Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening.

Welcome to the meeting of the City of Toledo Planning Commission for June 22nd, 2026. Please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic from which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Could we get a roll call of the planning commission, please? Of course.

Commissioner Maynard?

Present.

Commissioner Penniman? Here. Commissioner Sirotkinen?

Here.

And Chair Miller?

Here.

And we'll note for the record that Commissioner Fullerton is absent. Thank you.

OK. Now is the time for the public forum. And at this time, the public shall have an opportunity to comment on any non-agenda item only relevant to the jurisdiction of the city. Do we have any speakers for the public forum?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have not received any speaker slips. And if attendees on the webinar wish to speak to any non-agenda items, please use the raised hand feature and I will call upon you. Madam Chair, I'm seeing none.

Thank you. Now, Director Imhoff, do we have any amendments or adjustments to the agenda?

Madam Chair, we have no amendments or adjustments.

Okay. We're going to move on to the administrative agenda. And this is for item A1. Mr. Clerk, could you please read item A1 into the record?

Yes, thank you. That is item A1, review and approval of the Planning Commission meeting minutes of April 27th, 2026 and June 8th, 2026. Okay. Do we have any...

Discussion on the minutes from any of the commissioners? Seeing none, do we have any public comments on the minutes?

Thank you, Madam Chair. If any attendees wish to make public comment for this item, please use the raised hand feature, and I will call upon you. Madam Chair, I'm seeing none.

Thank you. Do we have a motion to approve the minutes?

I'll make the motion. I'll second.

OK. Could we get a roll call vote, please, on the minutes?

Yes. Thank you. Commissioner Maynard?

Yes.

Commissioner Penniman? Aye. Vice Chair Sorokin? Yes. Thank you. And Chair Miller?

Aye. OK, next we'll go to item B1. This is a public hearing. Mr. Clerk, could you please open the public hearing item by reading the title of the agenda item into the record?

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. That is item B1, request for approval of a two-lot parcel map 32072, a new community assembly facility slash campus for Anthem Church with adjustments, parking lot improvements to Christ Lutheran Church campus with adjustments, and adoption of notice of exemption at the property located at 6595 Covington Way.

Very good. Commissioner Penniman, did you want to make a statement?

Yes, I am recusing myself from the public hearing on the Anthem Church tonight out of an abundance of caution and to avoid potential appearance of bias in the decision. I will not participate in the item tonight.

Thank you, Commissioner Peterman. We'll give you a minute to step outside. Okay, we're now going to check on ex parte disclosures. Do we want to go start with Commissioner Maynard, please?

I have had no ex parte communications, but I have visited the sites to view the story poles and surrounding area, and that's all I've got today. Okay.

Commissioner Sirotkin.

I have also not received any communications. And I didn't quite make it up there to see it, although I have driven past it several times.

OK. I have visited the site, but no ex parte communications. All right. I'd like to invite the staff to do their presentation now. Go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. Good evening, Commissioners. So as said, we are here tonight to review the Christ Lutheran Church and Anthem Chapel project, which includes also a two-lot subdivision. Staff is going to give a brief presentation, and then the applicant has requested to give some remarks as well following our presentation. So, again, just an overview of the project. It's at 6595 Covington Way. The existing parcel is a 3.4-acre site, currently zoned single-family residential. It's RS-8. So 8,000 square foot minimum lots in the RS-8. The existing use on the site is the Christ Lutheran Church. You'll probably see it and hear it referred to as CLC to make it shorter as we go along here. That campus was established in 1965. And community assembly uses were at that time and now as well approved or allowed with approval of a minor CUP. And so that CLC site received that in 1965. Just for further context, the site is east of Los Caneros Road, south of Covington Way, and adjacent to Lake Los Caneros Open Space and Fire Station 14. So digging a little deeper into the site history. So in 1965, as I mentioned, the County of Santa Barbara approved a CUP for the CLC campus. That included a sanctuary and some accessory buildings, as well as a parking lot. Fast forward to 2020, and Anthem Church started sharing the site with CLC. And around that time, Anthem moved their worship services to tents on the property during the COVID pandemic. And then since then, they've moved their services to the Goulida Valley Junior High for a single service worship once a week. Then in 2024, Anthem Church applied for the project in front of you tonight, and that application was deemed complete in April of 2025, and then was reviewed by the Design Review Board and given preliminary design review on May 26, 2026. So that gets us to close to now. So just real quickly, the general plan and zoning designations for the site, as I mentioned, is RS8. So you can see the red dot there next to the park. So digging into the application, first we'll talk about the two lot parcel map. So they would like to create two lots on the existing 3.4 acre site. So the proposal would create what we'll call lot one for CLC, which is proposed to be 0.88 acres. And that would remain the CLC campus. Then lot two is proposed to be 2.5 acres and would be the location of the new Anthem Church and Community Assembly campus that's proposed. And I note on the presentation that both parcels would exceed the minimum lot size required for RS8 zone district. The Anthem Chapel portion of the project proposes to construct a new community assembly use of approximately 20,000 square feet of development. That would include a 500-seat sanctuary, a 110-child preschool slash daycare. Those uses would be supported by 36 employees. Also on the site would be parking for those uses, as well as landscaping, fencing, and lighting to support those uses. Proposed changes at CLC campus. Obviously, one is to reduce the existing parcel in size. But no other changes to the existing buildings on the site are proposed. They're proposing to add seven additional trees in the parking lot and then are also requesting modifications based on current code requirements in relation to the pre-existing campus that was developed over 60 years ago. And then here's a site plan as proposed. So you'll see on the left-hand side the existing CLC campus here, and then the proposed Anthem campus tucked behind it, and then the parking in the front. So going back to the CLC, the requested adjustments for that existing development would be related mostly to the parking lot. Our current code has certain provisions that didn't exist in the 60s that would include items like heat island shading effect. Our current code requires 50% shading. They're asking that to be reduced to 22% based on the historical configuration. Another example is electric bicycle parking. The current code requires charging capabilities. They're asking for relief of that. The rear setback encroachment is due to an existing accessory structure that's on the site that's used for CLC that would be within the new setback of the new property line between the two buildings. So they're asking that that classroom continue to be in the same place and have a five-foot setback into the rear setback. Then loading and loading number of loadings parking spaces and landscape trees for the parking lot are also being asked to be reduced the parking spaces are asked to be reduced from 43 to 41 and The they're asking for a total of 10 trees in the parking lot which would include seven of the new trees that they're proposing Then the Anthem Church portion of the development is asking for some adjustments to the code related to building a structure height and architectural projection, as well as ESHA buffer reduction. So the education building, they're requesting a height of 27 feet above the 25 feet required in the zone district. And that is design-related reasons in order to keep the slope of the roof and also screen the equipment, the rooftop equipment. Then the architectural projection would be for the cross from the 30 feet required in the code up to 33 feet 10 inches as proposed to match the style of the existing cross at CLC next door. Then the ESHA buffer reduction request relates to an existing monarch butterfly ESHA that is actually located on the neighboring parcel, the Lake Los Canarios open space. And they are requesting a reduction from 100 feet to 50 feet to accommodate the outdoor uses. for the preschool and daycare. It should be noted there, too, that the vertical construction is compliant with the 100-foot ESHA buffer, and we'll get to that in a little bit more detail later in the presentation. Then also there's a request for the elevator shaft in the education building to also be at 33 feet. So digging down a little deeper into the buffer reduction request. So the 3-point-acre site as existing does not contain any special status species on the site itself, but it's adjacent to the Lake Los Canarios stillhouse monarch overwintering grove, which is identified as Site 72. We had the applicant provided biological analysis and we had it peer-reviewed by a third party. The analysis was provided by Storer Environmental and peer-reviewed by Altas and Mead, concluded that the 50-foot buffer is sufficient and non-injurious to the ESHA. Again, no structural encroachment would be done in the within the 100 foot setback it would only be the permeable pavers and native vegetation there's also proposed a Habitat restoration area within the 50 foot buffer as well as some vegetated stormwater retention facilities And then also With the analysis, the project would be conditioned to have or implement a monarch butterfly habitat protection plan that would describe, among other things, how the native restoration would occur within that, as well as what can and can't be done within that area. And that would be a condition of approval on the project. Going into the project design, as I mentioned, on May 26, the DRB conducted preliminary design review. And after conducting that public hearing, DRB supported the project, expressing appreciation of the work done to address their comments up to that point. They had at the preliminary hearing, they had a couple of suggestions related to the roof color and equipment screening to use a dark green roof instead of the dark gray as originally proposed. and then a lighter color for the rooftop screening. There was also a comment suggesting that the wall on the northern property line between lots one and two match the articulation of the northern elevation of the Anthem Church building that's proposed. And then in terms of the trees that are planted, the DRB encouraged at least a 36-inch box-sized tree for all trees involved. These details would be reviewed at final review following the Planning Commission's action tonight if approved. So I wanted to go over a couple of Elevations here, I think the applicant's presentation will go into this a little bit deeper. But this is a look of the site from Covington Way looking south. So in the foreground is the existing CLC Church with the proposed trees in the parking lot. And then you can see a bit of the massing of the proposed Anthem Church in the background and the wall that divides the two lots. And then another visual sim here of the Anthem Chapel design. This is looking to the east from the proposed parking lot towards the entryway of the church and education building, the education building being on the left in this picture, and the sanctuary being on the right. In terms of analysis, digging into our analysis of consistency with our regulations, we studied vehicle miles traveled as part of our review. Church components generate 13.73 vehicle miles traveled per employee, which is below the city threshold of 14.26 vehicle miles traveled. It should be noted that The preschool daycare building was small enough that it qualified to be screened out as a locally serving use. So VMT analysis was not needed for that particular portion of the project. It should also be noted that the surrounding intersections in the area would maintain a level of service C or better as required by our general plan. In terms of parking, they're utilizing a shared parking strategy where weekday demand on the preschool daycare offices would not conflict with the weekend demand. And so the parking lot was designed to cover both, assuming no overlap. So the offices for preschool daycare and office would require 28 spaces. And then the weekend sanctuary demand would require 101 spaces, so the applicant provided is providing or proposing 117 spaces to cover both uses. Summarizing the acoustic analysis that was done, in your packet you'll see the acoustical analysis services will be held entirely indoors across three one-hour sessions on Sundays. The layout and design and massing of the buildings will naturally baffle sound away from the northern residential zones and then would stay under the required 65 dBA at the property lines. And then just a quick note on airport safety. This is in Safety Zone 6 for the Airport Land Use Compatibility Plan. That plan lists indoor large assembly use as an allowed use within that zone, so there's not an airport issue. Grading is minimal. The site is relatively flat as it exists, so they're proposing about 4,200 cubic yards of cut and 560 cubic yards of fill to accomplish the proposed new Anthem structures. In terms of environmental review, staff found that a class 32 infill exemption could be met with this project. Criteria met namely are it's consistent with the applicable general plan designation and applicable policies in the general plan. It's consistent with zoning regulations. It occurs within the city limits on a site no more than five acres. The site has no habitat value and will not result in significant effects related to traffic, noise, air quality, or water quality. And the site is adequately served by all required utilities and public services. And we note also in our notice of exemption that's in the staff report packet that the exceptions to the exemption, the exemptions also don't apply. So summarizing the findings that are proposed in the staff report packet, the site is adequate in size and shape and topography to allow the subdivision and the planned development. All utilities exist to serve the development and the agencies have capacity. Buffer reduction request has been documented to not be detrimental and conclusions have been peer reviewed. The project will not impact scenic views to the mountains, given distance Anthem Chapel buildings are proposed. The setback is over 100 feet. Parking is sufficient based on the size of the sanctuary, multiple services on Sundays, and the timing of other activities on the campus. Hours of operation and types of activities are standard for community assembly and daycare and preschool uses. The social gathering area on the site is oriented away from the residential neighborhood. The project provides critical daycare and preschool uses for the community. And no special events are proposed or authorized with this application. So if any were proposed in the future, they would need to obtain a separate special event permit. We did have one requested clarification to the conditions that are in the packet. So the unitalicized and ununderlined section there is what we have currently in your packet. there was a request to add the italicized and underlined section to clarify that regular religious services would include customary ancillary indoor services on an as-needed basis, such as weddings, baptisms, and funerals. But these services will not overlap regular religious services and shall not occur outside the following hours of 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. So that was a request to add to That's condition number one in your packet. So with that, I won't read these verbatim because there's a lot of words there, but you'll see these in your packets. Staff is recommending that the Planning Commission adopt the proposed parcel map as well as the conditional use permits and development plans for the project. And that concludes staff's presentation. I can take any questions. Otherwise, I can swap over to the applicant's presentation if you're ready, Chair.

Yes, we'll do questions after the applicant presentation. So you can go ahead over to that. I would like to read this into the record, however. To the applicant, you have a total of 20 minutes to give a presentation and rebut or clarify anything after the public comment. Please reserve time for the latter, that would be the public comment, if you intend to respond to the public comment. The Planning Commission may have questions for you, but your time answering our questions does not count towards your 20 minutes. OK? So go ahead.

Good evening, chair and commissioners. My name is Steve Welton with Seps Langis Consulting, representing the applicant Anthem Church and the Chapel of Goleta. Tonight, we'd like to walk you through who Anthem is, the history of the site, what we're proposing, and how the project has evolved in response to staff, city peer reviewers, the DRB, and the community. I'd like to start, though, by introducing the lead pastor for Anthem, Nate Wagner. If you can go to the next slide, please.

Hello, my name is Nate Wagner. I am the lead pastor of Anthem Chapel here in Goleta. I've called Goleta my home since 1994. I graduated from Dos Pueblos High School in 97 and UCSB in 2001. And I've had the privilege of serving this community and ministry for the past almost 30 years. In 2018, I had the opportunity to plant Anthem Chapel as a new church here in Goleta. And since our beginning, we've been operating as a mobile church. Every week we set up, we tear down for our one worship service, currently held at Goleta Valley Junior High. And our offices are currently located in a modular building on the Christ Lutheran Church site. From the very beginning, our desire has been to establish a permanent home, not simply for ourselves, but for the benefit of the community that we love. A permanent church facility would provide a stable place for worship, for youth programs, community gatherings, even an outpost for service projects. It would also create opportunities for future ministries, such as the preschool and daycare that was mentioned a moment ago that could serve local families. Throughout our history, we have sought to be a positive presence in Goleta. And I do want to recognize that during the COVID-19 pandemic, when outdoor gatherings were permitted, our temporary outdoor services in the Christ Lutheran property, they did impact some of our neighbors in ways that were not ideal. And I understand those concerns, and I sincerely apologize for that inconvenience and frustration that that might have caused. One of the reasons we're pursuing a permanent home is because we believe it will allow us to be better neighbors and better stewards of the ministry we've been entrusted with, providing a more applicable and lasting environment for our congregation, while minimizing many of the challenges associated with temporary and outdoor operations. And Anthem Chapel really believe that our mission is simple, to love God, to help people experience genuine community, to help them answer God's call in their lives, and to ultimately become difference makers in the world around them. And Glead has been my home for, again, over 30 years. And my family's here. Our church is here. And our hope is to continue to serve this community faithfully for generations to come. So thank you for your time and for your service. Thoughtful consideration of our project.

Thank you, Pastor Nate. You can advance two slides, Brian. We appreciate it. I just want to quickly acknowledge our project team that's available today for questions. In the audience, we've got our architectural team. If you could raise your hands. Civil engineer, biologist, and traffic engineer. In addition to these folks, we've engaged about a half dozen other professionals to help us evaluate and manage the geology, archeology, noise, air quality, audiologies, other aspects of the project. Next slide please. I think Brian did a really good job, so I'll try to be brief. An important backdrop of our discussion is the entitlement history for the property. As Brian mentioned, it was entitled in 1965 by Christ Lutheran Church. Phase one was constructed right away and comprises most of what's on the site today. However, phase two, which is also approved, included a new sanctuary, fellowship hall, and additional classrooms. That part has not yet been constructed, so it's been on the books for about 60 years. Another important context is that the project is consistent with nearby public assembly uses, like Christ Lutheran, but also the Stowe House and Historical Society and the Train Museum. Next slide, please. This is the plan of what was proposed in 1965, taken from microfiche. I added a little bit of color. The structures in blue are the buildings that were approved in that phase two. And the area in black on the upper right is the parking lot with a driveway to it. You can see the design choice at that time was for the constructed buildings along the front of Los Canaros and Covington Way. Next slide, please. So if we compare what we're proposing now to that previous work, you can see some striking similarities. Design 65 was for a new sanctuary, classrooms, more parking with a new access off Los Caneros. And that's essentially what we're doing with this project, the difference being that our project includes restoration of that area where the parking lot was and about 50 more parking spaces overall than what was proposed at that time. Next slide. On this slide, we've overlaid the proposed plan on top of the old site plan. Not sure it actually comes through here. As you can see, all the proposed development is located far from the street now, allowing us to layer the landscaping in front of the buildings while still maintaining a buffer from the ESHA. We specifically placed the buildings there so we can minimize visual impacts and be as far away as possible from the residents on Covington. So we included a few 3D renderings. Brian showed a few of what's being proposed. This one is from the proposed entry on Los Canarios as you drive in. You can see the DRB-approved design, which splits the building into two pieces and creates a paseo between the two buildings and leads towards a beautiful passive recreation space in the back. Next one, please. This is also from Los Canarios, the other driveway. This is closer to where Fire Station 14 would be. Again, you could see the layering of trees, and the parking lot will help soften the building volume. This one's taken from the corner of Los Caneros and Covington. It purposely doesn't render all the trees in the parking lot, so you can see the architecture of Christ Luther in the back. Sorry, of Anthem in the back. Christ Luther is on the left there. But again, the church will be framed by all the trees in the open space back there and the Stowe Park area, as well as softened by new landscaping and obscured in many areas by the existing Christ Lutheran church. And next slide. So I want to talk about the key operational components. First, the church services on Sunday, up to three, depending on the size of the congregation, and one on Wednesday evening, which would be smaller. Services on Sunday would be spread out by a few hours to allow time for folks to leave and clear the parking lot, part of the next service. And the church is going to be working with the congregation in advance of the grand opening to try to find out what the best times are for folks and make sure that they have ability to spread the load out over the two services, make sure that we're not overwhelmed. During the week, the applicant's proposing, as shown here, to have up to 55 children in the daycare and a similar amount in the preschool. Each will be open to the public. I want to note, though, that these are aspirational figures. Anthem doesn't currently operate a day school. But when you ask for a CUP, you've got to ask for everything you might want to do. And this is something that they do want to do at some point. And definitely, they do want to do the daycare. And then as Brian mentioned, any smaller ancillary service would be designed so they would not overlap with the regular services. Next slide. Oh, actually, go back. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry. The result was, I want to talk about how the project evolved. Yeah, thank you. Hmm. Well, as shown on the screen, we've gone to DRB for about three meetings and responded, I think, very well to some really good feedback from the DRB. I actually want to compliment Anthem's leadership and our design team for being enthusiastic and meaningful in their response to the DRB's comments. I think it resulted in a better project. Right off the bat, we eliminated amplified noise, exterior amplified noise in response to community concerns. We eliminated outdoor special events like the Harbor Fall Festival, the Christmas launch. Those things were taken out of the programming. And then from a design perspective, based on comments from DRB, we reduced the massing by about 10%, lowered the height of the building by about five feet, revised the design style completely, split the building into two pieces. and really made, I think, a great project. And the next slide is the result, which was an enthusiastic and unanimous approval from DRB. And a few comments on the screen that we noted here. I'll just read a couple from the DRB. Lowering the maximum building heights and altering the roof slopes brought the seating area down to a very appropriate residential scale that fits nicely into the neighborhood context. And the other one says they've taken very complicated community feedback and turned it into an asset for the congregation, saving them immense time and ensuring a smooth path forward. Next slide, please. Now turning to some of the key issue areas, as mentioned, our CUP does request up to three services on a Sunday. That essentially triples our available parking from the 117 on the screen to about 351, should the demand be there. The church will work with its congregation in advance of the grand opening, as mentioned, to make sure the timing of the services will meet people's needs and allow the size of the services to be balanced. We've engaged the top traffic engineer, I think, engineering firm in the county, ATE, Scott Shell over here, to study the parking levels of service in VMT. And using the city ordinance, the parking requirement is 101 space. And as mentioned by Brian, we've got 117, over 15% more than what's required. The church will have parking monitors to ensure the traffic flows are smooth, and we incorporated a large queuing area into the design. And with regards to VMT, or vehicle miles traveled, that's a regional metric. It's not intended to analyze local traffic. It's used to assess impacts on air quality as a result of new traffic impacts from our project. In this case, Anthem Chapel already exists within the community. They're, as mentioned, operating at the junior high. We're literally just moving it down an intersection. um with regards to firing evacuation we met several times with county fire staff they were very positive in their feedback and they issued a condition letter which had no special conditions with regards to evacuation the project has easy access to covington away into major arterials like los caneros cathedral oaks kairi al and involved in a quarter mile and probably 101 is probably less than half a mile away again we've got scott here if you have any questions on traffic next one please As mentioned by staff, we're requesting a buffer reduction for ESHA. Importantly, as also mentioned, it's designated ESHA because of the monarch, not because of the creek or riparian habitat. And recognizing this, your city council approved a section in the city code which specifically allows for a buffer reduction in this exact kind of scenario. It's shown here in blue on the right. Our biologist Jessica Peek from Storer analyzed the site and concluded that a buffer reduction was appropriate. And your staff had this peer reviewed by Althaus and Mead, who is the preeminent monarch butterfly specialist in the region, Dan Mead. And they concur with our analysis. And you can see the quote. We concur that the request for a reduced buffer of 50 feet is appropriate for the proposed project and is consistent with the intent of policy CE 4.5. Next slide, please. So if you haven't been out to the site, that's from a couple of years ago, the existing condition. It's gravel and dirt. And the next slide shows what we're proposing to do out there. Restore it. About a quarter acre of trees, oaks and sycamores, and habitat, and foraging for butterflies. One more time. I think this should fade in the next. Go ahead and click again. Didn't work. Just note that as we do have a monarch butterfly preservation plan produced by Jessica, that's in our package. This slide provides, I think, some additional context for you. The kind of blue oval in the center of this diagram is where the monarchs have previously roosted. And the green line is the 100-foot buffer, and the orange line inside that is the 50-foot buffer. If you go to the next slide, it's blown in a little bit better. So you can see the historical society on the top is about on top of the roosting site right now, as well as the city parks maintenance yard. In fact, every structure around it is within 50 feet or 100 foot of the buffer, except for our proposed sanctuary. And Anthem's the only one who's actually providing buffer restoration and new foraging for butterflies, which is critical for them to thrive. Not milkweed, by the way, which is something that might keep them in there too long. You want them to continue their journeys. Our proposed buffer from the resource I've shown here is 136 feet to the area of where we have the passive recreation and over 180 feet from the resource. So we're actually meeting that 100-foot buffer. So with that foraging habitat, the protection plan, proposed oaks and sycamores, and the building itself providing a windbreak, this project will increase the likelihood of monarchs coming back here someday in the long term. And that assessment's backed by experts in the field, including your peer reviewer. Next slide. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on noise because I think it's pretty clear cut. We engaged a professional sound engineer to analyze potential noise levels from the church operations. And as you all know, Stewart Park already hosts concerts and amplified events like weddings. However, as previously mentioned, we specifically eliminated outdoor amplified noise and special events from our application. In response to community concerns and even when modeled with the church doors open the noise levels were proposing or fully comply with city standards And this report was also peer-reviewed by a city independent consultant Next slide please As mentioned by Pastor Nate, this project will provide hundreds of residents of Goleta a permanent rent home for their church. It's going to provide the city and neighborhood a much needed daycare option. We've designed the project to avoid significant impacts. And in fact, it's going to improve the habitat. Finally, it preserves the existing relationship between Stowe House and the Railroad Museum to provide free parking for the community, which is happening today. I'll just note here that a ministerial residential project, which is likely the highest and best use for a developer, would eliminate that opportunity for community parking. And so I think, frankly, this institutional use makes a lot of sense. Last slide, please. So Anthem's looked long and hard for a location in Goleta. It's been difficult. There aren't many places in Goleta that allow for public assembly that are open and available. Here, we're bordered on three sides by non-residential uses with plenty of access to major arterials. And we're proud to bring this project to you that's consistent with the original entitlements and has evolved over several years of careful design review and planning, including a strong and honest response to feedback. And that now comes to you with an answer approval from the DRB. I want to thank Daryl Mimic and now Brian Highfield from your staff for their diligent work in processing this case. They've been very careful to ensure our project is consistent with city zoning development standards, general plan policies, and sequel laws. And we're very happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

OK, I'll just note that you have three minutes and 43 seconds left to use during your rebuttal, if you so choose. OK, we're now going to go to commissioners' questions to staff and or the applicant. So did you want to start, Commissioner Maynard? Thank you.

Good. A couple of questions. This one might be for the church to start with. I know you've got the non-fixed seating 500-person auditorium, and then you also have the education buildings to the side. During service, will you also have like kids' Sunday room classes and things using the other spaces, or are you only using the auditorium on Sundays? Yeah.

That's a great question. Yeah, it would be conjoined use. So the adult services would be in the 500-seat sanctuary. At the same time, we have what we'd call Sunday school, where the kids would be gathering at that time in the education building.

OK, thank you. And then a follow-up question for staff sort of related to that. My understanding of the parking requirements is that they were based on the square footage of the non-fixed seating 500-person auditorium. Why didn't we also include the other spaces if they're used at the same time?

Chair and commissioners, the rates were looked at for the education building for weekday parking rates, and then the church use on a weekend was looked at separately, but those uses in the education building would be accessory or to the primary church use.

But I guess I'm asking about the things that are happening on Sunday. So it sounded like they're doing Sunday services outside of the auditorium, so wouldn't all the square footage be counted? I guess I'm just understanding the process.

Sure, and Ms. Prossy can probably add to this as well.

In our zoning code, I mean, the primary parking requirement is based on the sanctuary, and it's thought of that the sanctuary... that people are coming to church or to worship services together. And so, you know, you might have a family that has children. You know, they're not coming separately. They're probably not drivers. If they're, you know, small enough for Sunday school that, you know, they would be with their parents in the car so they wouldn't – sorry, I don't know why all of a sudden I'm losing my voice. Yeah, that they would be all coming in one car and then going to two separate, you know, facilities.

And then I was really impressed that the applicant had talked about eliminating large outdoor events and all exterior amplified noise, but then there's this garage door has come up a number of times in public comment that the area where a lot of the amplification of noise would be happening indoors has a garage door that can open up and then allow that noise to come out. What's the rationale of needing that garage door to open? Is there any thinking about maybe not having that garage door open when amplified noise is occurring indoors. So can you speak to that?

I might have Michael at some point come up too, Holiday. But the intention is to connect the congregation with the outdoors. It's beautiful out there. And maybe for some passive thermal management as well, because it's going to be nice oftentimes. We modeled it, however, our noise analysis, as if the doors were open and looked at it that way. and showed that it was still compliant with the ordinance, regardless of whether the doors were open or shut. So that's kind of my answer for you.

In the acoustic survey, I know there was a really helpful map that I enjoyed looking at that had kind of like a heat map of where the noise limits were. Was that based on the doors being opened or closed in that particular map?

She modeled it both ways. And it complied even with the doors open.

Okay. I'm just curious. I didn't see two maps, like one with it open and one with it closed, so I'm not quite sure which one I'm looking at in the acoustic report.

Do we know that? I believe it's the one. Sorry. Chair and Commissioner Maynard. I believe it's the one that's with the doors open because that would be the worst case scenario. The worst case. That's right. So they looked at it that way.

That's helpful. Thank you. For Stowe House, when they do events that have amplified noise, do they apply for special permits? Is that a special event that they apply for special permits for? Or do they generally do that? have permission to do amplified noise outside at Stowe House. Do we know that? Just for a comparison of a related project.

Chair and Commissioner Maynard, I don't know if we know that it's from planning staff, and I'm looking over at Ms. Kai to know what happens, what neighborhood services or events at Stowe House, if they have to get a special permit. I know there is a lease agreement that might spell some stuff out, but

There are events at Stowe House that will use, we're talking about the parking?

No, this is for amplified noise. I was curious if events that are at Stowe House typically apply for a special permit when they're doing amplified noise, or they just generally can do amplified noise, and that's something they generally do at that space?

the condition is if it's open to the public they have to apply for a special event permit and i believe there are some controls in the amplified noise they can't exceed a certain amount and it's limited by the hours as well okay thank you that's helpful to always get those comparisons um actually for the applicant

You had the slide that talked about the 136 foot versus 100 foot. Yeah. Can you bring that back up again?

Sure. It's probably like... Give me one second. 21 maybe? So through the chair. Yeah, what we did was... As I walked you through it, the blue area in the center is where the monarchs have historically roosted. And that's mapped area. And so we measured it from the edge of that blue roosting area to the edge of the orange area, which is the 50-foot buffer we're proposing. And that's actually 136 feet away from where the monarchs have reached it. And if you look at the building itself, it's about 186 feet away. So yes.

So it's 136 feet between the orange and the blue line?

No, it's 136. Yes, that's right. Sorry.

And then to staff, though, I mean, our code is based on the distance to the red line, not to the blue line. Is that right? Because it looks like, I mean, that's the 100-foot line. Or, like, the orange one is their 50-foot line, and the green one is the 100-foot line for us. That's what we're showing you there, Commissioner Mayer. I'm sorry, this was a question for staff. Oh, apologies. But, like, by our calculations and the way we calculate buffers as a city of Goleta, It's 50 feet at the orange line and 100 feet at the green line.

Is that correct? That's correct. Okay.

So I just want to make that consistent as we're looking forward because the way our city of Goleta guidelines, it's not 136 feet by our guidelines.

No, I understand that. But I guess my point with saying that is the condition that allows you to modify this buffer specifically talks about trees that are there but aren't likely to be places where the butterfly will roost. And that's why they allow specifically just for monarchs the ability to modify that. And so I wanted to show you where the actual monarch trees were to give you the sense of the distance we're actually from the trees.

Okay, I'll move on to my next question. We talked about that. I think this was mentioned, but I just wanted to clarify because there's been a lot of different concerns about height. So the elevator shaft goes up to 33 feet, but question to staff, that is allowable in our current code. That is not a height modification.

That's correct. It's an architectural projection. Okay.

So there's a small cross, which it's a very tall cross, but a very thin cross that is similar to the one that's already at the CLC site that is also the same height as the CLC height at 33 feet. Is that also correct?

You're referring to the proposed cross at Anthem?

Yeah. So CLC has an existing cross that goes up to 33 feet. In this project, there's also a proposal for a new cross to go up to 33 feet as well, and it's kind of dimensions similar to the existing cross that's there.

That's correct, yes.

And then the highest thing after that is only about 27 feet. Is that correct?

Right, on the education building.

And so I watched the DRB meeting. There was some arguments there that were made about the reason for the height modification was to allow for more obscuring the view of the equipment more so to create more of an angle going up from the height that's allowable up to the other height that's allowable for the equipment. So that's what we're looking for an exception for is just that 25 to 27 feet change.

That's correct, yeah. Okay. Yeah, and there was the DRB had some, there was an aesthetic component to that as well because it made more sense and the DRB actually requested this, that the roof be sloped because it would look better aesthetically. So that was part of it too. It was in response to a comment about architecture, but also trying to screen equipment that's on the roof. Yeah.

And I guess a question to the applicant, and this is based on something I think I did hear you say in the DRB meeting, which was a public record. But I think you said that if the height modification wasn't approved, you'd go back to the allowable height, but the equipment, the elevator would still go up to 33 feet because that is also allowable. So we just lose that sloping. Is that right?

Yeah, I mean, not punitively, but that's what we'd have to result in, yes.

One more question for the applicant. This goes back to the CLC site. So I recognize that we're not going to get more parking in an existing built parking structure. It's hard to design additional trees into an existing parking structure. So some of those made usually when we give exceptions for historic is because you've already laid out the space. But I was surprised to see the modification To not put in a single e-bike parking space That seems more achievable to me. So I'm curious Can you talk about any cost estimates you did to determine that that would be infeasible for CLC?

it's mostly about being able to trench and and dig a Utility line out to proposed area where it could charge. So that was why we requested not to have to do that If we had to do it I'm sure it would not be the end of the world but for not to For bike parking.

Did you look at any spaces would be closer to the building that would reduce not having to do trenching?

Yeah, I mean we we definitely looked at possibilities that there's there's some limited space around there, but I we could certainly find a spot to provide that if that's something the commission would desire.

That's helpful. Thank you. I guess one last question for staff, and then I'll pass it to my other commissioners. As we were talking about the CEQA exemptions, one of the things that was noted, I think, on one of the staff slides was site has no habitat value, but we also are in a butterfly buffer zone. So can you kind of help us reconcile the no habitat value versus this is within the buffer zone we've sort of identified as a city? And how do I think through that as a commissioner?

Sure, yeah. Chair and commissioners So the the site where the development is proposed is currently disturbed. It's been rough graded and been used historically for overflow parking And then just kind of open land at that point the The habitat and roosting areas were located actually in the adjacent parcel. So this particular parcel didn't actually have any value. It just happened that the buffer from the neighboring roosting site went across the corner of this site.

Oh, actually, and then one last question. In the 50-foot buffer, so I wanted to just make sure I'm understanding that that will be separated by a split rail fence, and there won't be any gathering in the 50-foot buffer that's just used for that stormwater management and restoration area.

That's correct, yes.

I'm going to pass it to the other commissioners for questions then.

Commissioner Sirotkin, do you have questions?

Yes, I do. And I think some of these may be really for the pastor. Sure. There's been a lot of talk about the 500-seat sanctuary. Could you tell us a little bit about your parish, I mean, you know, your congregation? How many are there? Where do they live? Where are they coming from? You know, what their demographic is. I mean, are they the people who would have child care needs and just if you could tell us a little bit about

Absolutely. So I would say currently we are an eight-year-old church, and our current congregation size is about 350 to 425. Our majority of our faith family, I would say, is young families. So when I say young, I'm talking maybe elementary-age children. We do have a youth group, but our youth group draws kids from the community, not just from our church. And our demographic, yeah, so young families, but we also have, you know, I was always told if you can target a young family, then you are going to get the grandparents that want to be a part of where their grandkids are. We also are close to UCSB, so we do have seasonally college students as well. So I would say we are a very diverse demographic congregation.

And then now you're saying you would have three services. How on Sundays? How would that mesh with CLC? I mean, when do they have their services? Are they going to be at the same time? Are they going to be staggered?

Yeah, that's a great question. It is two different, you know, locations, and so there's two different entrances to both of those sites. I'm not quite sure. I think Lutheran Church is 1030, and we're talking maybe 30 people that attend theirs, and so I wouldn't see too much of a hardship there. I could mention our current services. Attendance is about 350, 400, 25, something like that. Obviously, high holidays, Easters and Christmases, a healthy church will double in size for those big, big events. But typically, we only have one service right now, like Lita Valley. Lita Valley's theater holds our whole church right now. So even at the beginning, I think a 500-seat sanctuary will hold our entire church as it is currently. Our desire is to grow. I want to be as much as we can for our community. And so I are proposing multiple services, up to three services on a Sunday with staggered timing. Our services are about 80 minutes long. And so we would just look at standard operating procedures from other churches in our community and beyond that have multiple services. Just be able to lay them out where there'd be enough time for the parking lot to, you know, egress and ingress. And we would just... create three different times, if need be, when that need arises to accommodate the people.

Thank you. If that makes sense. And this one, I mean, I've been quoted in the newspapers for always worrying about traffic. And I have my questions for The traffic expert, who I think is here? Yes? No? So my question is, let's say things go your way and you do have enough for three services. We're not talking about just 500 people additional traffic in that neighborhood and in that area. But it could be 1,500 if you grow to the size you're talking about or on the holidays. That's kind of a small residential. And you did a traffic study and said that the intersection would be fine the way it is. I have a problem. Of course, I have a problem with Stork and a lot of other things. But I'm just curious as to how you do the traffic study that you come up with the intersection will be fine and the traffic won't impact anything. It could. Tremendously, it seems to me. And I'm a layperson, I admit.

Thank you for those insightful questions. I'm Scott Schell with Associated Transportation Engineers. And I'm not sure which particular intersections you're talking about, but we looked at- The ones that are cited in here, in the material. OK, yeah. So we looked at the interchange at Los Caneros. We looked at the roundabout at Cairo and Los Caneros, and then we looked at Cathedral Oaks. So that was the corridor. Basically, we would expect most of the traffic to go through there. So we evaluated those based on the city's policies, their transportation policies, which really focus on weekday aim and PM. We did do some analysis of the driveways that are going to serve the site to make sure that they were going to operate acceptably as well. So using the city's methodologies and policies, we said everything was going to be fine. In talking to the team, and acknowledging that there could be more than one service on a Sunday. We said, you have to have at least a half an hour in between times so you don't have people coming in at the same time people are trying to leave. So in terms of the Sunday service, It's not really the city's policy to go out and study things on Sundays. We did look at driveway operations, and we did recommend that there be a good overlap between the start and end times of the services on a Sunday with multiple services.

Okay, thank you. You're welcome. That helps to know. And then one other question I have. is the exemption. I think somebody else brought that one up, that it's an infill, an urban infill, and that there's development around it. Well, there's only a limited, there's nothing on the other side of Los Carneros. The area, the stow is not To me, that is not an urban location. Let me put it that way. That's the most succinct I can be about it. And so I'm not quite sure how that exemption was arrived at as it being infilled because it's kind of suburban or rural right there rather than urban.

Chair and Commissioner Sorokin, I can try to answer that. And maybe I think we have one of our CEQA attorneys on as well who might want to supplement what I'm going to say. I mean, we look at that. It's not necessarily that exact site, but looking at it in a whole of like Goleta's. And you're right, the wording is urban because that's, you know, it's the CEQA document or the CEQA guidelines was written for the entire state. But, you know, our, I think overall Goleta would be considered a suburban community. But there are urban uses. I mean, you know, there's development and having a church in this location or having a community assembly use is not an unexpected. You know, it's something that is typical to be in a residential area. area so We felt based on you know the knowledge of the community that it fit the category For the overall for the class 32 exemption it met the other you know all of the criteria So I know is I believe Hannah Park Yeah. Hello.

Good evening, Chair, Vice Chair, and Commissioners. In addition to what Ms. Prossy just stated, for the Class 32 infill development exemption, what the city looks at is whether the project site is substantially surrounded by urban uses, and there is no precise definition. And so if It does not necessarily mean that it needs to be surrounded on all sides by urban uses, but really we are just looking at whether the site is substantially surrounded by urban uses. And the legislature and courts have made it clear that the purpose of this Class 32 exemption is to really reduce sprawl by exempting new projects and underused or underutilized developed sites.

It just seems odd to me that in one place we say it's urban and it's surrounded by development, and then in another place in all the documentation, it said that that's a scenic route, that Los Carneros there is a scenic route, which it kind of is. You know, that whole side of town is really kind of scenic. It seemed inconsistent to me.

Sorry.

No, that's okay.

I'm sorry. Vice Chair Sorokin and commissioners, we have many scenic routes. I don't know if it's a scenic route, but it's a scenic corridor, and we have many of those. If you think about a project that went to your commission six weeks ago, there were scenic views there, and It's kind of similar in nature in terms of the development around it. So, granted, we didn't use a Class 32 exemption, but it's not an uncommon situation.

And if I could just, and sorry, if I could just add one other point is, you know, under CEQA, it doesn't require that the city look necessarily at, oh, if there is a scenic corridor or a roadway that's designated a certain way, that that would necessarily kick out the project under a categorical exemption, in particular with respect to the Class 32. We really are looking at, you know, the site itself. Is it developed? Is it within an urban area? And it wouldn't necessarily preclude us from relying on that simply because maybe one side of the site is adjacent to a scenic corridor.

Okay, thank you.

Are you done for now? Yes. OK. OK. I will ask my questions now. I would like to follow up on the noise issue. And this would be, I guess, a question for, well, I'm not sure who is. We'll go to the staff first. And you can tell me whether it's better suited for the applicant. But Goleta's noise ordinance states that its purpose is to preserve the public peace and comfort of the citizens of Goleta from unwarranted noise and disturbances of including but not limited to that of amplified music played in or out of doors after certain hours. This ordinance also prohibits noise that constitutes disturbing the peace based on numerous factors, including the volume, intensity, continuousness of the sounds, including background noise from hundreds of guests, vehicles, and the proximity to residential sleeping facilities and the area's zoning. Consequently, the impacts of ambient noise from all of the activities that may be contemplated occur on the property year-round. My question is, did you take... all of this ambient noise into consideration, particularly when you add that to the other noise that maybe wasn't above a particular level and that you found as being satisfactory. But did that include all these other ambient noises?

COMMISSIONER MILLER, YEAH, WE ANALYZED ALL THE EVENTS THAT COULD BE HAPPENING. NOW THE VAST MAJORITY OF THESE ARE INDOORS WHICH IS THE BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT WAS HAPPENING DURING COVID WHEN WE WERE LOOKING AT TENTS. SO I THINK A LOT OF THE CONCERNS FROM THE COMMUNITY STEM FROM THOSE ACTIVITIES AT THAT TIME. BUT HERE WE'RE PROPOSING AMPLIFIED ONLY INDOORS. AND, YEAH, WE MODELLED ALL THOSE NOISES INTO OUR system. I didn't do it personally, but we had that report prepared and peer reviewed also by the city through their noise engineer to review it, got feedback and adjusted. So I feel like we definitely have looked at that. And when you look at the modeling, which Commissioner Maynard pointed out, we're well under the requirements for noise at the property boundaries. And with our siting, We are 300 feet from the residential areas on Covington, and the doors are facing the other direction towards the Stowe House if they happen to be open, which I already mentioned. They have amplified events there and weddings and concerts. So it's nothing new compared to what's already happening on there.

Yeah. I guess what I'm asking though is when you have the ambient noise of lots of people, hundreds of people talking at once, kids playing, vehicles driving in and out, that's additional noise on top of the noise that you're talking about or the sounds that are coming from within the complex.

Right, but when they come in, there is an amplified noise going on, right? So when they come into the church, now they're in the church, and there aren't hundreds of people outside. They're inside the church, and so they're modeling that. When they're not in the church, then they don't have amplified noise, and so it's a different thing. So I don't think you have to layer those on top of each other, because they're not happening at the same time.

So when the music is being played, let's say, there won't be anybody outside? Everything is going to be contained within the building, and there won't be any people coming in or leaving with their cars, and there won't be any people outside enjoying a nice day or the kids playing.

So to answer that, I mean, certainly I can't account for every single person, but when the service is occurring, it's about 30, 40 minutes of amplified sound during the 80-minute service, so a little bit less than half the time. That's when everybody's inside the church. Are there a few people outside? Probably. Is there a crying baby? Maybe. That's going to happen, of course. But by and large, the times when the amplified noise is happening was almost everybody is either in the church or if there's kids, they're inside the building next door in the Sunday school.

Yeah, and I guess the other issue about the ambient noise is that it – so there may be, like you said, 40 minutes of music. Right. But then there's all the time that people are coming to convene to the services and in their cars, talking, saying hello to one another, kids running, playing. You said you have a lot of children in the congregation. But would that not extend the noise? I don't know if it would raise the level but it certainly would extend the time period of the noise.

Of course. No doubt. I can't argue against that. That's common sense. But when you look at amplified music levels in that dB, which is on a logarithmic scale, so meaning that's much, much, much louder than a spoken voice, you know, it doesn't compare. So I don't think we're going to see significant impacts in terms of that.

Okay.

Okay. Chair and commissioners, we do have our noise consultant that is the city's peer reviewer. He is Bill Voste. He's with Rincon Consultants. He is available to potentially set context and fill us in on how a noise study is prepared, including questions about ambient noise and what is typically involved in that, if that would help answer your question. He's here now? He's remote. Oh, great. Let's go for it. Okay, great. Hi, Bill. Thank you.

Hello. Yeah, thanks for having me. Bill Voste from Rincon Consultants. So to just provide some more context for the last question, so with the the people who wrote the noise report, they measured an event at one of the church's events. And they applied that to the model, essentially. So they were modeling the amplified music going on, but also if people were making noise, that was being recorded in what they were recording. So in terms of a few hundred people making noise during the church event, that's accounted for in the modeling. And also in the model, there's a parking lot was modeled Um, in these noise models, they have, you can make a little parking lot and there's noise generation factors for that. So there's accounting for some of that, you know, parking and door slamming and things like that are accounted for there. And then as far as, you know, okay, you're going to have noise being made before the event and after the event with people just kind of outside talking, um, you know, those what's, be less than the event themselves. So since the event themselves are below the noise limits, those sort of events are going to be further below the limits. So it's not going to result in a exceedance of Goleta standards or a significant noise impact.

OK, thank you. I think that answers the question. My next question relates to traffic. And this would be perhaps for the pastor. You talked about how there would be monitors and that you would have staggered services. staggered services, and traffic monitors. So number one, let's talk about the traffic monitors first. Are these volunteers?

Correct. They'd be volunteers. If we felt like it was needed of a heavier type of skill set, we could also hire kind of professionals as well. But currently, our current Sunday services are handled by volunteers at direct traffic. But we could, if we needed to, we would do anything we could.

OK. And then also on the cars, the vehicles coming to the next service and the first service, the vehicles leaving. I understand you would have staggered times. How do you plan on controlling those staggered times? Because after the first service is over, do you just go on a loudspeaker and say, okay, everybody who's here for the first service needs to leave? I'm just asking because it seems to me during these times, you know, I remember when many years ago when I attended church services on a regular basis. And particularly when there's a lot of children and a lot of families and a lot of young families. There's so much community and congeniality with these folks, and they're so happy to see each other, and the kids are happy to see each other, and they want to go play. Can I go play with my friends before we leave, mom and dad? You know, can we hang around a little bit longer? Whatever. And then, of course, you know, young families, I see this at my pool all the time, but young families just love to sit around in groups and talk and talk and talk and talk about kids, and they have lots to talk about. I noticed this, that in our society, I noticed young families... do a lot more communicating than people do necessarily. Maybe boomers that are maybe empty nesters and whatnot. And of course, that's not generally speaking. I'm just talking about what I happen to see. But it just seems to me that people who come to these services are going to be so excited to be there and see their friends. And it's going to be a little bit difficult to control, maybe, to get the first service on their way so that the second service can come in and then get the second service on their way so the third service can come in. Can you just talk about that a little bit?

Absolutely. First, I appreciate that. First, what you're describing is something that I hope to happen. That's what church is all about. That's the very reason we exist is for that faith family to gather. And luckily for us, this is not a new idea. Churches throughout our state and throughout our community have multiple services currently right now. And so I think it would be a very simple task to take some of the standard best practices of Santa Barbara Community Church, Ocean Hills, Calvary Chapel Santa Barbara, these churches that have multiple services, try to figure out what have they done, what works well, what is a good time frame, what is the right amount of space that we do leave for churches What we want to happen is that fellowship, that hanging out, but also we do need that second service to start. How much time is that needed? What is the best practice? What have you done, Carver Chapel Santa Barbara? What about you, Ocean Hills? And figure out the best time. And I think we're very multiple and available to... Change if we need to change. Like, hey, that was too quick. That was gnarly. We didn't have enough time there. Let's make it different. Let's make it larger. We need an hour between services. We need 45 minutes. And so nothing is set in stone because currently we only have one service. So a lot of the things we're thinking about is the future, of course. That makes sense, doesn't it?

Right, so your congregation is used to just the one service where everybody comes together. Correct. And everybody can hang out as long as they want after service, right?

Correct, yeah. We only have a congregation that's about 350, and so it fits everybody.

Right, right. But they're all together. So this is going to be something brand new for them. So, you know, to try and, you know, get used to a new system. Is that correct?

That would be, yes. With multiple services, we'd have to figure out, yeah. Right.

And that's just in a figuring out mode at this point. It's not really an exact thing. strategic plan at this point?

Correct. For this exact moment in time, we're in no need for multiple services because we are a smaller congregation. When we have, like I mentioned, those high holidays when we know we expect Easter or Christmas, well, we go to a different venue. So for Christmas, we rent out Dos Pueblos because it seats a thousand people. And so we go there. For Easter, we went to Stowe House. Stowe House can sit. It's open. We were able to do one service. So a lot of times, for maybe bigger places, we go to different places because we know what it handles.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. OK. So let's see. Where do I want to go with this? I'll just talk about the traffic a little bit more. You're going to have your largest parking lot congregation ingressing and egressing onto Los Canarios Road, correct?

Correct.

Okay. Los Caneros is a two-lane road. There is no... as far as I know, there's no left turn lane that people can veer into to get into the parking lot or come out of the parking lot. So it's really going to have, and there's no traffic light and there's no stop sign and there's no, there's nothing. And that I just, I'm just having a hard time visualizing and understanding how how that flow is going to occur on a two-lane road without a middle turn lane or an outside turn lane, without widening the street. And I know that's not part of the deal. So if you could talk about that a little bit.

Commissioner Miller, we met initially with public work staff, like Mark Schleich might be online somewhere in Montana, to talk about our...

He's in Wyoming.

Wyoming, sorry. Sorry, Mark. You're in Wyoming. To talk about the access on Los Caneros. And Scott Schell, who I'm going to bring up right now, worked with him to discuss that. And Scott can probably provide you some more context on how that was analyzed.

Hi, it's me again, Scott Shell with ATE. We did do a pretty thoughtful analysis of the driveways. There's two drives that are proposed, so they're going to spread traffic out a little bit. The first thing that we did was looked at the sight distance. Can you see? If you put a driveway here, can you see to the left? Can you see the right getting in and out? There is a bike lane on the road that acts as sort of a little bit of a right turn lane, if you will. There's a little bit of a shoulder. We expected most of the traffic to be coming sort of northbound towards the mountains and turning right in and then heading back towards either Chi Rail or the freeway leaving. So we didn't forecast a really large left turn volume. I think that was your concern, correct? Like if we have 150 cars making a left, how is that going to work? So we did do some forecasting. We did do some analysis of the driveway operations, both for delays and sight distance. And we found that they would work OK. We did review it with the fire station next door. And as Mr. Welton said, we did work with Marchlight to make sure that the driveway designs, the sizes, and the locations would be adequate.

Does that also include the bike lanes, the safety of the bike lanes? I mean, did you take that into account?

We looked at the site distances to make sure that drivers would have adequate visibility turning in and out of the driveways, and that the driveways would be wide enough so that if somebody was leaving, you would still be able to turn in without impinging upon the bike lanes.

OK, and then because it's been the history that anybody that can't get into that parking lot does their overflow parking in the neighborhood. So as a service is getting out and those that had to park in the overflow in the neighborhood, there's going to be a lot of pedestrians. So did you also take into account that there will be pedestrians to watch out for?

You know, our analysis was based for parking, because we're sort of switching topics here. But our analysis for the parking, which was based on the city's code, said that the sanctuary area met the city code. So we didn't forecast a lot of pedestrians going either to Covington or to Stowe Park.

OK, yeah. Yeah. OK, you did not. You did not. We did not. OK. Pardon me?

Yes. Yes. Just a question for city staff, though. It looks like there is a sidewalk that is being added. I don't know if it's already there is being added, but I see a sidewalk along North Los Canaros Road along the stretch of the project. Is that right?

Chair and commissioners, there's an existing sidewalk. Yes.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. And I think... question, at least for now. This is for the staff. Is there a precedent in the past where the city of Goleta approved a project of this size? And this is the city, not anything that was here prior to Goleta being a city. Is there a precedent in the past where the city of Goleta approved a project of this size in a residential zoned area? One that had this number of assemblies and size of assemblies and amount of traffic up past that you folks have worked on?

Chair and commissioners, I can think of two, actually, community assembly uses that have been approved in the 13 years I've been here. One is the Islamic Center with a much smaller parking lot, and also the synagogue, which is right across the street from the junior high. So yes, we have approved two community assembly uses. And I don't know if Mr. Highfield or Mr. Mimic or anybody of other staff can think of anything else.

So let's talk about the Islamic Center.

Are you talking about the Islamic Center right there at the turnaround?

Yes, at the roundabout. Yes. Okay. So, but that...

That particular center has one day a week assemblies? I believe, I mean, I believe they have, I think they have their main worship service one day a week. But I also think they do have, well, It's been 13 years since we saw the approvals, but I believe they also were doing other things during the week. Not that I recall exactly, but you're right. They do have one primary worship service on a weekday.

They don't have daycare, and they don't have nursery schools, and they don't have Sunday or after. They don't have children's classrooms.

I believe if I remember right what they were proposing, they were going to have religious instruction different days. But I think it's more like how Anthem Chapel talked about having a youth program. And I think that is... Again, I'm recalling my memory from, you know, over a decade ago of what was approved with that project. Now, the synagogue, they do have a daycare. I don't remember if they have a school per se, but they do have a daycare. And that is, you know, during the weekdays.

OK. And both the Islamic Center and the synagogue, do they have the same number of congregants?

I can't speak to what I read. At this point in time, I don't know. I remember when I think with the Islamic Center, they had talked about, I think it was 100 families. But how big is that? We do not have a census of how many families are each of the church facilities.

Okay, okay. So there's nothing, there's nothing, you can't, can you really say there's been a precedent or maybe you're not sure because of, there's some similarities but not, you don't know if there's 100% similarities. Is that what you're saying?

I'm saying like we have approved community assembly uses and they have similar characteristics.

Okay.

Very good. Chair, if I might add to that as well. So we can use, you know, precedent, past precedent as a comparison tool for discussion. But what we really have to do as staff is look at this particular proposal and see how it's conforming to our codes. So that is our lot. Right. And that's why we're here. So just to provide that as kind of closure to your question.

Okay. Great. Thank you. Any additional questions at this time?

Chair Miller, can we take a break before we start public comment? Yes. Yes.

We'll take a 10-minute break. Excuse me, everybody. If we could get started again. We're going to move right into public comment now. So I'm going to turn it over to our clerk for that.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I've received 20 speaker slips for in-person public comment. And as a reminder, if any attendees on the webinar wish to speak to this item, please use the raised hand feature, and I will call upon you. And Madam Chair, I'm seeing one hand raised on Zoom at the moment. in addition to the 20 speaker slips.

Okay. Thank you. So each of the speakers will have three minutes, and we'd like to keep you to the three minutes. If you start to go over the three minutes, I will likely stop you at that point. Okay? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Our first in-person speaker is Judy Salviola, followed by John Whaley, and you'll have three minutes. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Judy Salviolo, and I am a resident of the neighborhood. I live very close to where the church is going to be proposed to be. and i'm a frequent user of the los caneros preserve area i'd really appreciate all the questions that the commissioners have raised and a lot of them are questions that i've had had as well i appreciate your listening and being astute to our concerns the anthem project has given misinformation on the proposed lot size the incorrect number of parking spaces for the proposed sanctuary square footage And the project proposes to infringe on the ESHA space, which equals approximately 0.32 acres. So also note that during COVID, Anthem had a tent that was on the Los Caneros Preserve as seen in the county record satellite photos. And they actually mowed part of the preserve. Per the county records, the total lot size that includes Christ Lutheran Church is 3.0 acres. And I have it in the public records data. I looked it up today. And it is not 3.423 acres as stated by Lars Linton on the original application. So see the county record. Thus, the math is as follows. CLC sits on 0.88 acres. The ESHA is 0.32 acres, which leaves 1.8 acres for the total project. This is an adequate amount of land for the project proposed of this size. They'd need about five acres to accomplish a church, a preschool, a daycare, offices, secure outdoor play yards parking for probably close closer to 250 cars Parking is calculated as one space for 50 square feet as required for community assembly structures the proposed sanctuary is six thousand five hundred and twelve square feet according to the documents that you guys have submitted the correct math is a hundred and thirty parking spaces not the proposed hundred and seventeen and um... various other anthem documents numbers of square footage are not always the same Additionally, the cars counted on multiple occasions on Sunday services where they currently meet have been 209, 267, 290 not on holidays or not on special events. those are cars that are counted for their services. So you figure three people in each car, that's a lot of people. Space for the parking lot for 209 to 290 cars would be actually 2.0 to 2.9 acres. This is substantially much more than their proposed parking lot. Thank you.

Your time is up.

Oh, no. Okay. Questions or no questions? No? Okay.

Speaking next, John Whaley, followed by Christopher Jurde.

Good evening, commissioners and staff. Thank you for this time. So I think what's interesting, perspective certainly creates a lot of opinion, right? And I want to speak tonight on two perspectives that I have. So John Wally, longtime resident of Goleta. Me and my wife were here in undergraduate school. So I've seen a lot. I don't know your backgrounds, but I appreciate your time. So I think the two perspectives that I want to talk about, and I won't get into the details. The DRB obviously approved this project, the recommendation. And I'm going to look at it through these two lenses. I'm a grandfather. and I'm a health care consultant. And as a grandfather, what I see in the value of a project like this and a church like this is a place for kids to be seen and feel safe. And I see that. The hundreds of kids that are there enjoy the environment and would love for you to come back to church sometime and join us. You said you came in the past, but we'd love to have you, and you'll see that. But the other one that I want to talk about is the need. And that need comes as a health care professional. objectively right now have the most depressed drug addicted suicidal generation in the history of health care and what we do know and what we do see is that in a community that comes with a faith-based family that gets better And I think kids live in their worlds now, the social media influence. They live online. They need that community. And Anthem provides that from kids that are in preschool up through college-age kids who are struggling to feel safe and be seen. And that's what this project represents, a permanent home. where you as commissioners can provide a beacon of hope in a community and a country that really needs it. And I see the kids at the high schools. I'm involved in consulting with high schools all over across the state and this country. And I thank you for your time. And I would appreciate you approving this project. I have a minute left, but I'll give it back to whoever's next. Thank you.

Speaking next, Christopher Jurdy, followed by Terry Hurt.

Hello, my name's Christopher Jurdy. I'm a resident of the Goleta neighborhood, which will be impacted by this proposed plan. I'm here to speak on behalf of the ESHA and the butterflies. I'm asking that you do not allow the request to reduce the buffer from 100 to 50 feet, and also request a full sequel review. In 2024 and 2025, there were no butterflies recorded at this ESHA. There were also three butterflies total in those two years recorded in the Goleta area buffer. We do not have the scientific information to justify what actions should or should not be taken about whether this buffer should be reduced or the impacts to the monarch butterfly program. I find it very alarming that we're sidestepping further CEQA review when adjacent to this landscape is an eschizole, something that other people said, this is an important landscape that we want to protect. Oh, no, it's urban. I completely disagree. There's all kinds of protections that we should take in order to preserve these butterflies, the same butterfly which is on our logo, by the way. I have a couple of questions for the commissioners to consider. If there are no or few trees in the 50-foot buffer that's being asked to reduce and there's no butterflies, how could we ever measure that they don't or do use them? Right? The code says that in order to reduce the buffer from 100 to 50 feet, we have to evaluate the butterflies in the trees that exist in that location. What if there are no butterflies? For the last eight years, or for eight of the last 10 years, we've gone out to this Esha and looked. We've looked at times when there's no butterflies. How can we scientifically justify reducing an Esha under the Goleta's criteria when it's impossible to find? The second part, significant impacts to habitat have not been adequately considered. I'll give you one example. There's more detail to my letter. But what happens when you open up a landscape or you provide additional landscaping? You bring in a lot of songbirds, songbirds that eat butterflies. So by landscaping the lands adjacent to the landscape, you're actually improving or increasing a hazard. You take that hazard with what has happened with the Stowe House being present already, with the fire station already there, and now you add an additional pressure with the Anthem proposal, you're going to increase overall light pollution, sound pollution. And these are not to city code. That's the wrong metric. What's the impact to the Esha butterflies is the concern that we have. To meet city code is not the issue. What's going to drive butterflies out of this Esha and the potential for recovery? Lastly, I want to address the issue with the CEQA.

Thank you. Yes, I'll address that in my letter. Thank you.

Terry Hurt, followed by Carrie Maxwell.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Terry Hurt, and I live 1,300 feet from the proposed project. And I'm here to urge you to vote no. This megachurch proposal would cause significant unavoidable impacts entirely incompatible with our neighborhood, the historic Stowe House. the overwinter monarch butterfly, Escha, and the public's use of Lake Los Carneros open space historic use. I don't think the parking issues have been addressed at all, even in this meeting. I really appreciate some of your questions about parking. During COVID, the parking situation was insane. Cars were way down the street, overflowing into the whole neighborhood. The noise was also insane. They repeatedly refused to turn down the volume. They were horrible neighbors, honestly. And the issues that Chris just brought up, I can't say it better than him. That's about it. I was going to read this thing, but I'm not a very good public speaker. I really think it comes down to parking. It's just going to be way too crowded. They want to increase the size of their congregation to 1,500 people. They just said so themselves. And that's just not going to work in the neighborhood. It's just not compatible. That's all I got. Thank you.

Carrie Maxwell, followed by Sylvia King.

There are many reasons I oppose this project, but I want to focus on traffic. As a neighbor, I have personally experienced the effects on our streets when Anthem held services there. Inadequate parking and no parking enforcement led to dryways and fire hydrants being blocked, cars parked on corners impeding safe travel, and dangerous pedestrians and bicycles as a huge surge of traffic filled our neighborhood. There was congestion on Los Caneros as cars attempted to turn into the lot and park and as they left after the service. I was shocked when I found out that the VMT analysis performed for the project focused only on weekday traffic by employees of the church, daycare, and preschool. Three Sunday services with up to 500 seats each, the highest traffic generating activity on the site, produced zero trips in this analysis because Sunday is not a weekday peak hour period. Counting only the small number of weekday employees towards the VMT calculations vastly underestimates the actual impact on traffic. The report also does not address the effects from severe parking deficiencies in circulating traffic. The project provides only 117 parking spaces. The severe parking deficit will force hundreds of vehicles to overflow onto local residential streets and Los Canarios Road. But the analysis completely ignores the congestion caused by frustrated drivers circling nearby streets searching for parking. This gridlock could delay emergency response from the adjacent fire station 14 and compromise pedestrian safety. The city safety element designates Los Caneros as an evacuation route, but that is not reflected in the VMT calculation at all. The VMT tool applied measures only commute-based employee travel, ignoring the traffic surge from 500 attendees on Sundays on a designated evacuation corridor. Los Caneros does not have a dedicated left turn lane onto the property. There is no curb cut to facilitate safe right-hand turns without impeding through traffic on Los Caneros. The close vicinity to Fire Station 14 risks blocking emergency vehicles from responding quickly when needed. Under the Glita General Plan, public safety and emergency access are paramount. The Commission cannot approve a high occupancy assembly use that compromises emergency vehicle access. I strongly urge the Planning Commission to reject the flawed VMT analysis as submitted by the applicant. A more accurate analysis of VMT as it relates to high occupancy assembly in a critical evacuation corridor must be conducted before any approval of the development. Thank you.

Sylvia King, followed by Paul Mocker.

Hi, I'm Sylvia King. To understand this development's impact on our community and the land, we need a standardized, logical, and objective process built on empirical evidence, an actual congregation size and growth potential, and current use along the Los Caneros corridor mapped day by day, hour by hour against Anthem's proposed schedule. Instead, because a church and a school do not fit the city's narrow technical study categories, it created a loophole around a real analysis, one Anthem's consultants use in two separate ways. The church's 22,038 square foot building was split into two pieces for the traffic analysis. The sanctuary and office space, 6,570 square feet, was modeled as work only, a category the city's VMT tool defines as projects where the primary source of trips is employees, evaluated only against Monday through Friday staff commutes. The preschool and daycare space was modeled separately using drop-off and pickup trips, then exempted from VMT review entirely under a local serving retail screening rule meant for small neighborhood retail under 10,000 square feet. Neither approach evaluates Anthem's actual footprint or model, evenings, weekends, and a congregation in the hundreds with the potential for 1,500. The air quality and greenhouse gas analysis relies on the same flawed premise. Total employee vehicle trips were calculated for weekday and copied and pasted into Saturday and Sunday unchanged. This ignores three full capacity Sunday services and everything beyond weekday staff activity. By starting with categories that don't fit, nothing downstream fits either. Not the traffic count, not the air quality model, not the noise analysis. This is why residents are building the records ourselves, counting cars, tallying capacity, doing the work that should have existed from the start. Using Santa Barbara Unified School District records, I tallied the rooms Anthem rents. Since 2023, Anthem has rented the Goleta Valley Junior High Auditorium and the library and the cafeteria and a classroom for a combined capacity of 1,073. At Christmas, they moved to Dos Pueblos for the performing arts center and the gymnasium, a combined capacity of 1,948. This project is categorically exempt from CEQA, meaning no environmental review at all. That exemption only holds if the project will not have significant traffic, noise, or air quality effects. This record cannot support that finding. Please protect our neighborhood's safety, history, and ecology. Demand a full initial study and vote no on this project. I'm stating this objection on the record so it is preserved.

Paul Mocker, followed by James Robeson. Do we have Paul? OK, thank you. Thank you. Speaking next, James Robeson. Is James here? OK. Carter Morgan, followed by Wendy Morgan.

Good evening, commissioners. My wife and I attended the design review board meeting on May 26, which dealt with the Anthem Chapel project. We were impressed with the drawings and the plans for a beautiful building, just not in this location. The designers have made changes to go along with the suggestions from the DRB and input from the community. And yet, we were dismayed by an aspect of the presentation. It was clear that there was familiarity and a prior relationship between the architects and members of the DRB. As they greeted one another and shared lighthearted humor, it appeared that there could be bias in favor of approving the design. We realize that Goleta is a small city, yet as community members, we found this to be disconcerting. Additionally, having attended two DRB meetings, we now believe that the approval process is flawed. We recognize that members of the DRB are hardworking, knowledgeable, and looking out for the best interests of our community. That being said, it would make more sense if the DRB did not consider aesthetics until the Planning Commission has determined the building footprint, setbacks, parking, circulation, biology, draining, lighting, size, bulk, and scale. Once these essentials are decided, the DRB can then determine if the architecture and landscaping are appropriate and compatible with this neighborhood. We believe this current city approval process is backwards. Once the DRB has given its seal of approval, it makes it much more difficult to question and revise any of a project's negative impacts. We wonder if there's ever been a time when the Planning Commission has overridden city staff and DRB findings and therefore recommended project denial to the City Council. We cannot recall an instance of this happening, and this is worrisome. As homeowners in the adjacent neighborhood for 33 years, we are very unhappy with this proposed building project. There are several reasons for this, the most important being neighborhood compatibility. The drawings displayed made it seem to fit with a Lutheran church building next door, but it's quite clear from the story polls set up on the property that the new buildings will be massive and out of scale with the neighborhood. In fact, Anthem is asking for a variance in height requirements. We invite planning commissioners and city council members to review the story poles from the public parking lot next to the fire station. You may then agree with us that the scale of these buildings is not compatible with our neighborhood. A major community safety issue has to do with emergency response. The parking lot is planned for 117 cars at a time. This means there could be over 100 cars flooding Los Carneros as they enter and exit the parking lot six specific times each Sunday morning. We recognize this road congestion will make it very unsafe for any emergency vehicles leaving the next-door fire stations, where seconds count for responding to an emergency. We want to note that Los Carneros is an evacuation route for residents living in this very high- Your time is up. Thank you. And my wife will continue.

Wendy Morgan, followed by Janine Dorn. Thank you.

Another major issue for this project is traffic. As you well know, Los Carneros is a two-lane road with bicycle lanes on either side, with no room to add a left turn lane into the lot. These bike lanes provide opportunities for bicyclists, to travel somewhat safely and are well used. As we listened to the presenter at the DRB meeting, he assured us several times that the parking lot usage would be Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings, with the lot generally being unused during the week. He later amended this statement, but after the public comments. There was a quick one-sentence addition of preschool and daycare use Monday through Friday. We feel this was disingenuous to those of us listening, as there was no chance to respond. A midweek women's group meeting was also not mentioned, nor was the request for Anthem's conditional use permit to allow 26 weddings, 30 memorials, and an unstated number of special events throughout the year. Where am I? The traffic on Sundays alone could bring 100 cars or more each time for their three services. This is a safety concern for sure. especially in light of the death of a commuter in the bike lane on his way to work just recently on Los Carneros in that very area. Los Carneros is used by many junior high and high school students as a way to their respective schools. We're worried for the safety of these students as well as walkers, runners, and bicyclists. Additionally, the parking area has historically been used to accommodate visitors coming to community events at the Stowe House, the Lake, and the Railroad Museum. Anthem representatives have said they will continue to let the lot be used for these gatherings. However, with the high use of this facility by their congregation, it's easy to imagine that very few Saturdays or Sundays will be open for Stowe Park, Stowe Housing Park. Stowe House parking. This could further impact surrounding neighborhoods with excess parking spilling into our neighborhood streets. We have been made aware that Anthem has required local organizations to sign a statement of support for their project as a prerequisite for using the lot for special events. This doesn't seem to reflect a desire to be a good neighbor. To be clear, we think Anthem Chapel and its congregation deserve to have a facility. Why not repurpose an existing building, empty building, of which there are many in Goleta? To reiterate, we are concerned that the Goleta Planning Commission and the City Council will be swayed to approve this project because of the DRB's positive response. If approved, this could set a dangerous precedent opening the way for other projects of this large scale, projects of this large scale in various Goleta neighborhoods.

JANINE DORN, followed by Rosalie Hardewin.

Do we have Janine?

Hi, I'm Janine Dorn, and I've lived in this area since 1977, and I attend Anthem Church. And I just want to say the first time I had contact with Anthem was during the lockdowns when nobody was supposed to get together. And I just finished walking my dog around Lake Los Carneros, and they were conducting a worship service later I heard for the first time. since the lockdowns began and there was a makeshift platform stage that was like 12 to 15 inches tall that the worship band was on yes they were six feet apart and people were sitting in their cars some were sitting in the back of their suvs open to the air and some had popped out of their sunroofs of their cars and the tall green springtime grasses were blowing softly in the wind and my heart leaped within me i had been so like locked away and shut down from being with other people worshiping. It had been so long since I'd been in a corporate setting, and I felt my spirit had been washed in a gentle, refreshing rain as I sat on the metal railing that separated the church parking lot from the Stowe House parking. And I just want to say Anthem is a place where people come to connect deeply with others and where people experience community based upon mutual faith. It is a place where the bereaved are consoled and others will grieve with them, where the broken and hurt can heal their wounds and be nurtured, where marriages and families are built up and blessed, where children, teenagers, young adults, and adults of all ages are able to serve and be served. Anthem has many ministries that serve the homeless on a weekly basis and that make them feel loved, valued, and that they have a friend. Other ministries deepen connections between men as they share their burdens, concerns, and their wins. Still others seek to serve women and help them grow in all of their different roles while deepening their faith. Anthem has ministries that include hospitality to Goleta Valley Junior High and the permanent low-income housing called Vera Cruz. College students and international students come and connect with other students like them, and they feel like they have a home away from home as they attend church, Bible studies, and fun events just for their cohort. We have reached out to the Isla Vista community by doing trash pickup walks during the holiday seasons. There are many other things we do that I don't have time to go into. But for now, sadly, our church is homeless and temporarily. We use the GBJH site for our Sunday service. We who serve in the children's area have very little space to do what we need to do. I have to sit on the floor to teach the kids. And the kids who want to color or do Play-Doh at a table have very, very limited space. And then each Sunday we have to break down our spaces and pack everything up. This is very burdensome to do each Sunday. People who sit in our services and are tall or have wide girths currently find their bodies crunched into the small hard seats that were built for the junior high demographic. We long for our own building and think that having a church on the side is much better than what most likely will end up being the alternative down the road, even if it is not currently being discussed. Apartments with huge amount of traffic and parking issues. My hope is that in this time of skyrocketing isolation, suicide, anxiety, and depression, we can have our church be having a home. Thank you.

Rosalie Hardewin, followed by Bridget Jensen.

Hello, my name is Rosalie Hardine. I'm speaking today on behalf of Anthem Chapel Church Facility that would be located at 6595 Covington Way in Goleta. I support it because it would provide a permanent home for our ever-growing church family. I've been going to Anthem Chapel for the last three years. And I know that our church design team has been working really hard on all the design changes so that it meets all the city of Goleta requirements. And it takes into account neighborhood concerns as well as environmental concerns. I've seen both the church and the landscape design, and they both create a beautiful setting for our church, and it will greatly enhance the Esha that is presently there. Not only that, the new design will meet the parking requirements of the city of Goleta. Now that we would be in a church building, there will not be any amplified sound as there was when we were in the tent. This will not affect Stowe Park events either, because we have and we will allow them to park on our lot. We will be good neighbors to all. Presently, we have had our church service on Sundays at 930 at Goleta Valley Junior High School for the last few years, where we have to set up and take down all of the equipment every Sunday, including all the rooms for our very popular children's ministry that continues to grow. So having a permanent church home will be such a gift to us. We also plan to open a preschool daycare program that will be a great advantage for our local Goleta families that are looking for a quality preschool experience for their child. So we kindly ask that you support and approve our project to move forward with building our church facility. It will truly enhance this property and it will bring a sense of joy and a sense of peace to all who enter it. Thank you so much for your time and your consideration.

Bridget Jensen, followed by Cheryl Knudson.

Hello. Thank you for your time. I didn't organize anything because I wanted to see what this was like and just respond from what I've been hearing tonight. And I do want to say to the neighbors that I do understand some of where you're coming from today. Just my time in Colorado, we had some development happening near our house. And it's very natural to be worried about things that are moving in and feel like they're enroaching on your home. Our homes are so valuable, important to us. So we get that. We don't understand everything about how you're feeling. But we do. We do understand a lot of it. And we are sorry also for the times that we had the tent and weren't always the greatest neighbors. I've been a part of the Goleta Valley volunteer team that, well, Anthem Chapel, but I say Goleta Valley Junior High. We've had a great relationship with them. We make them meals. do coat drives for them. We'd get gifts for some of the kids that don't have kids. We're actually a really fun group to have a relationship with. And we care a lot. We're a serving community that has done so much, as Jeanine mentioned, all over town. And we care deeply about being involved in the life of those in Goleta and the Santa Barbara area and beyond in the world. And so I can see why you'd be afraid of some of these things when you hear these numbers. So far, we've been in existence for eight years, and we haven't attained those numbers. I think sometimes we are presenting the worst case scenario. some of those fears are probably not going to be realized. And the other thing about us is if some of your fears are realized and you do encounter some issues, I feel like we're reasonable people to talk to. And very rarely would you get a very defensive response. I pray and hope that we would be able to have a good communication with you as well. So I would love to see something permanent established because we do spend so much time and energy on just moving our things in and out of this building. And it takes a lot of energy away from some really meaningful life work and more important things that are a much bigger deal in our communities. And I would love to focus on those big picture items with all the needs that we have in our community. Finally, I say that and I think I have approval is we're also we're open and flexible to the spirit if there are needs in the community if you know of people that are widows that don't have people to help landscape or There's all kinds of needs that can happen in your neighborhood We're responsive and we have a community of people that are willing to help so reach out to us Cheryl Knutson followed by page K

Good evening. My husband and I have been attending Anthem Chapel since 2020. And we wholeheartedly support Anthem Chapel having a permanent home at 6595 Covington Way. Anthem Chapel is deeply invested in serving the families of Goleta by providing resources, community service, meals for those in need, and numerous free outreach events that offer wholesome and meaningful opportunities for children, for the youth, for college students, for families, and for grandparents. We've been able to accomplish all of this while operating out of shipping containers at Goleta Valley Junior High, as well as large story containers, portable sheds, and a rented office on the Lutheran Church property. the greater contributing impact we could have with an established beautiful residence, as has been proposed. The design review board unanimously approved this attractive and worthy project, recognizing that it reflects both the character and the heart of the good land. We respectfully ask the Planning Commission to support that decision by approving Anthem Chapel's permanent home. This project will allow our congregation to continue and expand our service to the Goleta community for years to come. Thank you.

Page K followed by Jonathan Maile. Do we have page?

Okay.

Jonathan Maile. Okay. Mario Quezada.

Good evening. And Planning Commission, thank you so much for allowing us to present. I'm representing Anthem Chapel. I attend there. Three generations of my family go there. I've been attending there for the past seven years, my wife and I, my sons, their sons, and I have a new grandchild. I love what our church does. It seeps into our community and helps. A lot has been said that I can only diddle and ask you to please approve this because it benefits my family. It benefits families. And I, as a volunteer, we spoke about volunteers earlier. They just come in and help. And that's what I love about our church. It gets involved and it needs a home. All of us, the homes are being represented here that are close to Anthem. But we need a home for our family, OK? We really do need a home for our families. I'm planning. I'm having a little grandchild. And I just want to be able to bring that child to home. We just deserve one. Because it's like my friends were saying, breaking down and putting it all together every Sunday is such a task. And we have great plans. I feel God's leading us to do something grand here, even more. And so I just hope that you approve it. Thank you very much for your time.

Speaking next, Karen Penniman, followed by Gary. I can't read the last name. Apologies.

Gary G. Good evening, Planning Commission. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak this evening. My name is Karen Penniman, and I have lived in the Lake Los Coneros neighborhood since 2006. I previously submitted a letter expressing my own personal opinion regarding the proposed Anthem Chapel project and my opposition based on its inconsistency with the general plan. including the plan's Chapter 1 definition for its vision of Goleta the Good Land that values the integrity of residential neighborhoods by protecting their character, quality, and diversity. Stowe House, Goleta Depot, Lake Close Canaros provide activities and resources for not only the immediate neighborhood, but all of Goleta and the surrounding communities. According to the plan, open space element policy 6.7 item C, regional open spaces should be easily accessible from the surrounding neighborhoods and easily accessible by automobile for visitors from more distant locations. I implore you to come to the same conclusion regarding the inconsistencies of the proposal and to underscore the inconsistencies with these additional general plan guidelines. In the land use element 2.2 guiding principles, item 10 states, ensure that all new development is compatible with the character, scale, and design of the neighborhood. In addition, 2.4 city policies, policy LU 1.2 states, the intent of the land use plan is to protect and preserve residential neighborhoods by preventing intrusion of non-residential uses that would be detrimental to the preservation of the existing character of the neighborhoods. Does Anthem Chapel deserve to have a permanent home? Absolutely. I've attended Anthem Chapel services. I know what they're about. But this is not the place. There is already a church in this location. Why do we need to build a second one in their backyard? It's like they're trying to make it fit into this space, and it doesn't fit. Thank you for your time and your public service.

Speaking next, Greg, followed by Will Brevin on Zoom. Thank you.

Gary Gritzmacher. I got that all through high school, too. They would stop at the G. I'm a 54-year resident of Goleta Valley. I love Goleta Valley. I went to DP here, and I raised my three boys here. The parent church of Anthem is Calvary Chapel down in Santa Barbara now, and my three boys attended Calvary Chapel, and I credit Calvary Chapel for giving them a moral... compass and a spiritual grounding that's stayed with them their whole life. Anthem Chapel does the same thing. Two of my boys live in town. They're both part of the community. My daughter-in-law has a store in town and my grandkids attend Anthem Chapel. I have Five of them here attending Anthem Chapel right now. And I am looking forward to Anthem doing the same thing for them. And that's part of community. You guys as commissioners have to look at a bigger picture of community. Part of community is to have a place that would do that for our kids. If you don't have a church or if you don't have a place that will build that moral grounding and spiritual foundation, attitude in their life you're going to have a bunch of hooligans and i mean i think our first speaker spoke to it there's a lot of pressure on kids these days and i think having a place that would you know generate a better attitude for them is good um so that's one thing the other thing is i've attended calvary chapel for i don't know 30 years and you had a parking concern The reality is they have two services. They seat 1,000 people every Sunday, two services. And it works. There's about 45 minutes in between the services. People don't all show up at the same time. Some people show up 15 minutes before the service. Some people are 15 minutes late. It's not a big, giant crowd. It's just wrecking the parking. It doesn't work that way. It kind of trickles in, trickles out, and it all seems to work. And they have parking monitors there, too, so that all works. And I think that's about it. I hope you approve it.

Okay. We have one more in-person speaker slip. Allison Biskner, followed by William Bremen on Zoom. Thank you.

Good evening, Honorable Planning Commissioners. I'm here tonight to repeat consistent concerns I've voiced at previous design review meetings for the Anthem Church, parcel split, and development for 6595 Covington Way. And I request that the CEQA exemption not be not be granted for this project. It's not consistent with the general plan. I further request that the 50-foot reduced ESHA buffer not be granted. And the traffic, transportation, and public safety components of this plan are also not consistent with the general plan, especially during emergency situations, evacuations, and the new cumulative effects of new residential homes. I've resided in the adjacent neighborhood for 30 years. My children attended La Patera. I walked Lake Los Caneros and its environment many days a week. Our family, along with others, have used the entire 70 acres for passive recreation, learning about and protecting nature, participated with the Railroad Museum and the Stowe House activities, along with public cleanup events. I'm a retired natural areas planner for the city of Santa Barbara and a restoration ecologist, so I'm familiar with many of these issues and the impacts. My previous concerns still are present with the updated design. The size and scale of the church footprint square footage and parking requirements is just simply too large for this site. As requested from previous meetings, the square footage on the development has been reduced from the original plan of 23,000 square feet to 20,066 square feet. I referenced before and will again, can we imagine a Sprouts grocery store or a Bed Bath & Beyond sized structure here, along with 117 parking spaces and vehicles accessing and dispersing from the site? Quickly, an RS-8 zoning does allow for assemblies, but would you ever expect to see 300 to 500 residents and 117 parking spaces needed for that kind of development? The Anthem Church requests a reduction of 50 feet to 100 feet buffer for the Esha. They identify plenty of moisture retention via use of native grasses, keeping with the monarch attraction. In plan, a small paving area within this 50-foot buffer. Quickly, we are just undergoing a major monarch restoration less than two miles away from here at Elwood. Why would you want to reduce the buffer that you're required to do for an ESHA? Make it add more habitat, not a reduction. Impacts of the corridor, Los Canarios corridor, used for emergency services. Impacts. Sorry. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Will Bremen. You'll have three minutes, and please remember to unmute yourself. Thank you, Will.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, thank you.

Awesome. My name is Will Bremen. I led worship at Anthem from 2018 to 2020, and I'm providing insight from my time there. Anthem has previously stated attendance of roughly 300 to 500 members. When I arrived in 2018, I recall the church regularly filled half to three quarters of the 630-seat junior high auditorium. and by late 2019 regularly overflowed into the foyer and to my memory other rooms on campus. This includes families to my memory coming from as far as Lompoc. Overcrowding continued during the pandemic under the tent. I and others frequently feared for our health and safety. We were told leaders were working to remain compliant, but conditions only worsened. I believe it led to an outbreak that November where I was informed more than half the leaders, staff, and volunteers, including I believe Nate himself, either had COVID or had been exposed. This and more leads me to believe Anthem's not being honest about attendance, and I urge an independent review before this project proceeds. That dishonesty may be apparent in multiple respects regarding the Esha zone. I recall Nate and staff would routinely use that area for walking meetings. I think kids would roughhouse in that area, and I recall excess materials for programs like kids camps would be stored out there. We've now heard claims about community involvement in serving the homeless, which individuals may do, but Anthem as an institution does not. There was no homeless ministry during my time there. There's not one now. None is mentioned, and sermons are on their website. There's no evidence of partnerships with organizations doing that work. The ministries Anthem publicly lists only serve the church itself, such as their youth and women's ministries. They say they care about this neighborhood, yet in my 15 years leading worship, I've never seen a church act with such contempt towards neighbors that I witnessed from Anthem. We were never told to reduce volume and we intentionally played loud and encouraged loud singing. I recall being aware of complaints and being told to ignore them. They were often characterized as spiritual warfare. Public examples exist, including Nate shaming concerns from the pulpit in a 2023 sermon saying, quote, we understand what it feels like to be accused and charged, but we have to remember the ultimate force behind these concerns is Satan. I've seen this culture lead to significant staff instability and turnover, including recently with many key leaders. I've also been publicly harassed by members for speaking out, including by Elder Igor Bebko and even Nate's wife, Alison. Nate told us internally he founded Anthem after much prayer and having this heart for Goleta, yet local pastors I've spoken with allegedly told Nate and advised him not to plant here because, according to them, The area was already oversaturated with churches, and any real growth would come from siphoning folks away from them. In closing, I know not everything I'm saying here is directly a land use issue, and I'm not even trying to bash Anthem as a church or say that any church would not be okay there. But look, this commission is being asked to place substantial trust in Anthem's leadership regarding future operations, attendance, traffic, neighborhood impacts, environmental stewardship, and compliance with permit conditions. In my experience, Anthem's leaders do not care about transparency or accountability. They don't care for the neighborhood or for the land they're on, and they only care about you and their congregants so long as...

Yes, thank you. Your time is up.

And Madam Chair, I have no further public speakers. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Does staff want to clarify anything on the record in light of the public comment?

I was thinking of letting the applicants speak first so we can see. We want to dovetail with what they might respond with.

OK. So you'd like to have them use their 3 minutes and 43 seconds. OKAY.

THANK YOU, MADAM CHAIR. A LOT OF GOOD COMMENTS. APPRECIATE EVERYONE PARTICIPATING IN THE PROCESS. YOU KNOW, A COUPLE OF TIMES YOU HEAR PEOPLE SAY AND UNFORTUNATELY ALL THE TIME AT CUPS IS IT'S A GREAT USE, JUST NOT HERE. EVERY TIME. This particular situation we're talking about is there's residential on one side and arterials surrounding the property. As Brian said, we have to look at the individual site here and look at the individual situation. We have more parking than what's requested. We did a environmental analysis of the Monarchs. It was peer-reviewed. by the top butterfly experts in the county and the region. And they agreed that this is the situation where a reduction is appropriate. We did a parking analysis. VMT is not about, is there traffic on the corner, or am I waiting at a stoplight? VMT is about air quality. Levels of service is what measures, like you're waiting in a traffic lane, or is there enough capacity on the road? VMT has nothing to do with that. With regards to butterflies, There's zero light proposed. Someone mentioned light. We have zero lumens at the butterfly habitat boundary with what we're proposing, which doesn't operate for the most part anyway. We're proposing foraging. Butterflies need foraging to survive. Are some birds going to eat a few butterflies? Maybe. But that's not going to prevent them from, you know, if you don't add any habitat or foraging, they're not going to survive at all. And we're not adding milkweed, which creates the situation where they might eat the young. Someone mentioned the staging over at Kalita Valley Junior High. That's correct. Currently, members of the congregation have to go early, many of them, to set up And that means they go early with their vehicle set up, and then their family joins them. So another car joined them. So when you get these skewed numbers, they don't actually reflect what would happen if we were having a permanent church at this location. In terms of compatibility, again, we're right next to very similar public serving uses, a church, Stowe House, the train station. It seems unusual to me, though, that this use in the church isn't appropriate. And if it's not appropriate here, where in the city would it be appropriate? Are you saying we need to be inside a commercial zone or a... industrial zone. It doesn't seem appropriate. And we looked actually in the business park and found issues with compatibility there. We looked in many locations and it took years to get to the situation we're at now. And so I think it's important to look at that when you're making your decision. And yeah, I'm going to leave it at that. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Does staff want to

We have to speak now. Yes, chair and commissioners. There's just a couple of things we wanted to highlight. I'm going to start off with the comment and questions about the fire station. We do want to say the Santa Barbara County Fire Department has reviewed the plans. didn't have any issues about the use here or the number of vehicles. And so while we understand people's concerns, the fire department didn't have a concern with it. And also, I would hope that people exiting the parking lot, if a fire vehicle was leaving, that you know, we're all supposed to stop and let the fire truck go first. So, I mean, behavior will be behavior. But anyway, fire department didn't have a problem and they've looked at it. Second thing about parking, somebody was commenting about the size of the building and that would justify more parking spaces. The way Title 17 is worded, and I had it up, It's about the area devoted to the worship space. It's not the overall square footage of the sanctuary building. So it's the area devoted to where the movable seats could be placed. That's what generates the parking requirements. And they meet and exceed what that standard is as outlined in Title 17. So just wanted to bring that up. I think Brian, you were going to talk about, we're going to turn it over to Brian for the others.

Thank you, Chair and Commissioner. So there were a couple of items that I think our city staff consultants could address. One would be the VMT line of questioning. So either Mark Schleich, it looks like, or Dennis Lammers is on this. I think we could start with Mark, and he can kind of describe the context of how VMT fits in with our CEQA review. I'll start by saying or reminding the Commission that VMT is not a metric for traffic delay or congestion, but one that measures vehicle miles traveled. and its effects on air quality and greenhouse gas emissions. So traffic delay is no longer a measure in environmental impact under CEQA. So when we talk vehicle miles traveled, it's not measuring traffic. It's measuring how many miles and what the air emissions might be. Let's see. Is Mark Schleich available to dovetail off of that? I see his mic. There he is.

Hi, Mark. Hey. Good evening, everyone, planning commissioners. To add to Brian's comment regarding VMT, it wasn't the city that chose to use VMT as the standard for traffic. or for environmental review, it was the state of California, the state assembly, were actually the ones that passed the law that we now focus on vehicle miles traveled, and it's been stated it's focusing on reduction in greenhouse gases. We locally see that, feel, I should say, that traffic will get more congested because we don't have that ability now, but the law is the law, so that's what we're following. The applicant did prepare VMT based on that law, and we reviewed it and found it compliant. I don't know if there's any more specific questions you had related to that, but that's the process that we use for this project and all projects.

Thank you, Mark. The other line of questioning that I had some consultants available to respond to is the buffer reduction, the monarch buffer reduction. So we have Karis van der Hyde with Althaus and Mead on that can respond to some of those lines of questioning. Give her a second, too.

Hi, this is Karis Vanderhyde. Can you hear me?

Hello, Karis. Yes, thank you.

Yes. Hi. Yes, so I reviewed the plans and I think let me just have a second to gather my thoughts. The buffer is important to protect the root zone and the canopy of the trees that are creating the wind protection for the Monarch overwintering site. And the building being offset from the edge of canopy by 100 feet is sufficient to protect those trees. And so reducing that buffer means So 50 feet means that they can put hardscaping in the landscaping plan from 50 feet away from the canopy to 100 feet. And just in that analysis, we don't feel that that landscaping plan will impact the habitat for the overwintering monarchs. And also store environmental might have more to add.

Thank you, Karis.

I can kind of summarize the store environmental review as it pertains to the request for the 50-foot buffer. The existing site that's, again, it's on the Lake Los Ganeros property and not on the Anthem Church site, but the buffer comes through the corner of the site. The site is... It includes an inclusive assortment of trees, some of which may provide. Interim it had been used in the past as an interim or season transitionary site at the beginning of the season as the butterflies moved through the landscape looking for a more permanent home. But the fact that the the trees that are there are. not cohesive and not in a row, they didn't stay. And that's supported by studies in subsequent years that found very few, if any, monarchs in that location. So the conclusion then of the study was that the trees that are in the area didn't support an aggregation site. that would therefore then meet the criteria for a buffer reduction. That was a quick summary of a study that people put together that are a lot smarter than I am. But that was my takeaway as a staff. Thanks.

Chair, that is all that we want to comment on.

Okay. Thank you. Next, we will see if there's any additional questions from commissioners to either the applicant or the staff. Commissioner Sirotkin.

I think, you know, just listening to everybody, everyone is so, I think everybody feels so strongly about both sides of the issue. And I can understand why this congregation wants a home and certainly should have that. And I can understand why the neighbors have serious questions. some stemming from poor experiences with the church in the past when they were in the tent, and others with concern for the neighborhood. I think a lot of it, a lot of the objections, at least from what I'm hearing, is based on the size. And I understand that the church wants to grow and is building for growth.

And I just want to make sure there's a question here.

Yeah, there is. And so my question really is, does it need to be that size? And perhaps that would alleviate some of the objection. If it wasn't there for $1,500 as a goal, which is probably terrifying to people who live in a neighborhood. And the other question is, are church members neighbors? Is there an overlap between the people who live in the neighborhood and the members of the church, rather than the church being an outgrowth of the people that live in the neighborhood?

Vice Chair Serotica, through the Chair, I guess to answer your last question, I know for sure that we have had people at the DRB meeting that are Anthem members and that also live in the neighborhood. So yes, there are some. Sorry, regardless of the $1,500. So the church itself has a capacity, $500 is what we said, right, for the sanctuary. So the size of it is based upon that. The sanctuary is the size it's going to be. And we've also sized it for the ability to have the daycare and the preschool. Unfortunately, it's a half-day preschool. And then to have Sunday school spaces and office spaces. it's kind of built in the size that it is. Now, if we increase in size, they'll just reuse the same space. So I would think Michael Holliday, our architect, is still here. And we did try to reduce the size, reduced it a fair amount. Someone said, I think, about 3,000 feet or more in an attempt to bring that massing down, bring the size down. And we did do that. But I don't think that there's a way to, Changing from 1,500 to 1,200 wouldn't really change much because the sanctuary size is sort of fixed at that 500. Thank you.

Commissioner Maynard.

I wanted to ask Council, there's a couple of public comment letters that came up. One of the challenges we have is that there is limited parking at Lake Los Caneros. And so there's been a lot of overflow from that use into this parking lot. And so far, the church has been generous with sharing some of that space. But that's not dedicated parking for Lake Los Canaros. To my understanding, I guess I want to verify this with you, we can't require a property owner not to use their space. So we couldn't require a project to not build anything there. That would be considered a taking in some ways. Can you just talk a little bit to that?

So, yes, this is a privately owned piece of property that is zoned for certain uses and with a conditional – it's zoned for residential, but with a conditional use permit, it can be used for community assembly purposes. So that is wholly at the choice of the private property owner as to how they want to use their property, and they – do need to come in for a permit when they develop something on the property. So our obligation is to make sure that they meet all of the zoning requirements and our general plan when we approve this or deny this project. And so we don't have any control over how the private property owner chooses to use the property except through the kind of compliance with the city requirements. Does that answer your question, or was there another one? It does.

Thank you. And then a question, going back to the transportation for a second. So there are two transportation analysis, VMT and level of service. We have switched in many ways to looking at VMT for many things, which we know doesn't address traffic. But the level of service is... is something that's still required by our city that helps to look at traffic congestion. I noted, like in this project, we are below the requirements of the general plan for level of service. So we are thinking about traffic congestion as a part of this. I want to clarify one thing that level of service was level of service in the transportation survey assessed on a sunday we because one of the things we talked about was the vmt is assessed only for the weekdays for level of service do we look at weekends as well or do we only look at weekdays like we do with vmt yeah it would typically be uh weekday am or pm peak hour time frames

Well, there's average daily trips, yes, as well.

Could we verify? I think we have some transportation planners either from our team or from the – Sure.

We can let Mr. Schell speak first, and then if there needs to be any follow-up – Yeah, I just want to double-check on that.

Just was – to what extent was level of service assessed on Sunday and the types of traffic that would come up on a weekend –

So Mr. Highfield's correct. The city standard is to look at weekday, a.m., and p.m. peak hours. So that's like 7 to 9 in the morning, 4 to 6 in the evening, and also look at weekday roadway volumes. So that's what we incorporated into the traffic study for the project.

Okay. So for both level of service and VMT, the weekend traffic was not accounted for. Correct. Okay. Thank you. That's all my questions.

Any additional questions? I don't have any additional questions myself. Since we have no additional questions from the commissioners, I'm going to close the public comment portion of the hearing. And we're going to go into deliberations now. So the public hearing is now closed. And Commissioner Maynard, would you like to start us off on deliberations?

Sure. Thank you very much. First, I just want to thank everybody who came out tonight. We've heard a lot of different perspectives and a lot of experiences. And I really appreciate getting to learn from all of you tonight. And for you to be out here late on a Monday and putting in that dedication to the community. So thank you for doing that. As we look at this project, I think as planning commissioners, we are a semi-judicial board. We are not a fully... there were different from city council in that sense the planning commission is here to help to interpret the zoning ordinance and the general plan and to try to as fairly and equitably as possible look at any project that comes for us to determine if they're consistent with these planning documents which makes us less subjective than some other boards that have Or the City Council has a little bit more leeway in interpreting policy moving forward So we try to stay as close to the objective standards as we can Some things that stand out to me about this project It is On one side of the project is an existing church. On another side of the project is a community assembly. The Stowe House project has many community events and public events on a frequent basis, having similar types of activities and amplified noise. So in terms of use, it does seem consistent with the uses to the north and to the south of the building. there is some height modification here but i do see that the intent of the height modification is to soften and not raise the height overall i was very compelled that the maximum height of this project of 33 feet is allowable height by our current existing building standards and the only modification that's been requested is for a fairly thin cross that is the same height as the one at CLC and for an angling of the building to allow for more softening and to make it actually look less tall in terms of the final result. So the height seems to help to address some of the concerns as opposed to create a taller structure. So I feel comfortable with the height requirements in that. There's a lot of challenges with the way that we look at parking and traffic within our city. And that's why I asked a lot of really tough questions tonight to try to really understand the standards. And I really appreciate Ms. Prosley helping us really understand the parking guidelines within the zoning ordinance. that were confirmed at only looking at the assembly area and not the full building. That is a little bit odd to me that we're not looking at some parts of the building that would also be in use on the same day as the main assembly area. But as defined and as written by our zoning ordinance, it is based on only the assembly area. And at that, they have met the parking requirement of our zoning code here. I am dismayed that we're not looking at weekend travel when we're looking at traffic. I think that made sense to me with the VMT and some of what's coming up with the state around really looking at greenhouse gas emissions. I understand why you might make some of the weekend exempt for that. But level of service on a weekend definitely something our community cares about and is, I think, envisioned by the general plan. We assumed that weekends would be a part of assessing level of service. So I am surprised that we are not looking at Sunday travel as a part of the travel assessment. That said, I don't feel like I can hold this project to a different transportation standard or traffic standard than I could other projects. And so if this is the methodology that we use as a city, I have to apply that same methodology to every project. And by that methodology, it does pass on both VMT and level of service. So not just the greenhouse gas emissions, but also the traffic requirements for the city. The reason I asked about the use of the site is I think that there's some real challenges with Lake Los Caneros and Stowe House. Those projects are severely under-parked. But that is a problem of the neighbors in this case. That is a problem of the park. It is a problem of the Stowe House. And it's not appropriate to require this private property owner to give up their right to develop the land because a neighbor has under-parked their own space. So I hope that the city can work with Lake Los Canaros on alternative parking solutions because they're gonna need it Because for so long they've been relying on the generosity of this neighbor But we can't assume that this project is never going to build something here We can't assume that this project will always be the free parking solution for the neighbors That's not That feels like a taking to me it feels a step too far. So I think on those standards, we're there. There's one exception I do want to note. I think on the CLC project, as I briefly noted before, I don't expect a project that's really only changing a site map to redevelop its whole parking lot. So I don't think requiring 43 spaces versus 41 and somehow making them completely change their parking orientation 60 years later is appropriate. But I don't feel like the e-bike parking space is that high of a lift. I didn't hear compelling assessment of that being costing too much. I think that could easily be something that you walk your bike up to the building and it can be plugged in next to the building so it doesn't need to be a lot of trenching. So I would lean towards not accepting the waiver of the e-bike parking space. But I think the other waivers for the CLC project made sense for me. I'd like to hear more from my fellow planning commissioners about the buffer zone a bit more. I always struggle with reducing a buffer zone. So I think that's something I'd like to talk and go back and forth a little bit with my commissioners on. But I have been out to the space. I did do a site visit to go see the story poles. And it is a highly developed space. There's a lot of gravel that's on the parking lot there. It's been a long time since that area has been in a restored space. And so I am excited about all the new trees and landscaping that would be coming in with the project. But yeah, just trying to think about if as much paving is needed in the buffer zone. And those are some things that I'm thinking about. So that's where I'll start the discussion. But I hope it's really a discussion and not just sort of three comments.

I have very mixed feelings, I have to admit. Now, one of the things that troubles me is the reluctance to make it smaller. I was a college vice president in another lifetime, and that is a big building that far beyond what 55 daycare and 55 preschool takes up. And I understand to have facilities, but it just seems to me that what's happened is that The remaining property is being paved. And to get at your question about the buffer, part of it is because it's so big and that the two-story, the education building, is the one that really strikes me as being way bigger than its neighbors because none of the other buildings are big. And so that is different about where that goes in the neighborhood. And the reluctance to try to find a way to not pave, you know, it's like put up a parking lot. paved paradise and put up a parking lot. I mean, there's an awful lot of that. And, you know, so I have very mixed feelings. And that would affect the way you were talking about the buffer. Is it really necessary to minimize the buffer so much if it can be scaled back to some extent? You know, I'm not convinced that I understand why it needs to be quite that big. And I think that's what I sense a lot of people are concerned about, the size and, you know, the projected growth path that would take it beyond what is typical in this, you know, right in this neighborhood. So that's basically my concern is just if it's necessary to pave so much to build so big planning so far ahead that may never happen and never get that big. And then you've overbuilt. And you can't take it back once it's done. That's why I say I have very mixed feelings. And I've been swayed on both sides by the points that people have made and compliments to all of you. People have taken it very seriously.

Well, as Commissioner Maynard said, I just want to thank everybody, to all the staff for your work, and thank you to the public for your many comments and concerns, ideas, and thoughts. It's really obvious that our community, Goleta community, is a caring and thoughtful one, and each of us wants what's best for our city and our neighborhoods. And it is our job as commissioners to look at the findings, listen and read with an open mind to all the pros and cons and evaluate the land issues for any project that comes before us. It is also our job to make sure that these issues comply with our general plan and zoning regulations. I would also just like to add that many of the public commenters provided alternative ideas and sites that Anthem could use for their use. I just feel that we have individually and collectively done all that. So I just wanted to mention that. Some of the big problems that I have are the zoning issues, the compatibility with the neighborhood, the public safety of the neighborhood, particularly with there being already a very recent accident a very bad accident. And the project isn't even built yet. And the level of service for traffic on Sundays in particular is just a little frightening to me. The parking, the parking to me is such a big problem in that what happens to the parking, if it's not sufficient enough for the church, or if it's too hard to get in or too hard to get out or people don't want to bother, is that that goes into the residential area. It overflows into the residential area. And I guess there's nothing. that says you can't do that. But what happens is it disrupts the neighborhood. It disrupts the existing neighbors' lives and perhaps even their livelihoods. And it creates divisiveness. It takes away from that residential community feel. And being that this project is in a residential neighborhood, that's the big thing with the compatibility. I just don't think that it's entirely compatible with this residential neighborhood as well as this beautiful open space of Lake Carneros and Stowe Park, where there's many, many visitors on a daily basis. I go over there and walk at least once a week. And there's just lots of bikers. There's just lots of walkers, dog walkers. There's lots of kids there at the train depot on the weekends when it's open. I mean, there's lots of families. There's just a lot of visitors to that. and particularly on Sunday. So the Sunday level of service that this project will have is going to add to the level of service that the neighborhood already has in many, as you said, on three sides. and then the disruption to the existing residential area on the other side. It just seems like a lot to me. As far as the buffer is concerned that Commissioner Mader wanted us to talk about a bit as commissioners together, you know, it's not my favorite thing. I'm not in favor of it, of the buffer being reduced by any means. science is as far as how it may not make a big difference to the monarch butterflies. I don't know. I personally don't know enough about it. It's not my bailiwick of knowledge. So I guess I have to rely on what the experts have already written and what the city staff has recommended. But just a personal gut feeling is that it doesn't feel good because, as we all know, the butterfly is our logo. So it seems like we want to do whatever we can to protect that. that that's for the monarchs. So that's a very, very mixed feeling. But it's mostly the compatibility, the public safety, the overflow, and the disruption into the residential area, and then just the the added disruption and added congestion on the weekends, particularly on Sunday. Those are my thoughts.

I still struggle that we're holding them to a different standard. And I think that's the thing that keeps coming back to me here. If the primary concerns are parking and transportation, they're not backed up by the analysis or the standards set by the city. And so if there's concerns with parking at the levels that are here, we need to change the zoning ordinance. we need to change the requirements of the community assembly to include not just the assembly area but other parts of the project or to require more parking for a project of this scale. That's not what our zoning ordinance says. And so denying the project based on parking just doesn't seem consistent with our zoning ordinance. we have to be able to go back to that. We have to go back to the standards that we as a city set. And I remember debating these zoning ordinance standards when we worked on it. I was here as a planning commissioner when we worked on the zoning ordinance. And we spent a lot of time really trying to think about what was the right amount of parking. And I might have gotten it wrong. I don't know. But if I did, I did. And it's in there now. And I think if we're going to change those parking standards, we have to change it. for everybody, for every project that comes forward, and not make this project have different parking than is in our own guidelines.

I don't think I'm asking necessarily for the parking to be changed. for the parking lot to be changed. What concerns me more is the overflow and disruption into the neighborhood. And it also concerns me. even though the level of service wasn't done on Sundays, we know, it's obvious. I mean, it's pretty 100% clear to me that, yeah, that level on Sunday, whether it was studied or not, is going to be pretty heavy on Sundays. between Stowe Park, the railroad depot, the railroad museum, Lake Canaros, the proposed church, and then... You know, if there happens to be – there's also sometimes special events in Stowe Park on the weekends as well. So it's just – it's very cumbersome. And what happens then, you know, I think when you've got so much – so much of that happening, the public safety just becomes incredibly heightened. and it's just, it's very worrisome. I mean, it's not like, you know, Goleta never has a pedestrian death or hit. I mean, we've had a number of them, you know, and putting something like this in this neighborhood is, to me, is like just putting people's public safety at risk. I'm having a hard time getting over that and the disruption to the neighborhood. Because the neighborhood gets disrupted. The neighbors get upset. We have enough divisiveness and whatnot in this world right now. I don't want to create any more. It's just terrible. Our community is too important to do that, our whole Goleta community. So that's the way I feel.

Shall I try to make a motion? I'm going to try a motion. I don't know if it'll work, but I'll try it out. I do want to make an amendment to the motion around the e-bike parking space. That's just a small thing that I want to put back in. Should I do that in... Motion one or motion two? Item one or two?

I'm going to do that in two.

OK, so the first one is about the notice of exemption. So my first motion is, after considering the evidence presented during the public hearing, adopt Planning Commission Resolution Number 26-underscore, entitled A Resolution of the Planning Commission of the City of Goleta, California, Adopting a notice of exemption and approving parcel map 32- or 32,072 to create two lots located at 6595 Covington Way, APN 077160-022, case number 24-0002-sub. So we'll start with just that motion and see if there's agreement on the first before we go on to the second. Do you want to do a vote?

OK. We have a motion. Do we have a second?

I'll second the motion.

OK. Commissioners, please lock in your votes. Roll call vote beginning with Commissioner Maynard.

OK. So I am locked, and I said yes.

Thank you. Vice Chair Sorokin?

I said yes.

And Chair Miller?

I said no.

I'd like to make a second motion.

MY SECOND MOTION IS AFTER CONSIDERING THE EVIDENCE PRESENTED DURING THE PLANNING COMMISSION ADOPT PLANNING COMMISSION RESOLUTION NUMBER 26 UNDERSCORE ENTITLED RESOLUTION OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF GOLITA, CALIFORNIA APPROVING A CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT AMENDMENT DEVELOPMENT PLAN AMENDMENT WITH ADJUSTMENTS CONDITIONAL USE PERMIT AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN WITH ADJUSTMENTS For development located at 6595 Covington Way, APN 077-160-022, case numbers 24-0004-CUPAM 24-0010. DPAM 240005-CUP, 24-0009-DP, and 24-0030-DRB, with the exception that we do not approve the requested exemption of the one EV electric bike parking space at the CLC parcel. So can you put the staff amendment up one more time? I want to make sure I'm getting that right.

Quick pause on the motion.

Let's see. Yes, this amendment. With the revision to condition one, as noted in the staff slides. Sorry, can you put that back up so people can see it while we're voting on it? I saw it a second ago. Oh, there it was.

Okay. Yes, with that one. And I just want to note for the record that that condition is on big page 168.

So we have a motion. Do we have a second?

I just want to clarify this. We are now making a motion that we approve or acknowledge the fact that all of this now will be affecting. OK.

Yeah, so the motion is proposed in the staff report. This would close out approving the project if you were to choose to approve it. This would add in not allowing the requested exemption of not moving forward with the electric bike parking space. And then, sorry, go back to the other slide real quick. And then it also includes adding this underlined language. Mm-hmm. So you can second, you can choose not to second, or you can also make a friendly amendment to the motion. Just throwing another option out in case you would prefer to make a friendly amendment. And then if you propose an amendment, then I can accept or deny.

I will second your motion.

Thank You commissioners, please remember to lock in your votes once again roll call vote beginning with Commissioner Maynard I Will vote yes vice chair Sorokin No, this would approve the project Including this amendment.

Yeah, okay. Okay, then I'm vote.

No chair Miller I vote no

So Chair, at this point, since the commission has voted and essentially there isn't support for approving the project at this point in time, the Planning Commission can consider taking other than the staff recommended action. And possibilities include, which we outlined in the staff report, continuing the project for additional information or review, including potential revisions, or directing staff to prepare revised findings. as required, for example, findings for denial and continuing the item to a date certain for action consistent with your direction. And if you choose that latter path, then I would want to consult with our current planners and our current planning manager, Lisa Prossy, as to the best date when we could bring that back. Our next Planning Commission meetings are July 13th, July 27th, August 10th, and August 24th. And I would think August 10th would give us adequate time to prepare revised findings, but I'd like to get Ms. Prossy's input on that. I suspect that July 13th is not possible. That's too soon. And July 27th would probably be pretty tight as well. So if Ms. Prossy, if you and your staff concur, and I defer also to Mr. Mimic and Mr. Highfield on this, depending on the findings that were directed to prepare, we could bring something back on August 10th.

That date would work for us.

And if that wasn't clear, we're happy to elaborate. But essentially, now we look to the commission to propose a motion that differed from the staff's recommended actions and that gave us direction to prepare revised findings of a different type.

Would this be a chance that at this moment we could indicate if there was something that would make the project more palatable to the Planning Commission? Are we looking to suggest things that we would like to see changed in the project? Or are we just looking to give guidance to the staff to come up to develop a report that shows findings consistent with what we talked about tonight? I guess I'm trying to understand. What type of feedback do you need from us in advance of the August 10th?

So, Chair and Commissioner Maynard, if the question was directed to me or to staff, then yes, you could either direct us to prepare denial findings or you could suggest revisions to the project and require those revisions and ask us to prepare findings consistent with that and ask the applicant to revise the project accordingly. I do believe that the applicant could, however, if it prefers, request a denial so that it could challenge the project onto the council if it prefers to.

Thank you, Chair Miller. And yeah, we would prefer, especially considering that there's a fourth commissioner who could potentially come back in that time frame, which would make even a no vote possibly stall, I'd prefer to have a denial that we could take to the city council as soon as possible.

So the applicant is requesting a denial by the commission so that it can challenge the action of the commission to the council.

OK, then do we have a motion for findings of denial?

And Madam Chair, the motion would be to direct staff to return with findings of denial at a date certain.

OK, OK. Do we have a motion? Yes? No, no, no. OK, I'll make the motion. We would like to direct the staff to come back by a date certain with findings for denial.

And would that date be August 10th?

If that's acceptable to you, yes. By August 10th, yes. So I made the motion. Do we have a second?

I'll second.

Okay. All right. Thank you, commissioners. Please remember to lock in your votes once again, please. Beginning with Commissioner Maynard.

Aye.

Thank you. Vice Chair Sorokin. Aye. And Chair Miller.

Aye. The ayes have it.

We're not done yet. Let me see if I have mine.

Which is the what?

The director's report.

Okay, yes. Thank you. Thank you.

I thought I had my script, but I don't see it.

Every time that door goes.

I know.

It's like, oh. It's like, oh. It's like, oh. I can't take it. Rome.

He's blowing a horn every time.

Welcome back.

Yes. Okay.

It was a tough one.

Yeah, it was.

Okay, thank you. We need to finish our meeting. We need to finish our meeting, everyone. So we're going to go to item C, which is planning director comments.

So good evening, Madam Chair and Commissioners. I don't really have much of a report today except to say that our next meeting will be on July 13th. We do expect that we will have one item at this point in time. So hopefully we'll have full attendance and a quorum for that meeting. And that is all I have to report on tonight. Thank you.

OK, thank you. Do we have any planning commission or other comments? Planning commission or me? Sorry, I'm losing it. Do we have any commissioner comments? OK. There goes the door again. How about do we have a motion to adjourn? A motion to adjourn. And I'll second the motion. OK. Roll call vote, please.

Commissioner Maynard.

Aye.

Commissioner Penniman. Aye. Vice Chair Sorokin. Aye. Chair Miller.

Aye. Thank you. Meeting adjourned.