Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, let's go ahead and call this meeting to order and start with the flag salute.

May we please have a commissioner roll call?

Ivers Gobdell.

Here.

Noah Levy.

Here.

Peggy O'Neil. Here. Sarah West. Present. Jerome Curiazzi. Here. Lorna McFarland. Here. And Todd Fulton.

Here.

Thank you very much. Okay, we're all present. Director, that brings us to item C, agenda modifications. Director Ford.

Thank you, Chair. We really have no substantive changes to the agenda tonight other than to call your attention to, under workshop item G, it says to receive public comment. We're not presenting anything new tonight, so there is no public comment. You received public comment last time.

Thank you. Okay, and that brings us to item D, public comment on non-agenda items. At this time, persons may appear before this commission on any matter pertinent to the commission's jurisdiction that is not on the agenda. So if you would like to comment in person, please approach the podium, and if you would like to comment online, please raise your hand. Now, sometimes there can be a little bit of a lag in the video, so it's helpful if you raise your hand now so that I can be sure to call on you when it's your turn. So I will first start in the room, and then I will look to online and phone. And if you are calling in, you can press star nine to raise your hand. Okay, and I don't see anybody in the room approaching the podium, so we'll go ahead and look online. And I don't see anybody online having their hand raised either. Okay. I'm gonna give it just one second just to be sure. Okay, so I don't see any hands raised online, so we're gonna go ahead and close public comment on non-agenda items and move to item E, consent agenda. We have one item on the consent agenda tonight. Typically these are matters that are routine in nature and approved with a single vote. So I'm still gonna pull the audience and the commission to see if anybody wants to pull this item for a staff report or a public comment. So I'm gonna go through the list, which happens to be one tonight, and then vote on those items that are still on the consent agenda, and then move to items pulled from consent. So with that, our one item is the review and approval of the July 16th, 2026 action summary. Anybody on the commission like to pull this item? Seeing none. I'm not seeing anybody in our audience, and if you're online and you want this item pulled, please raise your hand now, and it is star nine to raise your hand if you're calling in. Okay, I'm not seeing anybody raise their hand, so we're gonna go ahead and leave our one item on consent. Do I have a motion?

I'll move. I'll second.

I have a motion and a second. Let's do a voice vote. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any against? Or any abstain?

Okay, motion passes.

So that brings us to item F, items pulled from consent. We didn't have any, so we will move to item G, our workshop item. Tonight, we are having a public workshop on the Humboldt Bay Area Plan. This is the second time that the commission is reviewing this item, so we are going to pick up where we left off. Since we don't have any new information, as Director Ford said at the beginning of the meeting, we won't be doing a public comment section. We're going to move directly into commission discussion and try and make some progress moving through the documents. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Steph.

Good evening commissioners. My name is Rheanne Megan and I am going to pick up where we left off from the July 16th planning commission workshop that was on page 57. This is going to be the workshop draft version 2 or attachment 3. Just waiting a moment for everyone to get situated. And then I'll start at the beginning of this section. We did stop at B. one F, but this is going to be the first section that we left off on is going to be the coastal dependent development. And just to reiterate, we left off on page 57 under policies and it'll be coastal dependent industrial policy after heavily lift marine terminals. I'm going to just start scrolling through the section

Can I just go ahead and jump in?

Yes, please. And actually, right before you do that, for folks who may, I don't think we had a full commission last time. So in case anybody wasn't, I don't remember. So I'm just going to repeat it. We're going through the document page by page. But really, it's up to you if you want to stop and talk about something. So keep in mind what we're going through. And do your best to holler when you see that item come up. Or perhaps, yeah, let's start with going through page by page for the moment. So please go.

I think just more of a comment around 3.6, which is where we see the port overlay suggestion. And I think we all know that the primary impetus of this is offshore wind, as mentioned in the background. But I don't see acknowledgement of the reason why this is important, specifically with climate change, greenhouse gas mitigation. And earlier in the document, we do see a single mention of the Regional Climate Action Plan, but nowhere else is greenhouse gases or emissions reductions acknowledged in the Humboldt Bay Area Plan. having some language that further acknowledges and ties specifically the offshore wind and why we're considering offshore wind to be included in here.

We can absolutely do that.

Do you even have to put the word offshore wind in there? Can you just say offshore or whatever? Because has it been already determined that there will be offshore wind? Is it?

it hasn't well i i mean you could just not put the word wind in there and open it up for whatever we we could and that would be a policy decision by the planning commission here it's my recollection that last time we started spending a lot of time talking about whether it was wind or not wind i mean it

It doesn't matter. It's not saying that you're pro or against it. You're just saying we're not predetermining what those lifts will be used for. They'll be used for either offshore or onshore purposes, which is what it already says. I don't know. It's just a thought.

That's fine. We're here to understand the will of the Planning Commission.

Maybe somebody else has a thought on that.

Commissioner McFarland and then Commissioner Curiazzi. I think to Commissioner Curiazzi's point, I think that's fine with me.

I could support that. But then I think making the tie to Commissioner O'Neill's point is that there is a potential for another offshore use, such as a solar array, which would be supportive of Commissioner Curiazzi's point. So maybe if in the language, we could just leave it at sustainable energy generation tying to your... call for the greenhouse gas inclusion like maybe in that paragraph we don't need to specifically only call out wind right because we could have an offshore flux II or something in ten years yeah yeah thank you that makes sense I think to you Commissioner O'Neill I think the

It makes sense to, we had talked about last time with staff adding in that additional language of allowing different development. I think that does make sense to me, but I did want to acknowledge public comment where they were concerned about that, that potentially the overlay zone could then allow other types of industrial processes that we're not, we don't have a clear understanding of what that is. I think I got from staff that the goal, the idea here is we're really relying on the EIR process of any type of overlay establishment of whatever that industrial activity would happen, that the EIR process would help address some of those concerns. So I think my understanding of some of the public comment is they wanted it to be specific to offshore wind. And I think, I understand your thought is we wanted to have it. Right, and I think I'm leaning towards you, but I did want to just acknowledge that public comment.

But that's not what that says, though.

If I could help maybe a little bit. I think the limiting factor here is what's allowed in CDI. And so whatever we say here, we can embellish the idea of sustainable energy generation and leave it at that. But ultimately, whatever a heavy lift terminal is used for is gonna be related to what's allowed in CVI. Either that or they're gonna have to either get a conditional use permit or it's just not allowed outright.

So if you want to have a boat industry, building industry, you'd need this heavy lift. But we don't specifically say that in there. If you go back to what it says, if it didn't have the word wind, it wouldn't preclude other uses because it already kind of infers that or says that. I don't know.

I think the, because staff sort of close to the last workshop, they added in the additional language to allow other uses. I'm personally supportive of calling out offshore wind specifically, because I think that's a known thing coming up. But I'm also supportive of the and other uses approach.

So Chair, if I could, what I'm hearing is that there is an openness to kind of expanding that beyond just wind, but should be energy generation related? Or is it just any use that would normally be allowed within an MCI, Coastal Dependent Industrial District?

I would agree with the any. I think we're, to me it reads that we're building, we're putting a bunch of eggs in a basket that hasn't been built yet. So if we open it, make it broader. Is your mic on? Yes, sir, it is. Okay. So maybe we should just leave it like you'd mentioned, any or all. Because I just hate to see us corner ourselves in something that we may not be able to get out of 10 or 15 years if something comes up down the road.

Appreciate that. I'll just, yeah, appreciate that. We really developed the port overlay with wind in mind. And a lot of the ESHA policies were really to try to facilitate that. So I'll just leave it at that. But we're here to do what the commission's desire is.

Commissioner Skapdahl?

Yeah, and I get both ends of this conversation. I see this as a general planning type document, but it's hard not to develop, even though it's a general planning type document, it's hard to not think about projects that might be right in front of us when we're reviewing this document, but I tend to have a little bit of concern when it is a planning document and we start writing it or structuring it towards a specific project that may or may not happen. And some of the brackets we're trying to put around that specific project are now going to influence other things in the general planning document. So I'm not sure. That's why I thought when we pulled out to an overlay zone that might be specific to a type of a project, it was going to be outside of this document.

It would be. This creates the kind of direction to create an extra document that addresses that with some of the guidance given here. Right.

and and so it would be really an overlay zone be part of the zoning ordinance and uh it's it's like other documents that we have now around the county refer to the fish farm that's not going to happen but because we were in that process at the time it gets into these documents that carry on forever or for decades i'll say um So it becomes history. I personally don't have a problem that the heavy lift terminal is being considered and came up to support wind. So I don't have a problem that it actually says that in here. I think, though, we want to be broad enough to make sure that the heavy lift terminal can be used or does have flexibility to support other industries that might come about in the future that we may or may not know about today. So I didn't want it to just get locked into being a wind heavy lift terminal.

I appreciate that thought because actually when you think about it a little bit more, if a heavy lift terminal is built and it can only be used for wind and for whatever reason wind doesn't happen, then you've got a huge investment sitting there without a use. And there could be other uses that are compatible with the values of Humboldt County and what's allowed in the zoning.

Absolutely, and we talk about, throughout this document, about this port being one of a few available on the west coast. Sometimes there's things that happens. If you build it, things will come. And if we did have a heavy lift terminal, we don't know what industries or what businesses in the future might look at or want to make use of that terminal.

Commissioner McFarland?

I'm just wondering if we should take a temperature of the commissioners and then move on from this subject because we've We've talked about the inclusion of the word wind a lot, especially until we ended last meeting. And then we all saw the news today with RWE pulling out of their leases, right? But Harbor District's stating they're going to continue forward. So maybe we should kind of just poll each other now, figure out if we want the term in the document to be so limiting or not. Because we have a lot of other pages to go through.

I'm supportive of that. Commissioner Curiazzi, are you up for sort of restating what you're advocating for?

Yeah, advocating for no change with the exception of adding language to part A that says why offshore wind is being pursued and ties it to greenhouse gas mitigation and the regional climate action plan.

Okay, and Commissioner McFarland, that is what you're suggesting we take a poll on supporting, correct? Or not supporting?

Yeah, just whether or not the language on page 57, we can pull it up again, needs to actually say wind or not, or wind, comma, other industries,

if I could kind of summarize what I hear is the other end of that it's just to call it a heavy lift terminal without a limitation on the use and then the zoning and the uses that are identified within the local coastal plan become the limiting factors there thank you okay so the question on the table is whether to be specific about whether what the the heavy lift terminal is for and

I guess I didn't quite track the conversation and how what you were advocating for was tying to what the other conversation. So thank you for restating it. Okay. So, and are we looking at that language right now? Thank you.

I think part of the struggle is that the reference to wind is embedded throughout. So if the commission were to decide we're gonna leave heavy lift terminal as a concept onto its own without the reliance on wind, then we would go through and sanitize the references to wind. If the commission would like to have a deeper relationship to greenhouse gas reduction and climate change addressing climate change, then we would add additional language into the preamble up above talking about why the heavy lift terminal related to wind.

But you wouldn't make that connection if we were to sanitize the term wind from the document?

Correct. Unless there was a third option, I don't want to confuse it, but the third option would be to have a reference to sustainable energy generation, and then we would modify A above the preamble to talk about sustainable energy production. But that would also be limiting to what could be allowed on the heavy lift terminal.

So the language that was on the screen that said wind, comma, other permitted uses, that's not currently in any way limiting, right? Because of the...

It would allow other uses. Right. But it could be interpreted by... I haven't gone through and looked at every one right now. And I really, what I'm trying to do is have the commission come to a clear consensus of whether or not you want to be reliant upon wind or sustainable energy, or you just want to allow a heavy lift terminal with the port overlay.

Let's, I think, if anybody has questions or discussion about what Director Ford is proposing, let's go ahead and do that, and then we'll do a straw poll.

Sorry to have to borrow the mic. So I guess, as you say, the language relating to wind is scattered through a lot of this document. I'm certainly comfortable with what I see here on page 57, the paragraph in question, provide support for offshore wind development or for other permitted heavy lift port operations. I guess what I'm feeling is I don't see a problem with, I mean, there is a lot written in this document that does anticipate a wind project. I guess what I mean, would it not be perhaps helpful to, if such a project does occur, and I know none of us can predict for sure that it will, would those provisions not be worth having in here, so long as we can broaden the language in key places to make clear that other permitted uses of the heavy lift could also be under this. But I mean, I guess I'm not seeing a clear need to sanitize out all the references to wind or even to broaden them to sustainable energy as long as we're not ruling out anything else.

So maybe the simplest solution here is that if we repeated this language wherever the provide support for offshore wind development that the other permitted heavy lift port operations were also included there and then just let it go. Because I agree with you, that would allow a lot of other things. if I hear correctly, the concern is that it tends to focus more on the first part, which is the wind support. And frankly, the way it's written, it would just allow anything that are allowed by other allowable uses within the zoning or the land use.

And just to be clear, when we talk about other uses, I mean, skimming up a few pages above there on page 54, under the start of the Coastal Dependent Development, the related Coastal Act policies, 30262, oil and gas development. That, it says right there, is not considered a coastal-dependent industrial activity, so... And I think there's other references that essentially affirm that. So I just want to be clear that we're not opening the door to that if we broaden the language.

We are not opening the door to that. I mean, one of the ultimate decisions will be is whether that would even be a permitted use, prohibited use, or a conditional use. And we haven't gotten there yet. Got it.

OK. Commissioner Kariazzi.

I think I agree with you, Commissioner Levy. I think I would like to see retaining offshore wind in here. I would like to show the intent to support the state's renewable energy production goals and to acknowledge AB 525. And I think leaving an offshore wind shows the intent that we want to see that development here. So I think with that, I think I agree with Director Ford's suggestion of just that simple approach.

Commissioner Fulton.

Respectfully, I would rather see it removed because I feel that this document appears to be steering in nature by leaving that on there. I think there's like maybe five or six words that could be removed from that sentence that would just be inclusive.

Okay, I'm not seeing any other commissioner comments at this time, so let's go ahead and take a straw poll, and I'm gonna ask again for clarity, just to make sure that I am following correctly. You are now in support of Director Ford's suggestion that follows Commissioner Levy's suggestion of leaving the wind references in, correct? Yeah, okay.

Let's start with just the basic fact, basically leaving this language and making sure that it's consistent throughout, that it's a support of offshore wind development and or other permitted heavy lift port operations. Okay. Is that appropriate language to see throughout the CDI?

Okay.

And so please give it a thumbs up if you agree with that, and please give a thumbs down if you do not agree with that. Okay, I see one, two, three, four thumbs up and three thumbs down.

This is a workshop, which means that there's lots of flexibility here, but I would say I would not be comfortable trying to go away from this meeting and do something with the commission so divided. I just offer that to you, Chair, as a thought. you don't have to do anything with it, we can move on. But there may be some way to create a little bit more of a affirmative consensus.

Do you have any thoughts on what that might be? I see Commissioner McFarland also next.

I think the thing that is troubling for maybe three, is the fact that there is this reliance upon the wind support facilities rather than just calling it a heavy lift terminal. And I guess that we can work in language into the preamble that the county is absolutely committed to supporting wind development and put that in the preamble, but then have the performance standards related to a heavy lift terminal so there's no confusion about that it's a singular kind of use.

I saw Commissioner McFarland and then Commissioner Kerriazzi.

My thumbs up was a weak thumbs up because I do think that Director Ford's original suggestion about the term like sustainable energy would be better than just wind because I do hear Commissioner Fulton and O'Neill's concerns. But his new suggestion of the preamble restating our commitment to wind but also then later removing it. I feel like that would be better because we do have other forms of renewable energy that, while we haven't seen offshore development yet, doesn't mean it couldn't come.

So you're suggesting that you would be amenable to Director Ford's suggestion?

Put the preamble stating the county's commitment to wind development or other renewable offshore energy development and then remove it from the language below the term wind and leave it as just a heavy lift terminal.

Can I ask a question? Yes. If there was a heavy lift terminal built whether and this the wind went away or you know it didn't Could that terminal be used for multiple different? businesses that Having one we wouldn't need like three.

We would just use one to service several different industries Yeah, it depends on how the owner of the property structures it right now. It's the harbor district and So however they chose to structure it and allow other users to participate in that, they can do that. There's no.

Because just having it in itself could attract industry that we don't even anticipate, but they go, wait a minute, here's a bay that has a heavy lift, so let's go approach them and see if we can use it also for some other type of purpose.

I think, did I see Commissioner Karayasi after Commissioner Farland and then Commissioner Scapta?

Just a point of clarification, when you say preamble, do you mean part A, the background? Yes, sorry. And I guess to clarify, would you be proposing to remove the second paragraph or retain the second paragraph and maybe flesh it out a bit more, including potentially my suggestion to tie it with greenhouse gas mitigation?

I don't know that we eliminate it, but I think that we would amplify it and add some of the language that you're looking for.

Yeah, I think I would, I definitely would not be in support of removing the context of offshore wind. Cause again, I don't, this is not a, another project I was going to bring up the fish farm, the Nordic Aqua farms as an example. I don't think it's to that level. I think this is both a statewide and a national effort, and there's been a lot of work, including legislative action towards identifying Humboldt Bay, so I would like to see retention of discussion of offshore wind in here.

Commissioner Scafdal and then Commissioner Levy.

I support retaining the discussion of offshore wind in here, and I don't mind tying it to greenhouse gases and energy efficiency. I don't think it should be tied to, well, it could, but I think it's bigger than the Humboldt County Climate Action Plan, so if we keep it at the state level. But when we talk about the heavy marine lift terminal, I think we should be referring to it as as needed to support coastal dependent development, whatever that will be in the future. You could put, we know one of those things is wind, but I just want to protect the flexibility of the heavy lift marine terminal to be more, even when wind is finished, There will still be a heavy marine terminal after a certain number of wind terminals are deployed. So how will it be used? So that's all I'm looking for in here is that it's just to support coastal dependent development. And then I would also like to remove the word unusual in front of the development needs of a heavy lift terminal. It could be the specific development needs of a heavy lift terminal or just the development needs of a heavy lift terminal.

Is that part of that?

It's in the same paragraph, yeah. The overlay zone established to consider specific development needs of a heavy lift terminal or something. unusual feels like too strong of a word for me having a heavily of terminal around around in a bay is not an it's not an unusual feature it might be different although we had one at one point it just fell apart commissioner leaving um

I would support changing unusual to specific development needs. I think that works just as well there. But to the larger point, you know, I guess I'm coming around to, I could support the, as we've been discussing, leaving in and in fact even expanding a bit Section A, which does state a lot of the things that have come before that lead to this location being an offshore wind energy development site and tying into greenhouse gas goals. But in light of what others are saying and in light of that being signaled clearly in those sorts of introductory sections of the plan, I think I could support making the language such as subsection F when the heavy lift marine terminal is needed, I think I could support removing the reference to offshore wind from that. Just so long as we've clearly stated in a number of places that it is our intention as a county, it is our, to facilitate this and that, you know, and as long as there's no specific ways in which removing that detail from some of the, from some of the nitty gritty is, is going to make it less clearly workable for wind. But I don't really see why having the words there will do that, you know, one way or the other. So I'm sort of persuaded, and I don't know if Commissioner Curiazzi has come around, but I feel like I could support that view, taking out wind from the specific subsections, leaving it prominently explained in the preamble.

wouldn't it also be appropriate maybe in the preamble when we're talking about wind in the preamble to say that one of the first projects that would be needed to support wind would be the development of a heavy lift terminal which would then tie it in that's an even better suggestion i think to tie it but when we talk about the heavy lift terminal we don't have to reference back

The support of renewable energy, but what I've seen in the past is if the price of the generation of fuel fluctuates, sometimes an industry is going full guns, like a biomass plant, and then it's closed down. So right now, wind is the ticket, but in five, 10, 15 years, it might be something else because it's not generating income. And that's going to be the primary reason why you would want to keep it open. So that fluctuates depending on what's happening. So we don't know what kind of technology is coming in the future. We're using water to generate energy. So that's why I like when you brought up renewable energy as an alternative to just wind because wind is good now and it may not be in the future or might not be affordable generation of energy. So you don't want to just box yourself in.

Okay, well, Director Ford, it sounds like you have enough information to go forward?

If that's the consensus, we're good to go.

Okay, wonderful. All right, and then I believe that Commissioner...

But I also say thank you for being willing to further that discussion. I think it got someplace.

Absolutely.

Can I request Director Ford to restate, kind of, or synthesize where you arrived at?

Yeah, so what we're going to do is, number one, we're really going to work on Part A, Section A, the preamble, to add to the existing language there, to talk about the importance of offshore winds to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to our overall strategy of addressing climate change. Part of that is also gonna add in that it's likely that the first project that is seen within Humboldt Bay would be a heavy lift terminal to support offshore wind. Then when it gets down into the actual provisions, it's just gonna be a reference to a heavy lift marine terminal.

Okay, saying heads nodding. Commissioner Fulton, you had a question not relevant to what we were discussing, but sort of relevant to what we were discussing.

Somewhat relevant. In the preamble, and I may be late to the show on this one, but would it not be wise to put a parentheses S after terminal? Depending on the definition of a terminal, as it stands now, it would appear that there is a monopoly on the heavy lift terminal. and that if somebody else wanted to develop one, depending on the definition and size of a terminal somewhere else within the bay, we could be preventing an opportunity for somebody else to do something.

Point taken. We'll look at that and make sure that it's not a singular kind of situation.

So the next place I'm looking at is page 58 under, it's G, it's hard to, let's see. It's not G. It's two. Policy to there we go.

Okay, so but if anybody has anything before that I'm looking at page 58 Yes Since last meeting we have received a lot of comments from the Coastal Commission So are Are those? just taken or how does that work? We will be addressing those. Because some of them are in the sections that we've already reviewed.

Right.

Okay, all right.

And some of them are gonna need a discussion with the Coastal Commission because there seems to be disagreement, but we believe we followed their direction. So before we get into that too far, it would be best for us to be able to talk to them and then finalize the language when we come back either to hopefully start the public hearing or finish the workshop okay so we're not addressing those specifically this evening not this evening we i mean those just came in i know right

I'm glad you asked that question because I actually was wondering the same thing like can we even bring that up? I mean it it was submitted I think it's in the public record, but if we didn't take new comment on this Continued meeting so if if we start discussing that we we have not figured out

how to respond to them yet. And so we don't have anything to present to you.

In that case, we'll just save our questions about that until you've processed it with them and bring it back to us. Yeah, thanks.

And just as a point of order, I see so many folks since the last time we noted this earlier in the meeting, but as a workshop item tonight, since it's a continuation of last time and no new information has been presented in the spirit of trying to get through this in commission discussion, we didn't reopen public comment. We should comment last time. So just for folks who may have come a little bit later and are following along, that is where we're at. We're at commissioner discussion and going through the document. and I think currently we are on page 58. Any others before I jump to Commissioner Kyrgiosia?

Unfortunately, I'm still on part F on 57.

Great, okay. That's why I said it, because I didn't want to rush us beyond what folks wanted to talk about, so please.

Thank you. I think just acknowledging some of the public comment specifically around calling for more extensive environmental and community impact efforts impacts being addressed and specifically comments around those impacts being health-based rather than conforming to fit a specific project. I believe that was Core Hub and a couple of others. I wanted to acknowledge that and note that in part F, I think is really the main place where we see anything other than ASHA areas where it's a mentioning of structure heights and lighting. And we've heard comments around concerns of noise, which isn't brought up here. So I wanted to bring up with staff kind of where is that line where the EIR is going to address some of these things and where is that line where it's appropriate to bring it up here in this Humboldt Bay Area Plan?

think that's a great question so there are some things that are typically not but they could be found in like zoning regulations or general plan regulations noise is one of those gets sometimes difficult to quantify that's why when the way this is written really focuses on things where the port development, heavy lift terminal, could be inconsistent with existing zoning, existing even LCP requirements, the ESHA. That's why those are brought in, because they may need to deviate from what is a traditional approach. There's currently not a noise requirement in the LCP. There's currently not a noise requirement in the zoning ordinance. That's not to say that there can't be in the general plan. There's a compatibility matrix and to the extent that that may be helpful to repeat something like that would be to show what's compatible and what's not. I think the coastal lighting ordinance really addresses the lighting requirements. That doesn't need to be repeated here. Trying to think of some of the other things that have been brought up. So certainly building height and like the height of the light poles and things like that, even noise, those are all things that would be evaluated in the EIR.

And I think there's other, and it probably goes back to our other discussion of how much is this, do we talk about offshore wind versus sort of a generic heavy lift terminal? But with offshore wind, we also have dredging requirements that I think kind of, that require deeper dredging than what's currently allowed.

Or currently done, for sure. And a heavy lift terminal of another sort could have the same requirement.

Right.

Part of the struggle that we have with this is we do not know what the specific requirements are for a heavy lift terminal so excuse me to identify what those may be and then to evaluate those here we we may miss the mark it may not quite get there And so it's really speculative. And we chose not to be speculative and just say that that will need to be addressed as part of a future action.

You would have to have lighting for safety purposes because you have small aircraft that would fly along the coast. So if these things are 1,000 feet tall, they have to be lit up so that somebody doesn't fly into them.

I think that's an example of something I think maybe is much more appropriate for the EIR, because there could be other heavy lift terminal uses that don't involve 1,500 foot structures. And noting that the second to last sentence in part F specifically only calls out that the port overlay zone may be used to address zoning regulations for structure height and lighting. And I feel like maybe that constraining it to just those two things is spurring public comment about what about all those other issues?

So yes, we will absolutely fix that, particularly in light of the previous discussion and address zoning regulations, consistency with zoning regulations and LCP policies.

When you reference previous discussions, are you referencing our discussion last meeting around noise?

Yeah, partly.

OK. Commissioner or other commissioners, were there other items on page 57 that you wanted to discuss?

Yep, so the next part is in the ESHA mitigation, so part G. I think we heard a lot of concern around allowing use of degraded ESHA areas. One thing I wanted to point out is that the Coastal Act require, in order to do that, my understanding is the Coastal Act requires kind of a tiered checklist to allow for that process, and I'm thinking maybe acknowledging the Coastal Act, the one I was referring to, this section 30260, and that's an override finding process to allow for the degraded ISHA approach proposed here. So it's more of just a suggestion of aligning the Coastal Act.

If you have more, please continue.

And I have another one, I think, and I forget where it's specifically called out, but I think, oh, here it is. So we're on page 58G3, where you're allowing a minimum ratio of two to one. And maybe this is inappropriate, because this actually does go back to the Coastal Commission's comments. So maybe we'll hold off on that, where they bring up the two-to-one ratio.

You can bring it up now. It's written there.

Yeah, I think the Coastal Commission was arguing what's more typical is a three-to-one, and then also a four-to-one for wetlands. So trying to understand what the impetus was for going to a lower ratio.

The impetus was that sometimes the escha is so degraded that it's really not, you're not removing something that's intact escha. You're removing something that's kind of scattered, has a lot of invasive plants in it, a lot of things that are not escha. And so you wouldn't necessarily go to a three to one or a four to one, but you still get to do a two to one. One of the other things we're seeing more and more is for truly degraded wetlands and or sensitive habitats, sometimes we see people propose one to one or 1.5 to one. And so, that's.

And so, excuse me. To be clear, this is saying the minimum ratio of two to one based on the ESHA to be impacted. So, higher quality ESHA could require a higher level of mitigation is what you're saying?

Correct. It's got to be situationally dependent depending on what's being impacted. So, this is a minimum.

I will just say there are many large public infrastructure projects in which degraded or low-quality ESHA has been required to be mitigated at the same rate as high-quality ESHA. And so what Director Ford alluded to does happen with the lower ratios, but in many large infrastructure publicly funded projects, the exact opposite happens. Putting it out there.

meaning not, you think there isn't a concern?

No, I'm tactfully, there are times when infrastructure agencies are required to, that are going to be impacting a degraded ESHA are required to mitigate for that ESHA in the same way as if they were impacting a pristine Esha, and they are given that higher ratio. There's also times when other entities may be given other ratios. So I'm saying that these two realities do exist. It's not so clear cut in the science or the policy implementation.

I don't, it's a bit above or beyond my expertise. I wanted to acknowledge the Coastal Commission, but I don't think I have a particular recommendation here, and thank you, Commissioner McFarland, for that context.

Okay, so we, I think, are on page 58 now, moving through, we have been under GE ESHA mitigation, Is there anything else under this one or moving towards, I think the next, the one I was looking at was number four. I said two earlier, but I meant number four. Anything before, okay, so for number four, where coastal dependent uses conflict among themselves, priorities shall be given to industrial over recreational commercial uses and to recreational over commercial uses, except that industrial, recreational, and visitor-serving use of private land shall not displace existing agricultural use when the area planners zoning protect the use. I think primarily I'm very curious the root of this and sort of the thinking, the context for where it came from and to discuss it a little bit among the commission.

So this is one where I know I struggled with it that probably goes back to 1983 and was probably ubiquitous in all LCPs that were adopted at the time. AND THE BASIC IDEA IS THAT WHEN YOU'VE GOT A COASTAL DEPENDENT USE, THAT BECOMES THE PRIORITY IF IT'S COASTAL DEPENDENT FOR THE ZONE THAT IT'S IN. SO COASTAL DEPENDENT INDUSTRIAL HAS PRIORITY IN THE MCI ZONE OVER RECREATIONAL OR COMMERCIAL USES GIVEN THE FACT THAT Coastal access is often associated with recreation. That gets a bit of a bump to be allowed. The agricultural portion of that gets a little weird because there's not agriculture in coastal-dependent industrial zones other than aquaculture. Um, and most of that is, is processing. There is aquaculture clearly in the bay and around the perimeter of the bay. So it just, um, we, we can play with that language. That's not sacred or, or anything, but it just gives a sense of priority where there are competing uses, which one gets preference.

To me it really, it just struck home as like what is, it really sort of, I mean the identity of our bay it reflects the hierarchy that is laid out here. And for me, it was just a question of like, is that what our community identity is going forward? And maybe I'm overthinking it a little bit, but when thinking about coastal dependent uses, and I hear what you're saying about like if it's a specific zone, you obviously prioritize that if it's coastal dependent industrial, Prioritize industrial use but that wasn't quite how I read that given. We're just in most coastal dependent uses we can clarify that Okay, that would be helpful. That would be helpful.

Yeah If I may follow up, thank you that good question I was curious specifically about the reference to agricultural use does that actually include aquaculture

So that actually is a discussion we've had with the Coastal Commission. They think everywhere else aquaculture is an agricultural use. And realistically, it is. The struggle that we have in the Bay is a lot of the actual growing of something happens in the water, which the county doesn't have jurisdiction over. and the processing happens on land. But we've treated both industrial processing part of aquaculture and the growing of seaweed or shellfish or whatever it is as being part of the same use. And maybe that gets a little confusing, but that's the way it's created right now.

So where does that particular use fall into this hierarchy as written here?

I would say that aquaculture is a coastal-dependent industrial use.

Industrial use. Because the processing, the part that happens on land, is essentially a coastal-dependent industrial activity. Correct. And the growing of the beds in the bay is outside the scope of this.

But there are some uses that are beginning. They're kind of incubator uses that are starting to grow things on land in tanks. Mm-hmm. So is that a coastal dependent use if they're reliant upon the bay water, the sea water? Yes, it is.

And it's in this hierarchy, it's it's considered industrial, not commercial. Absolutely. Yeah.

Okay.

When, for this, oh, actually, sorry, Commissioner Chiarazzi, if you had more to Commissioner Levy's point. Okay, for this particular item, when would this policy come into play? Would it be like, yeah, maybe I'll just leave the question at that.

Probably it won't. I think it just kind of helps us understand how, what we're trying to do when we're allowing uses, when we're dividing up where the land uses should be and what the uses should be. It probably helps right now a little bit with our interim use provisions that are in the light industrial area because we currently allow light industrial and general industrial in the coastal dependent areas just because we want to have some uses in those facilities so that they are maintained.

Thank you, that's helpful. Commissioner Fulton?

Yes, I just did have one comment and we talked a lot including with the heavy lift terminal in regards to coastal dependent uses. Would that include or exclude civil infrastructure?

So as long as the infrastructure is there to support the coastal dependent use, it absolutely is included.

So would Samoa Bridge fall under that? Would the water infrastructure from Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District fall under that as well?

There is a separate section in here where we talk about public facilities, and that's really where those fall. But those are permitted in any zone. You need to make connections with streets and bridges. You need to make connections with water and sewer and electrical. And so those aren't excluded in any zone. probably there's some that are a little more sensitive in terms of, you know, whether or not we would want to route something around it. But those are important for allowing the development of the site.

Thank you.

Commissioner Kariazzi.

Just back to the industrial, recreational, commercial. As an example of commercial, for example, the tenants that the Harbor District rents out to where they're either distribution warehouses or that kind of thing, would that be called commercial?

Those are more light industrial. So commercial would be storefronts and that type of thing. Commercial is typically something that is more directly service related or retail related. But if I could, sometimes like a plumber provides a service, but they still have a yard or a warehouse.

I think one comes to mind, Eureka, of a tree service where their site use is pretty industrial, even though they provided service. Okay, so we are just about at the end of 3.6. Oh, Commissioner Curiazzi.

I do, and I think it relates to 3.6, but I wanted to acknowledge the Farm Bureau. They had a comment around requesting regulatory parity. I think the way I understood... Their comment is they were concerned that offshore wind is being regulated or had under certain different regulations than aquaculture. I may have misunderstood it, but I wanted to bring that up and acknowledge that comment.

I don't, it's... Yeah, they're not. The difference... with offshore wind will be that the state has passed a law that anything related to offshore wind will be processed and reviewed by the Coastal Commission. So the county won't have any involvement in that other than the zoning. And that's where really the importance of the port overlay comes in because that becomes the discretionary act that the county will have. And so with aquaculture, that's largely principally permitted right now. So if there's development involved that is terrestrial on the land, then typically outside of the retained jurisdiction of the Coastal Commission, the county would have jurisdiction. If it's within the high tide line or retained jurisdiction, the Coastal Commission would have jurisdiction. If it covers both, it could be a combined coastal development permit or a consolidated coastal development permit, so there's only one rather than two. With Nordic, we processed, the county processed the terrestrial portion of it. Coastal Commission processed the intake and the outfall.

Any others? Okay. So that brings us to the end of 3.6 and moving into 3.7. Do folks have particular items in 3.7 that they want to look at

Yes, please, Commissioner.

Again, I'm not exactly sure where this falls, but I think we also heard a public comment raising the potential of having a coastal-dependent food production overlay. I think there is sort of a... We heard from Hog Island Oyster and Sunken Seaweed, and I wanted to, again, I wanted to acknowledge public comment. I'm not exactly sure where to go with that, but has staff sort of reviewed their comment or that idea

We did receive that comment review it. We have not discussed thoroughly yet but it goes back to the director Ford's point of aquaculture is already majorly principally permitted. So that's one way of. We don't know if it'd be necessary to create a combining zone But yeah, we we have received and acknowledged the comment, but we have not discussed it more than that so if that's something that the Commission would like to discuss or we could you know Respond to that comment and bring it up next time that we are at the Commission and let you know where we fell on that I

That works to me. Yeah, I think acknowledging it, but it makes sense that it's already principally permitted. That makes sense to me.

Okay. 3.7 is industrial general. We've got the background and policies. And then 3.7.2, hazardous industrial development. 3.73, electrical transmission lines.

I have a comment there. OK. On 3.73, this felt like we should add something regarding fire, maybe just avoidance of higher fire risk or hazard areas or undergrounding in high fire. and I don't know that we have a lot of those around the bay, but kind of silent to that.

Okay, looks like staff noted that request. Commissioner Scavedal, do you have more in that section? No.

Okay. Thank you.

3.7.4, recycling facilities. Oh, section 3.8, recreation. Yeah, okay, Commissioner Kerriazzi.

This would be another acknowledgement of Coastal Commission. I'm happy to wait if that makes sense, but they had brought up sort of a rural, or the potential of having a rural recreation policy. Again, I'm not exactly sure how to digest that or think about it, but I wanted to acknowledge it.

Sort of as a point of order, sort of clocking how quickly scrolling gets us through things. And I don't want to miss an opportunity if somebody sees something as we pass it and they want to say something. But I also, if folks feel like they know what they want to talk about, I think it might be productive to just move towards those sections. So I wanted to see how the commission was feeling and if they're comfortable just moving towards that. sort of the next thing in the plan that somebody wanted to speak about. Mr. Kiriassi?

I'm in favor of scrolling, just, yeah, I'm in favor of scrolling.

Okay, well, sounds like we're, let's keep scrolling. I definitely don't want to rush her or her or anybody. Just wasn't sure if we were going too slow for folks. Okay, so we are in recreational and visitor-serving areas. Going into residential use for recreational facilities, into page 65. Housing with background and policies. And then archaeological and paleontological resources, background and policies.

Archaeological? This just seemed kind of brief, but we're talking about the mitigation measures. and maybe it's in other policies, but where's the specific requirement to do the actual site review for resources?

Typically that's in the zoning ordinance because there's what's called an A overlay, which shows that that's an archeologically sensitive area. If you would like us to kind of tie to that somehow, we can certainly do that.

Yeah, I don't know. I read the mitigation measures. I'm like, well, how do we know they're there? But I guess it's also in the Coastal Act policy up above, apparently, too. OK.

We didn't touch this, but I think, I wouldn't mind playing with this a little bit. I think we can do, we've learned a lot in 43 years. And we can probably embellish this a little bit to talk about the need to study the site, the need to consult with tribes.

Right, we spent a lot of time bringing the tribes in, we'll have a whole section talking about the history, and then I got to here, and it's like.

Also including cultural monitors or archaeological monitors when it's required. You have to follow state law, too, to protect those sites.

Yeah, so with the commission's pleasure, we'll... we'll give this some more meat on the bones.

I'm seeing support for that. Commissioner Kariasi.

Yeah, I think, I also wanted to acknowledge public comment around interaction of density bonuses with the Samoa Town Master Plan. I think we heard some public comment there. And there was concern of whether or not that might limit or provide some sort of constraints on the Samoa Town Master Plan. I'm not necessarily seeing that, but also I wanted to bring that up to see if staff had

about that I don't see that as being a constraint I just I we struggled I struggled with whether or not to include the density bonus reference in here but it was previously in in here so what we did was we updated it to reflect the ordinance that the Planning Commission recommended approval of those adopted by the board and I believe it's going back to be approved next week after the Coastal Commission accepted the comments. So the density bonus ordinance is there to be used. And some people may not like that, but state law, county ambitions are to develop more housing.

Yeah, thank you, and also I'm not really in favor of separating, somehow trying to creatively separate out the Samoa Town area from that. Thank you.

Okay, so now we are on page 68, section 3.11, Timberlands.

I got a little lost. Are we on 310?

I think we were just in 310, but if you want to go back to it, we certainly can.

Got it. We did scroll fast. I think just to summarize again that we were acknowledging fleshing out language around cultural monitoring and acknowledging tribal. Yeah, okay. Thank you.

Section on historical preservation because I know there were some buildings out there that were historical and

There currently is not, but we could include that, either have that as its own section or have it be part of 3.10 and either do subsections of, you know, archaeological and then a subsection of historical or some combination of those if the commission would like.

Yeah, like you had the cook house and there was a few other buildings.

I would support adding that to 310.

Okay, anything more for 310? Okay.

311, Timberlands.

312 agriculture Thanks I in light of our earlier exchange about Whether aquaculture is considered agriculture I don't want to complicate this section unnecessarily. As far as I can recall, it doesn't speak to that as agriculture. And I'm honestly not sure if that's how common it is to combine those two under agriculture or not.

That's a good idea. Something I think we struggled with a little bit is that it does make sense to have them addressed in both Ag and CDI. So because thinking ahead a little bit relative to sea level rise, one of the things we may see is that as the pasture land gives way, there may be other kinds of aquaculture that can move into those spaces.

yeah i mean so i i if you know that would be my thought is that if that could be incorporated to include that possibility or that form of agriculture somewhere in this section anything more for agriculture

313 Public Services.

Commissioner Fulton, it sounds like we're going back to agriculture real quick.

I apologize for having to go backwards. But I have noticed that a lot of our agricultural land in that area is maintained through the service of levees. Dikes, levees, tight gates, and what have you. Is there anything in this that, because without those being maintained, this ground becomes non-usable agricultural land. Although it's still zoned agricultural, and you can still say that it's agricultural, it becomes non-productive and non-useful. So is there going to be something addressed either in this one or the overlay that will... address maintaining those levees.

We've tried to address that in sea level rise when we get down there if there's provisions for doing things on ag land to maintain levees.

We're moving out of agriculture and into public services.

I have a comment here. In the last sentence on the background, it says in certain limited circumstances, it may be appropriate to allow utility extensions outside the urban limit line. It says when it's done for environmental protection. I was wondering if we could also add environmental protection or public serving facilities such as parks, recreational areas, inside rest where there would be a case where we want to extend service or have a restroom or something at a site.

Yeah, I think we can embellish that too and include those kinds of facilities. That was written really to allow the extension of the sewer line. down to Fairhaven. Fairhaven's not within the urban service boundary. I got it.

Maybe you want to go to Westside Park.

It would be good to have parks everywhere.

Yeah.

And to have restroom facilities at those parks.

That's what I was, yeah. Anyway, if we could add that, I think it would be, we might find a need at some point.

and a way to bite to them.

Moving on to the policy section of public services.

Actually, sorry, can I?

Oh, so we are talking under public services, is that? Okay, yes. I'm not quite sure where or even whether it's applicable to this section, but it seems like it might be. never got a chance to bring up at the last meeting that we received this letter shortly before the last meeting from the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District, which seemed to flag a number of specific instances of, yeah, of their water infrastructure perhaps not being addressed here in the way that they think it should be. And so I was curious to have a chance to discuss that with the staff.

Yes, we did receive and acknowledge their comment. We just have not had time to address it in a new draft since this is a continuation, but we have been in correspondence with them and they have requested to work with us. So we will be working with them to ensure that we address their comments.

That's good. Yeah, we don't need to get into it now. I know you don't have it in this draft, but just wanted to flag that issue because it seemed like they made some important points. Thanks.

Can I just ask a procedural question because I've been really struggling with the version on screen that we're supposed to review but then obviously we have the track changes version from the Coastal Commission and the Water District's comments and so there's been a lot of things that I would say like oh we should add this to serviceable but we can't discuss it so I'm just wondering procedurally are we going to see a version where it kind of tells us if staff chose to adopt the changes, like it's done in track changes of coastal and municipal water. I'm just worried that we're going to go to the next meeting and expect it to make a vote, but then not even clear that we've gone through all of those.

We can do a version that is redlined and put comments in where the comment came from, if that would be helpful for you.

For me, that would be really helpful, because I'm struggling to...

if i could just getting back to the two other red line versions that we had what we did there was really for transparency to show the iterations that we went through along the way from the original draft to where we're at and so That was really just so if anybody's interested, they can look and see the evolution of the thoughts and the changes. But then when it got to this draft, it was reorganized, it was consolidated, common themes were put into single sections. And so that,

would be a red line from a place we don't want to go and and and so we uh we just gave you a clean version yeah that's it's really helpful to have that history the previous versions and the clean versions i guess i just want to make sure that we don't have to have three more meetings to go through every one of coastal's comments if we can do a track changes version that we can review on our own, and then maybe if there's outstanding ones, then we just discuss those.

Yeah, and I think one of the things we're talking about too is sometimes what we do is provide alternatives. Alternative one, alternative two.

I have a comment on, I think it's almost like the next line, where you say failing systems. And I don't think we have to wait for things to fail. If there's an enhanced system, a better way of doing something, we shouldn't have to wait for it to fail to permit it? I think it's wastewater. It's addressing like a failing wastewater system or a water system. Because if the technology comes along that's better than what you're using, then we shouldn't have to wait for a system to fail to permit it.

I think that language is getting pulled up right now for us all to look at.

Maybe I'm just reading into it more than it really says.

So we can modify that. That is existing language that we did not change. that came out of the 2022 amendment to address the sewer line extension because basically the septic systems down in Fairhaven are polluting groundwater.

Right, I get that. And I'm not trying to say that you should take that out. I'm just saying maybe we should add in other abilities to enhance a system without it being a failing system.

Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. I hope one of the things that's happening, this is not to be argumentative at all, but to maybe give you some confidence that some of the things that are in here have actually been being done and are making improvements.

Yeah, I'm not addressing that. But right now. I'm moving forward.

Yeah, I hope we get to a place where nobody on the peninsulas is on septic anymore. Because with the grant that the Regional Water Quality Control Board is providing to the Peninsula CSD, the work that's being done in Samoa, we've had discussions with Fairhaven Business Park. We've had discussions with the Harbor District. Everybody's kind of in alignment with hooking in to the regional wastewater treatment plant. And at that point, we actually have then a utility out there rather than everybody on their own septic systems.

So if that utility then 10 years down the road wants to enhance that system because something better comes along, that's what I'm getting at, not what's already there because you're already working on fixing that.

We always want to improve things. I don't think that precludes that.

It was just a language of not failing being the only option.

Right. Okay.

Because realistically, if you're maintaining things well, you should know that you need to upgrade it. Maybe Ivor's got a better handle on this than I do. But you should be fixing it before it fails.

Absolutely agree.

Are we talking about policy two? Yeah.

Like I said, maybe I'm reading more into it than I just don't want.

That was written specifically, basically by the coastal commission to address their concern that we are extending the sewer too far.

And I'm not asking you to take that out. I was asking that maybe another word be added.

Okay.

That's an interesting context, and thank you for sharing that, Director Forks. I think it's always, in my mind, it's an interesting distinction that we use sewer service extension as the opening the door to more intensive urban uses, and that's the line that can get drawn of if we're not gonna provide you sewer service, then the intensity of a use on a property is really limited. And so it's an interesting discussion to hear out there that like you could you aren't like by extending sewer service protecting open space and Well in this case protecting the bays water quality

on in this area as well I wanted to ask staff the thought process around removing the the public service utility the public services growth oversight policy there was a policy there that was It was in, I think the original policy was three, Well, no, it was within 313. But you removed a service growth projection oversight. I'd have to go back to the red line.

I don't think we removed anything. I think we consolidated because there were sections related to rural public facilities and then urban facilities. public facilities and then public works projects, and we just frankly tried to make it simple.

Okay, I'll go back and check again. I think this is a response to Coastal Commission as well, but yeah, okay, thank you.

Continuing on with public services. That would be concluding public services, and then we would be moving into chapter four, which is coastal resource protection.

And actually, before we jump into that, I think if it's at the commission's pleasure, it may be now a good time for a break. Okay, we'll come back in 10 minutes. It looks like it, I can't quite see from here. There we go. So let's come back at 7.40.

So if I could maybe interject something here. The Coastal Policy 30233, diking, filling, or dredging, that has a lot to do with putting levees around the ag land.

Commissioner Fulton?

I'm not seeing where they've addressed the tide gates, flood gates, or whatever definition we're calling this.

I think what you want to look at where it really comes into play, sorry, I wasn't more specific. So the diking, filling, or dredging of open coastal waters, wetlands, estuaries, those are wetlands. and lakes shall be permitted in accordance with other applicable provisions of this division where there is no feasible less environmentally damaging alternative and where feasible mitigation measures have been provided to minimize adverse environmental effects. And then if you go down to like six, where it typically gets permitted is for restoration purposes. So when the levees, the dikes get reconstructed, there's a restoration component that goes along with it. That's traditionally made it fairly difficult for many people to do that. But this is something that's in retained jurisdiction of the Coastal Commission, so it's not even the county permitting it.

but on ag exclusive ground within this area here is not a restoration, a development or development is strictly prohibited in ag exclusive ground.

The development is not prohibited, but it is regulated. So you've got to, look at what the ground is. It's a agricultural wetland. And so to fill within an agricultural wetland requires mitigation. That's where the restoration purpose comes in. It can't just be for the purposes of filling to create a bigger dike. It's gotta be for the purposes of restoration.

Aquatic restoration or land restoration?

Aquatic restoration, yeah. Sorry, I wasn't more clear on that to begin with.

Thank you.

Commissioner Curiazzi?

Thank you. Actually, my comment, I think, sort of goes into Part B, so maybe we're not quite done yet here.

We have comments there, too.

Is that the next?

I'll just go ahead. One thought I had is that 3.6 addresses Isha areas and then this section addresses Isha areas and it so the it feels like There are different Isha standards to the port overlay and I wanted to check in with staff. Is that the intent?

Well part of the struggle with the port overlay and this is where a lot of it gets lost is that that was all completely previously disturbed and One of the things that happens then is that when it's left to regrow, it regrows in the midst of rock and concrete and all kinds of other stuff. This is a different environment. This is mostly natural wetland, grazing land, that sort of thing that hasn't been disturbed to the same extent.

I think that makes sense if we're assuming the port overlay zone is within the Harbor District's property, but I think the way we're structuring this, allowing a port overlay zone to occur within the Humboldt Bay Area Plan in general.

Only on property that is adjoining deep water channels. And don't forget, that's going to be a legislative act. So the consideration of whether to apply the port overlay or not will be something that the Planning Commission looks at, makes recommendations to the Board of Supervisors before it ever happens.

I think... So I guess is it, it's not completely clear to me that the way it's structured is that a port overlay zone is only going to happen in areas where there are severely degraded ESHA areas. Or is it clear in here and that's?

Well, we wrote that in there that it was degraded ESHA. I mean, if we need to make it more clear, uh, within that allowance, we certainly can do that. But you know, most of that area, if not all of that area out there was either at one time log deck or some, some other timber related use, but I guess doesn't deep water channel go all the way down to the end of the North spit. Yeah.

So I guess I'm wondering, again, that extends way past the Harbor District's property. Yes. And you're saying that's still, that's all, like all of that is severely degraded.

Well, that is degraded, but there are some areas that are, say, sand dune. And maybe it's not appropriate for that to be within the port overlay. That is a decision that gets made at the time. We're not saying everything gets to be port overlay. We're saying that you can apply for a port overlay to address specific issues, not unique issues, but specific issues that are associated with that particular site.

I think that makes sense. Okay. I guess just to, I appreciate you repeating yourself, that helps to clarify it, and then let me try repeating. So the, we're allowing the consideration of a port overlay area only if there is Esha areas, they must be severely degraded.

Yeah, we're not looking to put a port overlay on sand dunes. We're looking at the areas that are out there on the peninsula that were once the fabric of the job creation within Humboldt County.

Okay, that makes sense. And I think just clarifying again, you feel that the way it's structured now reflects that.

We'll take another look at that. We're happy to evaluate that. That's really the intent. We don't want to use the port overlay to adversely affect areas that have the potential to be good ESHA. In fact, part of the objective with creating those provisions is to allow the areas that are degraded, that may contain plant species and things that could be considered escha, and have that relocated into areas that can be really natural escha and maintained as natural escha in a more pristine sense. Right now what we've got is we've kind of got Esha that's scattered all over the place. It's in very degraded conditions and or in conditions where it's somewhat there, but it's got a lot of invasive species growing in it. So what if we ended up, you know, allowing the port development, heavy lift marine terminal, and then in exchange for what could have been there or what was there, that there are other areas that are restored, enhanced, and now create the environment that maybe was pre-European settlement.

Thank you.

I have a few comments on, Section B policies here, just the first couple of them. So in paragraph one, or policy one, it seems like that's actually two policies. One is sand mining is not permitted. And then the second sentence says, it shall be county policy that all off-highway vehicles are expressly forbidden. Isn't that okay?

We'll separate those.

Could that just be two statements? Yep. Okay. Then the next one is, okay, we're not allowing new development or roads, except where necessary to service existing uses. Then what's currently number three, So this is a little confusing to me. Does this mean that for the following types of projects, the applicant shall demonstrate there's no less environmental damaging alternative? It just kind of, it doesn't kind of hang together. Yeah, we can improve the language in three. Okay, so that list of A through F, Those types of projects are not allowed unless the applicant demonstrates there's no less environmentally damaging alternative. Correct.

OK. Is this where you would include the idea of not creating dump sites? dumping concrete and asphalt and piles of soil that you brought there. Where would that fall?

We could add that any place. That's technically considered a public nuisance, which people shouldn't do. But we can add in.

Even the wind terminal could start doing that on their site, creating places where they're dumping things. I don't know. I'm just making that part up. But anyone could go out there and start piling things. And that's a public nuisance. And so it doesn't need to be called out in here.

So this is a policy document? It's meant to guide development as it goes forward. And then the regulatory document is typically the zoning ordinance. And when people are dumping, they're technically trespassing.

Well, I mean, if you have a business and you're developing something out there, but the side of that is you create this nuisance while you're doing it or while you're in operation, does that need to be included or do you already have that covered somewhere else?

That's a little bit restrictive for this kind of policy document.

Okay.

That is a nuisance, and there are examples of that that need to be addressed, and those will be addressed.

Because it's always the public saying, well, you said this was going to happen, and now we see all these other things going on over there that we didn't expect to have big piles of debris or whatever from this business. We didn't expect that. And they come back and want you to revoke a permit, or we have to listen to them because they're upset. but if we covered it initially.

That needs to be in a zoning ordinance to be enforced. This is a policy document. So if we were to put something in here relative to that, we could, but we could not cite to that and issue a citation and require them to clean it up because it's not law. So zoning is the law. This is the bigger picture of how we want things to progress going.

So zoning would already cover it.

Right.

Okay. So we don't need to worry about it.

Commissioner McFarland.

So maybe this is regulated under, um, a CDP, so it's not relevant, but I'm just wondering for B one, when you call out the removal of windblown sand, do you need to call out the removal of riverine-delivered sand? Because I've definitely seen cases of people removing that from their property. And I don't know if that's regulated with the CDP, if that needs to be in here.

You know, some of this stuff goes way, way back and it gets to something that we've debated. Should we just take it out? I don't know that there's examples of windblown sand where people are cleaning that up.

Right. The only examples I know are riverine driven.

Well, but riverine driven, we're not going to let people go into a stream channel and start taking out sediment.

No, from a large flood. Sand was delivered to their agricultural land. They removed it. And I'm not saying one way is right or wrong. I'm just, does it need to be, like, are they allowed to? Does it need to be called out? Or is that a separate Coastal Commission retained jurisdiction concern?

A, the ag land is, except for up on Table Bluff, and I don't think you're gonna get that kind of flooding up there, is retained jurisdiction. B, I don't think you've got that kind of flood plains in the Humboldt area plan. The only place you've got that kind of, well, it's outside of the Humboldt area plan in the Arcata Bottoms. It's not in the Humboldt area plan.

The county does remove wind bone sand from the South Jetty Road and Old Navy Base. To keep the road clear. To keep the road clear. Right. Yeah.

Continuing with policies of natural resource protection.

I did have one comment. A lot, we have sort of sections one through 16, and then at 16 we have sort of another sort of box of related policies. I was wondering if maybe it made sense to structure this with like an ESHA 4.1 section, a wetlands 4.2, a water quality 4.3. I know there's blending across those, but maybe to kind of help navigate that.

it's a very lengthy it's a little bit challenging so we can do that policy 10 could you um just um just talking about the degraded wetlands areas the old shipwreck site And within the policy we're saying to achieve improvement, the County therefore requests that CDFW investigate these wetlands. Is that appropriate to put in the policy statement that we're through this policy requesting? No, we should probably take that out. I mean, I think we can ask them to do it, but I don't think it needs to be in the policy statement. Right.

Right. It'd be interesting to know if that was ever actually done, and I don't know the answer to that question.

So this is from the historic document?

Yeah, we did not add this in. Yeah, I'm wondering if that, because there was a pretty extensive, there was a whole committee, right, a Humboldt Bay Area Planning Committee, and it was a long process. I wonder if it came out of that.

I'm sure it did, yeah.

Where would something like that go?

or where where would something like that request belong not in a policy document you would ask them normally you would ask them to do something to consult before you finish the policy and then you would include the findings in in whatever policy maybe just clean that up a little bit we'll clean it up

I guess also acknowledging there's quite a few Coastal Commission comments in this section, so the staff will be looking at those. Epic did make a comment with respect to water quality. I believe that is in the 16 area, but they had They were identifying a gap that we're not addressing non-MS4 runoff areas.

Honestly, I didn't completely grasp it. We'll take a look at that and see and chart where the MS4 areas are. and see if there's areas that are not addressed, but they're probably the more rural areas.

So you're on policy 16 on page 90, right?

Yeah, I believe that's where they were referencing was policy 16. I think.

Can you pull that up?

I have to pull up their comment.

A little bit sorry. We'll we'll take a look at that.

Yeah it was the public comment submitted for the July workshop and it was in the long 90 page package of public comment.

Commissioner Volton.

At the end you have long-term commercial, recreational, scientific, and educational purposes. Would this be an appropriate place to put in industrial to include our, would this, our oyster farms fall under this section?

Oyster farms largely right now fall within the jurisdiction of the Harbor District and the Coastal Commission. One of the things we're proposing to do, we haven't shown you the maps yet, but we're gonna take zoning off of the bay. We're gonna take land use off the bay because we don't regulate that.

Okay. But they bring their products off the bay and then?

And then they process it in buildings. But maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I don't think that this is what's in there.

KEN HOWARD:" Epic's comment is on page 33 of the large group of public comment submitted in July.

What's the subheading that they're using?

It says water quality and marine resources. They don't reference a particular section of the Humboldt Bay Area Plan. They say protecting water quality in areas within the Humboldt Bay Area Plan that are sources of stormwater runoff or other non-point sources are not regulated by the county's MS4 permit. and water quality policies appear to be absent in the Humboldt Bay Area Plan, leaving major gaps in water quality protection adjacent to the Humboldt Bay.

We saw a sort of similar comment from the Farm Bureau, noting that they wanted to see a little bit more protection of water quality with respect to aquaculture.

We will address that.

So I think we are on page 90. So this is still policy 16. Going on to page 91 now.

Moving on to 4.2, scenic and visual resources. And that would conclude chapter four. Moving on to chapter five or go back to chapter four?

I think just a quick comment on chapter four. I think going back to Core Hub's comments, I think they bring up Tolobot Island and visual impacts. And I haven't really thought this through, but I'm wondering if it's worth at least in the background section acknowledging the importance of that area. I believe that they cited specifically scenic and visual impacts to that area, if I recall correctly.

Okay, we can do that. There are fairly significant potential impacts to doing that.

Yeah, well, I agree. I was thinking that if it's acknowledged here in a general planning document sense and then the port overlay process would address those impacts, if that makes sense as a process. I guess my thought here is trying to capture that that is an important resource to the WIOP people.

Are you able to elaborate on your comment? I guess I'm trying to determine with it.

So if you were to go on the Harbor District's website, you would see that they're proposing to put wind turbines, a wind turbine storage area right next to the lot.

That impact's gonna be felt throughout the whole bay planning area.

It is. And while Tuluat is important, I think that we probably are hopeful to get additional information on that for the Chapter 2 portion. Typically, scenic views that are addressed are common public views that are available to all. And it's not to say that not everybody can go to Tuluat and experience those views, but they're really not it's questionable, it's debatable whether that's a common public view.

Commissioner Fulton.

Now, are these storage areas, are they determined to be short-term? Would it have a short-term effect or a long-term effect on a view? I mean, if we go through with the wind thing and they do get put in to sea, I mean, are those facilities still going to be used for storage is what I'm getting at.

Um, so one of the things you need to kind of calculate is how long is it going to take to build out the turbines that are gonna be taken out to sea. That's not a couple weeks process. That's a few decades probably, then they're going to be bringing turbines in to repair. They're going to need to be storing those. There will, if that happens, there will probably be turbines there for as long as there's a wind farm.

So that would meet the definition of long-term view of structure. Yeah.

Once they get put in the water, they're upright. Yes.

Part of the reason our bay is appealing is because these structures have to float upright and there are no obstructions to them being upright, being taken in and out of the bay.

Yes.

no bridges, and they are as tall as skyscrapers, so that's where, I think, to Commissioner Fulton's point, it's a change in the view for an extended period of time.

I would say it is. How many do they estimate would, at any one time, would be there in the harbor?

I don't know, frankly. All I've seen is their plan. And it shows probably eight to 12, 16 bases and perhaps even full turbines being there in various stages of production. If you look at the Harbor website, you can see that their rendering shows there's quite a few that would be there at any given time.

I believe the answer would be 12 to 15 at any given time.

Is that the number?

Commissioner McFarland? Aye.

I was just going to circle back to the original. So I guess based on that discussion and not wanting to restrict the other side of the development in the bay that's being considered, I'm a little hesitant to support the scenic suggestion you just made.

Can you restate the suggestion you made?

Yeah, the thought was to acknowledge in Section A in the background the importance of Tuluat Island to the Wiyot people, and they've brought up specifically the impacts to the viewshed to that land. And so I was thinking of potentially acknowledging it here in the scenic and visual resources section. We could also consider putting it in section two. I think Director Ford had proposed that or offered that as well. But I wanted to acknowledge that comment.

Because I would also offer that it is a significant cultural resource. There's no way to argue around that. And so from an environmental standpoint, similar to what happened with the Terrigen project Humboldt went that project was denied because of that impact so at our last meeting it was suggested that we have some engagement

um, with the tribes to review things chapter or section two. Yeah. Is that going on?

We've been, been trying, we have not made that connection yet. Okay.

And Peggy was going to, I also found a video and I don't know if it was made by the tribe that had some very appropriate language in it. And I was going to share that. I still haven't gone through and edited it, but I could. I think that they would be very against. I know the Yurok tribe's against the whole project in its entirety. But if it's going forward and we're writing a home policy that supports it, I don't know how you can get around the view for anyone that lives there or it's going to be a drastic change.

I think it loops back to our earlier discussion about all of that is fleshed out in the EIR. And so the risk we run, which Commissioner Fulton brought up earlier, was that if this document becomes too prescriptive early on, then we're kind of... Can you speak directly to the microphone? I'm sorry. If this document becomes too prescriptive early on, we're really restricting and we're choosing the path now that is something that should be done during the EIR phase with public input. And so I think as a policy making document, we owe the due diligence to the public to keep it at that higher level and then let the individual projects work out through that separate process.

Isn't that kind of what we said earlier when we said should we put the word wind in there? We did anyway.

And that's the discussion I was bringing it exactly back to. And that's what I was against, having just the word wind. The light's not on. Sorry. Yes, exactly, Commissioner O'Neill. And that's why I was against having just the word wind. But I had said renewable energy would be OK. And that's when Commissioner Fulton brought in, we don't want to become a prescriptive document at this point. Like, really, if we narrow the focus too much, we run the risk of bypassing future options.

Commissioner Kariazzi.

Thank you. So I think I'm hearing, I'm comfortable leaving it there. It feels like we're proposing not to add that language and letting the EIR process address, stand. But I will put out there, still noting it, potentially in section two, or at least acknowledging Tula Watt as a, I think, or Tula Watt is acknowledged as a cultural resource, but making sure that that is there.

I mean, I hear what you're saying, too, and I think to allow specifically that makes sense in session two to me, but it is an interesting point, I think, to connect more explicitly that visual scenic resources can be cultural resources, and maybe not to call out specific projects in specific places, but I think tying those two together makes sense to me in this section. Do we have more that we want to discuss in scenic and visual resources? So then we have coastal hazards and adaptation.

I have one. It's actually in 5.3. It's just a correction where... I'm trying to find it. I think it's B1. It states the 975-year average return is 2%. I think it's actually 5%. Or just double-checking that that's stated correctly.

Is that item 6 under policies? Is that what you're looking at?

No, 1. You were right. The very first sentence there, yeah, the 2%.

There's a typo there. Chance. Yeah. that occurs in a couple of places.

Yeah, it also occurs, I think, in six and a couple of other places.

And then while we're on this section, it seems to be maybe it was written when we were being pushed to use metric units versus the imperial units, but 0.89 meters is really an awkward, and it's It's really three feet per second.

Can you bring your mic a little bit closer to you?

Sorry. So if we could go back to the imperial of three, I think it would be more meaningful to folks. So item five and seven talks about a walking pace of 0.89 meters per second. Engineering part of me gets freaked out Commissioner McFarland

The only other thing, the section talks about development in a tsunami zone would have to be, have an approved tsunami safety plan, elevated structure. So that's under B1A. And I think all of that makes sense. And the only thing I wanted to bring to the commission for discussion is, do we want to add any language that sort of maybe discourages even like a medium density housing? Just thinking about the logistics of evacuation and all of that, do we not want to promote increased density in these areas, or is that something we want to stay silent on?

I thought from our tour that it's already pre-approved that they're doing...

I think the one area that you're thinking about may be pre-approved, and Director Ford can jump in, but this policy applies to any tsunami area, so there could be future ones.

So keep in mind, and this gets back, a lot of things are interrelated. So the land use and zoning are applied out there, largely at this point. There's not going to be significantly more development outside of Samoa So Samoa becomes the area that you're really kind of thinking about.

The map has been approved for the new town out there.

I think one of the things you may be getting at that's been brought up, that was brought up by some of the members of the public, is there was a desire to pursue affordable housing opportunities. on the peninsula, in the town of Samoa, in what's called the blockhouse, and replace that. You know, you could, as a policy, discourage or say that you don't want to see multifamily housing within tsunami zones. And to a certain extent, that makes sense to not put people at risk.

Yeah, I'm undecided. I brought it up for discussion. I see the pros and cons to both.

I would just say I believe there's policies and procedures already in place that would address any development within a tsunami area. We may be overthinking this, but if somebody decided to do a development or additional housing in an area such as that, there's a permit process that's probably going to get axed before it gets that far.

Commissioner McFarland and then Commissioner Curiozzi. Although, did I see Commissioner O'Neill also? OK.

I don't know that that's entirely true. I don't know that we have a distinct. Because my point is, do we want to discourage really dense housing because of the difficulties in evacuation? And I don't know that there is a policy that does that. So I think that sort of project could be proposed and approved. And there's pros and cons to both.

Director for what's the is it medium density the proposed affordable housing development. Yes. So I think that's we're already seeing that happening.

I'm hesitant to look at this policy or most policies in respect, like as we've been talking about with respect to one project in mind. I wasn't sure if you were proposing it in respect to one project. So there's that where I'm just hesitant about the nexus between like what they look like developing a policy. I'm not saying you're doing this, but I'm hesitant. I want to make sure that we're not just developing a policy to specifically make sure one development can or cannot happen. But beyond that, I think to your point of should we be putting higher density housing in tsunami zones, It is a tough one, and I'm also a little bit on the fence. I think a counter to the thought that, well, maybe we shouldn't, is I also don't know what engineering looks like to make something safe, and the county needs housing, and potentially there are ways to engineer a building to... to make that possible, and I don't want to simply squash the whole opportunity because of it. So I'm also on the fence. I'm not necessarily saying I'm against what you're saying, but I think that is also something I'm considering.

I think these policies do a good job of defining what you have to do if you are going to construct in a tsunami hazard area. And housing could be vertical housing, which could, in fact, be... Correct. Could be one of the areas that you go to if there's a tsunami in the area. It might be the rooftop or whatever could be designed for that. And I think this defines that. The only question I had in here is, again, there's a, in 7A, in the policy we're saying county shall explore funding opportunities for local funding programs. Does that belong in here? We've already defined in policy eight vertical evacuation structures and how they'll be designed. So to me, I think, yes, the county should explore funding opportunities for these things, but it doesn't necessarily have to be in this policy statement. Okay.

I was just going to quickly chime in to say, much the same as Commissioner Scavdahl, that I appreciate the question, but I think these policies in Section B do a pretty thorough job at the appropriate kind of level, I think, for this plan to restrict whether, where, how, and so forth, you know, development would occur. So, I'm pretty comfortable with this section. Just wanted to add that.

Uh, to, um, commissioners capitals, um, seven, eight, the potential funding opera, explore potential funding opportunities. Um, I can see your point. I also do think that it's sometimes helpful, coming from sort of a staff perspective, to have something pointed out in a document that supports pursuing that. It is kind of high level. It doesn't say specifically what kind of funding or what timeline. But I would defer to staff if it feels... Yeah.

I don't feel strongly one way or the other. It just seems a bit odd, awkward that in a planning document we're directing staff to do something. But.

I guess I don't see the harm in leaving it in. And one potential benefit is there are times where it can be helpful in a grant to identify a policy document which requires or directs something. So it would show that this idea had been adopted by the county. Fair enough. That's fine.

I'm okay with leaving it in.

Do we have more in this policy section that we want to talk about?

Moving on to 5.4, sea level rise.

Commissioner Kiriazzi? And then Commissioner Skapdal?

I think OPC has an updated document, so I think maybe updating to the latest OPC guidance.

We talked about making that change last time. OK.

I am nowhere a sea level rise expert, but I'm having a hard time with calling some of this sea level rise. It seems more like saltwater sea level intrusion. When we say we have the highest rate of sea level rise due to subsidence and rising ocean waters, like sea level is sea level. So the fact that it comes up higher on your house because your house sank is not sea level rise, that substance. Are they really calling that sea level rise?

Your relative height of sea level has risen because your tectonic plate has sunk.

Because the whole land mass. is what's subsiding, not individual.

Right, so it's deeper at that spot, but the elevation of the sea is still, the elevation is still.

I think you're right, if I could jump in to this. The struggle is that for simplicity of understanding, this is the way, this is explained. Everybody who deals with it, Lorna, from a Caltrans perspective, absolutely gets it.

They call that sea level rise, even though King Salmon is subsiding. Correct. And the ocean is rising. Yep. That's why the impact is all called sea level rise.

Right, right. And yes, it's awkward and weird and not perfectly correct in terms of how it's framed, but that's how it's framed.

I think it's just because the end result is... The impact is the same. I get that.

The impact is the same, but the causation is different.

But at the end of the day, we're dealing with the impact.

Correct. I understand that. Okay.

So I think we're...

We're in the background section. Commissioner Curiozzi, did you have more? Commissioner McFarland?

There is some discussion of stormwater here, and so I don't have an exact line item suggestion, but we had comment letters from the Municipal Water District and also the Coastal Commission about adding language on stormwater treatments, and so I just want to Acknowledge those and call out that that's an area of particular interest throughout Section 5 is to increase the stormwater language.

Before we move into policies, is there any more in the background section?

No. Maybe just, again, and we're, and to be clear, we're adopting in this plan the worst case scenario.

It's what we discussed last time because of the, we were originally thinking the kind of the mid-rise scenario, but the mid-rise scenario does not take into account subsidence. So in order to kind of capture a reasonably conservative number or amount of sea level rise and capture subsidence, it makes sense to use the higher level of sea level rise.

Are you talking about high or intermediate high?

It's high right now.

I just to put it out as a comment to the Commission for discussion there are planning documents that exist that have been done in coordination with local experts and when it was it was determined that it made more sense based on the north spit tide gauge to use the intermediate scenario for planning because it is a more likely scenario to happen and then to update the document in time when we see which, when we see what's actually happening. Because if you look at the original version of the OPC projections, they were scaled back in the new update because they were too, they estimated things to be too high. So just as a caution, that there are some local experts that have said we should stick with a more realistic number, or more likely number. I'm sorry, that's the wrong word. A more likely to occur number.

Even when considering subsidence? What's the downside of adopting the high scenario?

The in the short term there there really is no downside Other than people may Develop a false sense of security that they are not in an area that may be affected by sea level rise But on the other hand we we really don't know right now and and so Anything that we do is going to be either something where we're choosing to be intentionally conservative or intentionally more reasonable. And so... Once sea level rise starts to have nuisance effects, which we kind of see right now with the height of the king tides, we recently saw with the flooding down in King Salmon. that those nuisance effects have gone beyond just street flooding. And so what we want to do is be appropriately conservative so that we can start planning for what things look like 15, 20 years from now, maybe sooner, but... you know, for people that are absolutely in the way of water. We want to be working and planning to see that they are protected somehow.

Commissioner I'll just add to in light of the recent town hall that McGuire put on regarding the expected impacts of El Nino we can have flooding impacts correlating with king tides and so this could be another way to kind of get at those potential impacts as well or sticking with the highest scenario.

I think. Changing from high to intermediate, that's a big decision. And I think at this point, I just don't have enough information to say, let's be less conservative.

There's one in the middle, right? So there's intermediate, intermediate high, and high. So there's one in the middle.

But right now we're at high, right? And so I think even just like downgrading that all, I'd be interested to have more information on that.

We will bring more information and give you ranges and discussion points for the...

either next meeting if it's a workshop we'll bring that back or if it's the beginning of the public hearing we'll bring that in with alternatives thank you so if people are building in these areas is this an elevation like a flood elevation have to build above or is this just a advisory or how's this being used so in

fields landing there have, or is it maybe it's in King salmon. There've been a couple of houses that have been approved and those that's in retained jurisdiction. The coastal commission has required that they, um, have a garage on the first floor and then all living space is basically 10 feet off the ground.

Yeah. So well above, right.

So that, to Commissioner, that's your potential downfall, is if you overestimate the sea level rise, then you overbuild infrastructure, which costs money, has resource impact. But then if you underestimate, then you have a whole suite of problems.

Right, exactly. This does say, as science increases in understanding, these numbers can and will be re-evaluated. So we're leaving some room for change.

Any more in background before we go into the policy section? Okay, looks like we're in policy now.

I have a general comment. IT SEEMS LIKE AT LEAST COMPARING TO THE VALUES USED IN THE SAMOA MASTER PLAN WHERE IT TALKS, REFERENCES A FOUR AND A HALF FOOT SEA LEVEL RISE AND THEN HERE IN THE POLICY WE REFERENCE A THREE AND A HALF FOOT SEA LEVEL RISE AND THEN I BELIEVE IN OTHER PLACES THERE MAY EVEN BE A DIFFERENT NUMBER USED. I THINK IT MIGHT MAKE SENSE TO HAVE A CONSISTENT

We agree based on the comments from all that we were going to change the small master plan to take out the things that weren't applicable anymore and synthesize it. But when some of the comments were received from the public, we kind of went hands off just because we didn't want people thinking some of the things that they were thinking. And we will synthesize those numbers.

Can you just explain what a sea level rise combining zone will be or do? It's part of 2C.

So that would be similar to a overlay zone? where it would identify that that is an area that's subject to sea level rise, so it's within a sea level rise management area. And so that would A, inform, and then B, establish standards for what people can expect and what development can and should occur there. You know, I'm a little bit, frankly, concerned. I think this is a reasonable approach. But after watching what happened in King Salmon, I'm really concerned for those people that are in the way of the water.

um how did you pick three and a half feet or do you have a sense of how three and a half feet was that's the high well but you picked three and a half feet at 2070. so like versus you know another another i believe that's the projection we'll bring those back and talk about how to arrive at the uh amount of increase based upon the various scenarios Just sort of, I mean, I'm assuming part of, you're trying to get at exactly what Commissioner McFarland brought up, is you're trying to balance safety with cost.

Right, and I will say that, you know, given the fact that the update to the Samoa plan, or the Samoa plan was adopted 20 years ago, it's a little bit archaic when it comes to tsunami and sea level rise.

I don't understand balancing safety versus cost. You're either safe or you're not. So the cost shouldn't be the issue. It's the safety that should be the issue.

But if you don't know the scale of the threat, you don't know what to build to, right? So you risk overbuilding. So you think, oh, in 2070, so as you go down table one with each decade further out, 2070, 2080, 2090, you get less and less certainty.

Well, maybe you need to adjust this periodically based on what's happening. Like this winter, they say there's going to be major storms or whatever. And so then you reevaluate and say, well, we missed the mark here. So this is something that has to be updated every few years. maybe more so than the whole plan itself.

Right, and the Ocean Protection Council does update the table, but the question for us is which decade and which scenario do you use for planning? Because you can say, you know, I'm a little more confident using the 2040 projection for high because we have... ground truth data from piezometers that suggest that that is the trend we're seeing but if you push it out to 2070 maybe I'm a little less confident that we're going to see that same accelerated growth rate and maybe intermediate would be better in which case I don't want to over build like let's say the Humboldt Bay Trail needs to be raised. It's gonna cost a lot more to raise it seven, you know, three feet than it is to raise it a foot, right? So that's the risk you run is just which decade do you use for planning purposes or how comfortable, how far out do you wanna go and which scenario?

And I just think that maybe this needs to be updated more frequently based on what's actually happening. Because like you said, we didn't anticipate these high tides. And now we're in the middle of them.

We can add in a policy requiring the sea level rise projections and policies to be revisited. at some kind of regular cadence, whether it's five years or 10 years or something like that.

I know when we listened to the tsunami presentation, what I got out of that is they picked a mid-level that I would, that kind of scared me because, you know, if they say this is where you need to evacuate to and that's the mid, you know, projection, I don't want to be up here because I'm not going to trust being at the mid-level. Or maybe I won't be able to get insurance if I build my house here, and the insurance company comes in and says, no, you should have been up here. We're not insuring you. But you're right. The insurance company will look at this document, too, and hold that against you. I don't think people are taking that into consideration either when they're building things in potential flood areas that they won't be able to get insurance or if you're in a fire area you're not gonna get insurance and so you build all this infrastructure or try to and then at the end you find out you can't insure it.

So Commissioner McFarland and then Commissioner Levy.

Was just gonna to the insurance comment or you build it and then they just drop you anyway I Just wanted to note and I know we're not really getting into the planning and the Coastal Commission comments, but I just it's interesting that they commented on this very provision, and it's notable that they're suggesting, and I'll let you guys talk to them about why and whether this makes sense, but they're suggesting 5.5 by 2100, which is actually, it's the longer term forecast, but it's the intermediate high rate, you know? So they're just, I thought that was interesting, you know, that they're, that's what they seem to be advocating for, but I don't know the ins and outs of Why?

We'll talk to them about that. One of the things I think we're looking at is what's the normal planning period that we're working in. And 2070 right now is kind of about what a normal planning period would be. That makes sense to me also.

I guess for the life of buildings, though, the planning period is one thing, but then how long that infrastructure will be there.

That's the other part of this, but that's gotta be balanced with something Commissioner McFarland's been bringing up, is that right now, we know that there is a change in the king tides. We see it. It's empirically provable. But does that continue at the rate we think it's gonna go at? Does it go slower? And if we are too conservative, we make people plan for something and design for something that is unnecessary.

One of the things that we know and is different about the hazard associated with king tides versus a tsunami or an earthquake or maybe even a fire is They're predictable, we know in advance, and it seems that for those areas that are subject to impact of king tides, or will be in the future, that we should be able to have some sort of plan to help in advance of the king tide, some sort of... preparation plan, evacuation plan, moving things off the first floor, moving your vehicles, things like that, that would be helpful. And my experience in watching what happened in King Salmon last year, even though it was predicted that it would occur, people weren't well prepared. whatever reason and so more education around how to prepare for a king tide what people might do about turning off certain appliances or those types of things needs to be done and i don't know if we that something needs to be built in here but i think those areas need a plan to address them and and support maybe in advance to A lot of people come out after it happened, but who helps those people before get ready? I know we have offices out in Guam. When a typhoon's coming, the whole community stops. Plywood goes up. Things get ready. People move stuff off the first floor. We need to do a better job as a community, I think, on those things.

We will definitely take a look at that. Thanks for that.

Okay, we are still moving through the policy section.

I have a general comment as well. It seems like it would make sense to call out coordinating with the City of Eureka and their coastal plan and having consistency in what numbers both jurisdictions are using since you're right up against each other. It seems like that would bring a lot of benefits to public infrastructure So I don't know if that collaboration could happen.

And I think this plan also touches your Arcata so I would say if we're doing one we would do the other.

Yeah we will bring that back as part of the report that we give on that to identify where they're at.

Commissioner McFarland.

Just on your point, there were multiple public comments submitted based on the Caltrans 101 corridor project. Multiple public comments and some from the county even stating that a larger network, a larger planning group needs to be put together so that each individual entity isn't planning separately because all of our jurisdictions overlap. So there is quite a bit of community momentum behind what you just suggested, but even beyond just .

I really like that idea a lot and would be curious what staff would think about a policy that supported participation in a larger group like that.

I think that's the ideal. I think that we've had trouble bringing that together. Because everybody's doing their own thing.

And nobody necessarily wants to be the ringleader, right?

Yes, it's the staff time. We tried.

And it's really, really hard.

Yeah, no, we actually got a $2 million grant from the Coastal Commission to do just this. And others didn't want to participate. I mean, it's a great idea. It's a great idea. Totally agree with you.

Can we put it in writing?

Happy to put it in as a policy.

Okay. We could do another five-minute break if other folks need a break. I think I would advocate, well, I don't want to say either way, but we also have a lot to get through. But if enough of us want a break, we can certainly break. So I don't want to hold you hostage if you need to take a break. Okay. So we are still in sea level rise policies. Commissioner Kariazzi.

Yeah, thank you. So I'm trying to find the section here. I thought it was in part in seven of policies, but the, in terms of armoring, I noticed that the city of Eureka's plan, but then also other found in other coastal plans in the state where they have permit expiration requirements. And whereas I think here, you kind of put that risk on the property owner for, yeah, I guess my understanding is if you have a permit expiration process, then you're kind of putting some of the responsibility back on the county to ensure that their sort of armoring and adaptation approaches are sufficient for that certain time. Whereas here, I think whatever they put in, then that's what they put in and the risk going forward is their risk.

Did we put armoring as an allowable activity in this? Because we constantly get the comment that you can't armor to protect development. I know that's not true of existing development. It's not going to be true in cities. Maybe that's fair. Shoreline protection for existing development. Right. We put in green living natural or nature-based shoreline protection is encouraged and shall be utilized in lieu of hard armoring whenever feasible.

We're on 4B for those following along.

And then it comes up further down that except for coastal dependent structures, the permitting waives any rights that may exist under applicable law to shoreline armoring in the future.

Maybe that's my confusion. Is there a waiving? I see. Okay. Yeah, I think I'm just not. So it was a misunderstanding. So you're not allowing for armoring.

For new development. For new development.

Right. Right. Okay.

I had a question about the financial security, such as a bond that may be required. I mean, there's a lot of, you know, they use the word may in there, but is this something like we would tell someone who's developing a house in a flood prone area? in the case this house has to be removed, you must give a bond to the county?

Can we go up and see the context of this? Okay, go ahead and scroll down a little bit. Now go back down to that paragraph, thanks. No, no, no. Where it asks for the bond. Yeah. So I think what this is saying is that if somebody claims that they're going to design the structure, that won't be adversely affected by wave action or erosion, that the county has the ability to require a bond, and the bond would be to the benefit of the county, that if they, for some reason, walk away from it, the county would have the ability to go and remove or repair what was done inadequately.

Yeah, no, it makes sense to me. I'm just have we ever done this before, like on any in a floodplain prone area for, you know, because.

So flood prone areas are going to be different fundamentally than areas subject to a bluff retreat.

Right, I'm thinking of flood prone area, meaning inundation from sea level rise.

I'm not sure this is really so much. Is this this still all sea level rise?

It is but this is original policy from the 1982 certified document. We did not change any wording of that so it may just be an outdated policy at this.

It seems a little out of place.

Yeah, I'm completely, I'm not against the county if they feel they need a bond to ensure that appropriate cleanup can be done in the future. I just, I felt it was out of place and also to want to make sure that if it is going to be applied, it's uniformly applied so some people don't get slapped with this bond, others don't, you know.

We've not used this. We've not required a bond for development. We've been pretty particular about how development gets approved along bluffs. In terms of sea level rise, I think all of this is really, what we're trying to get to is to not have people build new development that's gonna be subject to future sea level rise. And maybe we just need to be more clear about that.

Yeah, because I think we see people doing it now with elevated houses.

But that's the Coastal Commission approving that. We're not.

Yes. And I'll say we didn't answer that. Maybe we could give some thought to this section. But we don't have to do it now.

Commissioner Levy?

Thank you. If you'll forgive me, I actually just want to go back a page or two to... let's see, page 110, that's number three, policy B3, and let me get back to it now. Yeah, the adaptation plan, the Humboldt Bay sea level rise adaptation plan, so I take it that's a separate document that this is going to require us to complete. And I'm just wondering, because it talks about using the best available science that identifies the sea level rise vulnerabilities and risks, da, da, da, da. And the next sub-bullet, vulnerability and risk assessment, says leveraging past studies in the region produce an updated vulnerability and risk assessment. I mean, I'm not intimately familiar with the details, but hasn't Alderon Laird done quite a lot of that? And can we not sort of, leverage that more quickly. This seems to say that we'll get that in place by 2034, unless I'm misunderstanding that first paragraph there. But I guess what I'm saying is it feels to me like this is really where the most helpful guidance from this plan will come from having the sort of granular vulnerability assessments. And I'm not saying it has to be in this plan, it's maybe too detailed for that, but to have that as an appendix or something that could be produced fairly soon that would do. This sea level rise adaptation plan?

Yeah. Yeah, don't disagree with that. I think part of the struggle with that is money. Um, because the work at Alderon Laird did was kind of a bathtub model. It assumed that the bay was always at the same level and we are learning that it's not, it's affected by a lot of things. So certain areas get affected by different things. Um, And so part of the need is to begin to develop a model that addresses the whole bay and looks at the vulnerability within each of the subsections of the bay and developing adaptation measures for each of those because they're gonna be different.

Okay, that is clarifying. And his did not provide that level of specificity for different sections. Correct.

But his work is important.

I'm not saying it's not. Right, right, right. Yeah, I guess I just – I know all these things take longer than I probably would imagine they should or do. But really my point here is that I think the sooner we can produce that with – you know, balancing the resources we have available and the need to do it quickly, you know, in some fashion.

Just for giggles, could we go through a timeline real quick right now?

Okay.

So if we were to find a NOFA, a Notice of Funding Availability, today, we'd apply for it. We'd find out maybe in six to eight months that we got it. and then we'd get the money maybe six months after that. We'd enter into, send out an RFP to hire somebody. We'd hire somebody to do the work. By now we're in 2029. Yeah, 2034 isn't that far out.

OK. OK. I mean, I know. And this is a long-term document. And yes, I recognize that you can't rush those things. There's too many steps in the process. You want a quality product. OK. Well, anyway, that was the point. I don't mean to belabor it.

I mean, we could say as soon as possible.

I'm sure the intention is to do it as soon as possible.

But what you're saying is putting a promise to do it by date that's much sooner than that might run into... And maybe it would help to have a start by date that's well in advance of that.

Yeah, that might help make sure that we actually... Rather than don't just say well, you know, we got a few years here, right?

Where are you gonna get the funding? I mean a lot of those funding opportunities have gone away like with FEMA used to write funding It's not a great time to be getting through the funding if the state has funding for that type of That's another consideration.

You're right, but Yeah Yeah I guess what I'm advocating for is maybe not to, I don't know, if there's some way to incrementally fill out the details of site-specific vulnerabilities and risks and things like that sooner than it would be possible to complete the full plan to these specifications.

You could prioritize areas within and say our priority is King Salmon and then maybe be due smaller of the overall plan.

And thank you because that's kind of my point is that I think based on the assessments that have been done, we have a pretty good idea of where the most vulnerable spots are. And so kind of getting some stuff moving on those areas first even while we do a plan for the whole bay as you say that takes account of all the different subsections.