Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

the fun begin. Where is the We have a core room. I do. Okay. This is the uh planning commission meeting uh March 26th. It's uh 6:00 in the evening. Let's call the meeting to order. Roll call vote. Roll call, please. Commissioner Baron, Commissioner Woodson. Chair St. John here. Chair up. Commissioner Chang here. Commissioner Jacobson

here. Commissioner Woodson Simmons here. You have quorum. Mr. Chair. Okay. Thank you. Qu. Let's all welcome Michael Simmons is the newest member of the planning commission. Welcome, Commissioner Simmons. Thank you. Glad to be here.

Okay, we'll have a moment of silence and pledge allegiance volunteer. Next is item four. Any special announcements and communications from the floor

this time? Okay. Number five, uh, exportate communications for quai judicial matters from the commission members. Good. A number six is the consent agenda. First item A is the approval of the minutes from planning commission meeting of February 12th, 2026.

Uh, chair uh, St. John, uh, for item number four, um, we do have a guest and are you wanting to speak on any of the items tonight or anything not on the agenda? Huh? Well, the chair has to recognize you. So, um, I think you should have asked if there were items not on the agenda that people wanted to speak about. Oh, okay. So, yes. Yes. So turn on the microphone and state your name.

Yes. How are you? Yes. Good evening uh council member. My name is Way Azer and my wife is Dina Gadala. I am the owner of 3160 Mimi Court Marina. I am requesting approval for 1,00t detach edu located in my backyard. The project has been designed to comply with all applicable city requirement including zoning setback and building codes. The detached design maintaining privacy and neighborhood character and it will not create any negative impact related to the parking traffic or noise. This project will help provide additional housing in the our community. I respectly ask for your approval. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Guido, this is the first time this has come before the commission. So, let me ask a question. Have you applied to the the city the uh planning department?

Sorry, I didn't Did you apply for permits from Yes, I did, but they sent out an Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Um, so there must have been some confusion. So, um, for your item, we're going to be scheduling you for a meeting in April. Um, they're only allowed to vote on items that we put on an agenda and that we're we legally have to post the agenda, write a report. Um, so your item is actually going to be going on April 23rd. So today today's not they're not allowed to to discuss but I you were a guest so I thought you were here so that's why I wanted to Yeah. Yeah. So u Phil Phil will be in contact with you. You'll get a staff report that the staff will prepare and then you'll present it to this body on April 23rd. So you're free to stay or you can go enjoy the rest of your evening. So

So what I would what I would say is that I so two things. Number one, thank you for coming and being proactive about it. It really is a simple process. I mean, part of it, I mean, we'll get into more details once you get through the application. Um, but when you come back, basically the same thing is going to happen is when we get to the agenda item on it, we'll go to an agenda, the staff report, just so you kind of know what happens that day. The staff will present their findings to us. Then we'll kind of look over it. We may have some questions for staff or we may have some questions for you, give you a chance to speak about what you're doing, just what you just did. and then we turn around and we discuss it and we take a vote on it. So that's actually what the process will happen one month from today.

So this is this was just prep work. This this has happened before or in you know similar type of requests and and it's something that we know how to handle. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry. Sorry, Chair Woodson. Chair St. John, it's okay. We're sealed now. You never got anybody.

Okay, let's see. We were back to approval of the minutes of the prior meeting. Uh, is it everyone had a chance to review? And are there any comments or corrections to the prior minutes? If not, do I have a motion to approve? A motion to approve the minutes. Thank you. A vote. Commissioner Baron, Vice Chair Woodson, Chair St. John,

yes. Commissioner Chang, yes. Commissioner Jacobson, yes. Commissioner Simmons, I'll abstain. Thank you. I'm pretty sure we have the motion passes. Yes, motion pass.

Okay. Item seven on our agenda, public hearings. Uh tonight we have one one public hearing, religious and institutional housing overlay. and we'll have a Stafford point. We're fortunate enough to get some REAp 2.0 grant money for this. So, Bryce from Ringcon has been leading this charge, so I'll be passing off the presentation to him.

Okay. Uh, thank you, Guido. Just bringing up my presentation now. Folks see the screen. All right. Um, okay. So, good evening, Chair Woodson and commissioners. My name is Bryce Haney. I'm a planner with RingCon Consultants. Um, tonight I'm going to be walking through the religious and institutional housing overlay or RIH um, which has been prepared as part of the city's broader uh, housing element implementation efforts. So I'll start with just a brief overview of the broader project and then spend most of the time focusing on the overlay itself. Um what it does, how it works and how it relates to state law and SQA. Um so this work is funded by REAp 2.0 uh grant funding as Guido had said. Um and that's focused on implementing two housing element programs. So the first program is program 1.4 four, which is um centered on facilitating affordable housing on faith-based and institutional properties through uh the creation of a new zoning overlay. And the second program is uh program 2.3 which I presented back here in January that involved developing an economical housing toolkit. Um, so these two programs are an important part of the city's eligibility for the state's proousing designation, which gives cities an edge when applying for larger state grants for uh housing focused community benefit projects, infrastructure projects, and uh public transit improvements. So that's a general overview. Um, and now we can get into some of the details of the overlay. Um, so at the state level, recent legislation, primarily Senate Bill 4 and Assembly Bill 1851, has created new opportunities for housing development on properties owned by religious and educational institutions. So SB4 allows

uh the development of affordable housing on qualifying properties owned by these institutions. Um, and that's as long as the project meets the somewhat stringent requirements of that law. And then uh AB1851. There's some nuance here, but it essentially prevents jurisdictions from blocking housing projects on these sites based on the parking requirements that a city may have for religious institutions. So in developing this uh overlay to address these um we looked at the best practices from other jurisdictions and paired that with outreach to local institutions and affordable housing developers. Um, in terms of outreach, we conducted uh mailers and email notific email notifications to religious institutions across the city and had conversations with affordable housing developers and also spoke directly with representatives of the Chua Udam Temple. And we heard from the development community that um there's a few themes that came through pretty clearly. Um there's interest in identifying sites at higher allowable densities but also allowing um you know lower densities to maintain some flexibility so that projects can scale down if needed for um financial feasibility. And there was also interest in exploring um you know a programmatic SQA approach uh to pre-lear a set of properties under SQA. And then of course not surprisingly um funding constraints came up as a consistent theme for these developers uh working on these types of projects. So from religious institutions um from religious institutions there was less interest in uh large-scale development uh partnerships with uh affordable housing developers but there was interest in smaller scale housing particularly for staff or for uh members of their congregation. So that feedback really shaped how uh the overlay was structured.

So what is the uh RIH? Um so the RAH is a an overlay zone that applies to specific uh list of properties. So these are religious institutions, educational institutions and other quasi public or community serving sites. Um it doesn't change the underlying zoning. Instead it creates an additional optional pathway for development and the idea with that is to add flexibility without disrupting the existing zoning framework. I will note that um SB4 does streamline housing uh in in local jurisdictions without a dedicated overlay to implement it. Um but this overlay uh that we created for the city of Marina also um allows the city to create a pathway for additional residential development above and beyond what is allowed by the state law. And this approach ensures that the city is consistent with both their commitments in their housing element um and it maintains the city's prohousing status and access to future grant funding. Um so the overlay includes two primary development pathways. Uh the first is for uh fully deed restricted affordable housing projects. um those can be developed on any side in the overlay and uh include some flexibility on how income levels are distributed. Um for example, it allows a small percentage of employee or manager units along with uh moderate and and lower income units as well. Um so as part of the as part of the overlay if a project meets all the requirements under SP4 it can be processed ministerially and then if it doesn't meet the requirements of SB4 it can still move forward under the overlay but it would go through a discretionary review um and include a project level SQ analysis. So then the second pathway is geared towards uh smaller scale projects on sites with underlying zoning of R1 and

these are subject to the city's inclusionary requirements and would also require uh discretionary approval for um development standards for these fully deed restricted projects. Densities are increased beyond what's allowed under the current base zoning. Um projects that qualify for minister steerial approval under SP4 can develop up to 20 units per acre in residential zones and 40 units per acre in commercial zones. And then with the discretionary approval process, those densities go up to uh 40 units an acre and 50 units an acre respectively. So setbacks stay consistent with the underlying zoning. Um and then building height can increase by one additional story over what's allowed by that underlying zone. Parking is reduced from one space per unit and if the site is within a half mile of a major transit stop, no parking is required and that's consistent with uh state law. As with other residential projects, the city's objective design standards would apply just like any other um you know multif family residential project. for property zones um for properties uh with the underlying zoning of R1, a property owner can choose to pursue a larger scale um SP4 style project like we had discussed or comply with this separate set of development standards um for these smaller scale projects that are kind of more in line with uh existing neighborhood conditions. Um, so for those smaller scale projects, densities are capped at uh 18 units an acre and then height is limited to 30 ft which is consistent with the R1 zone. And there's also a unit size limitation to help ensure that housing units are more affordable by design. Parking is still uh one space per unit and objective design standards apply here as well. So the reason for these more uh stringent lower density development standards is to make sure that we're not

incentivizing these projects too much on sites where a more deeply affordable project could be developed. And overall this pathway is intended to make smaller projects feasible on sites where a larger project may be economically infeasible. Um so we just wanted to open up that pathway for a smaller project but not um you know limit the likelihood that someone would be interested in in pursuing a larger project. So in terms of how this relates to SB4, um the overlay is designed to work alongside state law. So projects again that qualify under SB4 are processed ministerially and they're exempt from SQA. And then projects that go above and beyond what's allowed by SB4, um the overlay creates a local pathway that allows them to move forward through that discretionary review process um with the required um additional environmental analysis. So why do we take that approach? Um first, it allows the city to satisfy the requirements of the pro housing designation in the really short term um while intentionally creating a pathway to do more to streamline housing development over time. So this approach um allows city staff to see how the standards perform in practice and then refine based on actual projects, not just the assumptions that we've made so far. Um because implementing some of these more aggressive standards with a finished serial approval process um really does require more community input and a more intensive SQA analysis than we were able to do in this uh with this project. And then lastly, uh timing is a really important factor. So, as the city is coming on completing um its general plan update, um there's going to be an additional zoning code update that will be needed to maintain uh consistency between the zoning code and the new general plan. Um and the city may want to consider a more comprehensive approach uh and apply those more

aggressive standards um at that time uh to align with the broader zoning code update. Um so from a secret perspective uh the key point is just that the overlay itself does not approve any specific development. Again projects that are not uh allowed ministerally under state law would still require a project level SQA review. And then adoption of the overlay ordinance is not considered a project under SQA and it's consistent with the common sense exemption. Um, so with that, uh, staff is recommending, uh, these two actions shown on the screen, and I'm happy to answer any questions and support the commission's discussion. Okay, thank you. Uh, yeah, we next should open this to public comment. Is there anyone on Zoom?

Uh, Chair St. John, no one has raised their hand on this particular item.

Okay. And why don't we move on to the commissioner's uh time for comments and questions. What do we have here? Yeah, I can start it. I Oh, who do I have? I have a couple of several lights on. So, we'll start at the So who's you right? One, two, three. I've got it. Okay. Chair recognizes vice chair with some Okay, I have a couple questions. I'm not sure which it goes to, but I'll just throw them out there. Um, the first is on affordability of to staff and congregates as a reply, right? So, the the concept was that in the survey it came back, hey, we we're not looking at high density, we would like kind of low density that would primarily support staff. So my question is I thought under this my understanding under these requirements under SP4 is that this has to meet low income thresholds. I guess that would be my first question because if so especially on on the staff I could kind of understand probably not much staff at many are independently wealthy and would exceed that requirement. But I do have a question about congregants if they want to prioritize congregants. There's a second

question with that. So my first one is how would if we that's what they want then how would how would that how would we ensure compliance with congregants if they wanted to do that that then leads to my I'll just throw them out because they all kind of build on each other leads to my second question on congregants is I'm not clear what you're saying vice chair in terms of congregates can you elaborate my understanding was that under the affordability requirements that that it had to be low income qualify for this.

How would we guarantee that a congregant of the church who could be making a million dollars a year is qualified to live in one of these houses underneath this requirement? Yeah. I mean, anybody who applies for the BMR unit, we would have to do the normal income verification for them. So there's no guarantee that they would qualify.

So what we're basically saying is that this is going to create an internal administrative load for us to verify for anything underneath this any religious institution on this overlay that applies. Well then we'll have to add that to a list of things that we are verifying as part of the city just like we do for Preston Park and other places. Yeah. I mean that that's the case for the affordable housing overlay that this commission adopted three years ago. Anybody has to go through the normal BMR um verification process. So

So okay ask so I guess other people will ask that too. The second one is in that light when it comes to priorization if they're meeting our SB4, if they're meeting our our requirements and meeting the state requirements, can they actually restrict the develop if they open it up to outside of staff? Can they actually restrict it to only members of their or congregants of their religious institution or do they have to open it up to the entire public who would fall who would fall by this? Bryce, do you want to take that because I know you've done a little bit more research on this.

Sure. Yeah, I can take that. So if the uh if the housing project was funded with um you know a particular type of tax incentive program like the the LITC uh program or um the uh the rules and regulations for who is allowed or like the rules and regulations for who can uh have access to those uh housing units that were built with um public funding or public tax incentive funding. or other types of funding mechanisms will usually have requirements that the um property cannot restrict uh who is renting or living in the units just based on you know fair housing laws. Um but if a project is built with um just 100% private funding um I think it's it's more likely that they would be able to uh prioritize congregants and staff.

Okay, totally makes sense. I just wanted to verify that it so it comes down to likely funding source right

of how it how it gets funded and then how it would meet. I just again just want to make sure we clarified on that. And then the last question I have is uh if we go under section D and D4 and look at the admin the ministerial review which again I understand the concept of it. Um, if we are building if it's building a single family under R1, then I can kind of understand maybe some of the local communities or an ADU type may not disagree with this. But if we start using it as infill for multifamily type homes or town houses then at that point if it qualifies for ministerial review and the public gets involved with this what becomes the process for how do we how is the city going to address that because we address that period. Question mark. Question mark.

Are you at So how would the city address ministerial review for

if I have we have a so some of these some of these properties some of the the overlay some of the institutions have large properties. They have 3/4 of an acre of land potentially that they could build on. Not of that's one thing. Other properties have almost no land that they could build on, but they could maybe but they could turn around and and put two properties on that that generally if we were looking at it, we we may not approve normally. And then the local community gets involved. They can look at this and they say, "Well, wait a minute. They are going to build two or four houses onto this property. We don't we were fine with it being a church. We don't want people actually living there full-time." And so if we go through that ministerial review, what becomes what becomes the avenue that the public can engage on this or do we the public just kind of out there by themselves hanging in the wind and can't engage?

Uh Bryce, correct me if I'm wrong, but you did write into the ordinance that a community meeting is highly encouraged, right?

Yes, I did say in the in the ordinance that the community meeting is is encouraged. I think the main thing um to remember with this ministerial review process that's that was created under SB4 is is basically um addressing this exact situation. So the the state has said that through the implementation of SB4 that um the community does not you know have much of a say in a project that meets all of the other requirements of of SB4. Those requirements are pretty stringent. um in order to in order to um in order to address some of uh community's general concerns as far as um you know proximity to industrial uses or other types of things in that aspect. But um under SB4 the the community has has less of a say than a typical um uh discretionary review process. Oh, I so I get that and I think maybe then maybe my comment on that becomes I'm not sure where this fits in and maybe I just missed it when I was reading it. Then within the the policy then I think explaining the intent a little bit clearer that and I'm not sure the best way to do it and be polite but at the same time it's just saying look this is about exactly what you just said. We're creating this because there has been a restrict local communities have basically thrown up a wall around these institutions, but we know that this is a great spot. And so, how do we how can we politely say that um that intention of why this exists and why that why we support this and why the ministerial review is logical for this and why the community engagement should be is is

minim is minimized as a result of that. I don't know if we really do a good job of explaining that in the underlying intent behind the scenes, which I think would be good for the public to understand. I'll just close it at that. Okay. Thank you. Paul, you're up.

Thank you, Chair. Uh the first question I had is the mirror to uh religions organizations. I need can you tell me how many mers you have sent and any response BC? I think this is directed to you. Um Guido, we we worked on the mailer together. Uh we did. So, I received three inquiries. One from Calvary Baptist, the what was the um the Vietnamese parish Bryce that you referenced? Uh Chu Dawn Temple.

Yeah. And then there was one other that I can't recall off top of my head. So

because that's going to um I I do really support this direction of this ordinance and um it's just that the I have some considerations few several considerations uh number one is the infrastructures and uh because it's this ordinance assume no significance environmental impact under SQL. Correct. And uh because you you did mention in your slide there's u it's not required. So I think we should be mindful of this cumulative effect particular on traffic parking water system school and community park. Uh because if you utilize the I understand today you could tell a lot of churches have less attends and more parking space. I think it's a good thing to utilize a parking space for community. I I I totally agree with that. But by doing so, but also we have to understand how about the support on the infrastructures. I mean are able to accommodate all these houses that we are building and uh on the implementation the vision is good but always on the implementation we just had to exercise our care and make sure that we have enough infrastructure to support it and secondly the many of the identified sites are located within our adjacent established neighborhood. So if we do have uh affordable housing they're building up and also we have to consider is it compatible with the neighbors and that's something we have to take that into considerations and again this is also is not to change the ordinance but is to just when we implement it we just have to consider all this and the other thing is the uh the financial challenges

and uh what role the city can play in supporting partnership funding opportunity or incentive to ensure this is successful right I'm not sure about the role that city can play in this but I think we have to think about it and also we need to go through the u check and balance on individual project because the the housing are for all income levels and while maintaining a high quality of life So I again the for all income level I don't know what how do we define affordable housing uh and what kind of incomes and um how much are we considering I think we have to set a guideline on that if you do have I think that's good so what I'm saying is I I do support it I think the uh this ordinance but it's just that thinking that the implementations uh we just need to exercise u cares and um and make sure that the uh everything is um done right. That's all I have to say. Thank you. I'm I'm not exactly sure how how to respond to their concerns unless it was one by one for each one. Just I just bring it up is uh in case I mean we don't have any application right now correct on the any churches apply or any any developers have apply

uh no one has applied because the ordinance hasn't been adopted yet. So if we can get a favorable recommendation we'll go to council next month and then potentially we might see a few people apply in the next couple years. though. But to answer your overall question, um sewer, water, park impacts, that'll all be assessed when a project is filed. This is really just the ordinance. Um anytime you do a major upgrade of a property, the water district, sewer district will require upgrades of the utilities. So yeah, that will be assessed as part of any other just general project. That's just a standard practice for the community development department. So

yeah, the other thing we need to consider is the compatibility and make sure that the uh project is compatible with the neighbors building.

I'm not I'm not sure that that's we're we have to be in compliance with the SB4 and AB what 181. Yeah. what it those two state laws and unless they introduce in those state laws uh compatibility this titili kind of thing that the the state is forcing us to get away from that they say we must have uh design standards that are is it Guido,

that that's correct. Chair uh St. John, um with the adoption of objective standards and over 105 housing bills, the blending in with the neighborhood type language, that's no longer permitted when we review housing projects. Um but that's also the reason why this commission and the council spent 18 months adopting objective zoning standards. They're very strict standards to make sure the housing is built that's consistent with marina values and and and and neighborhoods. Um if you meet those standards, you now get a permit from us because that's how state law has changed. But to answer your other questions, absolutely. We still have the authority to ask for upgrades to all the sewer, water, utilities, and other type stuff. So

thank you. Dia,

thank you. I have a couple of kind of question and concerns or comments. Um as far as I understand Marina most of the churches with um some acreage around them are in old Marina where we already have uh kind of different types of densities. The new developments are already built in a way that there are no churches with unused or big uh parking lots which means that most of these uh affordable housing is going to concentrate in old Marina. Um I do have concern with environmental justice issues that old marina will become even more dense compared to new marina where you have those big um homes with so much more u parking and yards and so forth. and no churches that you can um crowd smaller units for lowincome uh families. I already know that in Sea Haven there are several apartment buildings for affordable homes that people in the next big units the single homes don't really want to buy them or it takes longer to sell those um single homes that are right next to apartment buildings to affordable homes. So these kind of um issues can rise in old Marina where um neighborhoods will see themselves uh becoming u more dense because those churches are only as far as I understand Marina in the old parts of town. That's uh one comment I want to

make. If anybody has any uh response to this I appreciate it. Um my other question is um the size of the units. Um one of the pages shows that two-bedroom apartments is up to,400 square ft. I consider this pretty big 200 bedroomedroom apartments. If this is affordable homes that we are trying to um with a lot of them, this is pretty big unit for a twobedroom. So who decided on these type of sizes? Just a question. Um another question um is there any study about interest in these kind of housing in the churches here in those houses of faith in Marina about who is interested in doing this? Uh what are we looking at? Numbers of units. I see 18 units. I live right next to a parking lot of a church and I'm thinking they're going to put 40 units there, 18 units. Definitely I don't see parking. How that going to happen?

Um and also they can be higher those units, those apartment building can be higher than the surrounding homes. that is going to cause a lot of conflict with the neighborhood.

So, some of these issues I think need to be addressed before we really say, "Yeah, let's go for it." Because we'll find ourselves in very high density uh areas, building even more apartment buildings or small units, offering bigger units than some apartments in Marina already are. uh higher and more um crowded. So I these these are some of my concerns and if anybody has answers for them, I might be coming with some other concerns that I might have. Thank you very much. Bryce, do you want to provide some background about your research uh building out the ordinance and your work up and down the state on this kind of work?

Sure. So as Guido had said earlier, there's been um relatively little uh interest, you know, active interest with uh religious institutions in Marina as of now um interested in these kinds of projects. But we do um see these kinds of projects that are, you know, further enabled by SB4 um happening in um city of Selenus. And um uh I was speaking with um with uh an affordable housing developer who's working on some projects in Santa Cruz, also with uh a religious institution uh property. So these projects are happening. Um but um I think it's just a little bit of a slower development cycle down in in Marina. So um uh so that's just kind of a first note there. Um, as far as the uh maximum unit size uh limitation, I agree it's it's a it's a you know, 1,400 ft² for a two-bedroom is is quite large. Um, the main thinking with that was just to uh make sure that we weren't allowing um, you know, a very large unit. So, if there's a if there's a three-bedroom house and it's you know, 2600 ft², that's not the type of that's not the type of development we're looking to enable with this. uh with this ordinance. But yeah, I think um you know, I think we included that 800,400 and 2,000 square foot uh maximum um just as something something to react to. And I think uh we can take that feedback and and adjust uh adjust those those maximums. Um, as far as conflicts with the neighborhood goes, I mean, um, yeah, so the type of development enabled by SB4 is is something that the state um has has wanted to push just as a, you know, recognizing the opportunity to put

additional housing units on some of those um, lesser used uh, church parking lots, for example. Um and I think uh I think as I said earlier the you know the intention of the law is to um you know reduce the amount of say that that the community has in this type of development. That's not the intention of of this particular um ordinance because we do have a pathway that there's the first pathway that just implements SB4 and just follow state law and then there's the second pathway that says okay as soon as a development project comes in that wants to go above and beyond state law or wants to do a similar type project on maybe a site that doesn't quite qualify for state uh for state streamlining um then the project would go through that uh traditional discretionary process um which would allow um additional uh community feedback.

Thank you. Thank you, Bryce. Uh Commissioner Baron, I have one one comment or one clarification. You mentioned apartments in Sea Haven, new apartments, and I I live in Se Haven and I'm on the board of directors for the HOA, and to my knowledge, there are no apartments. There's there is some condominium style. Yeah, it's just a manner of speech that I use the word apartments.

Okay, those are not apartments. I mean multi-unit. I mean like a building that has more than one unit, right?

Um you can call it apartment, condo, multi-unit, whichever. I just use the word in general. Okay, those are they're each of those I think there is a total of 17 units in Sea Haven which maybe the 40% are built and there are two two structures in each one two structures of three units. So for each site, each plot, there's six units and they would be two three unit condominiums and they are uh two and threebedroom. Yeah, they are low income

compared to the single family homes. They're they're high density, but they are not obnoxiously high. Three units for one building. Um, what I say is that from conversation with people who live in Sea Haven, my understanding was that there are a few places where the multi-unit buildings and the next single homes that are right right next to these units are harder to sell. It's just my impression from from what people who live in Haven tell me. I'm not saying anything for my own knowledge, but I speak to people and that's what I hear. Yeah.

So, I just want people to to know here at the commission that I heard that but I've heard doesn't doesn't comply with what you've heard. They was they were quite actively pursued. There's a long list of applicants because they are extremely uh undervalued compared to the single family homes. She's talking about I believe she's talking about the single family homes that are adjacent. Oh, to those.

Oh, the single family and she's talking lower the value of the single family homes adjacent to these units. I don't think it's necessarily it's lowered the value as much as it has slowed the sale slowed the sale price or the sale rate sales rate. This has slowed the rate of of those. I think that's the point that she's trying to make it. Well, I don't know if the developer was clever to anticipate that or not, but most of the lots that are built with that are allocated for these higher density uh lower income units are some of the last to be built in those area those particular uh bases. So, usually the people are already living in the house before these are ever started, but I don't know if that

So, I think there's a whole there's probably a whole conversation we could have about about phasing of homes and when they should be built. I think there's probably a logic to what they had on why they built those last to drive occupancy, but it's I mean,

it really doesn't matter. We still have to our our new ordinance has to be in compliance with SB4 in 1851. And they don't get into that as a way to uh disallow. I just want to clarify uh in many cases people who live in single homes don't like to have multi-unit apartment buildings, condos, whatever it called next to them, whichever city it is. It's just the way it is. Um I'm just giving it as a as an example that the new development has mo mostly single homes uh big homes and very few multi- apartment or condos uh and and Marina has much more both those both those both of those kind of multi units and it will only increase density inside Marina but not in the new development. That's was my main point if it's clear now. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Bishop. Okay. Let me let me take my turn and we'll we'll have another round. Okay. Um my first comment is on page four section 17.51b is a table of the of the existing institutions that are the religious or uh quai public community etc. My suggestion is to add a column on the end that lists the the current zoning for each of the properties.

We we can do that. That's fine. To me, I think that would help. And some some clauses refer to R1 specifically and some, you know, to other. So it might help from ease that you wouldn't have to look up that particular property. That's an easy fix. On page five, section 1751 D3, environmental review there, there's two, let's see, paragraph three and paragraph 4.

Chair, could I interrupt? Didn't you submit these in writing to the staff already? No, but they didn't. I submitted them around noon that I give him sufficient time to But he has them. But he has them and he'll That's what I'm trying to say. Okay. So, are you saying that I should just let them take care of it and not put it? I I would ask I would ask the director if he has them and if he's going to respond to you to save the time of reading them again. Okay. And then we don't want them in the official record. They're already in the offic they'll be in the official record and respond to the record. Um, so actually I'm not sure that it may not be true.

Chair St. John, it's really your call along with the commission is uh we do have the comments and it's up to the commission. If the rest of the commission agrees with your comments, then we can just say staff, please make these changes or if you have questions, however the commission wants to run the meeting tonight, we're we're here at your at your best. Cut the time down. We let this be handled offline. It's completely your right as the chair and the rest of the commission how you want to run the meeting. So,

well, if the commission isn't interested in hearing it and giving their comments, then we can let staff handle it uh in their convenience. Um, are you are you asking to for answers to the questions you submitted earlier? I'm not sure I agree with that. Some of them were questions and some of them were clarifications. Yeah. Can we Is it possible to answer those? Um yes, I think so. Great. Yeah. I think absolutely. It's really up to the chair and how he wants to run the meeting. So, all right. Yeah. I would

I would prefer to let continue and let's see if we can get answers. If not, we can agree that it can be deferred to staff.

That's your right is to chair. That's completely your right. That's how we've been handling it in the past. But just as a side note, I think it would be good if commissioners do a review before the meeting and have questions. And if some of them are might be difficult to answer in the meeting, at least they could be to staff in advance of the meeting and staff could take a look at it in preparation for the meeting just like we did. So, okay, where were we?

You're on item number D3, which talks about the So, so section D has a couple different parts. one just basically says if you're already exempt under SB4 then do not pass go straight to get your building permit right and I think what Bryce for D3 was trying to say if you don't qualify under SP4 then you have to just do the normal SQA environmental review process is that correct vice that's correct yes okay

so can you give me an example of a simple project that like a say a three or four unit apartment or condominium uh something not elaborate that wouldn't qualify under SP4 and would then require an EIR under SQL.

Sure. Yeah. So, um, and again, I will say, yeah, thank you so much for, uh, for passing along these questions, uh, beforehand. It lets us give, uh, give better answers on the spots. So, um, yeah, I can absolutely give an example of that. Um, so something that wouldn't qualify for SB4 uh, necessarily would be, um, for example, SB4 um, allows 20 units an acre on uh, sites in the city of Marina. It's just how the law is written. Um, so, um, uh, a project that wouldn't qualify for SB4 streamlining would just be a project that goes slightly higher in that density or slightly higher in that height. Um, so if you know there was a a 10-unit apartment building on a quite small site and it was at, you know, 26 units an acre instead of 20 units an acre, um, that project would not qualify for the SB4 streamlining. Um, so that's one example. Um, another example would be, um, you know, if you wanted to take a really specific, uh, site that's currently listed in the ordinance, um, is the American Legion Post, um, that's out, uh, you know, closer in the neighborhood near the near the Walmart. Um there's, you know, if if that property owner came to the city and said, uh, we want to use this ordinance to, um, you know, to build housing on our on our large parking lot. Um, this site technically does not qualify for SB4 outright because it's not owned by an educational or religious institution, but the city, we do want to include it in there because the city is uh interested in seeing housing on that site and in that neighborhood um or at least on part of that site. Um, so that property owner would work through a

traditional discretionary review process um because that site is is not included in in SP4.

Okay, thank you. That works. Uh, next is page six, paragraph, sub paragraph E2A, the getting into how to qualify for the affordable housing. I I understand how the the uh the process would work for rental. 30% of income, 30% of of in of the what the uh medium income or whatever the the terminology is. It's easy to calculate 30% of of that person's income and see and if that was his income was say uh $60,000 30% would be 9,000 no uh 8,800. And so if the unit was renting for for 1,700 he qualifies or even 1,800 he qualifies. But if he's if that would they couldn't accept the price at let's say $2,000, he wouldn't qualify or the unit wouldn't qualify. Is that correct?

Um it's a little bit more complicated than that, but yes, the the um intention behind that. Yeah. How do how do you do it for sale? Suppose the units were for sale and we've only defined 30% of the income, but what would you if you're selling something then we need it's a more complicated calculus.

Yeah. I So I I used to manage like 300 BMR units when I was the planning manager in East Pala. So, uh, it's, you know, they look at your assets, how much stocks you have, if you have other properties, uh, how much you have in your bank account. I mean, it's a whole, it's a whole thing to income qualify for these. So, but I think and correct me if I'm wrong, Bryce, but I think you wrote max 30% of your monthly income because that's generally an industry standard for affordable housing that we don't want people to spend more than that because uh if they do, there's potential they could foreclose on the property or don't have the income for the unit. And so 30%'s like an industry standard for for affordable housing for max. But in terms of going into the mechanics of it, that might be a little bit above this meeting cuz it I could give a if if the commission wants we can come back and do a more detailed of how we break down income stuff in BMR units. But Bryce, is that correct? The 30% though,

right, that's correct. The 30% is just based on um you know what HCD uh considers appropriate for you know an affordable you know a person could typically afford rent that is um you know or monthly housing cost that is 30% of their their income. Um and to just quickly address uh you know how it's done for um for sale uh units um there's a a whole calculus that you're right it is it is complicated. There's a whole calculus that um HCD uses to determine what um you know what expected uh mortgage rates are, what expected monthly housing costs are for a for sale unit. So if it's for sale for um you know a price that would be affordable for um a lower income person just as far as you know some basic assumptions go with with uh you know home buy home buyer financing um that's how that's calculated. So basically cost monthly cost of ownership and financing of that. My last comment was on page eight sub paragraph F2 alternative development standards compared to the development standards. Uh the the development standards list for example 18 units per acre for R1 but the nondevelopment standards or al alternative development standards was 40 units per acre for our any of the R zones even R1. Is is that right? It's that's a huge

difference and more than two to one.

So So the intention of that um was to um basically not over incentivize the smaller scale uh project on sites where a larger scale project could happen. Um, so, uh, the alternative devel development standards only require the project to, um, comply with the citywide inclusionary housing ordinance, which, um, only requires about 25% uh, of units in the new project to be affordable. Um whereas the enhanced affordability standard where you see um you know that goes with projects where you see that um you know 40 units per acre density that requires you know close to 100% affordable. So you know if the option is between providing 25% affordable units or uh 100% affordable units. We wanted to make sure that if the person is taking the um you know the path where they provide fewer affordable units or lower percentage of affordable units, we wanted to make sure that um they uh you know weren't going to be able to build a giant project um and only provide that that number of units. So we wanted to kind of balance the incentives there. Guess the same rationale would would apply for the building height limits. Uh where uh you could add a another story if you had a larger group.

Correct. Yeah, that would be the same intention with the with the the height requirements as well. So, if you if we're going to allow a higher uh you know a higher uh maximum height, then we'd want to see a higher um percentage of units devoted to to um lower income housing. When when is the no off streetet parking requirement uh when the property is located within a half mile walking distance of public transit? What where is that applied where they don't have to provide one parking one parking space offsite which means within the property limits. They don't need to provide one parking space if they're within a half mile of the public transit. Well, that that's the case for any housing project. Now, they just changed the state law under

I think it's AB2907, Bryce. I think that's the number. If it's within a half mile of a major transit stop that you don't have to provide any parking for residential, I think that's the number. We were just briefed on that. Okay. Okay. So, that's not new to this. No, it just got adopted about two three years ago. because we we just updated our GIS maps to show as a matter of fact if you guys recall the 15 unit project off of Hillrest here they only provided five parking spaces and they used that AB2907 for that because they're within a half mile of the MST site so that must have been within the last two years I believe.

Okay. So Bryce really by writing that into the ordinance, he's just really uh confirming state law requirements. Okay. So, got it. Okay, that's all I've got. Thank you. Thank you, Bryce.

You're up. Okay. Um, yeah, interesting. Thanks, Bryce, for the thing. I'm going to go back to the American Legion Post because actually the reason I thought it was on there was completely different because I thought at some point they used some for some type of community church outreach. Um which then goes back to that does open up the question especially now that you've said no we just added it. Um so we look at this all the first off just to confirm we have no independent institutions of higher learning that would qualify that that's why we have none of them listed in the table that that's correct that's correct

okay want to make sure then number two I'm coming back to the American Legion post I'm trying to I I totally understand the concept of that we would like to promote growth especially towards the back parking lot there that they have. um at the same time trying to understand how we could add them to this overlay. If this overlay is based this overlay is is trying to describe what we're putting it into the overlay because it meet it could meet the requirements of SB4 and that's why we've added that facility because otherwise it doesn't really meet the concept of what we're talking about here which is religious or institutional higher education. Sure. Yeah.

Yeah. Go go go ahead. I think the definition of institutional was it was broader. Is that correct, Bryce?

That's correct. Yeah. And and part of the intention with this uh with this overlay is to expand on on the projects that would be allowed under SB4. Um so we were looking at a kind of a wider wider variety of um of institutional type sites. So, the American Legion Post in in our discussions was considered a, you know, a a community institution um and and there's, you know, underutilized parking lot and so it seemed like a good candidate um for this type of ordinance to included in this type of ordinance. Um, I think we're we're open to other types of or other community institution sites in a in a similar category and we're open to um to removing it from the list as well.

Okay. And that's where we basically under paragraph three, we basically turned everything into quasi public community institutions in the in the policy. That's where we labeled it, rewarded it that way.

Correct. Correct. Yeah. Okay. Um, so not sure. I mean, overall I agree with the policy. I mean, I like the overall policy. Again, I think beginning I absolutely would recommend that the beginning of it gets rewarded because I just think it doesn't do a good job in section 1751 on purpose and intent. I think it's it's not written poorly. I think it's just written very regulatory and that if in if you just want to talk about purpose that's one thing but if we want to talk about intent we should make it more about what we're trying to do with the role in setting our workability standards what we're trying to do to meet the state standards of limiting local discretion and emphasizing that we're trying to use underutilize uh institutional lands um I think that's an important thing that's that which now goes back to the American Legion post. Uh in addition to that, um I'm not I get this is the separate part. The purpose is that it's a housing shortage and to meet the arena obligations. I completely get why we're putting it in there because that's the regulation that drives it. At the same time, as we discussed last month with Marina Landing, there is I mean that came out, we don't need Reena housing right now. We more than we over we have overachieved by thousands of units currently in the city. So adding a few more units of infill here and there is not necessarily about Reena. It's about doing the right thing to support our low-income populations. Um so I would I'm still pretty adamant that I would like to see paragraph 1751 rewritten and I kind of have rewritten it somewhat. I it's just I don't know how to even present that as a paragraph to to the count to the commission. Um

secondarily I'm going to come back to um the issue of density and I understand what we're trying to do and I understand we have limited properties that actually would qualify for higher densities just because of the size of the properties. But I agree that in our communities when we get down into this building a a high density, we're saying right now that under the survey that we went out and took, we had a couple respondents that actually communicated outside of the survey and that they engaged in a one specifically engaged in a formal convers kind of post survey conversation and they all implemented that indicated, hey, right now we don't we don't want to go with high density. Um that does not mean though that as soon as we pass this policy that we turn around and we end up with we end up with a policy that allows for high density. They come back two years from now and they say, "You know something? We really would like to build a complex that's three stories tall and that has 40 units in it because we've got the space and we meet the requirements and then I think that that really are we what are we really trying to address by doing that? If we don't have a reena requirement because we have have met those requirements, now we're just building a lot of extra units that are potentially turning into a at that point an income source for the institution versus meeting the numbers then I'm not sure I agree.

Aren't our reena numbers kind of speculative over the years? like this particular cycle we said this and then next cycle uh I mean they are they're you know depending on who you talk to but at Danbag they do use some you know good metrics in terms of coming up with the number but I mean how far how far over I mean we're not talking 50 units over or close to the limit of what we were asked to build what what is our over under arena right now for this cycle

uh we're building approximately 2,000 units above our arena. But I would point out to the commission that this is a program in our housing element and so we do have to in some way, shape or form get this across the goal line. And if we if we we can certainly take edits to that 1751A or however the comm and you know to the size of the units. Um yeah, those are all good edits that we can certainly take in. So and I can just send it to you. I mean, basically all I'm trying to do is provide a little more non-technical context and I I can email it. I I'll copy all the commissioners on it. I mean,

let's Yeah, I we shouldn't be copying commissioners on email. So that's why I would just say if the commission agrees with your edits, vice chair, we would just So how would how would you like me to present my I understood and I think Bryce understood that you're wanting us to edit 1751A purpose intent to make it less regulatory and more focused on our discussion today which is trying to utilize underutilized parcels. uh to further enhance the viability of housing that that kind of language is that correct vice

and and to make and make some of the language less we can keep the legal requirements we have to but if we can change some of the words from like what's typical word the next to last sentence is um incentivize change it to encourage and I know that seems small but it's something that people look at they will understand encourage versus incentivized that a completely appropriate edit and if the rest of the commission concurs then Bryce and I could make that edit. That's fine.

So, um like I said, I mean other than that though, I think the density and the size. I understand we have to go that way. I would just I agree that I think we should look at that. we have to look at the worst case because once we once we pass this I don't want to come back and have to readress this because all of a sudden we have something coming before us that asks for something that is really out outsized for the community that's putting into and I'll just leave it at that. Thanks. All I have all

Thank you, Ch. Maybe uh director Kindle and uh Brian could um help me to understand this. Uh in the staff report um section D uh housing development project meeting RIH standards are permitted by right and uh under item four section B item four the uh administrative administrative approval is ministerial in nature and may be conducted at the staff level under the general directions of the community development director without notice or hearing. And item five, approval. The community development director shall approve any applications and compliance with all requirements of these sections. So by permitted by right does it mean the staff approve and no planning commissioner commissioner hearing and no public hearing

u for th those are the ones that are fully compliant but uh I think Bryce explained earlier that for those that are not fully consistent uh under the maybe you could help me out Bryce find the section that talks about the discretion in the report section D and I the beginning the heading and the item four and item five.

So I think this was raised in um one of Commissioner St. John's questions that he sent earlier today as well. Um and in reading back um yeah I guess it would be one second Yeah. Section um D3 and D4. Um in reading back uh from Commissioner St. John's question, in reading that back, it the subsection 4 is intended to um be defining what ministerial approval means for um for SP4 compliant projects. So, it's not intended to just um you know blanket say that projects are can be ministerally approved if they comply with the with just the development standards in the ordinance. But I can understand why that that's not absolutely crystal clear. Um, so I think it would make sense to adjust some of the language of subsection 4 um to make it clear that the ministerial approval does not necessarily apply to um to all projects, you know, they're viable under just the requirements of the RIH.

How would you adjust it? Um, I think I would have to put my head together with with Guido and um and take a look at it really closely and just and just do a a line by line I I would just say that if we get a favorable recommendation today, we've already heard from uh vice the vice chair about the intent and then if the commission does want to make a favorable recommendation, part of the motion could to direct staff to look at section D4 of the ordinance and that we will try to clean that up to make it more clear if that's uh amendable to the commission

for me. I I agree on that. We we just have to kind of look at section D again. What we have to also what Guido and Bryce will also have paramount on their mind is compliance with SB4 and AB 1581. So we have to modify the 1851. Have to modify the motion, right? If you

Right. But to to take a look at at any rewrites to make D4 section and D3 clear. Okay. Had to add that to the motion. Yes. So right now if we have just this was our base recommended motion number three of that could be once again to 1751A that we will identify ways to better summarize what we talked about the intent of the ordinance not just the typical regulatory language. Mhm.

And then for subsection D4 that Bryce and I will get direction from the commission to make this more clear about what's a ministerial approval versus what's not if if that's amendable to the commission. Yeah. Also B section B table one to add the zoning column. Exactly. Oh yes. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much. I think that's important also to enhance the public transparency. and also encourage community meeting and uh and so that um everything to build the trust with the community. Thank you very much. Okay, so Commissioner Baron, did you have any comments that required uh edits to the draft resolution? I agree with um vice chair about the word incentivize.

Okay. Um I suggest using support. That's one of the my my concerns. It's for the size of the units. I guess it's not part of this. Yeah, it's possible to relook at the size. Yeah, I would like to. Okay. We if if the commission wants, we can look at so section um F2 um 2E there was concerns about under alternative development standards the size of the units. That's something that Bryce and I if

the commission wants we can also take a look at that. Are those really affordable by design? I guess that was the question. Yes, that's something we can take a look at. Especially for the two and three on the units. Alternate development section two alternate developer standards E all unit shall be the 800 foot,400, 18800. Those might be

um and if we are looking at the nitpicking I also don't like if b the maximum height that allows for the the new units to be one story greater than the maximum building height of the underlying zone. And I would ask why uh why allow this to be higher than the rest of the area

structures in the area. So I would definitely um not accept that. That's completely within the commission's right to make that recommendation. I would say that we've had that in a couple of the ordinances we've brought to the commission as a way to as vice chair Woodson said to incentivize potentially these projects. But if the commission doesn't want that, we can certainly take that out. That that can be within your right. So these are my main point thinking if these are would every one of these opportunities would be strictly infill as opposed to a green field. And for a green field, we can even though it would if it was residential, it would have a strict zoning of three stories or something like that. And but we could give a a uh add an extra story for incentivizing it.

That's correct. Yeah. But for since these I don't I I agree with the with the commissioner Aaron that the extra story even though it might incentivize it might not be very uh practical for all of a sudden we've got a fivetory apartment building on a parking lot and that's completely within the commission's discretion. Good. Thank you. Take that out. Take that out. Okay.

That's within your right. So,

all right. Anything else from let's uh see if we have a motion advance. So just because I have to go back and edit this ordinance with Bryce. So 1751A, you want us to clean it up, make it less legalistic. Talk about kind of what we talked about today about incentivizing the use of these properties. Under section B, showing all the properties you want us to give the zoning. Um, so we know what parts of the ordinance apply. Under D4, you asked us to kind of clean that up in terms of really articulating what is a ministerial approval. Um, under F1B, you ask us to take out the maximum additional height and um, you ask us to take a look at uh, F2 E about the maximum size of the units to really make sure that those are affordable by design and those are the extent of the edits that I have for the commission. If if I missed something, please let me know.

I think you got it. That matches my notes. Yeah. Um Guido, were you um thinking of doing these edits once a motion is made like live or or after the fact? Uh we got direction just to make the edits after. So,

okay. I just wanted to add one clarification that I I think the um the proposed uh clarifications to D are more than in just D4. Um uh and I so I just want to state this for the record that I think part of the confusion might be because the introductory language that comes right after D application and review. It says housing development projects meeting RIHO standards are permitted by right and subject to ministerial review. But really what I think Bryce was saying before is that it's it's it's it's projects that meet SB4 standards um not RIO. So that that should be clarified there. Bryce, do you agree? Yes, I agree with that.

Okay. So it would be that it would be that introductory paragraph and then I think under four we could um I have some suggestions there I can discuss with Bryson Widow offline and then I think we might want to make further conforming changes to five and six as well. So I think it's actually throughout that whole section just to clarify five and six if if the commission is amendable to those we can make those edits offline so that's a D four five and six four five and six right of D that's correct

if we are negotiating unit size and height I would like to add one more Um F a maximum density. Uh somebody mentioned what if somebody comes up in a few years and say I want to build 40 units and so forth. Maybe we can reduce the numbers here. Instead of 40 and 50 units dwelling units per acre we just reduce it right now. So in the future we can avoid the fight about somebody wanting to put a six unit apartment um dwellings in somebody's backyard they could buy the city to reduce it to 25

rice what what was your logic or your your background backup for the 40 unit or residential ial areas and 50 units per acre for non-residential.

Um given the city's previous interest in in going above and beyond uh the minimum required by by state law, um we uh chose those uh 40 units an acre in residential and 50 units an acre in in commercial. um just as a as a you know an aggressive goal. Um but if if there is an interest in in bringing those numbers down slightly um there's still room to be to go above and beyond uh what's required by state law but uh not as high as 40 and 50 units an acre.

What is the minimum what is the state law requirement uh for SB4? required in the city of Marina is 20 dwelling units per acre in residential uh underlying zones and then 40 units an acre in commercial or non-residential and dwelling zones. Well, based on Commissioner Baron, based on state law minimums 20 and 40, what would be your what would you nominate that's more aggressive?

What the state law determines? The number the state law determines the 20 40 to say only comply with state law. Don't be more aggressive. Yeah, we are already doing well. So why um

the the only thing I would point out is u this is part of our proousing application and part of getting the prohousing designation is that we're trying to show the state we're not just doing the barebones minimum. So um if there's some consideration for that because this ordinance we promised as part of the pro housing. the the density. That would be something that either if the commission really wants to chew on that, we can talk about it here. Or if you can give us the latitude of staff to verify that we're not violating our kind of proousing going above the minimum requirements, so we could research that one a little bit more if that's amendable to the commission.

Well, yeah. So, we can look at some percentage maybe 10% more or something like that. I think the the the 40 dwelling is double from the minimum 50 is only 10 unit extra. So 20% 25% yeah well the the 50 no the 50 is is 20% of you know 25% of 40 above the 40. Yeah.

Okay. So, let's consider something that would look a little bit more agreeable but not as high as this since we are already in compliance as I understand. If we took 25% for the the R1 or the residentials, 25% of the minimum would be another five. So that would mean instead of 20 it would be 25

and using the same the 20% for we I don't think any of ours are in in a commercial zone but they might be. Do you know if any of our churches are currently in commercial zones? Uh I think there's a couple in the downtown but I I hear what the commission is saying. So if if you want to go 25% above the minimum 20 uh and 25% above the minimum 40, we can certainly build that into the that would be consistent. Uh so as long as we're going above the minimum and not affecting our full housing designation. Yes.

Because we need to continually show the state that we're not just doing the bare bones minimum. Right. I agree. Okay. Yep. So we've got 25 25% and 50 are the two numbers 25 instead of 40 per acre for the residential we become 25 and we stay with the 50 for the commercial. Right. Sounds good. So each of the states bare minimum we've increased by 20%. Thank you. trying to keep the city whole with all of our stuff with the state. Thank you.

All right. So, I think we can make the motion with these uh addend addendums. Sounds good. So, somebody has to just somebody just if you want to just restate the motion or direct staff to follow the motion as we've discussed and then just have a second on the motion then we can move on. So, put the motion back on the PD. Uh, Bryce, if you want to pull up the motion,

do you want to pull up the last slide that shows the motion? Bryce. Yes. We have a brave person.

Vice Chair, I make a motion that Bryce Henry Oh, sorry. Got it. All right. Recommendation. Um, read it. Go through these three the way it's documented here. Uh, yes. Okay. So, Wow, that's gonna I'm gonna give it 10 seconds till you tell me I'm ready. Okay, we're ready. All right. That would have been hard to make that as you were changing it.

Okay. Uh, I make a motion that we that we recommend that we adopt a motion recommending to the city council to adopt ordinance amending title 17 zoning ordinance to implement program 1.4 of the housing element. I would prefer that I guess the city of Marina housing element. I find that we find that the adoption of the ordinance is exempt from California Environmental Quality SQA per section 15061 V3 of the SQA guidelines and we request that the following changes be clarified in the motion before it goes to city council that clarify the ministerial approval section. Add columns to the table with the underlying zone. Changing the purpose and intent sections. Taking a second look at the maximum unit sizes. Removing the maximum height increase. And looking at reducing the maximum density from 25 to 225 from two. That's not right. There we go. to 25 and 50.

The 50 is not changing. Yeah, 50. Hold on. Respectively to ensure that we meet the continuing guidance of RH, our IHO. Second. May I second that motion? Um, so Commissioner Baron, yes. Vice Chair Woodson. Yes. Chair St. John, yes. Commissioner Chang, yes. Commissioner Jacobson, yes. Commissioner Simmons, yes. Hold on. Did you have a friendly amendment? You want to change to it?

No. No, we don't need

Did you Did you want to make Did you want to make an amendment to the way the mot was written? Okay. Okay. No, I just just just mentioned that the clarify the Mr. approval sections and um maybe should we add um to include u public hearing. So no he can he can add he can add a friendly amendment he can request that as a friendly amendment and then we would vote on whether we agree with the friend since I made the motion I would then have to agree or disagree on the friendly amendment correct and then we would take a vote on that.

Thank you. So we're we're we're teaching you everything now. So Paul, so what can we go back we go back through that because I think when we get down to it, Commissioner Chang wants to make a friendly amendment. Um so he has to request a friendly amendment. Somebody has to second it and then you can make correct the So but what section are you asking for a friendly amendment for? That's in the motion.

For what section, Commissioner Chang?

The what subsection? Commissioner Chrys

um that's already in the base motion that Bryce is showing up on the screen. So um that same bill hearing. Isn't the the way D4 written is a notice of public hearing is is recommended from applicants. Isn't that the way it's written right now?

I recommended encourage is encouraged. So the current correct if if the commission wants you can mandate the community beating. Yeah, that's true. I mean it could be potentially be in violation of of state law. So the the whole point of this ordinance is to actually streamline development. So we would It would be potentially problematic to make people do a public hearing when the whole point of the ordinance is to actually streamline development.

Right. So, a community meeting is not a public hearing.

I've been um I've just been scanning the law that to see if there's any express prohibition on public hearing. You could just to get around this issue for now. We could just say to the extent allowed by state law, the the the planning commission may hold or or shall hold a public hearing on the issue. But it's I mean, you're right that it's it would just be an airing of any public concerns, but you you'd be very limited in terms of what you can actually do to respond to them. If it's if it's a ministerial approval, then it doesn't sit before the city council or the planning committee. He understands that I think but his his point is

so we are the public hearing moderator.

But his his his point is that it this if it's controversial to the public and they don't agree with it. Yeah. That he feels like there should be a requirement that there is a public hearing. So he has a right to make that suggestion. I think that the answer if I if I understand it correctly is that the current state policy is twofold. that number one the the intent of RAH and S14 overlaying it or is that the idea is to provide a streamlined approach because historically what has happened is that state regulations have been used by those who may not support the development to slow down the process and even restrict the development from ever occurring. And by making a mandatory public hearing, what they end up doing is they delay the requirements and they and they start they almost become obstructionist. Mhm.

And so that the way this regulation is written is to say when it goes to ministerial approval, just like we have for any of the other SB4 items that have come before the council council, the commission or I guess council is that we are removing those impediments at the state level to to remove that control from the city planning commission's decision matrix so that we can't actually provide that. That's what SP4 and RHO here are are restricting us from doing. So even though we say this and this is where we get into agree, we could put that into our regulation. However, if we do that, we are setting ourselves up that if if a petitioner came in and wanted to do something and we turn around and say, "Oh yeah, you have to have a public public hearing." And that could actually turn off your permit, then they would have a legal ground to sue against the city for violating the state standards of SB4 and RHO. Is that correct, Seth?

Yeah. And I'm I'm seeing that that is correct. But however, I am seeing in this particular law, Bryce, let me know if you've dealt with this before that under L five, it does say that design review of the development may be conducted by the planning commission or the city council as appropriate, but it shall be objective and strictly focused on assessing compliance um required for streamline ministerial review. So, um that is it is it is allowed specifically by the the law, but to what um Glenn was just saying, it shall not um I think there's some language in here saying it shall not chill. Yeah, it shall not in any way chill, inhibit or preclude ministerial approval. And then and then there's some timelines below that the city has to adhere to. So, you'd still have to adhere to those approval timelines even if you were uh choosing to hold public hearings. Got it.

Right. Have you dealt with this before? Have you ever worked this into an ordinance expressly or No,

no, not this is our this is our first uh SP4 implementation ordinance. Um, but as far as, you know, as far as, you know, leaving the door open for design review at the state level, I'm wondering if that if that allows, you know, public hearing by or public meeting by a design review board or something like that or just review um of the project against uh objective standards at the staff level. So Seth, if if you if we or Paul Commissioner Chang, if we went with the way that Seph has described it of basically that it I I can't remember exactly the way you phrased it. So I have to

he phrased it to say and to potentially allow a public hearing as allowed by state law or what that that some type of verbage to that effect. Would you allow that as a modification of the words to your friendly amendment? Yeah, I agree.

I think my language is that that the city shall provide for a for a public hearing, you could say before the planning commission, then you can say to the extent allowed by allowed under state law and and and what that would do is sort of um implicitly refer back to this subdivision L and then including the time frames under it. Right? So you'd have to staff in scheduling the item and have to make sure that that it doesn't chill or preclude the development either by you know some um qualitative you know uh effect right of of of merely holding the hearing and also and also in terms of the deadlines that it might you know run up against. Does that make sense?

Yeah. By by doing that you just I want to enhance transparency of what we are doing you know so the committee know right so you know I think the primal amendment was amended wording based on my recommendation to to address what the phrasing that he just had right you need a second to that and you can just so is there somebody who would I would agree to the sec that that friendly amendment is there somebody who would second that well I I have a question before we go on. Who's who's requesting this this hearing? Are we requesting a hearing and making them come in or is the public requesting it?

I think that needs to be clear because I didn't understand that part and then we'd be required to expedite that hearing so that we don't interfere with the timelines. Yeah. I think what Commissioner Chang, he can correct me if I'm wrong. What he's trying to get at is and what Seth has said is um there would be a public hearing. We'd have to follow all the housing bills requirements. Mhm.

And it would be a very limited public hearing because if you meet all the objective zoning requirements, we would have a hearing and basically we would be telling the planning commission, well, you basically have to approve this project, right? But we would still have the hearing if that's the will of the body. If that's what you guys want us to add to the ordinance. Yeah. And that kind of addresses Commissioner Baron's issue about I don't want four four stories next to my So that would give them an opportunity to complain about that. I think we took that one out. Well, whatever it is, if if the public had a still three stories,

if the public had a com if the public had a concern about anything, they could raise it there and in the end we still would we'd still drive down a path, but we've given them a chance to speak, right? But ultimately, I mean, it it's that seems fair. I mean I think it's we're what we're doing is we're giving the public an opportunity unfortunat and then unfortunately like many things our hands our hands are very much tied by the city or by the not by the state and we have that opportunity to explain it to the public and remind them again that this is a lot of what has been

that is not coming from us necessarily. So I think it's it's a good decision. Just to uh Commissioner Jacobson, just to come full circle, the the gentleman that came today for his ADU in the coastal zone, uh the ADU is in the coastal zone, so it requires a coastal permit, but the staff report we're going to write to you guys basically says it's an ADU. We have to approve it, but it's in the coastal zone. And because it's in the coastal zone, we have to bring it to you guys, right? So, it'll be a similar type of but to address Commissioner Chang and Baron's concerns, you're at least giving somebody a venue by which to say, "Hey, I know you can't really do much, but I really don't like it. It stinks." Da da da da. Right? But at least to give Commissioner Baron and Chang, their uh potential opponents an opportunity to express concern, right? So,

I'm sure more people will um oppose three story buildings next to their homes. This is a very common issue as well as two story buildings next to their homes. Yeah, even that I mean I'm just looking to the future trying to avoid lawsuits and complaints. Thank you for the amendment. All right. So, we have a we have an taking this back. We have an Actually, you run this. So, we have a friendly amendment. Yeah, we have a friendly amendment. Seconded. Do we have a second? I'll second. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. So, we now have a friendly amendment. It's been seconded. So the revised motion for paragraph three is that we recommend that we review and make the following changes which will include clarifying the ministerial approvals of section D, adding a column in their table to underlying zones, changing the purpose and intent se sections, updating the purpose and intent sections. Taking a second look at the maximum height, removing the maximum height limit increases, looking at reduction in the maximum density to 25 per acre in residential zones. adding language and adding language directing the city to provide for a public meeting to the extent allowed by state law.

Okay, great. Okay, I made a motion. You have the second time today. All right. Commissioner Baron, yes. Vice Chair Woodson, yes. Chair St. John, yes. Commissioner Chang, yes. Commissioner Jacobson, yes. Commissioner Simmons. Yes. Motion passes. All right. That was a Thanks, Steph, for the help with that. And Bryce,

can I say I appreciate how thoughtful the commission was on that trying to balance staff interests with the pro housing and you guys, that was a very complex subject you guys just took up. So, thank you for all the deliberation. Okay, let's move on now. we uh to item eight on our agenda,formational items. Number one or A is new recusal maps for the commissioners. Did everybody get a copy?

So, everybody in their packet has their own recusal maps. We can certainly give training, but in general, if you're within 500 ft of a project, you should generally recuse yourself. If it's from 501 to a,000 feet, that's the second circle on the map. Please talk to me and I'll work with SE, our deputy city attorney, because there's a little bit more of an involving test. Um, but I've updated these maps because Commissioner Simmons is now uh on the commission. So, um, yeah. So just use those as a guidance or but at any time if any item comes before the commission if you don't feel comfortable or whatever please reach out to me and then I can work with se our deputy city attorney to answer your recusal questions. Guido, just one quickie on the the map. When is the,000 ft generally applied as opposed to the 500 foot? I would say the 500 foot is always there, but when do you expand it to 500 to a,000?

Well, the thousand foot buffer is always there. And Seth, you can step in and correct me if I'm wrong, but anything over 500 5001 to a,000 feet, if you're within that of a project that's going to come before the commission, then then reach out to me and then it's more of a detailed legal analysis that SE has to do with you. Okay. But if you're 2500 feet of a project, you should just by right recuse yourself. Is that correct, Seb?

That that's that's basically it. the the easiest way to describe it is um so to answer the commissioner's question both of the um radi always apply um it's just the st the legal standard differs depending on which one you're within. So Guido is correct that if you're if the project you're looking at is you know these are just adjudicatory projects right they're quasi adjudicative meaning like a permit application or an appeal for instance then um then there's a presumption right it has it goes to the burden of proof basically so there's a presumption that you have a a a material fin reasonably foreseeable material financial interest if it's within 500 feet but then the presumption flips once you go beyond 500 feet and the burden is on uh someone else to show that you do, but it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. So that's why Guido is saying that we still want to do the analysis if you're within 500 to,000 ft to make sure you're not at risk if you participate. Does that make sense?

I do have one question uh on that. Uh I I know it's going to be coming up, I'm assuming relatively soon. uh on the Sea Haven Park. Um just a very small portion of the park is within my 500 ft. So like you're lucky we're almost actually done. I don't think the commission that's going to be more of a public works commission and a city council thing. Okay. So I think you should be good. But thank you for letting us know.

Yeah. Thank you. But I think even then if it's a if it's a multi-art discussion we can always isolate him from that part of the discussion that's inside the boundary. Um so my question is I know this is weird but it's a it's a duplicate I don't want to create a precedent for us that then we don't execute for our regulations. And so this is the is center of mass. So the radius in our exclusionary zone is the center of mass of our properties which I'm assuming is kind of driven by probably Google maps or wherever wherever the start point was. We just threw a radius off of that. That's great except that um this goes back to Seph's kind of comment of what happens if you're if the project is just outside the boundary type of one but yet my property the center of mass for my property for example is the property is 108 ft and it's 60 ft wide. Um, so that 50 ft if you go to the edge of my property versus not could put me like right now it would it puts me within 5t of the edge. If they use the center of mass, I'm within 75 ft of the new project on that we that just came in force on the underground pipeline extension on rain dollar that gives the last meeting. But if I look at this from this map, if I look at it from the actual map of where my property boundary is, I'm within 10 feet. So I I raised that because we've just passed the ADU uh not ADU STR discussion and we basically turned it into a we turned that into a 50 foot from the perimeter perimeter, not center of mass. We set it at 55 ft. And I I I just I raised that Guido to say I understand that that this is a circle.

It's the easiest thing to do, but I also think that the the map should be off the perimeter of our property boundaries to be realistic. I know that requires a little more work and this is and maybe that's and maybe it's OBBE because the idea is that if it's outside the 500 but less than a thousand, you're still going to look at it. What does the what does the state require for recusal where 500 ft? But I think is it from a property line or from center? It's 500. Well, what's the legal interpretation of 500 ft? Well, I

So I guess my I don't know, but I'm I don't know if it makes a difference. And this is what so my point theoretical interpretation my point is I just want to make sure I understand it right that the way that you have written the the way that you are interpreting the overlay the overlay is 500 ft center of mass however if we have a pro we are still going to as the planning department anything that is between 500 feet and 1,000 ft is still going to be reviewed. So then that kind of center of mass versus edge perimeter doesn't make a difference. But I think we need to make that clear somewhere. Or maybe not. I don't know. Maybe I'm just

Yeah, I I I would just say that I mean this is not a Google map. This is actually a GIS map. It's a little more precise. Uh really the overall goal of all of this is to keep you as commissioners from getting a nasty letter from the FPPC. So if you're within 500 ft of a property, you should just recuse yourself. If it's 501 to a,000, we can work with you. If you're 5 or 10 feet away in terms of how your boundary, that's your my direction to you as the commissioner is to reach out to me and then we will work with SE in terms of um you know, if we need to do some deeper analysis, but really these maps are just kind of a guide

and I'm not trying to cause problem. I just what I'm trying to what I'm trying to do is trying to be fair that we're we're setting policy for PE for residents on other items that come before our agenda and that in the background if they turned around and looked at this and said, "Well, you did center mass ons." I want to be a I want us to be able to to legally explain to them, okay, yes, we did, but understand. Yeah. But the STR is, and Se can correct me if I'm wrong, but you as an individual commissioner were not voting on an STR permit within your 500 ft. And Se can correct me on the legal ease. You were setting 55 ft.

You were setting broad policy um that affects all the properties within the city of Marina. And so SEP can correct me, but I don't believe that's a conflict because you are taking an objective analysis of something that affects the whole citywide. You were not directly voting on an STR either 55 ft, 500 feet or whatever that might be. Is that correct, Seb? We don't know that. Okay. Well, I I understand that. I think it's going Oh, I didn't mean to interrupt whoever was speaking. I couldn't see though.

That's fine. I mean, I think my point my my point isn't that it violated. It's that from a perception perspective, we set 50 ft and on the perimeter anybody to say that we couldn't have two STRs within 50 ft of each other, which effectively could affect somebody trying to have one across from each other, but allows something C at an angle. And that's all. It's just a perception that we can be able to explain it that we we don't where we have these double set of standards on how we review things.

I I I think I understand what you're saying. So the the the FPPC regulation tech so I will say as a practical matter it's very common for cities to issue these these conflict maps using a circle drawn from the center of the property. I guess you're that's what you mean when you say center of mass. But as a as a legal matter the rule is from the property line. So really what it what it should look like is weird bubbles that look kind of like your property boundary, but they're going to look a little more more uh rounded, you know.

Um so I mean we could either I don't know how much effort it would take Widow to redraw them or I think what what really is done is is when we see something in the gray area um commissioner we would take a closer look at it and make sure we're using the right you know this is like a bench. This is like a a guide this document. Yeah. And I and that's it. And I complet and I completely understand it. I just want to make sure that that we understand that that if somebody from the public came in and said, "Well, we don't why did you do this and and you do this for us?" And you keep things straight forward and say founder, but then you do this for yourself. As long as we can explain it and it's in the policy so that it's it's it could just be a note at the bottom and says, "Hey, this is how we do this."

I just want to be fair. Again, it's about being transparent to the residents so that we have consistency across when we start setting these kind of influence. That's it. So, thank you. I just a problem. Okay. Thank you. All right. Theformational items 8B Senate Bill 707 is the Brown Act. Is that

Yeah. So, in among all the other bills we're tracking for the planning and community development department, SB77 mandates, I give you guys a copy of the Brown Act. So, you now have the Brown Act. Good luck reading it. So, so but if you have any form of insomnia, then please read um if we do have a new commissioner SE and I can give a Brown Act. I think we've done it a couple times. Uh but you know for for the whole body if you know if that's something the commission wants we can certainly do some very uh generic brown act training. So yeah and which by the way has changed with all of the hybrid meetings and zoom meetings and all that stuff there. So there there have been some changes. So

okay item Cformformational item C streamlining uh planning commission meetings. Um, so the chair and I went out for a lunch a couple weeks ago and these were ideas uh in terms of what we can do to potentially further streamline these meetings. Um, and the uh the chair can chime in. Um, so the chair actually did what him and I spoke about two weeks ago, which is providing the questions early. This is actually really helpful for staff. Um, you know, our job is to answer these questions at the public meeting, but if you have detailed questions that you want answered, they probably do take a little bit of research. So, if you are able to give us your questions ahead of time, then we can probably get you better answers at the public hearing. So, that's one suggestion. Uh, another suggestion could be to have five to eight minutes per planning commissioner per topic. That's another way to further streamline the meetings. And we did vote to move the meetings to 6 pm um if there is an opportunity to have them at 5:30 to get this here earlier. Um so those were just some of the things that the chair and I were talking about, but it really requires input from the rest of the commission.

Yeah. Well, we're missing one member tonight, so let's defer. Okay. Taking another look at the start time of the meetings. Okay. All right. Until we're we have a full house. Okay. But we can be thinking about it if if it's possible to move it up to 5:30. 5:30 in the morning. I think one works until 4 to 5 in Montter. Yeah. Uh, so he might not be able to make it here by 5:30.

At 5:50 in the morning, we all have a regular moment that starts. That would be the most efficient way to get on. Okay. But on the other topics, um, is the commission open to, you know, if there's very technical detailed questions, doing your best to send us those questions early. I don't know if the commission agrees with that or not. It's fine

because I I thought I thought Commissioner St. John giving this to us, even though Commissioner Jacobson said, "Hey, you already have those." It actually was helpful that I have them written down so that when we go back to build the motion, it's there. So,

so I I think my on that one is I do I think that when we send those questions in, if there are things that would be pertinent to the bigger group, they can't just be addressed behind the scenes. Um, and I trust the staff would make that determination that those things can either be reread back to us to cover and Guido can take the lead on that and say, "Okay, I addressed one, two, I addressed one, one, and three, but two, four, and six need to be addressed." and then we cover those in the meeting. But I think they they do I wouldn't want us to again going back to transparency hide the fact from the public that oh we had these three other questions we've addressed them online

that and that makes total sense u yeah we we will always air on the side of transparency um but when we get these super technical questions like St. John did. You could see that Bryce actually came prepared to answer them. So that so yeah, we will always try to answer them at the public meeting if that's if that's okay with the commission. So and then the the other one um and this is really up for the whole commission to decide. Do you want to limit discussion to five to eight minutes per commissioner per topic? Is that too restrictive? Yes or no? that's really up for the commission to decide. The the the pro of that is that you would force commissioners to really really read the packet ahead of time and then come prepared. Right. The flip side of that is you may not have gotten the full deliberative discussion you got tonight, which I thought you guys did a great job. So, there's a little bit of a balancing act there. It's really up to the commission. I I I would

that that five to eight minutes does not include discussion time, right? It's totally up to the commission. You know, I I think it's a a good move to limit it. However, if if the questions are coming along and it's pertinent and we don't want to not answer that question or not get that question, does the chair have the ability to say you may continue even though your time is expired? That's completely up to the chair and vice chair. I don't want this to turn into Washington DC Senate meeting city council. pay my time

or even a city council me. Um yeah, I don't as a past chair and my take is I would not want to do that. I think that that I think that down the road sets a potential for adversarial feelings across the commission. I think we can do a good job of managing know sometimes you look at the timeline and it doesn't work. Um I think a lot of that can be managed by the chair. That's my opinion as as somebody who's been in a chair position, but I'll I will defer to him on on his thoughts on this. I think this is my second or third meeting in this chair. So I I would defer to I mean I think vice chairs

one thing I do like about what the city council does and I've seen this in other councils also is I do think maybe we can look at restricting first contact for discussions to 3 to five minutes limit on our side just so that we ensure that we kind of get a breath of experience before we then go out for public comment and then come back to discussion on our side and I think I I I missed that at times myself and that way we everybody gets to kind of have their input the first time they can prioritize what is important to them knowing that there going to be a restriction they can't just raise the questions and I tried to manage that myself and kind of make sure that I gave everybody that ability but if we put that in writing I think that that makes it easier for the chair to get up to speed more quickly so because there is a there's just an efficiency time that it takes to learn the position One of the things we we limit our public comment specifically and try to manage it to three minutes and we do a pretty good job of managing it the three minute but to publicize that commissioners have five minute or even 8 minute I don't want the public to be managing the commission.

Yeah. Does that have to be published? No, I'm sorry. Does this have to be published? I mean, we can either have it be an informal policy of the commission or we've actually adopted the city council rules and procedures and we can just amend it by adding this stuff to it. It's it's really the the the the gist of this is you guys are all volunteering your time. I get paid to be here. If we stay here till 1:00 in the morning, I still get paid, but you're volunteers. So these are really suggestions to help you and your life.

And so it's really a group decision. It's not something that's going to go to council and be codified or whatever. So just found out yes, we just I would make a comment, but I would get in trouble. I mean, literally, so I'll just keep my mouth shut. I can make a comment. Go ahead. I feel that um mostly people don't violate the time and we finish the meetings a lot of times. Not a lot of times but many times very quickly. Okay. We are not city council. Let me make a point. We don't sit until 2:00 a.m. We break sometimes after half an hour,

right? So we really nobody really violates it. And I think if I had to think I have three minutes, I probably will speak even less than I speak now. I think I don't speak that much, but sometimes I'm on a roll, but it's very rare.

That's actually a very good point. We don't want to play to one bias towards one side of the commission versus another side of the commission on how they on how they interact with the group. All right. So, I think what I hear the commission saying is uh we'll forall the voting for the start time. There is an encouragement that if you have your technical questions to get them into staff early, but the error on the side of transparency, if we do get those like we did today, we'll make copies of it and we'll talk about it during the meeting. And um we're not going to go forward with the 5 to 8 minutes per commissioner per topic. We can think about it in our mind and try to

okay try to be reasonable and not get off topic or or outside the law. Right. But but keep it in mind. Yeah. Sounds good. So let's go to item nine, announcements. You have one. Um so we're really fortunate in our CDD budget. We've been able to hire a lot of really great interns and hottie is our current intern. So he's going to introduce himself. He will be presenting an item to commission on May 28th. So his first time presenting to you guys. So yes, good evening. Welcome.

Thank you so much. And with great pleasure. I would like to introduce myself to you. This is Hadti. I'm an architect, urban designer and a planner. Uh originally Persian. So I lived in Iran. working around a lot of projects, different rank and scale of projects, construction, artificial architectural design, landscape architecture, uh, and I'm moving to California the middle of pandemic. So, I just started in Pacific Grove. So, I lived for a year in Pacific Grove. This is the reason I'm in love with this area, more economic. So, I started my second master's degree at San Jose State University. At the same time I started working in the city of San Jose of planning and transportation then moved back I mean after graduation I moved back to Monterey County work with housing and community development at uh Mon County and now just I just joined to Grigo's great team planning team with a great pleasure I'm glad that I'm here uh Grio's team and I'm looking forward to contributing more and more to our great community with Gre Go. Thank you so much.

Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Item 10, correspondence. All right. Then we can adjourn. Chris.