Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Find the duck. Find the gavvel. Find the duck. All right. Go ahead and call tonight's planning commission to order. Um, we have two who are absent tonight. Um, go ahead and we can run through the the call to order. And then we have one that is also calling in who's sick. So after we do the call on call here, Seth has questions to ask Paul. Commissioner Baron here. Commissioner Rana here. Vice Chair Walton here. Chair Woodson here. Commissioner St. John here.

Commissioner Chang here. Seth, I will turn it over to you. Um, great. In this instance, I actually don't have any any uh questions for Commissioner Cheng because he's already advised me that he'll be attending remotely under AB 2449, and we've determined that he has not uh used up his his allotted um just cause um uh uh meetings and and he's informed me and can inform all of you he meets the just cause requirements. So, we're we're good to have him participate remotely. Perfect. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you.

All right. All right. Next up, we have uh we roll call quorum. Uh we moment of silence and pledge of allegiance. Somebody like to do that tonight? Stand. Uh, pledge allegiance. We pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you very much, Mr. St. John's. Okay. Um, item four today is special announcements and communications from the floor. Um, we're going to reorganize the meeting slightly and move item 9B up to four for special announcements. Um, before we do that, are is there any other announcements or communications besides that? Okay. All right. So 9B is Nick who think who absolutely was not going to get away from from us without a photo opportunity and a chance to talk about him in front of the group. So I watched how Bruce does this.

So we'll want probably want to have the commissioner take a photo with as I watch Dave. Would you please come up? I did as I got here. You want Yeah.

Thank you very much. So, for all the gathered people in the audience tonight and online, um really the biggest thing we're doing tonight is we're recognizing Nick, who has been here for five years. How long have you been here? Four years.

Four years. So, about the same time as I have. So, over four years, he's been a pler here and has made a tremendous difference to our work as commissioners. Actually, what he's done is made all our jobs much easier with all the staff work that he has done and the help he has provided not only in meetings but outside of meetings. And as he gets ready to move over to the dark side and become actually a true city planner and have his own city to run. So, and he starts his empire building with uh Sand City. Uh we do have a proclamation that signed by me um honoring you for your time as a senior planner here. So, what I wanted to do is read this uh proclamation from the city of Marina uh honoring senior planner Nick Mroy for his time serving the Marina Planning Commission. Whereas Nick served in service from August 2021. I guess I could have just read that from the beginning. Uh and has consistently presented staff reports to the planning commission in organized manner. He has a can do attitude and has always been willing to provide the planning commission and community with a helping hand. uh which I think is important um is that really what he's done here is it really extends every day to the citizens and especially the de developers and businessmen in the city who have needed help to navigate our sometimes confusing code. um whereas he has been instrumental in enhancing customer experience and has served as a project manager for several important initiatives within the city of Marina over the last four years and served as project manager for the Se Haven subdivision specifically and was instrumental in over 210 affordable housing units being built within our within the project soon there was that many um now therefore it be resolved that I Glenn Woodson chair of the planning commission do hereby express my sincere appreciation and gratitude for Nick's dedication and commitment to the city and congratulate him on his promotion to becoming the sand city

planning manager and wish him the best and continued success in his future endeavors. Thank you so much for everything. Do not leave. We do have to do the photo thing. I realized the thing was not there. We'll do the photo with me here, but we need all the other planning commissioners who are here. You have to come down here. Come around. It should be pretty easy. Two on this side and two on the other side. No, we're not. No, I'll try. You on the other side now. You spoke up

wait.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Well, all right. Since I've had a couple of the commissioners already say that they're going to miss you greatly. Um would you please ensure that take the emails with us? We've got them on our website. Just forward your your commission meetings and then they will be glad to attend your we come to your commission meetings.

I am sure that we will have lots of great public comment. I welcome I welcome all public comments.

All right. Okay. Moving back up to our regularly scheduled agenda for tonight. Um item five on the list is exparte communications for quasi judicial matters. Do we have anything that comes up that we want to raise? Okay. Nothing there. Uh next up is item six is a consent agenda. Um we only have the thing we have there is approval of the minutes from our last meeting a month ago. on June 12th. Are there any comments or changes from that that anybody would like to raise? No.

All right. If we can go through and just do a roll call on that, please. Commissioner Baron, Commissioner Rana, Vice Chair Walton, yes. Chair Woodson, yes. Commissioner St. John, yes. Commissioner Chang, yeah. Motion passes. Thank you very much. Okay, next up we have um public hearings. Um so we have one item main item on our list for today that is the next part of the variances for retaining walls at the Dune subdivision off of First Avenue. Um go ahead. I believe Brad you are up.

Thank you. Uh good evening uh Chair Woodson commissioners. I'm Brad Evson with regional government services. I've been uh contracted with the city for several years. I've had the uh pleasure of working with Nick and definitely going to miss his uh uh contributions to everything, his keeping things in order for me. I really have appreciated that. So, uh best of luck to you, Nick. Um and uh you're going to need it probably. Anyway, um this is a variance variance 25-00001. And this is for retaining walls in phase three south of the dunes uh on the east side of 1 Avenue. And with everyone's permission, let me go ahead and share my screen for presentation. Okay. All right. Can everyone see that?

Yes. Okay. Great. Okay. So this is again uh hold on for a quick second middle of all of our screen is the joint. Nick, you are not allowed to leave until you teach him all of your Jedi tricks for All right. Thanks. Go ahead now. That way we can all see everything.

Great. Okay. This is again uh phase 3 south uh retaining walls on the east side of 1 Avenue south of out uh I believe it's Outrigger uh and it's the uh the block of Lantern Avenue uh that is between Outrigger and I believe it's fifth or third um forget the names keep changing on the streets but it it's directly south of uh phase 3 north of variance that was done last year variance uh V24-0000 3 uh for a very similar uh block of retaining walls. And um for background um uh back in 2005, the council adopted the University Village Pacific plan, now the dunes. And on September 3, 2021, uh Marina Community Partners did submit the revised phase 3 tenative map uh application, which did not anticipate retaining walls. And then in July of 22, Marina Community Partners submitted additional documentation regarding preservation of trees originally designated for removal. And in the correspondence, they noted that the preservation of the trees within phase three on the east side of First Avenue would require constructing retaining walls to accommodate the topography of the site while uh protecting the trees in place. And for background, on July 19th, 2024, MCP did submit a variance application to construct retaining walls along the rear yards of lots 661 through 669 in phase 3 north. And that they were exceeding the maximum height allowed by the municipal code. And the planning commission did approve that variance for this purpose on August 22nd, 2024. These walls are currently under construction. And then on June 2nd of this year, MCP submitted a variance application V250001 to construct retaining walls along the rear yards lot 680 through 689, which is

effectively one block south of the previous variance uh for retaining walls that also exceed the maximum height allowed by the municipal code. The walls proposed for this are of uh varying differing heights from those approved under variance V2 24003 but they all are all within a similar range of heights due to the topography of the project location immediately south of the location of the phase 3 north variance. And as you can see here, the proposed project location for phase 3 north and south uh phase 3 north obviously is at the upper half of the screen. And uh that was the block that was approved under variance uh v2400003. And immediately south uh at below that south of the red line uh you can see the block that's uh highlighted for phase for this particular variance v25001. Uh these walls are not under construction yet. they have not started construction because obviously we've not entitled those yet. If the planning commission does adopt the variance then uh they will be able to submit for building permits and we will be able to review them as part of the normal process current application. Aside from the minor height deviations, the aesthetics of the proposed retaining walls would be the same as those approved uh under last year's variance. And the images shown on this particular slide are the actual walls under construction for variance V2 24003. So these are the phase 3 north walls. The phase 3 south walls will look very similar if not identical to this. Um the main deviation will be the height of the retaining portion that's subterranean. Uh how far down the footings go, that sort of thing. Otherwise uh this is what is being constructed right now in phase 3 north. And this is if the planning commission approves the variance. This is what would be constructed in uh the portion identified for phase 3 south.

Per the municipal code section 1742060E rear yard fences combined with retaining walls can have a maximum combined height of 9 ft with the retaining wall portion exceeding not exceeding 3 feet in height. And get that out of the way. Uh the combined fence and retaining wall heights range from 11 ft at the rear portions of lots 682, 686, 687, and 689, and then down to 7.6 ft at lot 683. And while some of these lots would not exceed the combined maximum height of 9 ft, all of the subject lots do require retaining wall sections that do exceed the maximum height of 3 ft, ranging from just over 1 ft beyond the 3 ft maximum at lot 683 to just over 5t beyond the 3-FFT maximum at lots 682, 686, 687, and 689. And here we have a graphic showing uh the the plotting of the lots. And you can see the if you can see my cursor wiggling on the screen here, we've got the two bulb outs. These are where the trees that are being preserved in place are. Um and then here uh below that you see the cross-section of the topography to get an idea of how the the the ground goes and how the different wall heights would be. Uh similarly, this is uh uh a um standard uh kind of a a catch-all engineering graphic provided by the applicant that shows the the typical wall sections for those uh that would go 10 ft and higher and those that would be shorter than 10 ft uh just to give an engineering perspective on on how the walls are constructed and would be situated. The required variance findings under municipal code section 17.0 17.60.030A and B variances may only be granted in a narrow set of circumstances in which the applicant has demonstrated the following

that because of special circumstances applicable to the subject property including size, shape, topography, location or surroundings, the strict application of the municipal code is found to deprive the subject property of privileges enjoyed by other properties in the vicinity under identical zoning classification. and that the grant of a variance permit would not constitute a grant of special privilege inconsistent with limitations upon other properties in the vicinity and zone. Special circumstances are the preservation of the trees identified for removal after the subdivision layout was established. The lateral space needed to establish tree protection zones during the construction of the phase 3 improvements does not leave sufficient space to construct compliant retaining walls to manage the topography between the specified lots and first avenue. Granting the wall height variances listed above is consistent with the intent of Marina's zoning ordinance and would not constitute a grant to special privileges inconsistent with limitations on other properties in the vicinity. And the recommendation is that the planning commission move to adopt var uh resolution 25-09 approving the variance V250001 to allow for the construction of combined fence retaining walls in the rear yards of lot 680 through 689 of phase 3 south of the dunes on Monterey Bay. The variance would be subject to findings conditions and find that the proposed amendments are exempt from SQA per section 15303E of the SQA guidelines. staff is available if you have any questions.

Great. Thank you very much. Um, so I'm gonna start this time. Usually I pass off to others, but uh, first off, I want to thank thank the staff and the dunes also for ensuring that there are some photos of the site this time. that since it's a construction site and it's hard to get into, at least legally, um, it is much appreciated to have photos like that to help set the tone because sometimes the drawings themselves don't always give us that vertical kind of idea of where the site is. So, you're welcome.

I appreciate that. Um, that really makes a big difference. Um, the other thing that I want to mention to, well, I'll come back and I'll address that afterwards. Um, so I will go ahead and open this up to the rest of the commission first if you have questions. Commissioner Ron, go ahead. Uh, on page 10, we have uh a variance maybe only be granted in a narrow set of circumstances in which application was applicant has demonstrated The following point one that because of special circumstances uh including size, shape, topography, location or surroundings, the strict application of municipal court is found to deprive the subject property of privileges enjoyed by other properties in the vicinity. Now this is not clarified as to what is uh denied uh in this circumstance as compared to other properties if uh the applicant can explain.

Brad, do you want to take a crack at that or I

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. No, no problem. Um in this particular case the the privilege would be the development of uh residential properties, residential development that does comply otherwise with the development standards um that apply to the property in this case through the uh uh the UVSP um the university villages specific plan uh the minimum lot sizes the setbacks um because of the topography and the fact that uh uh there was the identified need to preserve the additional trees along 1 Avenue. Um there was not sufficient space. Um I I if if the walls were going to be developed or uh uh installed as compliant with the uh the municipal code standards, it would have necessitated probably removing and I would have to defer to the applicant on how much, but probably several blocks worth of residences. Um, and that would that is what is deemed to be the uh um privilege that other properties that maybe sit on flat ground and don't have to worry about retaining walls um would have would enjoy.

Okay. Thank you. Anyone else on the commission? Chair. Um does Paul have his anything? Yeah. Uh, so I think this is what happens is when we get the whole presentation up and we show the whole screen, then I lose that visibility. Commissioner Chang, did you have some initial questions? Yes. Can I pause? Absolutely. Uh, Brad, could you go back to the slide of the uh the drawing of the wall? Sure. Let's see. This one or the one with the This this one? This one. Okay.

Yeah. All right. I I see the the um the design of the wall but the um it did not show any uh drainage. So I just wondering uh is there any geotechnical review on this that the um there's adequate holes or drainage systems to prevent the wall from hydrostatic pressure?

Yes, there there would be if the variance is approved. This is a a typical uh design for the wall construction itself. If the variance is approved tonight, then the applicant will have their civil engineer uh develop construction drawings fully engineered that that do address drainage and um uh the the more detailed grading elements, that sort of thing, and submit those into the city for the proper uh uh processing through the plan check uh process. And that would be reviewed by planning, by engineering and uh building and and I don't know everyone else that would have a say in all this but yes uh drainage that would be something reviewed at the time of plan check but because if the planning commission deems to not approve the variance then the applicant would need to go back and rethink the wall design anyway. So at this point it's more just the typical design of the wall structure itself and then if the entitlement is granted then they'll go ahead and move forward with the drainage and that'll be reviewed under proper engineering standards by the uh city's engineering department.

Okay. This is subject to further review by the engineer too. Right. Correct. Okay. Thank you. The the other question I had the u I know we have done it um before on the uh phase three north side. Um when when you have a retaining wall that high in the rear yard um tendency trying to attract u you know vandalisms and who's going to maintain it if that happen the HOA or the uh developers

um that I would have to defer to um uh e either Guido or the city engineer or I mean the city attorney or um it could be the city engineer. I don't know if that's covered under the development agreement. Um Guido, I would uh what was the question? I'm sorry, I didn't hear the question. Yeah, he's graffiti. Potential graffiti on the wall. Graffiti. I don't know. Andy Hunter is on the phone. He's the engineer record for the project. He could identify who owns the property. So Andy, if you want to comment. Can you guys hear me? Okay. Yes. Yes.

Okay. Sorry, I'm not in the best position at the moment. Thanks for bearing with me. Uh, it is on an HOA parcel. So, uh, if you pay close attention there to there's a line that says PL and and that wall is is on the HOA property. So, yeah, the HOA would be responsible for the uh the outside face if it were to be vandalized. Okay. All right. Thank you. That's all I had. Okay. Thanks, Paul. All right. Um, I'll reserve my comments again at this point. Go ahead and open it up to the public. We have a few people online. There's anybody from the public who would like to provide comment.

No public comment, Chair Woodson.

Okay. All right. So, we'll go ahead and close public comment. Um, all right. It's coming back to to me. I think the only thing I have and I believe it's going to be the same. The answer is the same thing is the man maintenance of the the additional landscaping on the outside. I know it falls outside the PL and falls under the HOA. Um it's kind of the same thing question I had going back to phase three north which is we've added all the additional landscaping to cover the terracing um there and it's to ensure that because this is a really visual right of way for that this region u because of the new bus station going in um that that landscaping will not only be put in but will be maintained um over time. I think that's just want to make make sure I'm still correct that that would all that will fall under the HOA to take care of that probably goes back to Andrew. Yes,

I'd have to defer to Andy in terms of where that landscaping is. So, that is my understanding that yes, this this is an H2O parcel and it was um funded by by those fees for for maintenance.

Okay. Um the rest of it I think is is pretty straightforward. This wall is smaller and the next phase will get even smaller um as we go down because the slope changes in the development. So um really looking at how it helps this time because we literally have three north finished and so we can really see how the landscaping has played in. And the picture I think again this is why I go back to that the picture that was added. I think does a great job of explaining, hey, this is what this is going to look like as we go down the road. Um,

and it it's again, it's not completely grown in, but it was just put in a few months ago. Um, so I don't have any other questions at this point on this. Um, I do want to make a point of clarification. Well, again, I'm hold off on that and I'll come back to it. Um, are there any other comments from the commission before? If not, is there somebody who would like to make a motion? Okay.

Just meeting. I move to adopt planning commission resolution number 25-09 approving a variance to allow the development of retaining walls exceeding 6 ft in hay for the rear yards along load 680 through 689 in phase 3 south of the dunes on Montter Bay subject to findings and conditions and find that the proposed variance is exempt for squa press section 15303e. E. Okay, we have a second from Commissioner Rana. Go ahead and take a vote, please. Sounds good. Commissioner Chang, yes. Commissioner Baron,

yes. Commissioner Rana, yes. Vice Chair Walt, yes. Chair Woodson, yes. Commissioner St. John, yes. Motion passes.

All right. Now, what I've been hesitant on and I just want to raise this issue um to kind of clear clear some of the things as this came in. This variance did come before us prior to prior to the council meeting last week and after and and after the council approval of the new variances on fence heights. So, um, as we get went through this process, um, this is one of those that because the total height of any of the sections in three south, um, or one south, um, doesn't exceed this eventually. This is the type of of example that would not end up becoming before the commission in the future. Um, this is a a great example of that where the previous section under three because it exceeded the 13 feet at one at the far end or the closest end to the VA clinic

and Ace Street that would have still had to come before us because we were over the total height in this because of the new variances not only on the total height but also on the height of the fixed retaining wall would not have done that. And I just kind of wanted to to bring that up that we we wanted to continue to bring this forward because it was already on the agenda and it's just a it's just the timing issue of how it came in to the commission and to the council and the council just approved that last Tuesday. Um so we we chose to leave this here. Um

but I think that was good. It's a good conversation to have to talk about how the process works. So can't hurt. All right. Uh that is it on the main agenda at this point. I think we've got Okay, moving on on public hearings. Next thing we have is we have uh two things. The first is we have the shopping cart ordinance which is listed as Nick, but Nick did not you are not the primary one on this Shane. I know it's I know it's listed as Shane and and so got Nick and Shane. It's a team effort. Team effort.

So, it's a team effort. Okay. But before we get started, should have both of our names on the agenda. We do have we have both. Yeah. But you put yours first

and we want to keep his first. All right. And there's a reason for this, folks. And um the reason we're doing this is that this is an item, the shopping cart ordinance that actually doesn't have to come before the planning commission. It's a it's a really interesting ordinance change. Um, in addition to that, Shane is had an opportunity to brief the city council last Tuesday, but because their agenda was chock full of lots of discussion points, including all the variances that we as the commission dropped in front of the city council, we kind of caused indirectly the city council meeting to go late, which meant that Shane did not get a chance to present all the great work that he had done. That is important because this is the last chance that we get a chance to listen to Shane because he has taken been offered and taken a job as a planner up in Redwood City as his first career job. So,

congratulations. That's amazing. So that's when this all came up and that got got tabled. Um we talked about it afterwards and I wanted to give Shane a chance to be able to brief all the great work he had done in instead of letting somebody else brief it. So that's how this ended up on our agenda for tonight. So Shane, I'm looking forward to hearing about shopping carts. Appreciate it very much. Thank you. So um one sec. Sorry.

Everything all good? Oh, give a sec. All right, there you go.

Awesome. Thank you for your patience. Uh, so shopping cart regulations. The what I bring before you tonight is an ordinance that me and Nick have been working on uh for quite a while. Um you can go to the next slide. So back in January, the city council uh asked for us to begin examining uh the policy issue of carts being left around uh Marina. And so we began for the next few months to basically review other cities, other jurisdictions and how they handle, you know, shopping carts and like what type of measures they take to uh abate the issues. So upon doing all this research on May 2nd, we were able to conduct an outreach meeting to various businesses in this uh here in the marina. I believe the final number was around 25 businesses were invited to attend and we were able to take a lot of their comments and put that into our ordinance as well as from that point on we were able to go to the public works commission on June 6 and then we were taking it to council and it has been pushed so it will go in uh August. Next slide please. So, these are just a few examples of shopping carts that you uh might have seen around Marina. Uh these are all taken by Marissa Huntley, our code enforcement officer. That is one there in the rideway by a utility pool. That is another one located uh in a red zone very near a fire hydrant. So, of course, if there's any emergencies or if car goes out in front of a car, could be a major safety issue. Slide, please. Another example just of how shopping carts kind of appear around different places,

whether that's on the street or even in uh you know on private property. They're just very much uh you can find them spread around the city. Next slide, please. So it is currently in our code or not in the uh in MC chapter 870 that it is a blight condition uh if it's on private property to have a shopping cart. So you are not allowed to have a shopping cart anywhere on private property. Uh if a shopping cart is in the public rightway and is a safety hazard or obstructs pedestrian or vehicular traffic, uh public works staff or police can remove and impound them. now as it sits. But per the California Business and Professions Code sections 22435 through uh 13, they regulate the removal and possession of shopping carts. Uh this allows for local governments to develop uh regulations for shopping carts uh through the adoption of ordinances or an ordinance. And the proposed shopping cart ordinance is consistent with state law and it would put responsibility on businesses themselves uh to make sure that their the carts are contained on site. Next slide, please. And this is just an example of a few of the businesses here in city of Marina that could be impacted by this bill and will be. Uh there are many more, but just some main ones you might recognize, of course. So, what we're trying to do is we're trying to create clear rules for shopping carts that have been removed from their place of origin. We want the responsibility to be on the business owners to keep their carts secure and on site. Uh we are looking to eliminate shopping carts being removed and abandoned around uh Marina and we are

going to require a shopping cart containment plan from these businesses. Next up, please. So, the shopping cart containment plan, it's only going to be required for business businesses with more than 15 carts. Uh, so if you are below that threshold, you are not impacted by this ordinance. Uh, they would need to have an inventory of the carts, specific number, how many they actually have. Cart identification, that would be like little signs on their carts themselves identifying that it's from this business, you know, to make it clear. Uh so some loss prevention measures could be placing signs at the business you know out in the parking lot or you know just around uh courtesy clerks to accompany customers and return the carts. Security personnel provide small two- wheeled shopping carts that customers can rent or buy. Uh provide neighborhood shuttle or transport. Install electronic disabling devices such as wheel locks or installing barriers at the doors near loading areas. To be fair, uh, some businesses have already done this out in the dunes, for example. You can see these, but we want to make it more uniform for all businesses in Marina. So, this is just kind of a clarification for how abandoned carts would be handled. So, if they aren't uh having any identification on them, they are not subject to the California Business Professional Court or proposed ordinance. They can just be impounded. If they're seen, they can be taken and inbounded by city staff or police, whoever needs to do it, depending on the situation. If it's a public safety risk, then again, public worker police uh can abate an impound immediately. Uh the business owner uh would have to pay the actual cost of that impounding. So, they are responsible and the shopping cart owners have 30 days to collect those carts before, you know, we can do what we need to do with them. And then for abandoned cards in general,

so if a complaint comes in from the public, for example, through cclick fix, uh from there on we notify the business that they have 72 hours to collect that cart uh or multiple carts, you know, depending on how that is. But if there are more than three carts within six months, the citation would be $50 per cart uh per state law. and uh the business would have to pay the actual cost of the impounding and all fees responsible with that retrieval of the cart. So again, they would be responsible. Next slide, please. So the the cart retrieval program, uh the proposed fee would be $220. Uh this was done through uh staff research basically on who's going to be handling the intake and and how the process will work. And so we were able to get to that number of 220. There will be a $500 civil penalty and up to $50 per day for failure to submit a plan within 90 days of adoption of the ordinance. Uh we were able to take this from other jurisdictions. It some are as short as 30 days and some are as long as 90. So we went with the longer one to be a little more lenient. And cart retrieval again it's $50 per cart after three carts. So those but each cart will be 50. So that'd be 150 just to make clear. And for abandoned carts that must be retrieved by uh public works. So they are going to be retrieving the carts again. And then the actual cost of public work staff and impounding cars that have remained in the public rideway for 72 hours or are a public safety hazard. All that still stays the same with that $50 per car. Uh so here are the exemptions. Again, uh there's no administrative citation fines that should be levied against a business with a wheel locking system for their carts. So again, some businesses already

have that. Um if that cart is found, that's not going to be against them. Uh again, if a business has less than 15 uh shopping carts, uh they would not be uh dealing with this ordinance. and the city the city can impose and collect impound fees prior to releasing any impound adopting card. Uh even if the business is exempt from citations. So if we did find a cart from one of those businesses with exemption, it would still be under that. Again, if it's an abandoned car, it's still the same problem. Next slide, please. Uh so for unauthorized possession of a shopping cart, uh the ordinance includes a section for unauthorized possession of shopping carts. If there is a a permanently a fixed sign that identifies the cart, then it would be unlawful to be in possession of this cart offsite unless you do have permission from the owner or the business itself. Uh if you are found in possession of one of those carts, you can be cited uh both uh at $100 for admin or uh you know for any infraction like that. But uh it's up to the business if they want to press the charges. So again it leaves uh most of the responsibility on the businesses themselves eliminates that for us but u I believe that would be it. Thank you very much for listening. Any questions? Thanks Shane. Um actually have a couple. I mean it's it's interesting to me the the concept of it. I mean I I get the idea and I was was looking it up before that the wheel locks themselves really aren't that expensive. It's $25 to $30 per box. So, it's almost like most even Lies, which is probably one of our and Target Target already has them on theirs, I believe. Lies, I don't believe does that even if you looked at all the carts they have

um that don't have it, one or two violations would almost pay for outfitting their entire cart system. So, it it seems like it's very there is a strong incentive to outfit your carts with a theft resist system. Um, that said, what's kind of interesting to me is is if you have it labeled, then it's a cart and it ends up the system gets defeated and it ends up off site. And we're not we're not going to blame them, but we could go after them for basically some misdemeanor civil I mean, it's just a citation. Is how does the city I mean city's going to turn it back over to the the individual? I guess the theory is that that we're not going to once they have a lock on them that's going to decrease the the number of carts that escape and that alone just reduces down the real blight issue to a very manageable number. And so the idea is that we probably will never collect the fines from individuals because the businesses I mean are they what have they kind of said are they have they kind of indicated that they're interested would ever be interested in pursuing a citation? pursuing I'm sorry, pursuing what?

The $100 citation if they one of their carts got off site and they and you actually the police found the person and they said, "Hey, this person has this cart and you get this citation, but it's up to I mean, how does that get written? Does the police department or public works write the citation?" I I'd have to defer PD on that one in terms of what the citation would be and what but I think Shane indicated that it would be up to the individual property owner to file charges or not. So

yeah. So I mean the complication is of course if it's on private property then that's going to go to code enforcement because that's where it that would be Marica and her you know wheelhouse. If it's in the public rideway or anything like that it can go PD or can go it can go through public works. So that's just kind of where it gets a little bit more complicated. But of course with the uh with the plan of the businesses, you know, submitting a cart uh sorry I can't plan cart plan. If they're going to submit that cart plan, we're hoping that that's going to solve the problem, you know, in from the beginning instead of what we have right now, which is just carts going everywhere. It just seems like that the implementation of the fine becomes almost unmanageable. I mean, it sounds like which is part of the reason why the city kind of is deferring to the owner on it. And I'm just kind of curious at how that would I mean, when you're doing your research what you guys found.

So, as Shane put in his presentation, as part of that cart containment plan, they can put up a sign outside of their business that says, "If you take a cart offsite, it's an infraction and $100 fine." And then if they can prove and PD can prove that someone took a cart and is in possession of a cart and they want to press charges, then that's up to police and their business to to process that. The reason why we put that on the slides is because when we met with the businesses, it came up from one of the businesses that they were I mean it's they're being they're they're losing a valuable asset when someone takes this off site and it costs a lot of money to go pick them up. So we understand that. We try to work with them. This the California resource code or the business

business professionals business professionals code sorry. Um it's written the way it is because it it tries to strike a balance between business and this public nuisance which is carts all over the city. So we're hoping that and I think Shane did a good job of explaining that really this will help address this issue in Marina more because you'll see them all over the place if you start looking. Absolutely. So, yeah, we're hoping this will and I think and the biggest thing is is identification signs on the carts, getting these systems in place and making sure that they're working. And if they're not working, then that's when we go reach out and say, "Hey, this isn't working. We need to redo this or how can we work with you to get this better?" So,

yeah. I mean, that's to me that's the biggest the big the big hammer on it is the fines to the business for not having a good an effective plan that's working,

right? And then on the the the downstream side of it when it gets violated, if they have a plan in place and it just if that catches 90% or more, which is it sounds like it's going to, then the ones that slip through. But to that point, it's like, okay, it's up to the business. I can see that though. I mean, when you go shopping and a cart becomes the primary way to accumulate and hold things that you're shopping for, not having losing a cart, especially if you only have a limited number in your business and they end up out in the parking lot, you don't have the staff. I mean, it it can turn into a a revenue deficit issue pretty quickly, I would think, for some of some especially some of the medium to smaller businesses that are trying to provide a service and then they're getting taken advantage of. So yeah, I was just curious about it that Okay. But that was the big one. I appreciate that. I mean, this is a it's an interesting one because you're right. You no matter where you go to, once you start looking for carts, you can find them in almost every city and it really does become an issue. And it's one of those I've always thought like okay we are really especially with some of the population groups that end up with the cards there's there's one side is okay we know why they have it but the flip side is okay that is literally taking away a vital revenue or asset of of those companies that they don't have to use and then they have to replace

right so all right any other questions sure Walton I had I guess I didn't save my second questions have been sent over. You're like, "What was that second one?" I know it was good, too. So, I think I kind of had it. My So, so I think I'm going to pick up right where um uh Chair Woodson left off with um the transient population that has these cards. So, so I'm at my question I Well, I think that's what you were alluding to, but yes,

not to put put words in your mouth. um with respect to the transient population that have carts um um from outside of the city that don't belong to any of our retailers. Um how is the city mitigating like you you might go find a Target uh cart but it's from Seaside, it's from Palmdale, you know,

it's walked here from somewhere and it doesn't belong to the city. Um and then uh if there isn't a plan, should it be a part of this ordinance? And then this the follow-up question is with respect to that transient population. Um when the city does take those carts from them, you some some of those people that's their entire livelihood. That's it. Thank you.

Yeah. I don't I don't know if we envisioned uh what you mentioned about somebody pushing one from seaside. So, we'll have to kind of deal with that if it comes up. And then in terms of unhoused people and their uh property, we'll have to work with the police department on that because they're a little more in the know about the Fourth Amendment issues related to uh seizure of property and whatnot. They have a whole protocol that I'm I'm not familiar with, but yeah, that's you're actually bringing up a really good point that we'll have to address. Um because you're right that is that's a lot of people's personal property there. So we'll have to and I think I think the goal is um always compliance and you know PD has a lot on their plate um and so we would not want to burden them with you know something um so and they have to triage uh with their limited staff so we we we don't want to make this something that's burdensome to them. So we'll have to work with them in terms of implementation. So, but those are good questions. Thank you. That's why we're here just so that uh when the rest of the staff is gone that I can bring this August 6 to council. So, thank you. These are good questions to ask. So, thank you.

So, and what I what I really would quick add then I'll go to um Sure. to uh Commissioner Brown is the there is a specific unhoused person I'm actually thinking about right now who spends a lot of his time doing a lot of good work for our city who has I mean he's got the he's got the tent that he maintains out on the trail and he's always cleaning up our I mean he's he's a he's an interesting fixture but vital asset to our city and this literally could catch him and his heart in this mix. Okay. And that's something that really as it goes forward the council is how do you address those and I wouldn't be surprised if somebody in the council doesn't raise the issue with that specific person.

Okay. So after the meeting if like you want to share with me the individual's information or whatnot. So but these are great questions. Thank you Commissioner Brown.

Turn turn on the mic. I said the city can buy car for him. possibly. Yeah. Um I have a couple of questions. Um how would public works know about where the carts are located is the first question I can answer. Yes.

My second question is u a lot of the carts are being dumped um on reservation road on the way to the beach under the freeway and that belongs that area belongs to cult and they wouldn't do it even if you report it. So, but it's still part of Marina and a lot of people in Marina that go up and down that street. Uh have meet this sometime I count 11 carts there. So, um who would take care of that if it's not part of Marina jurisdiction? Thank you.

Uh I mean the ordinance applies to all the carts in the marina proper even if that CALR is owned. So, we would still enforce the ordinance. So, and by the way, I exit a reservation every day. My the record I saw I actually parked one day. There were actually like 23 carts on that and so I I see it every day. So, this what Shane and Dick have been working on is for me really important. So, so but how public works we know about all the cars and you know side streets and small corners and so forth.

Yeah. So, uh let me go back to what Shane mentioned. So, uh, started in August, if you see at the top of the abandoned card, um, C, click fix. Um, and once it goes live, we'll probably give a demo to the planning commission. That's going to be a new software that all Marina residents, including you guys, can start using. It's a GISbased map. And so any code enforcement, um, shopping cart, um, pothole, any other stuff to kind of, we're working on the software now. If you're walking and you see a card or you see a pothole, you'll be able to click on the GIS base map and it'll it'll ping staff to tell them of the different issues that the community seeing. And so the finance director had some familiarity with this from another agency and she's working with our public works director. So that's going to be the new uh software and cclick fixes the company. It's going to be called Marina Connect. That's going to be the kind of the colloquial use for the local agency. So that that's what Shane was referencing there. Um, so yeah, that's how we will find out. And then, uh, what it will do is it'll ping me, the code enforcement officer, and whoever, and it'll stay on the system until the issue is resolved. And then for budgetary purposes, it'll be great because it'll it'll track how long it took us to follow up, how much time, and then the city manager can then use that to maybe get more positions or figure out how much time we're spending on this, that, and the other. And so it has multiple uses that we can use. So, uh, as soon as it rolled out, we'll let the commission know. So,

any other questions? Commissioner Ron

chair. Uh in the proposed ordinance we have uh certain provisions and uh my question is that uh some other cities also neighboring cities also must have adopted uh this these kind of measures of how effective they have been and what kind of problems they have faced which we can avoid. Yeah, I would Nick and Shane were the ones who wrote it. So, if you guys want to answer kind of what you heard from other staff, from other cities or

um I mean I I could start. So, we looked at I I I personally researched a ton of different municipalities around, you know, uh California, everything from the valley to, you know, San San Jose down south, you know, just to see kind of what they kind of had success-wise and everything like that. And so that's kind of how I melded it into the ordinance, which Nick obviously uh helped me to, you know, make into our personal marina ordinance. But, um, what I typically saw was was the wheel locking mechanisms are very effective as when that was put on a cart. That usually solved a lot of the issues with people taking them and, you know, pushing them for miles and miles and miles. They don't, you know, any kind of Whoopsie. Sorry about that. Any type of preventative measure like that usually does help the city to keep that shopping carts mitigated from getting them out and about like what we have currently where it's just in central Marina you really can for the most part find a cart everywhere you go if you really look hard enough and that is just the goal is you know I I wanted to say uh back to the when you talk about the transit community and everything of that nature I worked in homelessness before I came here So I I do understand very much how important shopping carts and everything were. So as I was doing this ordinance, I did take that into account that that would have an impact on that community.

And so that's kind of what why the containment plans are what they are is we just want to try to prevent them from even leaving the business itself. You know, I I understand there's going to be carts. I've seen them. I've seen carts that have come all the way from Carmel. I mean, I really am actually impressed Yes. by that. So, I understand like that whole thing, but it's just for us in in Marina, I just really think we want to try to see if we can not have them on our main roads, you know, driving in where everyone who drives into town sees, oh, there's a cart still there two weeks later, three weeks later, or sometimes even three months. So, just wanted to address that.

Okay. And uh another question I have is that uh the businesses do not gain if their cart is lost. It's a loss to them also because they've invested on that. The proposed ordinance suggests certain measures like uh lookouts guards or even the technology measure that you talked about real one wheel getting clogged. So these are additional costs to the business. So can we have something to for the businesses as a tax write off or something of this nature some incentive for the businesses so that they do not think that it's an additional expense on them?

Yeah, I think so. Correct me if I'm wrong, Shane, but uh the way the ordinance is written is there's a little bit of a leeway period for the containment plan. There's a there was a 90-day provision to give. So, it is a little bit of a cost, but if as you mentioned, somebody taking the cart and never returning it, that's a cost as well. So, um it is a cost and we were where was the 220 fee? So, we actually spent quite a bit of time because to your point, Commissioner Rhonda, um we are adding an expense to the grocery store, you know, but that $220 fee is nothing compared to them losing 22 25 carts every two to three months. So, we actually spent a lot of time kind of coming up with that number. It's it's a reasonable number. You know, if we were fully to burden all the staff time, it'd probably be $2,500. But we wanted to come up with something. We want to make it easier for businesses to your point, not make it so burdensome that they won't participate. Right. But yeah, there is that cost of the carts going and them never seeing them ever again. Right. So, yeah.

And one more that there are other options. uh I've experienced uh maybe traveling international in in France they have that the cards are restrained and you get a coupon or a token when you take the card and when you return it again you uh you can return the coupon or that kind of a system right

so why don't we have this kind of a system here also so that the customer itself find it responsible and accountable because if a c if a coupon is missing when the person took the card coupon there it's it's there's an identification and the person can be held accountable for that so that that that could be a possibility I mean this is a draft ordinance as written for now but you know we can certainly you re-evaluate. So that probably wouldn't be part of an or Yeah. I mean that would be more of a working with the Chamber of Commerce or something. Yeah. So

but that's that can be stuff like that can be added to a car containment plan, right? So yeah, there's other options for them beyond what's just in there. It isn't it's not all these must apply to every business, right? They don't all have to have the wheels locked. They can start off with just the inventory, what their plan is now, making sure that they're all labeled properly, maybe some signage. So, it can start off small. It's not necessarily going to be a heavy cost to the businesses right off the bat. It's it's something that they start off with the the car containment plan as they submit. If it doesn't work, then we would work with them to amend it, right? So, it's a it's a working relationship. Yeah. Yeah. Good point.

And and I think to that point, the other nice the thing about I thought the 220 was interesting. That's an interesting number to pick too. I like but not 200, not 225, 220. Um, as long as you didn't pick 420. Yeah.

Then I would have said you too much Tesla. Um so um that said I think the the other thing I think about the small fee is going back to the cost of implementation per cart is this is not this is about beautifification of the city and for the business it's about loss prevention for them and the best way to loss prevent is to beautify the city and if we can we can lower the fee to kind of cover our expenses but at the same time can take that incentivization to them to take that money and put it into their carts, then it really becomes a win-win for everybody with a small cost because it really wasn't to your point, I don't think it's about the cost of the program. It's about what we're trying to achieve at a bigger community level by not having these carts just all over the place.

Right. So, exactly. Um, anyway, Paul, I think you're sitting out there. I sound like he may have had a comment.

Yeah, I like to share. Um well I want to thank Tick and I I didn't know the gentleman names uh for presenting this shopping cart thing. Uh it's really good to to address this because we don't want to see shopping cart all over the place and um if we can have the ordinance and make and make it mandatory that all shopping cart must have a real locking systems. I think that's the first thing to do and the second thing is to education program because no matter what you do if somebody want to take the card and push away they can do it but I think it's it's a kind of responsibility I mean the cut is for you to to shop um and not for you to take it home or anything and so if we can do a education program through Facebook and I So some of the city council mayor putting things on Facebook I think which the city can can do it on Facebook and promote it and say let's make a maybe a shopping cart day or whatever you call it and then say nobody push the cart away and just to maintain the city shopping cart free you know um other than in the store. I think education program is the way to go for the wrong terms and then everybody know because when we travel to Europe and Switzerland you could tell everyone is very responsible they don't push a card away from the shopping area and um and like um they they have the wheel locking system as well. So I think if the ordinance if we want to do it let's do it and implement it and all shopping cart have wheel locking system and then through education program and tell people don't

take the card away and if you take the card out from shopping um complex and you push the car to the um the lot where they assign you to put the card back because I a lot of time they just put it on the road. I think this is to me is is is through education program we can fix that. All right, that's all I want to say. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, Paul. Thank Thank you.

Commissioner Chang, sorry about that. Um Okay, so very quick I one more round Robin and then finish up just go down the the aisle since all three of you had one last comment. Did are you do you not have another one? No, because your light was off and then it goes on again. My light is fine. It is. Now it's off. You're done. Commissioner Ron, you're off now, too. All right. All right. One last.

Yes, I do. And this this actually um so so one is a comment and and I'm going to say this from a place of I'm I don't do corporate taxes but I believe loss from theft is a deduction that can be taken for um I know for small businesses um uh it can be it can be taken against your um it is a deduction when you're itemizing. So just to say that part you can take that you may have to carry it forward there may be a ceiling but again I don't do corporate taxes and then my question I think maybe to Guido with respect to that Marina connect will it work in conjunction with MCWD's um water waste system uh program

water water waste you know how they have the leaks if you find a leak you get to go on their line and No I'm not familiar you want to educate me on so so if you find a leak in a water system they have a little Yeah. So, so if the you see you're walking down the street and the sprinter's the uh sprinkler is just going right, you go on to MCWD's website to water waste recovery program or something very close to that and you click some buttons and you report that this is where you saw. Oh, okay. Yeah. Very similar concept. Very. But will it work? Will they work together? Uh I mean different agency different but similar kind of concept. Will there be a water leak button in the

um Well, the directors are still building out what are the top nine or 10 thing buttons. Yeah. And I'm I'm sure there'll be an other type. You can do that. I maybe take that as a as a staff to on the requirements is adding in an API linkage or even a linkage off of the Monterey Connect off of the Marina Connect page that just lists, hey, if you have a if it's a water one, hey, we already have the link. Okay. We actually advertise. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let me uh That's an easy That's an an easy user inter I haven't looked at it in a while. Water leak water.

Report water leak. Yeah. CWD.orger_report_water_waste. Just okay. Yeah, do report water waste is the page title. Report. Okay. Commissioner Walton, if you could just forward that link to me via email and I can we'll try to figure out how to connect the two agencies. So, all right, Shane, done. We're hope we're a little bit easier to deal with. So, you missed out on the council side, but you got us instead um again now. So what last thing for you is put you back on the hot seat on this one is what the what was the role that you were hired into to provide

uh so I'll be an assistant planner for the good city company up in Redwood City. Uh they just moved actually into a new office right by the uh train up there. So very excited uh totally new life experience uh coming from Iowa uh to here to the Bay Area. So we've been you're slowly becoming acclimatized to city life. So from the nothing to the peninsula and now you're moving all the way towards the the Bay Area and Redwood City and seems quite the change about that. So again, good luck with everything. Um good fortune really

with all your future endeavors and thank you for all the work that you have done also on the staff side as an intern. Um sometimes internships can be as much as as you want to be. Um, and I'm sure Guido would hand you everything if you could. And so you've really stepped up and taken a lot of taken on a lot of things that you didn't necessarily have to do. And I'm sure Guido and Nick and and Alice and everybody were very appreciative of that. Um, I know we are on our side. So again, uh, great fortune as you move up and continue on with and start your career. just want to say I really appreciated getting to know y'all and thank you for letting me present a few different things to you here and really uh I'll miss my time. It's been awesome.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you Shane. Good work. Good job.

Okay, which is your All right. So, the commission asked for some SQA training. So, I'm going to do this. Um, I started my career writing SQA documents. So, I'll try not to go too much into detail, but commission asked for it. So, here you go. So, SQA mitigation, monitoring, reporting, and training programs, MMRP for short. Um, so just a little SQA refresher. So squa there are three levels to SQUA. There is a can you get an exemption? Do you have to do a mitigated negative declaration or do you have to prepare an EI? Um so for exemptions if you have a project um can it be exempt from SQA under a statutory exemption which is something written into the law by the state legislature or is it a categorical exemptions? Uh these are classes of projects that are generally considered not to have major potential impacts on the environment. Trying to think of a couple that uh maybe Nick or somebody's worked on. Um the 15 unit affordable housing project down the street that we just approved at a staff level for the uh 225 Hillrest.

221 Hillrest. It's an infill project. there's already residential there. It's already tied into the sewer and water. It's really not going to have a bunch of environmental impacts. So that's a classic example of a project that is a project but really doesn't have significant impacts. So there are exemptions written into the law. So that's the first level of SQA. Um these are some samples of some exemptions. Uh the next level of SQA is the uh mitigated negative declaration. Um uh a negative declaration is authorized when the lead agency determines that there is no substantial evidence existing supporting a fair argument of a significant effect. A mitig mitigating NDE applies when changes to the project or mitigation measures reduce the significant effects to a less than significant level. So a project comes to the city, it probably doesn't warrant an EIR because we've looked at the impacts but and the impacts will not be to a significant level. So an example could be I don't know a 40 unit project in the city that may might impact a neighborhood or an intersection. Maybe we can change the traffic signals a little bit. Maybe we can add an additional roadway. Uh maybe we can plant some trees to reduce the noise impacts. Those are it's a mitigated that's in the title, mitigated negative declaration. So those are kind of your mid-level projects. And then the next level of SQA, this is the the mother of them all, the environmental impact report. um substantial evidence. If there is substantial evidence of significant

effects through the full analysis, uh an EI has to be be prepared. Substantial evidence includes facts and reasonable assumptions predicated on expert opinion. It does not include argumentation, speculation, or public controversy. In my career, I've worked on some relatively controversial projects. Just because it's controversial doesn't mean you have to do an EI. There's got to be some pretty the substantial evidence test. There's got to be some pretty substantial evidence to show that um we're going to have to do a full-blown ER. We're going to have to fully assess this. It will take 12 to 18 months just to write the E. Um so that's that's that. So these are the different levels of squa. I won't go through all this. This is way too much detail. Um and so after you have decided to do a mitigated neg or an EIR as part of preparing those phase two and phase three of a project, you have to prepare an MMRP. And this is what the commission asked for uh to do training on today. So what is a mi mitigation monitoring reporting program? It's written it's baked into the SQL law. The section applies when a public agency has made findings that a mitigated NEG deck or an ER must be prepared. And so in order to ensure that the mitigation measures identified in the EIR or the NEGDC are implemented, the public agency shall prepare a program for monitoring or reporting on the revisions which it is required in the project, the measures it has imposed to mitigate them to a less than significant level or to avoid significant effects. um a a public agency may delegate the

reporting or monitoring responsibilities to another agency, but at the end of the day, the city of Marina is the lead agency for SQUA, and we're ultimately responsible working with the applicant to make sure that those mitigation measures occur uh with the mitigation monitoring reporting program. Much like we did training with the commission about a year ago about conditions of approval, MMRPs cannot be vague. Public agencies are explicitly required to ensure that mitigation measures are adopted to mitigate or avoid the significant impacts are fully enforceable. uh vague or uninforcable mitigation measures would undermine the very purpose of the program and fail to meet the legal requirements set forth by SQA. And just so this is not an abstract conversation, the downtown specific plan when I brought that to the commission last October inside the buried and all the stuff I gave you probably didn't know there was an MMRP written into the plan. So, one I tried to find one that was relatively easy for the commission to understand. Inside the MMRP for the downtown plan, there were specific enforcable actionable things that applicants will need to do if they want to build the project in the downtown as it relates to dust control. So, if you build a big housing project or any kind of development project in the downtown, these are all it might be a little hard for the commission to see, but you know, we want you to spray off the truck before it leaves the site. We want you to water the site so it doesn't get dusty having dust go into the community. Um, plant trees for windbreaks to reduce the construction uh air impacts. And as we mentioned, there is a specific

action and there are specific steps that have to be taken with specific agencies that are responsible. So this is all part of um SQA's goal is to make things transparent for the community and to make them enforceable. Now, the only caveat to all of this is while I was preparing this presentation, the state legislature just adopted AB130, which if you build a residential project and a bunch of others, which we won't go in today, and it's consistent with the general plan and it's consistent with zoning and you meet certain other criteria and it's less than 85 ft, then you're exempt from SQA. So there are going to be a lot more residential projects that will be exempt from SQA. Um and with objective zoning standards, this commission won't even see it. So it's all part of this larger goal to streamline development. Um because while SQA is helpful to be transparent, it can be used at times to kill projects and that's what the state is trying to not have SQA be. So they're providing a lot more exemptions for projects moving forward. So that's my very brief introduction to SQA and MMRPs. Glad to take any questions from the commission.

Thank you very much Guido. I appreciate that. I think that that that the mitigate the the the negative declaration it almost it's I understand what it is from a risk management perspective but it just always I think sometimes it gets confusing when people read that because it's like okay mitigation is the the thing and then the the negative is like okay no mitigation means negative here means no SQA instead of just saying it's we're just getting rid of SQA it's just that it's always it's a word choice that always kind of confused slightly. Um, Commissioner um, Brown, you had comments.

The way you say my last name, I just never hear it. U, thank you. I have one question about this assembly bill 130, but it looks like everything is going to be different now with this uh, new bill. Does this mean that the sand gillia will not stop marina from developing in all the area that had to be um blocked from development because I understand

no I mean that's still a protected species that will still be assessed and actually there was a part of 130 that specifically they write into all the bills you know you can't yeah you can't just uh steamroll through all of these protected species. Yeah, there's certain Yeah, you have to they're still protected species. So, that's very good news because I thought that pretty much u we're not going to consider anymore um protected areas. So, yeah, they'll still be Thank you. Other questions?

Yeah, not really. I just I was going to I'm very glad that you brought up the the uh what the state just did because that was going to be my question, but you answered. I appreciate it. Thank you. Um Paul, do you have anything? I'm okay. Thank you.

Okay. Um anyway, I think it was pretty straightforward and I appreciate that. um a question I have kind of general principles kind of on this the concept of just anything when we kind of when you present these general updates to us um and I know they're geared specifically towards the planning commission but sometimes these are of significant interest to the public at the same time um knowing that at times when a presentation is geared towards us there are facts and assumptions sometimes that are not put into the presentation because it's not geared towards the public side. Um, when we think about something like this, is this something that is sharable to the public? Because I know this does come up on the SQL side a lot of times. And I think what happens is that when you go do the internet searches, um, now granted AI might change this. The reality is that you do a search and it just brings up a an overabundance of facts that I think overwhelm a lot of people and so they immediately think ah the government's just trying not to be transparent and that's they just don't want to do SQA because they're not trying to be transparent. They don't understand the categorical exceptions. They don't understand. They just don't understand the flowchart

and the fact that a lot of the flowchart if you can mitigate a lot of the the the risk items to a certain point, you don't have to have the plan. That's the entire reason that we have

the mitigation plans in the first place is so that we can stay out of this bigger process. And the reason the process exists for SQL was because people weren't doing the mitigation before or they would find shortcuts for it. are like, "Okay, well, no, you're going to have to do this." So, it's kind of that chicken and egg concept. But, um, just wondering if there are ways that because I see it online in our group pages of times, um, that deal with Marina where a development comes up and even if it doesn't necessarily pertain to us, people will throw around the concept of SQA. And I think it's it's more it's an education piece. And there are times when I just want to go out there and just throw my name into the hat and just say, "Okay, here go look at this." Um, but is that something that that you feel we could take on as as kind of as a quick information one pager type of thing to

That's right. I could certainly work with you offline to you know always happy to educate people on SQA. Right. And I think that would be something that would be beneficial to a lot of community because we are interested in this and we have these developments and um that ties to the the concept of site specific plans where I don't think a lot of people understand that the site specific plans that we've been that some of us have been that we've been stuck underneath also. Yeah. But that's a different

absolutely and it's very timely. for for the commission. So for the general plan that's going to be coming to the commission, we're hopefully get it done by June, July, August, September next year, that will have a very, very robust MMRP. Um, so the commission will want to look at that because all of those conditions will apply for many, many years to many projects. So yeah, absolutely. We can do some type of further training or whatnot.

Thanks. I appreciate it. Okay. Um, no other questions on that. close out the training piece. The next thing we have is we had asked um RO and staff to come back and just kind of give us an update kind of around Robin on some of our projects that we've been approving over the last 18 months and that sometimes are being built and sometimes not and just kind of give us a status update.

One second. One second. Let me project. Here we go. Nick's got to give this one. Good evening. Uh, I'm Nick Moroy, senior planner, and this is a major project update. So, first up is 3298 Delmani Boulevard. This has come to you multiple times in the last four years for extensions. Uh most recently it extended to October of 2026. Marina Coast Water District denied their variance request to have one central water meter that then is split at the property. So they will have 94 water meters on the perimeter of their site. Um technically uh in speaking to Marine Coast Water District about a different project, they could put them into their site more. So, uh, I'm hopeful that when they come back with the revised plans showing where those backlo devices and water meters are going to be placed, we can work with screening and appropriate location for those. Um, they are redesigning their plans accordingly to the to the denial of the variant. So, they are redoing that and then um there's still a couple little uh things that they need to do and then a bigger thing of affordable housing agreement needs to go to city council still. So, I think they're just trying to get all their building permit stuff done and then they're going to say, "Okay, now let's bring this to affordable housing agreement."

How many how many affordable units do you remember? Uh, Nick, it's 20% of 94. So, I think it's seven per phase. So, 14, I believe. Okay. 13 or 14 or 15. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah, I think I can't remember. The first phase I think is seven, and that's all I can remember at this point in time, but yeah. So, uh, next slide, please. And you yeah uh I'll just go through this and if you have questions we can go back. 32 3125 to Forest Road. Still no building permit. Uh it is it did under AB22729. The development is extended through December of 2026. So they still have year and a half. This one was entitled a little earlier than 3298 Delony Boulevard and they have had less progress. So um still waiting to see if they do anything with this project. Um, we do want to see, of course, things developed, but we can't force people, so we're just holding fast on this one. Uh, next slide, please. And 3108 Serest Avenue. I I wanted to throw in a few ones that have just been completed. So, this one just got final building occupancy in or final. It had temporary occupancy and now has final occupancy as of June. Uh, this last month. Um, this is right over here on Serest Avenue. It's 11 uh unit apartment complex. It's uh it's right where you'll see a lot of shopping carts across the street. Um just to tie that in. And it's a good little project. It has uh it's three stories uh three units, two to three units per floor. And yeah, excited to see that one come together and get finished. Uh next slide, please. And then al I couldn't this is not a housing project, but I th want to throw this in there. the Joby uh Shell building 225,000 foot stell building uh is complete building permit final for the Shell. So that's not an occupied building permit final. They still need to do the tenant improvements to actually put the stuff inside, but it's exciting. It's there. You can

see it in many points of Marina now. And it's a lovely new manufacturing building and they're going to have training in there and all sorts of fun stuff. So excited to see that go up. It went up, in my opinion, it went up very quickly. It is just a shell, but still very impressed. Um, next slide, please. Yeah, questions. I didn't go over every single project in Marina. Um, and I feel like you guys have had a lot of the Sea Haven and the Dunes. I will just mention Marina Station. Allison's not here, but that project is moving along quite quite well. Uh, we'll start to see homes. Yeah. Final map was approved. First final map approved by council in June, I believe. May or June.

Yeah. So, that's really exciting. We're all very excited about Marine Station. So, it's gonna be very exciting to see that some homes. I believe they just finished the roundabout right up near Windy Hill and they are going to start working on the infrastructure and yeah, so staff will be very busy. So,

yeah. And then Nick brings up a good point. So uh part of the council retreat was uh kind of direction from council was that when we all the directors presented to the council all the work that all the departments are doing the council gave clear direction to the city manager of hey we need to message this stuff out more. So they authorized him to work with trape Smith a PR firm. So hopefully you as residents are going to see a lot more press releases and enhanced um social media presence working with that PR firm because yeah, there's just a lot going on and we just need to kind of tell people about it. Um yeah, you mentioned Wendy Hill and the aquatic center and I could go on and on and on but hopefully you guys will see that soon as well.

Glory Jean Tate Park. Yeah, there's a lot of the rec W recck department's done a lot of crazy amount of stuff. Yeah, I think that's it's a it's a good point. And why I kind of wanted an update on some of this was that we have a lot that's being accomplished in the city. And again, I sit online. I sit in the the different groups. There are ones that I'm not part of that I know get raised also where people always ask, well, oh, what's going on Kate Park is a is a great example. What's going on over there? It's like it's on the wreck page. It I mean plans are all there. It's a great great expansion, but a lot of people, they just don't know where to go to find everything, right? And it's like, okay guys, you need to look around and realize how much money and I think the the what I would say from a staff side of it is you could take this back is that part of that marketing plan needs to be explaining the impact fees that came in from our sight specific plans, especially at the dunes and Sea Haven and the actual monetary effect that that is bringing to a lot of this development. I think a lot of it's very easy to harp on the negatives of the developer sometimes when they don't when things don't go exactly there's vibration issues with construction there's this there's that at the same time there's a lot of money that's coming in from these developments and there's even more money coming in from some of the future ones that are getting ready to come forward such as the Mercedes credential dealership

and it's really important to see that okay what are those what does that money really translate to and that's to your point on the park side it's why the parks department has had probably the the biggest spurt of development that's ever occurred in this city over the last two years is because all of a sudden we actually have some disposable income to put into simple things, not buildings, just parks and equipment for kids. Um so two comments I kind of had and then I'll go I know Commissioner Walton had his comments on the 325 to forest. That's just um we talked about this before um and just whenever that as this gets closer a year from now because I'm guessing I think I know where it'll be a year from now or a year and a half from now is what become the options for that. Um because I think we had agreed that we weren't there was not going to be another extension to that one. Uh yes, but that was before Allison helped get through council uh the um if you guys recall, she brought forth the commission and council u clarifying our appeal process,

right? Giving me more authority to kick up permits to the commission, but then also making it clear about extension of projects. So I believe there's two one-year extensions that I'm allowed to give. So that project will be around probably till 2028 and if nothing happens then it would die. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, I knew that was there and I just didn't know what the final where that kind of fit in on the effect of that. Um and then I we'll agree on 3108 is been fun to kind of watch that. It reminds you how long it does take to get build out completely in construction in this city right in the state right now

that it's just it's hard to get crews and to do all the final finish work a lot of times especially on something that has these units and sometimes it's a patience issue. Um the other one is that I had last thing I have was on some of our smaller projects when we come forward. Um and I think more this is a staff just when you're talking to our developers or our our applicants is just I just want to kind of remind them sometimes just transparency. If you want to build something we want you to build it too. And when we approve things, we want you we want to get done and things can change. But anyway, I'll just leave it at that. Yeah. Oh, I I didn't put in here uh 226 Palm. They uh had a delay because their architect passed away. Uh so they had about a year delay on that one, but they have hired a new architect and they met with building and planning and did the pre-op did the preconstruction meeting and submitted for building permits. So, that's something that we're going to start looking at. I'll look at it before I leave uh the building permit. So, it's exciting. That's forward.

That's a good project. I think that'll be another good infill project for us. Yeah. So, but then put that I didn't didn't even think to just tell just now, but um Commissioner Walton Walton. Thank you, Chair. Um so, I have two questions with Reca Men. When will be that when will that be done? Um and then um there was a foster care home to like three tiny three or four tiny homes on a lot. I forgot. Oh yeah, I forgot about that one. So the 3289 Drew Street, the Senica family homes. Yeah.

So I'm going to miss you just by the way because you see how he knew the exact address of every single thing. It was a planner for it.

My I specialize in current projects. That's my my role here mostly. Uh so yeah, Senica Family Homes, great great applicants. Really love working with them. They've done some amazing projects in the in the region. They shifted gears. They've demolished all those little tiny homes and they are now working on a a lot line adjustment. There's actually five lots there. They found some little tiny lots from when it would became Anyway, they're going to redo a lot line adjustment, make it three lots. They're going to get funding and build three single family homes on those three lots that are bigger and going to fit more their what they what their funding can do for them. So they they work on grant funding to do their big projects and this is where the grant funding is leading them. So they've already reached out with me. I've talked to them a few times this last year and yeah, they haven't gone away. They're still going to develop that property. So, and then engine parkway winding project, this public works project you're talking about, has a wonderful website. I recommend you looking at that and subscribe to updates. It's very easy to read and look through and it tells you we're we're in phase two of

of three or four. So, we can I can send you a link to that. Check it out. It's got cool maps and it shows you exactly what happens in each phase. And you'll you can see like, okay, they're going to finish this half roundabout and then the other half. And yeah, it's it's coming along. Well, I believe that final is sounds like 2027, 2028ish. Yeah, I think it's even sooner than that, but yeah, check take a look at the website. End of next year. End of next year. Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah, I mean it's it's actually moving along pretty I think they're about Yeah.

Okay. I do have a follow-up question for that. So there's a street that goes just is runs I guess kind of parallel to Engine and leads out to Selenus. There's a gate there to Selenus Road. I'm sorry. Right. Right. There's a gate there. Carmel. Yes, that's the one. Yeah. So I think Yeah. I don't want to lie about it. I me and street lamp names. I need GPS. But um can we open that? Is there a reason why it's closed? because that the road Carmemell Avenue is not finished with our checklist. We need finish before we can open that road. So, they're still working on the checklist.

So, what would it take to speed that up? So, so the residents can I mean it's a long and out of Yeah. And if we're going to 2028 Yeah. I think it might be wise to give us some relief and especially if there's a a fire or anything else and we're all trying to get out at the same time. I agree 100%. Yeah, I I think it's our intention to um open that as soon as we can. So, thank you. We'll we'll we take that comment. We'll take that comment and we'll get back to you as well if we can. But, thank you. Yeah. Richard and John, you have a you have something else.

Yeah, I one for I think Guido, I didn't hear anything about Cypress Nolles and just a tiny update on is it alive or kicking?

Uh yeah, so Cypress Nolles, I've been on this for three and a half years. So, we had the APA committee come in 2023. Uh, I think the commission and council we had a joint meeting. Uh, we got some clear direction. Um, and then I started to work on some grant opportunities. So, we got a $300,000 grant to do some investigation of the barracks stuff we kind of already knew, but it was helpful just to so it's full of lead and asbestous and all that. I mean, we kind of knew that already, but we got a $300,000 grant from the US EPA

and then that led into applying for a $4 million grant. Um, I spent about a year working on that and then unfortunately we were not successful with that one. I just had a debrief with the US EPA staff. There was only one US EPA cleanup grant given for the whole western part of the United States. And the criteria was you had to score 167 out of 170 to get the grant. So it's like a perfect score almost. Um so met with the US EPA staff to look at ours. We got 146 points. Um so the next round of funding will come up in October, November. Um, so if we can get up to 152 points, then we can get a $500,000 grant to clean it up. That's nowhere near what we need. But the US EPA staff have told us we can either go big for the $4 million one or maybe go for the $500,000 one and then maybe leverage that for more grant opportunities. Um, so it just kind of depends. I have to talk to the city manager and work with the council. Um, so applying for that and then I'm working with the city manager on a constraints analysis for Cypress NLES. Basically, before we open up this long drawn out specific plan process, we want to have a very frank uh conversation with the council commission and community to say, hey, we can't uh it's not a blank slate. We can't just do whatever we want because there's contaminated barracks. There is San Gillia there. There is old infrastructure. All of that costs money to remove and update. So I'm I've been working with the city manager last couple months to release an RFP to do a constraints analysis so that we can go to the

community and say, "Hey, we know you want this, but in order to get this, this is how we have to get there in terms of all the limitations on the property." So that's I've been working on that in my spare time amongst everything else. So yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so hopefully can release that constraints analysis soon and then um be able to kind of restart that. But I'm like the tenth director to work on this thing because there's just so many obstacles.

The only way we're going to get done is is truly while we're alive, it seems is to convince the OD to actually go back and be responsible for what they should have done in the first place. Yeah. And because they're the only ones who truly have a pot of money.

Yeah. So it's it's clean up and just for the rest of the community. So because all those old barracks, they have asbestous and lead and whatnot. You can't just go in there and bulldoze it because there's a bunch of chemicals that get released in the air. So we've we've estimated it's anywhere from like 22 to $25 million to demo the barracks, put them in the proper landfields, dispose of it properly, and no one has $25 million laying around. So that's that's also part of the do we do we make a community facility district to um raise the taxes for that area? Um do you create a meal district? I mean there's different ways you can finance it. Um but that's all part of the constraints analysis that um yeah so that that's what I'm working on.

It is a challenging section that unfortunately decisions that were made in the late 1990s early 2000s by an by an agency that was not in Marina's best interest ever. We've all been we are still now paying the price for those decisions.

Yeah. So, it is what it is. Um, I have one l one other qu and it's again it's a road question and it's a it's a I I really it's an intractable I think issue right now and that's California Avenue on the dune side and specifically between Losamus the intersection at Los and what 9inth and 8th. So that small section um that's got what six town houses on it is the one where a lot of noise complaints came out of Los Angeles where that originated. The the issue there is the width of that road. Um I literally so I I now driving that three days a week, four days a week when I take Strong to school. So, I'm back driving that route and driving in my wife's mini SUV. Literally, I can't even drive down the road and stay in the lane when there two of the people who live there. One has a just a full-size truck, little heavy duty. It's not an oversized or anything. It's just a we have a 1500 I think Dodge Ram, but then they somebody else has another full-size car. And if I don't cross over the double yellow line that's right there, I physically can't get around those two cars when they're parked there. And it's nothing against them. They're allowed to park there. It's the issue is the road's just narrow. And if that road is when 8th Avenue, the entire point of the containment plan for or future plan for for CSUMB is to move everybody out of the the down the main area of CSUMB. Yep. That section right there. The that's actually running off the screen. So, if you go down, if you scroll up a little bit, it's the last section

that ties from basically 8th Street up to 9inth Street. Um, I don't see how um so this the first section where you're at right now with the mouse, that's fine. When it comes down past the little tree intersection where Chapperel is, that's that's fine. all the way up to the stop sign at 9inth Street. But then when it gets from 9inth Street to 8th Street, that road is so narrow that once we start once 8th Avenue, right, A Street opens up to become the routing to keep people out of the dunes, to keep people out of CSUB, it really becomes a m what is supposed to be one of our more major roads in the city in that area. That small section between ninth and eighth on California does not support the width of being a major major road or drivers in both directions. And I

because of the parking because well it's not because of the parking. It's because the overall width of the road they made it. If they eliminated the parking

well they eliminated the parking they could do it but they can't if you eliminate the parking then there's not there's not necessarily enough parking spaces in the garages. So I don't think you can necessarily get rid of that. I mean, I think the solution is to go back to transportation and look at that section of widening the road the other way to in this case, I guess, the north side of it or the east side so that it's just a wider road. Um, there again, I'll just pass that along. I know Nick, you and I have talked about the dunes internal driving roads before and the double lines and and the width and why the why the roads were set up the way they were and the widths they were set up. and it was to keep traffic flow down to a certain speed as a traffic calming measure. And I understand that looking at this one small section though because it's on the perimeter of the development and because of what we're looking at using that road as a connector for it is going we're going to have a really hard time with that. Um I just kind of I take that back to you all because it's not we're zoning thing. is not really necessarily underneath us, but also knowing that the long-term plans for the dunes are potentially to use that open space north of or north of a street as a potential commercial retail area at some point. they I mean there is that plan sitting out there at one point to to to turn some of that into a development also is before we get that bring that development up if we ever get to that point we do need to kind of look at that road width as part of it um and I get it and I understand why they they made it as narrow as they did um I just think it was a little bit shortsighted given what we're the traffic that we're trying to put on that road eventually.

Okay. Um our deputy city attorney has his hand raised. Chair Witson, I just wanted to make sure we're sort of still on the on the agenda topic before this turns into a discussion about road wits, but I kind of No, we are it's kind of future project status. Okay. Okay. But that said, you're absolutely right. I don't want to get into the weeds of of going down talking about specific things. Um, so that was just I just kind of raised that as an issue on Sure. And and we can refer you to our public works department and we can set up those meetings if people have concerns. we can talk to our public works staff. So, no, that's that's a good point, Seth. And I think any other questions from the group. That was all I wanted to say anyway.

Okay. Um, thanks Nick for the update on this the staff and for the great memory of addresses. So, yeah. So, with the commission probably so when I started three and a half years ago, I reorged the department and uh Allison kind of took the lead for long range and then Nick stepped up. He's been doing all he's the face of this department for current planning, all the day-to-day. So, he's just done a fabulous job. He knows all the addresses and all the history that I forget. And I just really have appreciated working with him. And so, yeah.

Okay. All right. Anything else you want to say? We can uh All right. Item 11 on the agenda was correspondence. Nothing. Item 12 on the agenda is adjournment which I think comes back to me. So I will pound on the