the upper birds in Mesa Verde, and we literally back up to the golf course where he plays. I recognize that there are many golf enthusiasts here, there are many park and sports fields enthusiasts, there are many who are concerned seriously about the traffic which will increase i would imagine although adventure to say that many of the people who live in our city who work in our city rather but cannot afford to live in our city might now be able to move to the city if there's enough affordable housing and cut down on some of that traffic who knows that young blonde teacher who spoke earlier uh... saying that She and her husband were able to live here in Costa Mesa only because her parents helped financially. That's my daughter. And they have three young children who very likely will not be able to live in this city unless we finally tackle our affordable housing problem that we've had for many years. And my understanding is it's been the number one issue among our residents for a long, long time. We have been given an extraordinary opportunity with 80 acres of infill, how many other cities can claim that, that we can build maximum amount of housing and a maximum amount of affordable housing. I recognize without a master developer having been chosen yet, those numbers are unclear, but I would press you to please go for as much as we can. The woman before me who complained that only 10 or 20% of our residents will be eligible for, well, many, many more would be eligible who are working in our city but can't afford to live here. Mayor Stevens, I'll quote you again. You've called our city a city of compassion. This is an extraordinary opportunity to display that compassion. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice, and this is an opportunity to bend that arc a little more towards justice, to do the compassionate thing, the just thing, and the right thing.

Hi, City Council. My name is Fisher Derdarian. I'm a resident of the city and live in District 4. I think plenty of good reasons have been made tonight as to why we should, in some sense, oppose or at least delay the decision around this plan, whether it be density issues or traffic issues, open space issues, environmental issues, so on and so forth. But I think it was lightly touched upon earlier by one member. But the more fundamental issue that sits at this is the complete breakdown of trust in the public input process, that this is supposedly a community-led process. We've been asked for years, residents and other stakeholders in the city, to attend workshops, to attend various events, and come to planning commission and to fill out surveys and to provide feedback and to do all these various sorts of things. But I think anyone who's attended any of those sorts of housing related workshops knows it's not a very discursive process. There's not a whole lot of dialogue that happens. It's more of a talk and then maybe some sticky notes that one gets to put up and say, I like this, I don't like this. And there's not really been many opportunities, I think, over the last year, at the very least, to speak into this process. And in fact, we did spend two years, or nearly two years, and hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to get that community input. And the overwhelming support and vision for this was 2,300 units. And it was a very strongly supported plan by the community. But for whatever reason, that was stricken as impossible from the get-go once that plan development process started to occur. And it seems strange to me that just tonight we're sort of starting to see and understand some of the assumptions that were made behind why that's impossible. Because before this, mind you, the only reasons that we've been given is simply profit for the developers, and state mandates, and there's not been too much more said about why 2,300 units is not possible, and it's not worthy of us even trying to explore and figure out. So I ask that we take a moment, that we pause, that we try to consider what it might look like for us to actually do 2,300 units, if it's even feasible, and for what reasons it may or not be feasible, beyond simply, well, we have to kind of figure out how these numbers work, and this is the best we can do, so we're gonna naturally favor a larger project. So I ask that you take a moment to consider this and to step back and really explore that possibility because I think it's worth it. And I think, you know, if we want community trust and public support for this project, that's something that needs to be done. Thank you.

Yes, Council, Mayor. My name is Mark Hertler. I've lived in Costa Mesa since 1952. and before it was a city. I live in Mesa Verde and I'm Mike's district. I've lived there since 1987. Two things that I think are pertinent, at least in my opinion. One of the guys from one of the organizations for golf said, how can there possibly not be a plan already stated for how the golf course would be reinstated into an 18-hole golf course, even if it's different? Now, if I came in here and somebody showed me a nice picture, here's the new holes that are going to be here, and this is where the road's going to be, and it's all going to be just fine, it would be easy to agree that that's not the way it is. Something that I've also wanted to state is that there's two golf courses there, and I've belonged to Costa Mesa for many, many years. I started playing there in 1967 with my dad. And there's two courses, Los Lagos, which is kind of the other side of the course, is a very long course. Mesa Linda is a very short course, and it's preferred by women. So you destroy that course without a plan, and it's discrimination against women, I'm telling you. Because that, yeah, that's right. Because I'm telling you, women, the long course is too long for them. They don't like it. They like the short course. It plays to their strengths. Secondly, if you do something to alter the Mesa Linda course, that's gonna have a much greater impact on the big course, Los Lagos, which means harder to get tee times, everything becomes like Miles Square Park when they took out the players course, which was the biggest mistake in golf history in Orange County. Because once COVID hit, everybody started playing golf. Now there's one less course to use. Anyway, Mesa Linda is much more a woman's course, although I like it too. And taking anything away from that without a solid plan for how it's gonna be reinstated as an 18-hole normal golf course needs time. You need to take time. Thank you.

Hello, I've spoken at numerous forums around this topic, and my concerns remain the same. Traffic is a big one, and specifically emergency access in the event of emergencies. You know, when we've got gridlock on Harbor Boulevard, and also, and it wasn't on the slides, I noticed Placentia and Victoria, that impacts emergency response times. And when you're on the receiving end of that, waiting for that ambulance, it affects you negatively. And so I just think that it's irresponsible to consider something that is so massive that we're going to have complete gridlock and that we have to worry that we have our emergencies at the right time of day and when there's not traffic. The other concern I have is it's such a big undertaking at 2300, even at 1500. It's a big undertaking for the city. And what are the other things that the rest of the city has to go without? What are the missed opportunities? Have we quantified any of that? Because I think it's going to have an impact. So I think that I urge you to exercise some restraint. I think that we're trying to put 10 pounds in a 5-pound sack. And I think we need to look at this carefully and step back, take a breath. I think all of us in this meeting are more grounded. I agree with the person who said that I had concerns before. After hearing today's meeting and a lot of your concerns, those have only grown. So please take that into consideration. And, you know, we want a community. And a community is not lack of parking, fighting with your neighbors about parking, worrying about golf balls coming over at you. You know, that's not what community is. We want this to be a community. We want affordable housing. But you've got to remember the heart and the community in this. There's not a lot of people in the community who would have said out of the gate, yeah, we need 4,000. That's a great number to shoot for, so thank you.

Hi, Mayor and City Council members. My name is Claudine Steck. Both my husband and I were born and raised in Costa Mesa, and we have raised our children here, and I love Costa Mesa, and I am for affordable housing. However, I don't think 4,000 units is something that needs to be done. I think we need to really consider, again, all the same things everyone keeps reiterating. The traffic is crazy. If any of you live in College Park, I don't, but even I drive up and down Fairview. and fare on a daily basis, and the traffic already on fare drive on a daily basis is just crazy. You keep mentioning that we have an expectation of how many low-income housing that we need to get to, yet at every one of these meetings, I have yet to hear you tell us how many we have already done. We have had this mandate for some time, and no number has been given to us about how many we've already done with all the current developments. The other concern I have, I am not a golfer, but the youth and this neighboring, we have very little recreational space, and our youth needs a place to go and participate healthy. And golf course at Costa Mesa is cheap and reasonable, We can't all be Mesa Verde members. And we'd like our youth to be doing active activities and utilize our recreational space. I hope you guys consider, yes, we want affordable housing, but you really should consider a manageable amount of a number of units that doesn't impact the city so greatly.

Go ahead.

Mayor Stevens and council members, my name is Brian Roth Schaefer. I've had a chance to coach some of your kids in baseball over the years. And again, like so many have said, we've talked about a million things tonight. I appreciate all of the investment that you all have made. I was at the very first meeting, kind of the exploratory meeting, and I've been at it a couple since. But the reason I wanted to speak tonight is really... the city of costa mesa and the fairview development centers is going to be a place where we' re going to have a lot of new families moved in and people move in regardless of what plan is As it was said before, kind of fitting five or 10 pounds of flour in a five pound bag there. I think there is an element of saying the things that we'd love to do. We'd love to put 10,000 units in there and have all of them be affordable so that everybody could. But that's just not practical given the infrastructure of our city. I live in College Park. I've lived there for 25 years, started at Mediterranean Village Apartments years ago. And yeah. The impact has already been talked about the roads and the traffic, but what I'm most passionate about, I was the Little League president here for five years and have raised three boys in the city. And I don't know whether or not they'll ever be able to afford to live here or not. That is an issue. But the biggest thing that I've seen, and a lot of the families that we encourage to come to some of these meetings early on, haven't been able to, because they're coaching their kids in sports. And so I think there's a whole element and a whole demographic that we haven't heard from very much, because they are families who are involved in sports in the community. And as Council Member Reynolds said earlier, open space is a huge deal. I mean, we literally turned Luke Davis baseball diamond into an open park because we don't have enough park space and which is great. People get to use it, but now coaches are trying to run practices and we've worked it out, you know, Costa Mesa United and the city and, and you know, the, um, All the representatives within the parks and rec, it's been great. There's been a lot of reciprocal conversations. But if we want to have affordable housing, which we do, and we're going to move new families into this smaller section of Costa Mesa, and we already, if you go to Costa Mesa United meetings, and we all are fighting over field space all the time. We don't have lights in the city. We don't have enough field space. And families go to Huntington. They go to Newport. They go to Irvine. They go to places to play. We have travel teams that don't play in Costa Mesa because there's no room. So they go elsewhere. And we had an opportunity with Fairview Development to provide more space for our kids. And instead, what we're doing is bringing more people into the city with less space. And it creates more and more issues. And so ultimately... That's what I'm passionate about is we want community, we want families to live here and be here and be a part of it, but the more people we bring into a small space without places for them to go and play and experience life together, they'll go elsewhere and they'll end up moving elsewhere because that's where they find community.

Hello, my name's Andrew Kenny. I'm 30 years old and I'm a resident of Costa Mesa District 2. I grew up in a semi-rural town of about 12,000 in Massachusetts. When a new high school was built, during a year-long transition period, some people, including myself, saw commutes measured in minutes get measured in hours. My dad hosted an annual golf tournament for decades to raise money for a summer camp for children with diabetes. I have a connection to the sport and have seen firsthand how it can benefit others as well. While I understand many of the concerns raised tonight, I am ultimately here to express my support for this project. Compromising the status quo for a project like this will always raise complaints with people happy with the way things are. I have learned not to ask people what problems they have with plans, but solutions that they envision. People's ideas of how things should be reveal what problems they have with how things are. I'm sure some people listening right now are thinking, it's not my job to think of a solution, and to some extent, you're right. That's the daunting responsibility of the people here working hard to figure out how to solve an impossible problem from many different angles and parties giving conflicting interests and demands. Many of the people who stand to lose something are here tonight to voice their concerns. I followed this closely for the past year and a half, attending and listening to planning committee meetings where people can make comments just like this along the entire way. What I've seen is with every rewrite that solves a problem and satisfies people who spoke at the previous meeting, a new set of people affected comes out and insists that they pass the burden down to somebody else. I'm here to amplify the voices of people who are not here and stand to benefit from this. I've talked to people who are homeless, crushed under rent costs, people who have tearfully been forced to leave the city or even the state that they called home because they cannot afford it, and young people who have grown up in a world where they feel like the leaders of the world and their communities have ignored them. So where are they? They're tired from working two jobs, apathetic because political processes have continuously served those, other than them, and have less to lose because their ability to build wealth and build towards their futures is being robbed by their cost of living. If things stay the same, these people will continue to suffer. At 50% rent burden, there's a 9% increase in mortality risk. At 70% burden, it jumps to 12%. A threat of eviction alone comes with a 19% increase, and a served eviction comes with a 40% increase. I think many people came here tonight in hopes that they will change minds, but I think that these efforts towards increasing affordability and housing supply is going to change lives. I support this project, and I thank everybody involved in working on it. Thank you.

Mr. Mayor.

Hold on one second. Who is on Zoom? Do we have anybody on Zoom? Let's hear from the people on Zoom.

Mr. Mayor, we're at almost 11 o'clock. Can I ask that we go to two minutes of public comment in person?

YOU CAN MAKE A MOTION.

SO MOVED.

HOW MANY ARE ON ZOOM? YOU SAID FOUR, RIGHT? HOW MANY DO WE HAVE WITH THEIR HANDS RAISED? SEVEN WITH THEIR HANDS RAISED? ALL RIGHT. YOU MADE THE MOTION.

ANYBODY WANT TO SECOND IT?

OKAY. NO SECOND. OKAY. GO AHEAD. WHO IS UP ON ZOOM?

The first speaker is Linda, please.

Linda, you have the floor. Linda?

Hello?

Hi, Linda. We can hear you.

OK. I was talking. I'm sorry. Let me start again. Good evening City Council members. My name is Linda and I'm a lifelong member of the Costa Mesa Affordable Housing Coalition. Over the past two decades, our coalition has been diligently advocating for affordable homes in the city, and we have been patiently waiting for an opportunity to build a substantial amount of affordable homes that would not only meet our lower income reno goals, but it will also make a significant impact on our city's unmet housing needs. While we have been advocating over the past two decades, it's clear that the need for affordable housing has not subsided. Instead, the need has exponentially grown with no end in sight. The priority for a city to build affordable housing has not changed over the past two decades. While golf course can be a major asset to the city, the reality is it doesn't even come close to the type of impact of what affordable housing can do for our residents who desperately need affordable homes. Today, with thoughtful consideration, we are presented with a tremendous opportunity to ensure that affordable housing will be built in order for that to happen. We are urging the city to approve and allow the development of 3800 units at a, because this option will make the project more likely to pencil out for developer. It will more likely ensure that the housing will be built, which is a priority in our city. Finding quality housing in our city that is readily available and affordable is a major challenge. Many residents are really struggling with high housing costs, and this is especially evident for lower-income working families with young children. Housing in our city is expensive, and childcare in our city is even more expensive. I have two young children and my friends and I have this conversation all the time. Unless you have access to high quality, low cost childcare options, which includes grandparents or extended family members and friends to help out, you will really need to resort to childcare or daycare services. In our city, half-day and full-day childcare services can easily run between $1,000 to $3,000 per month. This expense is just as much and just as high as monthly rent, and it places a very high cost burden for working households who can't afford both housing and childcare costs. In addition, according to the California Department of Education, during the 2024 to 2025 academic school year, the Newport Mesa Unified School District enrolled close to 1,200 homeless students. The significant need for affordable housing will not only will not completely be solved anytime soon. However, our city should strive to do everything it can to commit to creating opportunities and maximizing the best use of this state-owned property by allowing the development of 3,800 units. The city and the community's priority is affordable housing, and the city should not lose sight of this priority. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Chase, please. Chase, you have the floor.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

Good evening, honorable counsel. My name is Chase Preciado, and I am a paralegal with the law firm Lizzo Jury here on behalf of Supporters Alliance for Environmental Responsibility, or SAFER. SAFER respectfully requests that the City Council refrain from approving and adopting the EIR for this project because it fails to comply with CEQA. The EIR for the project fails to adequately analyze the project's impacts on biological resources. SAFER's expert biologist, Scott Cashin, reviewed and analyzed the EIR and biological technical report prepared for the project, and the most glaring issue he identified was the EIR's failure to accurately and adequately characterize the project site's environmental setting. This failure stems from the fact that the City failed to do the wildlife surveys required to accurately document the conditions of the project site. The environmental setting is important here because it provides the basis for which significant impacts are assessed. Without a proper environmental setting, the EIR's conclusions regarding the project's impacts on biological resources are not supported by substantial evidence. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Marianne, please. Marianne, you have the floor.

Good evening. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Yes. Thank you so kindly, City Council of Costa Mesa and them as well. I have four important points to communicate. The first one is the impact of this project on traffic, crime, and also the burden on the Costa Mesa Police Department and the Fire Department have not been given consideration. i am also concerned that the traffic burden will be you know beyond complete obliteration so i wish that you vote no on this further forward direction of the costa mesa council on the Fairview Development Center changes. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Wendy, please. Wendy, you have the floor. Wendy?

Okay.

Can you hear me?

Wendy, Wendy, we can hear you, but there's a lot of feedback. It's hard to hear me. No, no. You got to do something differently because you're echoing. Do you know the reason for the echo, Wendy? Yeah. Okay. Why don't we come back to you, Wendy? Fix the echo. We'll come back to you.

If I may interject, Wendy, it might be that you're not on mute on your phone or your laptop.

Yeah, that could be. Fix the mute button. We'll get back to you in another speaker. Go ahead.

Anjali, please.

Anjali, you have the floor.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. I'm here tonight to urge you to move forward with Fairview Development Center's specific plan and approve the housing development range recommended by staff and supported through the planning commission process. We have asked professional staff and consultants research, analyze the impacts, listen to the community and bring forward a thoughtful recommendation. And now is your time to have the trust in the work that has been done and make a decision. Continuing to delay has a cost. We already have invested significant taxpayer dollars that time. Resources and years of community engagement for this process. Responsibility isn't just about how we spend the money has. Also, to do with making sure our investment produce results, continuing to spend public resources on planning without moving forward. Toward implementation is not the best use of our residents tax. Dollar, but this conversation is also about something much deeper and important for the future of Costa Mesa, which is housing affordability. We know it's increasingly difficult for renters, working families to afford to live in the city we call home. People who work here often cannot afford to live here and really providing opportunities for our future youth to live here and hopefully one day, have a home ownership and feel to allow it to be within their reach. This project provides an opportunity for you to change that trajectory. I want us to approve the housing range that gives a developer a real opportunity to explore the site's potential, including opportunities for for-time homebuyers and housing that is attainable for the workforce of Costa Mesa that makes it what it is. We have listened, we have studied, we have planned, and now we need it. to make a responsible decision and move forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Anjali. Is Wendy back?

Wendy, please.

Can you hear me now? Yeah, you still got the same problem, Wendy. We're going to go to somebody else, and then we're going to go back to you.

Phone number ending in 613, please. 613, you have the floor.

Good evening.

Thank you for this chance to speak this time. I WANTED TO MAKE A COUPLE OF OBSERVATIONS ABOUT WHAT'S GOING ON. FIRST, I DON'T THINK THAT THIS CITY COUNCIL SHOULD VOTE ON THIS. ESSENTIALLY YOU GUYS ARE A LAME DUCK COUNCIL AND THIS COUNCIL WILL BE HEADED UP BY NEW MEMBERS AND I DON'T THINK THAT IT'S FAIR TO THEM TO HAVE TO DEAL WITH DECISIONS SO CLOSE TO THE NEW COUNCIL BEING SEATED. SOMETHING I HAVEN'T HEARD TONIGHT IS, YOU KNOW, COASTA MESA is basically in the best location in the planet and it's going to be expensive to live here and my heart goes out to people who are struggling to make ends meet like that lady who spoke about her um nanny earlier how she wanted her to live nearby um she could also pay her nanny more that would be a step in the right direction um the um you know there's a lot of a lot of um things wrong with this project. It's way too dense. It's way too dense. It needs to be shaved down. This is an opportunity to put a nice project in here, not something to fill up the space as much as we can, which brings me to my main point tonight. This process that we're engaged in, if we take a step back, is actually a symptom of the cancer in California. And it's the mandates that Sacramento is putting down on cities to have control of their destiny with their housing mandates. And this cancer can be cured, but it needs an engaged population. The problem California has is we elect Democrats. And Democrats do everything with politics in mind. There's a reason why they want this to be so dense. Orange County is red because it's not very dense. It's a common fact that the more dense something gets, the more blue it gets. So instead of earning votes through good policies, they're playing a different game to get votes to go their way. It always comes down to politics. If we want to change the direction that the states have heading with regards to development, we need to not stop electing Democrats. That is what we can do. So please get informed. understand that votes have consequences. I don't think this council is going to take into consideration residential concerns. They haven't done it so far. And in terms of achievement, I think this council has done more damage to the city than Menzfinger and Raeheimer. I think it's a magnitude of 10. This, you know, it's, it's a shame to see what's being done. And the facade of asking questions about diesel.

All right, Chris, that's good. Back to Wendy. No, still gotcha. It's not working out, Wendy.

Try again. Anybody else?

Yes, Chris. Okay, let's go back to whoever's else and then we'll try Wendy again. Wendy, it's just intolerable. Kirk, please. Kirk, you got the floor.

Thank you for that. Can you guys hear me?

Yes.

Excellent. Council, thank you so much for your time tonight. This has been quite the marathon. I appreciate you taking the time. Again, I'm Kurt Rawlinson. I'm a Costa Mesa resident here up in the Pala Radio neighborhoods. Again, as someone, as really a sample of one here, wanted to just add in a couple pieces of narrative I've heard throughout the night here, which is I'm able to participate with this through a Zoom conversation because I was out on the field coaching my kids' soccer teams this evening. I've been able to participate in this process online and through digital means to follow the process. I've been able to join in-person sessions along the way. I've received mailers. I've seen these all. So I applaud you for the way in which you've tried your best to connect and reach out to the community here. And I know it is a, it's a challenging, challenging situation to try and be able to serve all these different constituents and different voices and people along the way. And so I, I, as an individual and for my family here, I'm lucky to be homeowners and we were only able to be able to do that because we were able to cobble together multiple different family members support. So much like that teacher, um, Um, earlier today, who I actually happened to recognize as I coached her daughter on a soccer team years ago. Um, and so it's exciting to see our community coming together on this topic. And I'm, I'm here to advocate and to support for our. Our staff's recommendation to the full extent of the. to the allotment because again, we have to keep moving. We can't bother to continue to fight the state of California for what this is. And this is the opportunity to take something to make a real impact for half of our population that is truly struggling to make ends meet and to survive the challenges we all have each and every day to keep a roof over our head. And so again, I thank you for the time this late night and I support the measure.

Thank you. Let's do it, Wendy. One more time.

Okay. I think I figured it out. I had two.

You got it, Wendy. You got it. This better be good.

Okay. I'm a 54-year resident of this wonderful city. I love the diversity. That's why I've stayed so long. I love the discussion tonight, the robust input from the citizens, and listening to the diversity of views regarding housing and the golf course. however i i will say that the outreach from the get-go three years ago when we were curious and and tried to learn more about the eoc has been the outreach even though i commend the consultants has been less than robust because tonight was the first time we really got down to the nitty-gritty as far as what the impacts are going to be That's one of my main concerns, that the air quality and the traffic on fair and harbor, I don't think everybody's really being realistic about that and what's going to happen with 20,000 new people coming to the center of our city. I think there's many unanswered questions that have been brought up tonight, especially regarding things like open space and the golf course, and who knew about you can only have 10 to 20% Costa Mesa residents apply for for housing. I'd like to see you continue the dialogue. Maybe we can come to some kind of compromise. It's my opinion. It's premature to vote on tonight. Maybe we could go to 3000 with some kind of. Housing tax credit and still include the affordable housing. So I'll be praying for you But I think there's still a lot of loose ends.

Thank you very much for your patience with me tonight Thanks Wendy And then and Wendy thanks for your persistence and your prayers. Yes anybody else? No public comment. Okay. I've got a But how do you know you're going to second my motion? Okay, so anyway, so I've got a motion I'm going to throw out there. But listen, this is a starting place. If I get a second, I'll talk about it, and then I'll be open. Well, I don't know. We'll see. Maybe he'll withdraw when he hears the motion. You know, and then... WE'LL TALK ABOUT AMENDMENTS AND THINGS LIKE THAT. SO UNIT COUNT OVERALL, 2,000. AFFORDABLE UNITS, 600. OPEN SPACE, 25 ACRES MINIMUM. COMMERCIAL UNITS, COMMERCIAL 15,000 square feet. So just to be clear that, you know, just to give it some, it's 2,000 instead of 2,300. There's a reason for it. WHICH I'LL GET TO. IT'S 600 INSTEAD OF 920. I'LL EXPLAIN THAT TOO. OPEN SPACE IS 25 INSTEAD OF 14. COMMERCIAL IS 15 INSTEAD OF 10, MINIMUM. NO CUT THROUGH THE GOLF COURSE UNDER THE CURRENT STATE OF INFORMATION. AND THAT'S SELF-EXPANDING. I WOULD WANT THAT IN THE PLAN. IF A SECONDARY ACCESS IS NECESSARY, FOR EXAMPLE, BECAUSE DENSITY BONUS OR ANYTHING THAT INCREASES THE UNITS TO MAKE A SECONDARY ACCESS REQUIRED. WORK WITH DDS ON A MITIGATION PLAN TO USE MARIMAC. THERE'S MANY THINGS I THINK THAT CAN BE DONE AND DO THAT IF NECESSARY AS OPPOSED TO CUTTING THROUGH THE GOLF COURSE. THE OPEN SPACE WOULD INCLUDE LIGHT AT SPORTS FIELDS AND PARKS AMONG OTHER AMENITIES. THE COMMERCIAL SPACE WOULD BE GEARED TOWARD SERVING THE RESIDENTS OF THE FAIR VIEW DEVELOPMENTAL CENTER COMPLEX AND PROVIDING GOODS AND SERVICES AND AMENITIES TO THOSE RESIDENTS TO AVOID UNNECESSARY TRIPS OUTSIDE THE NEIGHBORHOOD ONTO HARBOR. The staff will have discussions, is directed to have discussions with the state of California to, and I'm not sure which agency you do this with, maybe DDS, to address two things. To look at whether or not in as much as we have two things that have changed, because we have put ENTITLED 243 PERMANENT SUPPORTIVE UNITS IN COASTA MESA AND SINCE THE 200 PERMANENT SUPPORTIVE UNITS HAVE BEEN REQUIRED, THE DDS HAS ALREADY ALSO TAKEN 15 ACRES TO INCLUDE DDS HOUSING, WHETHER THAT 200 PERMANENT SUPPORTIVE UNITS IS STILL NECESSARY. AND THE REASON FOR THAT IS I THINK THAT WOULD IMPROVE THE THE FINANCIAL FEASIBILITY. ALSO HAVE DISCUSSIONS WITH THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA WITH RESPECT TO PROVIDING A SUBSIDY OF NO LESS THAN $30 MILLION TO THE DEVELOPER TO IMPROVE THE FEASIBILITY IN AS MUCH AS THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA WAS THE ONE THAT CREATED THE TOXIC CONDITION THAT'S INCREASING THE COST OF DEVELOPMENT. THE DEVELOPMENT WILL HAVE A REASONABLE MIX. I THINK THIS MIGHT BE IN THE PLAN ALREADY OF RENTER AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING. SORRY, RENTER AND OWNERSHIP HOUSING IS WHAT I MEANT TO SAY. RENTAL AND OWNERSHIP HOUSING. AND THAT'S WHAT I HAVE. ARE YOU WILLING TO SECOND THAT? one possible amendment, but I want to hear you speak first. OK. Let me just go through it. So all the people that spoke about affordable housing, you're right. And we do need affordable housing. There are 600 units in this motion. That leaves us with a little bit of a buffer. It also means that we will, in our housing element, have 4,847 units. So cutting down to 320 units to make this site work, I think, is a reasonable thing to do and doesn't mean that we don't care about affordable housing. As a matter of fact, when we pass this, unanimously passed the Costa Mesa Villages Solution back in January of 2020, We didn't have really any affordable units specifically, except for we had a veterans housing campus of 311 units, and we had 200 permanent supportive housing. That was before we had done our two home key projects and our senior center project, of course. And we all voted on that unanimously and viewed that as a good and compassionate plan. And I mean, I just watched that tape and it was all the same people, except for JEFF, LAUREN, AND MIKE. SO, I MEAN, I THINK THAT THIS IS REALLY DOES A LOT FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING. THE 2,000 UNITS, I JUST THINK THAT 4,000 UNITS IS ALMOST NOT HABITABLE. I DON'T THINK IT'S A I LOOK AT THE SLIDE THAT WE PUT UP. that is an artist's rendering of what 4,000 units looks like. I wouldn't want to live there. I just don't think it would be a nice place to live or marketable. And so I just can't support that level of density. In addition to that, we've heard from an overwhelming number of members of the public concerns about traffic, I think legitimate concerns. about traffic and the impacts associated with 4,000 units. And I credit those concerns. The open space, increasing it to 25, that is 25% of the original footprint before the EOC was taken. That's 15 units and before the DDS TOOK 15 UNITS TO PUT DDS HOUSING, WHICH I DO SUPPORT, BY THE WAY, BUT I DON'T THINK THAT THOSE TWO DECISIONS BY THE STATE SHOULD REQUIRE THE CITY OF COASTA MESA TO TAKE A HAIRCUT ON THE OPEN SPACE. WITH RESPECT TO THE COMMERCIAL, INCREASING THE COMMERCIAL SPACE, I REALLY THINK IT'S IMPORTANT to have enough commercial space there to have it be a village that people can really enjoy. You see this a lot in Huntington Beach. I was just at Dos Amigos on the corner of Brookhurst and Atlanta on Friday, and I realized, as I looked around, I said, most of the people here live in the neighborhoods around that. And I'd like to see this be... A village where that's the case where most of the people where if there's a sports bar if there's a restaurant or if there's a dry cleaners that people go there and they see their neighbors and they eat with them and they break bread with them. I think that that would be wonderful and so I would like to put something in the plan that creates that vision. With respect to the golf course, yeah, it's just too important to the community. I mean, there are 90,000 rounds of golf played there every year. It's incredibly important also to our fiscal health. We haven't talked about that, but $4 million drops to the bottom line. We need that money. AS ONE OF THE LAST SPEAKERS SAID, MESA LINDA IS A PARTICULARLY GOOD COURSE FOR SENIORS AND Girls learning how to play golf, boys learning how to play golf, the young youth golfers, and also it is true that it's better for women. It's shorter. Of course, my wife plays Los Lagos as well, so I don't want to be sexist here. Women can certainly play Los Lagos. But it is helpful for that. And also, there's a lot of nonprofits that make a lot of money out of that. And finally, it just brings people a lot of joy in our community. And it brings a lot of people to Costa Mesa. So I'm not prepared. Based on the information we have right now, which is basically nothing, I mean, respectfully to Placeworks, just kind of a very high-level discussion of the historical criteria That I don't think really dug into the meaning of that golf course to our community. There's no information about how much it would take to mitigate the cut through. There's just nothing. So I just think it would be extremely irresponsible to vote for a cut through of our golf course when we don't have any information about the cost of the impact. I will not do that. uh anyway um what else i think that's about it i mean that that's what i have i mean that i will tell you this too um just in IS I THINK I AM IN SOMEWHAT ACCOUNTABLE FOR I THINK WHAT WE'VE HAD HERE. I DO BELIEVE THAT WE SHOULD HAVE HAD AN AD HOC COMMITTEE. I SHOULD HAVE BEEN A BETTER LEADER ABOUT THAT. WE SHOULD HAVE HAD A CITY COUNCIL AD HOC COMMITTEE FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. WE HAD ONE. COUNCILMEMBER MAR, MAYOR FOLEY AND I WERE We're the ad hoc committee for Fairview Developmental Center. We disbanded it. Maybe we shouldn't have disbanded it, but when we got deeply into this in 2023, we should have brought it back, right? I think we could have had off a lot of these discussions. Also, some community members have been calling for a citizens committee. We should have done that. And we should have gone out and been a little bit more proactive. I thought that the town hall we did the other day was productive. We should have been doing that for the last three or four years. So to the extent that my leadership has failed us in terms of getting community information earlier in the process, I'm sorry about that and I'm accountable.

I'M GOING TO ASK STAFF TO PASS OUT SOME PRINTOUTS. THESE ARE JUST NOTES ON SORT OF MINOR TEXT EDITS. I THINK IT'S ALL COMPLEMENTARY TO WHAT YOU SAID BUT I JUST WANT TO GET THOSE IN FRONT OF COUNCIL SO THEY CAN LOOK THROUGH AND CONSIDER FOR POTENTIAL INCORPORATION IN THE MOTION. RIGHT. THANK YOU.

ONE LAST THING BEFORE I TURN IT OVER TO THE SECOND AND AS I SAY I'M OPEN TO ALL KINDS OF DIFFERENT amendments. But I don't think we should put this off. I mean, we're running out of time. We don't have any time. And that does not ever foreclose a future council for completely undoing what we're doing. So I do think that we owe it to ourselves and to the community to make a decision here. You're the second. Go, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mayor Stephens. My intuition was pretty on point because everything you recommended, I was going to agree with. The only question mark is the affordable units, but I'll put a pin on that until I make my next couple kind of comments. From my perspective, this has been a long journey. We've been talking about this since I first got on city council about eight years ago. I have been kind of clear from the beginning to my council peers that I've always figured the state would weigh its heavy hand on a property they own. And I think it's about time I share my thoughts on this. And it's really just two quick thoughts. I'll vote for any plan today at any unit level that will advance housing on this site. Because I'm at my bone in my bones, I know we need more housing. I'm also not blind that when you have housing that's palpable to the community. It is not my duty to make this palpable for developer. It is my duty to hear the concerns of residents, address those concerns, and advance as much housing as we possibly can within this site. My second point, which is where staff will help me out, is I'm not wedded to any affordable unit number the same way I'm not wedded to any actual housing number. But I do have one thing that's very important to me. I do not want to come back to this council and have to find new sites for affordable units. So I'll ask a very direct question. Is 600 units enough of a buffer for us to not have to come back to find more affordable housing units?

I DO NOT BELIEVE IT IS. I BELIEVE WE WOULD NEED TO REOPEN THE HOUSING ELEMENT AND IDENTIFY ADDITIONAL SITES BECAUSE HCD IS NOT GOING TO ALLOW US TO HAVE SUCH A LOW BUFFER AT LOW AND VERY LOW. IN ADDITION, WHAT I WOULD SAY, IT'S A MATTER OF A MONTH, TWO MONTHS BEFORE WE HAVE ANOTHER PROJECT WHERE WE WOULD NEED TO MAYBE UTILIZE THAT BUFFER AND WE WOULD BE RIGHT INTO LOSS FINDINGS. My best prediction today is that, yes, we would likely need to revise the housing element.

Okay. To the best of your ability, I know I can't give you an exact, what number would make you feel more comfortable that the next council would have to come and find new units?

I think staff's recommendation would be the affordable housing, what's already identified in the housing element currently. That will allow us... Yes, 920. That will allow us to get certification with HCD.

So Mayor Stephens, you just heard my two kind of guiding principles. Would you be comfortable going back to 921? 920. 920?

The only reason I reduced it was to make it more financially feasible. But I had some other, okay, let me ask you another question, which you might not be able to answer, but maybe the folks from Placeworks would be able to answer. If we went to a plan which had two elements, 920 affordable units and no cut through the golf course, is there any way we can have these other things that we consider in terms of a subsidy, in terms of reducing the amount of permanent supportive housing and as much as we've got a lot of permanent supportive housing, any way we can make it financially feasible? AT, AGAIN, IT DOESN'T MATTER IF IT'S 2300 OR 2399, WHATEVER IT IS. NO CUT THROUGH THE GOLF COURSE, 920 UNITS.

I'M NOT SURE HOW TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION. YOU KNOW, A STAFF IS GOING TO CONTINUE TO ITERATE THAT A PLAN THAT MEETS THE HOUSING ELEMENT IS for certification. The city council, it's within your purview to direct staff to continue to explore options that don't cut through the golf course, to look at potential subsidies, to go back and have discussions with the state. I mean, those are things that we can relatively agree to.

To discuss, for example, Merrimack as a secondary access.

Yes, correct.

Because in terms of Merrimack as a secondary access, just can I say, is first of all, I know it was viewed as a private road, but it's been a public road in terms of its use for as long as I can remember. I have driven through it numerous times in deliberating on this decision. and it used to cut through all the way to fairview developmental center when fairview developmental center was open it's only since it's shut down that that you can't get through there there's a temporary gate number one number two i mean i've talked to octa um i've talked to uh experts on um uh on uh YOU KNOW, DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES, AND I SHOWED THEM THE LETTER THAT WE GOT, WHICH I THOUGHT WAS NOT VERY CONVINCING, AND THEY SAID, NO. I MEAN, THERE'S WAYS TO MITIGATE IT. I MEAN, RIGHT NOW, IF YOU GO TO through Harbor Village. First of all, it's a short drive. Second of all, there's speed bumps. It's a 10 mile per hour speed limit, and you cannot get over 20, even if you're speeding. It's impossible. You could put more signs up, whatever, right? Here's my problem. It's their It's the state's road, it's the state's site, but they want to cut a road through our golf course. I don't get it. We're getting burdened. Let's let him finish. I actually don't mind if you mark once again. Okay, go ahead.

Because I actually have some thoughts on this. Yes, yes, please. So, I mean, it's not so much that they're forcing us to cut through the golf course. It's that the study is saying once we get to a certain number of units, The likely traffic impacts will make it really difficult to come out of one exit. We all agree having them 0.3 miles apart doesn't make a ton of sense. And so I think maybe it's an order of operations issue, right? Like number one is force a negotiation of some type, first to confirm the emergency vehicles. I mean, secondly, there's a discussion about pedestrians and bikes and their ability to use Merrimack. And let's prioritize that conversation. If that is the hang up of this entire project, I have a feeling that people are going to be inclined to negotiate. Number two, I think the second thing after that is to revise the traffic study once we get to, I don't know, 1,200, 1,500 units. If they build the senior tower first, we likely do not have the traffic that is being perfectly modeled right now that kind of assumes it's a linear curve, right? We know that at our own senior center, for example, a lot of folks don't drive. And so I think we need to revise that traffic model as we sort of inch closer to that threshold and then take a realistic view. I mean, heck, if we keep building out bike lanes at the rate we're doing right now, maybe there will be in 12 years a substantively different traffic number that comes up. So I think that's number two. And third, if we get to that point where a density bonus forces the density to be higher, we can't use Merrimack despite all of our best efforts at negotiation. The traffic study shows that we're still exceeding the capacity for that intersection at fare. Then we force a developer to go through a full, complete redesign of Mesa Linda and go through a public process whereby they're demonstrating the viability of the golf course, yada, yada, yada. So I think you can say take all of those steps before we get there.

Then you go to a developer and say, You you're bringing an amendment to the specific plan correct right and then to get us to amend the specific plan This is way down the road and she says ten years from now you have to convince the golfing community and the council that this is better and I think that I'm I'm on board with what council member Mara is saying because I mean as much as we love Those guys are still here. As much as we love our Mesa Linda and everything like that, I don't think anybody's deluding themselves to think that Mesa Linda is Augusta Golf Course. I mean, you know, roads do go through golf courses, but what doesn't happen is you don't have a mature golf course that opened in 1967 and you cut a 60-foot road through there with no mitigation in front of the Government body who's authorizing it that that I don't think I'm not gonna ever vote for that So anyway, but I like what you're saying, which is And so maybe let's see this what if I were to to To amend amend the motion and we'll go with 920 well for affordable units will say WE'LL JUST SAY 2300, MAKE IT EASY ON OUR STAFF IN TERMS OF THE HOUSING ELEMENT. AND THEN WE SAY NO CUT THROUGH THE GOLF COURSE. PRIORITIZE NEGOTIATIONS ON THE USE OF MERIMAC IF A SECONDARY ACCESS IS NECESSARY AT A PHASE WHEN WE HAVE AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE TRAFFIC AND AN AMENDED TRAFFIC REPORT IS DONE. Okay? Does that capture what you said?

Yes, I think so. Okay.

And we're still at 15,000 commercial square footage and 25 open space.

Can I ask a question about the commercial? Yes. I'm sorry. People have their mics on, so I don't know if I'm jumping order here. the commercials continue to confuse me. There's a commercial and then there's other commercial in the plan. And so if we say 15,000, we're talking about retail. Are we leaving the other commercial at 76,000 or do we now need to adjust that number based on the open space number and the other commercial number?

I think the 76,000 square feet of commercial are you referring to that was identified in the feasibility report in the appendix? Because the plan allows only a maximum of 35,000 square feet of commercial, which includes the community serving retail commercial uses that are all outlined in the land use plan.

I'm on 2-27 of the specific plan, which I now recognize is what ONE STEP OUT OF DATE FROM WHAT THE REST OF COUNCIL HAS BUT I LIKED MY STICKY VERSION.

IF I MAY, COUNCIL MEMBER MAHER. PLEASE HELP ME. IT'S A TABLE. IT CONFUSES ME TOO. IT'S JUST A DESCRIPTION OF WHAT WAS STUDIED IN THE MARKET STUDY BUT IN TERMS OF THE REQUIREMENT AND THE SPECIFIC PLAN WHAT WAS IN FRONT OF US WAS THE 35,000 MAXIMUM WHICH THE MOTION IS PROPOSING TO DROP DOWN TO 15,000.

THAT'S THE MINIMUM. SORRY. THE 15,000 IS THE MINIMUM. Not the maximum. There's no maximum.

Okay.

Oh, that's different.

Page six of the summary. Finally, the plan area could also provide retail and other commercial development to serve the needs. The analysis recommends that the plan accommodate 29,000 to 55,000 square feet of gross retail and another 76,000 square feet of gross floor area for other commercial businesses such as fitness center and medical or professional offices. So I guess that's where I'm like, okay, we're 29,000 to 55,000 square feet of gross floor area, I'm guessing was based on 4,000.

It supports the inclusion, but the recommendation was a maximum of 35.

Of the appendix? It's of the market study.

Yeah.

But it's an and. It's 29,000 retail and another 76,000 square feet for other commercial businesses.

If I may, Council Member Maher, I think that study was just trying to illustrate the sweet spot for commercial, what could be accommodated in the plan. And then we'd set the maximum to give a little bit additional flexibility just in case those market conditions changed as it gets developed over 15, 20 years.

So how did we go from 100,000 square feet of retail and other commercial to 10,000?

Council Member Amar? Help me. Sorry, Carrie Tai here. So, yeah, the difference here is that there's a market study to show just generally in the specific plan area what the square footage of commercial area that the future population might support, but there is also an overarching trend of decreasing brick and mortar, for example, and there is along Harper Boulevard an abundance of commercial shopping centers in close proximity. And so between the two, between that factor and also factoring in trying to balance development intensity when we develop the scope to study under the environmental impact report, we had to pick a number of units. We had to pick a certain scope of commercial to study. And so 35,000 is on the lower end of what the retail square footage would generally support, but it's within the range that could be supported. So in other words, it's economically viable. So that's how 35,000 maximum was, was identified to be studied. 10,000 minimum was identified to ensure that there would be amenities within the specific plan area. So that's how the range was crafted for, when we had to come up with the project description to study under environmental. So having explained that, I also want to make sure we're clear. Because we studied a minimum of 10,000 and a maximum of 35,000, the council can adjust the minimum upward because we've already studied up to 35,000. However, we could not increase the maximum because we haven't studied that. The maximum in the specific plan that was studied was 35,000. Thank you.

So why don't we say for the motion, 15,000 to 35,000. I don't really know what number it is. I don't know what number it is. You understand my vision, right? Dos amigos. Yes.

I have a clarifying question because I know we got from Reynolds this. TEXTUAL EDITS. HAVE WE STARTED TALKING ABOUT THESE YET? NOT YET. I HAVE A COMMENT FOR ONE OF THESE.

CAN I JUMP IN ON A COMMENT?

HOLD ON ONE SECOND. IS THE SECOND OKAY WITH 15? YES. THE 35? OKAY. MIKE, I'M SORRY, COUNCIL MEMBER BUEHLER. I JUST WANT TO BE HEARD AND THEN WE'LL GO TO CLARIFICATION.

There was this discussion, we've gone from 2,000 to now 2,300 units, and it sounds like there's discussion what triggers the secondary access road. And just so I can understand your motion, that in the motion, if we up it to this 2,300, in the event it's gonna trigger a secondary access road, I'm not clear on what happens next. What prohibition do we have if the, Density bonus adjustment comes in on the 2300 that makes it an obligation for safety reasons to get the secondary access road What controls do we have? I think you said that the developer will have to come back to council. What language are we putting in your motion to guard against that?

So we're saying no, well, I would say no, based on what we have right now, no cut through the golf course. That's clear. That's going to be in the specific plan. Then what we had with Council Member Maher's addition is you know before a decision is made with respect to whether uh... secondary access is necessary there would be an additional traffic plan a new traffic plan based on development that has developed to that point in time because we've got what what is it called a developmental review application okay so we've got that week maybe have different phasing or whatever and so We don't make the decision now that there's a secondary access. It's delayed. If there's a secondary access, then the first option is to negotiate with the state and Merrimack. If for whatever reason that fails and then only then, IF A DEVELOPER WANTS TO AMEND THE SPECIFIC PLAN, WHICH THEY WOULD HAVE TO DO TO BRING IN AN ACCESS TO THE GOLF COURSE, THEY WOULD HAVE TO COME IN WITH A BUDGET, COMMITMENTS, DESIGNS, EVERYTHING THAT IS SUFFICIENT TO SATISFY OUR COMMUNITY, AND WE WOULD HAVE A SIMILAR MEETING LIKE THIS, BUT A LOT MORE ENGAGEMENT WITH THE GOLF COMMUNITY BEFORE WE GET TO THIS POINT.

AND WE WOULD HAVE TO APPROVE IT.

And we would have to approve it. You have to amend the specific plan.

That will have to come back to council to make that action?

Yes. With all the plans and all the budgets and all the financial commitments, all the renderings and engagement with the golf community. Not where we're at right now.

And where are we at with affordable?

Are we back down to six or nine? Yeah, we're going to go to 23 and 920 so that we don't bollocks up our housing element concern. Yes, Council Member Guimaraes.

Thank you. So I have some friendly amendments. Yes. Okay, let me go through this. It's just a few, but I think they're really important. The first thing is, this is based on a lot of constituent requests. I think we definitely need to have A COMMITTEE OR I GUESS A COMMITTEE ON FDC WHERE WE CAN APPOINT SEVEN PEOPLE. I HEARD 11 AT ONE POINT BUT SEVEN PEOPLE ON THIS PROJECT MOVING FORWARD.

I'M GOOD WITH THAT. SECOND, ARE YOU GOOD WITH THAT, A COMMITTEE?

ANYTHING YOU WANT, YES.

COMMITTEE WITH SEVEN PEOPLE AND OKAY, THAT'S GOOD. SO THAT'S APPROVED BY THE MOVEMENT AND THE SECOND.

SORRY, I DON'T UNDERSTAND. WHAT IS THE COMMITTEE?

CITIZENS COMMITTEE REGARDING FDC. THERE'S GOING TO BE A LOT OF STUFF GOING ON. THERE'S GOING TO BE A LOT OF ACTIVITY INTO THE FUTURE.

FOR AN APPROVED PLAN?

NO, NO, BECAUSE WHEN WE'RE GOING TO GET AT SOME POINT WE'RE GOING TO GET A DEVELOPMENT.

THE CITIZENS ADVISORY COMMITTEE IS NOT GOING TO NEGOTIATE A DA ON OUR BEHALF.

So the development review application that that's the first out of the gate application that's a Planning Commission level application so it would be Decided upon by the Planning Commission after staff review Yeah, I would it would it would a city Citizens Advisory Committee that's been requested by a lot of people would it hurt Three years I mean, I think nothing would hurt. I think some of the considerations would be the roles and responsibilities of the committee and how that fits into what the currently defined responsibilities of staff and the currently defined responsibilities of the planning commission.

That could be figured out by another council.

May I suggest that if you want to include that, that it be the makeup and duties of that committee would come back for future discussion and action?

Is that okay, Councilmember?

Yeah, as long as we have it in there. I just don't want to get to push through without giving the opportunity to the residents of the community.

Okay. It's fine with me.

Okay. Um, secondarily, I think that we need to have an ad hoc committee for the next council that comes in on this moving forward for whatever happens.

I'm fine with me.

Like I said, as long as you include the nine 21 units or nine 20 units, I'm happy with anything.

Okay. And then the last, uh, last but not least, um, any property, existing on FDC that is contiguous, excuse me, contiguous with the golf course Shelby R1 housing?

You want to accept that?

Well, I mean, I don't mind it in theory. It's just don't we need the density to make it profitable? Well, I don't know. I don't know. See, earlier I made the comment that it's not my job to make it profitable to the developer, knowing that they'll probably work with the state along the way to make edits to anything we do. I just think we get more profitability having more units in a tower than R1, because there's more units that face the golf course we could charge.

WELL, I DO THINK, I UNDERSTAND THE REASON FOR IT. THERE'S A COUPLE REASONS. NUMBER ONE IS THAT'S PRIME PROPERTY AND IT WOULD MAKE, I THINK, SOME REALLY NICE HOMES THAT WOULD BE MARKETABLE. BUT ULTIMATELY IT'S THE DECISION OF THE DEVELOPER. SO WHAT CAN WE PUT IN THERE, STAFF, CAN WE PUT IN THERE THAT It can we put it to we could we put in the specific plan that the developer will consider? You know providing single-family homes In contiguous to the golf course if I can ask what can we put in there sure?

all housing element sites have a minimum density and The state requires that minimum density.

I don't know if Melinda if you can Advise on that number, please

Generally minimum density is 30 dwelling units per acre for lower income housing to be accommodated on the site There's state statute that allows by right housing Processing for lower income if there's a minimum of 20 dwelling units per acre provided That's for ministerial processing So we'll have no our one housing on this whole project on this site. That's specific plan does allow single-family housing development, it is an option in the land use table. So it's not saying it can't be done. There's flexibility on what a master developer could propose and where they can place it. I mean, I'm talking about like a narrow green belt.

Yeah, a narrow green belt along. ANY PROPERTY THAT BORDERS THE GOLF COURSE. RIGHT.

IT'S KIND OF AKIN IN A WAY TO THE PROPERTY WE APPROVED IN COUNCIL MEMBER GOMERO'S DISTRICT THAT HAD THE SINGLE FAMILY HOUSING ON BEAR STREET AROUND THE MORE HIGHLY DENSE HOUSING.

RIGHT. SO THE DEVELOPER, IF THEY HAD TO ACHIEVE THE MINIMUM DENSITY, IT MEANS THAT THEY WOULD POTENTIALLY USE DIFFERENT PRODUCT TYPES. single-family homes are allowed, but that would mean they would have to build a higher density building somewhere else. But it's certainly allowed, and it's up for them to propose. But if we restricted certain areas to a lower density, typically R1 is four to six dwelling units per acre, the rest of the site still has to average out. We just can't limit it so that the site can't achieve minimum density.

I have a question. Can we just zone that area for the possibility for an option and we can look at it later? I don't want to exclude it.

It already has that.

Has what?

It already has the possibility of single family homes.

Anywhere on the whole site?

Anywhere on the whole site.

Okay.

Mayor.

Is that sufficient for you? I mean, what if we did this? I'm just brainstorming. What if we just dropped a footnote in that table and said R1, and we just said a footnote, preferred contiguous to the golf course, something like that? Not required, but preferred.

Yeah, if I could ask, I mean, when you say R1, I assume we're talking about single-family homes. Yeah, so certainly single-family homes are already allowed. R1 is a zoning, so it's a little bit different terminology. We just have to use the terminology. Single-family homes. Perfect.

That's already there. We do a footnote, and it says preferred contiguous to the golf course.

To my concern, since we're having a discussion, if I can just jump in. My concern about it, so it's definitely a possibility. It creates some other trade-offs, right, that I'm For example, if we're preferring single-family homes, there's gonna be a trade-off potentially in less open space, right? So if we're forcing a lower density in certain areas, there's less opportunity for open space, which is another priority that we've been trying to push for. Similarly, to make, as Director Tai was saying, to make up for that lower density, It might force other buildings to go taller and there was concerns about Heights as well. So I'd prefer to allow the Flexibility it's certainly an option, but I I don't want to Sort of lean into that trade-off away from Lower Heights and more density.

I'm sorry in more open space so councilmember Camaros are you okay with the ability but not a preference or requirement I

Yeah, I'm gonna, yeah, I guess so. I just, I definitely want to see this have a blend of homes and not just a bunch of apartments and high density and so, okay.

That's it. John, real quick, did you have an athletic field in your original motion? I could have said that. Yeah, I did.

Yeah, I had lighted sports fields.

With lights. With lights. Yes. All right, getting sweeter.

Anybody got anything else? Okay?

If I can, oh, yeah.

Does anybody want to speak to the motion? Mayor, can I give some context? Oh, yeah, you've got your list.

I jumped in because I wanted to get this in front of you guys to take a look at. So what I asked staff to print out for council is, I'm going to call them more minor text edits. I think generally what I've been sort of putting together as I read the plan, have reviewed with staff, edited a bit during public comment based on what I heard. Suggestions organized by chapter, and I'm just gonna try to, you know, generally emphasizing things that we've heard are priorities. There's a reference to Merrimack Way. Gosh, it's almost midnight, okay. Making sure it's clear that that, you know, hopefully in the future is a actual roadway access, but is and shall be maintained for bike ped access in the near term. There's lots of emphasis on shade. I didn't think that was strong enough. There are requirements on shade, but I didn't think that was strong enough, so I'm suggesting adding some additional recommendations on shade. That's both a part of our pedestrian master plan to encourage more comfortable walking environments. I think our extreme heat weeks this past month demonstrate why that's important. lots of emphasis on trees, which is something that we've brought up here. Going down to, oops. Okay, so in the mobility section, really emphasizing the slow speeds. This is something I think we hear a lot of support for in terms of creating a neighborhood environment. So a lot of these text edits are emphasizing the intention and objective of slow speeds on streets to create a more comfortable environment. Again emphasizing shade on the walkways A correction that staff number 13 is a correction that staff confirmed should be fixed in the open space just wanted to add reference to no requirements, but reference to some of the Open space amenities that I know have been discussed at the PACS Commission. So And actually at Council community gardens dog runs not requirements just references noise and lighting impacts. There was an item that said noise and lighting impacts from sports field. I want to expand that to protecting residents from noise and lighting impacts from any park amenities. Number 17 is a correction that staff confirmed. We require trees to be replaced at a three to one ratio. You heard me ask about the fencing number 18. Just don't want to make that a requirement More shade number 20 is a little bit different this is related to the community gardens discussion. That's happening at the PACS Commission allowing fruit trees It's not something that we currently allow it's not requiring it, but it would allow it And if we wanted to beef that up with some you know Required maintenance language, I think that would be fine Chapter seven is emphasizing in the stormwater section, just emphasizing a priority for green stormwater infrastructure, capturing water on site, minimizing impacts to our citywide storm drain system, which we know is very expensive to maintain. And then lastly, in chapter eight, this is the section on requirements during construction. I didn't see anything there about public noticing or communication through the construction period, which we've heard here would be probably 20 years. So adding a requirement that there's a website that's maintained to keep the community aware of what's happening on the site.

happy to talk through any but i think these are reasonable and strengthen the plan i i have i have no objection to any of these uh has staff read this is there anything we i should be concerned about i have a clarifying question mr yes i i am familiar with fruit trees um my big fear of fruit trees that we attract pests like rats and stuff Just get really concerned when I see like a fruit tree and pull right away because who's gonna maintain it So how we make sure that we're not getting pests with these fruit trees Yeah Yeah, that's a concern that we have with fruit trees.

That's why we don't allow fruit trees at this time So that's a concern for us.

Oh really so can I can we scratch that one out? Okay?

What if it was so when is the fruit trees number 20? So what if I had? Because we've talked about this before. One thing that's unique about this site and actually great about some of our bigger development projects is we have opportunities where the public space is privately managed. So what if we added language instead of removing, again, this is just allowing it, not requiring it, but allowing fruit trees to be planted in public areas that are privately managed? Would that make you comfortable?

Council Member Reynolds, the issues are the same. If the private, whoever manages it, with all those pests and all that, it's up to them. We don't want to be responsible for having fruit trees that are infested and create a problem for us.

Why don't we just add this, Council Member Reynolds, if we say allow fruit trees to be planted in public areas provided that you know, what can we say, provided that it does not create a, what is it, like insect damage, or is it pest? Yeah, I'll maintain by private developer. Some private association. But also some provided that it doesn't create a pest problem, something like that. Right. Yes.

Is that okay? I mean, I don't, I don't think it's like worth adding the fruit tree thing, but sure.

Okay. We're this close. We're, we're, we're, we're a fruit tree away.

It's just like, I mean, again, it's fine. It's just whatever.

Good. Okay. Is everybody, is everybody good? We've talked a lot, but I mean, if people want to be heard about this, they can. I'd like to be a council member Buley. Yeah.

obviously significant motion and uh... pre-set all the efforts of staff pre-set uh... all the community came out and i appreciate the creative uh... motion but uh... by the mayor and i'm gonna support the motion but i just wanted to be heard on this motion you know to me what we've really been debating here whether we go uh... four thousand units high density or fifteen hundred units uh... it's a quality of life issue as quality of life issue for the affordable, people looking for affordable housing, they just want a house, they want an affordable house to get into, and it's a quality of life issue for the residents of the community who already exist here, who wanna have a community with parks and a place to build a life and raise a family, and not just a place to go rest your head. And that quality of life, what makes Costa Mesa great, it is for the people who do take advantage of this affordable housing. They want to move into Costa Mesa to have baseball fields with lighting and not impacted insane traffic. And so this whole debate was, yeah, quality of life, quality of life for people who are looking for a house, quality of life for once you get a house and you live here. What kind of community are we? And it's been extremely difficult to thread this needle. And I'll tell you, tonight I came here with a mindset. You heard me question about the ad hoc committee. And the mindset was maintain the quality of life in this city. We've got this last... key piece of property with some significant amount of open space and don't destroy the character of our city by planting this high density housing 4000 plus units right smack in the center of the city. And I was prepared to pick a low number if we got to that point. and asked staff to go back to the drawing board and look to reallocate these affordable housing numbers at other locations around the city because the center pristine location was not the place for that. And I was very pleased to see the 2000 number that Mayor Stevens proposed and the other Aspects of the motion are palatable. I like the fact that we go to 2300 I see this this language that we're going to put in there regarding the secondary ass Access Road is self-limiting to some degree in that we're not going to see this housing density number these bonus numbers get us up to the 3800 number parade of horribles that I learned of just in the last couple days and So I think that's creative. If they're going to have to come back because to trigger, it seems as a matter of fact, when you trigger beyond 2300, that's going to be the secondary access. That's when the negotiations and things are going to begin. So I just commend council, staff, and I know it's gonna be a difficult discussion now with HCD and what we've done with the housing element. And we've heard all this discussion about economic feasibility. And I'm sure staff is sitting there, oh, no, 2,300 with all these demands. And I appreciate the commentary that Vice Mayor Chavez. I'm not overly concerned about the economic feasibility to a developer. They can figure out how to make money off this project. So thanks.

Thank you. Okay. If we're going to talk more, we need to make a motion. We should make a motion to go past midnight.

So moved.

So moved. Any, any objection? Okay. That passes. Oh, you're, you're a no on it. We got it. We got it. We got at least call for the question. Does anybody else? So that passes. We're good with that. Uh, uh, you got that. Madam clerk, anybody else wish to be further heard on this? Uh, council member Reynolds.

I MISSED, CAN WE INCLUDE IN THE MOTION THE LIST OF RECOMMENDED TEXT EDITS WITH THE ADDITION ON NUMBER 20 ABOUT FRUIT TREES? YES.

We have a piece of paper we're going to give to the clerk and that is going to be part of the motion.

I'm voting for the fruit trees.

And thank you for preparing that.

Your mother will be pleased.

Thank you, Council Member Reynolds.

Yeah, I'll speak to it quickly. We're always trying to balance many, many, many things and I think most people recognize that. There's lots of trade-offs in this project. but a driving force from the beginning is looking for opportunities for affordable housing. Those of us who started in 2018, one of our first tasks was to tackle homelessness. If you can go back, remember that far. And then we said we're sort of moving up the line. How do we keep people housed? How do we give people a better quality of life? Having stable, affordable housing is foundational to having a better life in Costa Mesa. 50% of our population needs that. This site is not doing much for us now using it to provide affordable housing and then a project that builds that housing will bring other amenities. I like the increase to 25 acres of open space. I really like the priority that we need to clarify this the 10 to 20 percent minimum priority for Costa Mesa residents and businesses That's not a maximum. It doesn't mean only 10 or 20 percent This is something that's come up a lot if we're gonna build housing in Costa Mesa and some of the impacts that come with that Let's make sure it benefits the residents of Costa Mesa. So prioritizing to the extent we can without butting up against fair housing law making sure that Costa Mesa residents and workers have access and are prioritized in access to this housing, I think is really, really important. And I think we've been talking about that with every housing project. I'm, you know, It'll be 20 years until we see this built out. It's going to be a long, long, long process. But I really like the way it's framed in terms of what we're trying to accomplish. And Mayor, you covered this, right? A walkable community where people are making connections, moving around the site without a vehicle, right? Really minimizing vehicle impacts to the external neighborhood. Being in the center of the city, I'm hoping it's actually a connection point for people across the city too. As someone who lives on the far west side, I'll be able to get to some of the residential, or I'm sorry, commercial amenities here faster than I'll be able to get to amenities on the other side. So I do think it can have some beneficial traffic impacts as well by reducing the number of trips across the city. So I think there's a lot of really good things that come with this project. I think Staffie did a great job of balancing many, many, many competing forces. And well, We'll see how we feel in 20 years. I'm proud of this motion, and I thank you, Mayor, for making it.

You're welcome.