Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Very good. I'm calling this meeting to order at 6:01 p.m. on October the 15th, 2025. Can we take the pledge of allegiance? Commissioner Wermanman, would you lead us? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Uh, I'll conduct the roll call. Yes. Uh, Commissioner Fresco here. Commissioner Reese, present. Commissioner Wasserman present and Vice Chair Choco present. And it's now time for the planning director's report.

Good evening. Um good evening commissioners. Um so your next regular meeting will be October 29th um where we will be bringing the uh development agreements for the large format digital displays um on the third street prominade and at Santa Monica Place. Um we will also be bringing forward um the digital signage ordinance although the planning commission is not required to take a formal action or or make a formal recommendation um on the sign ordinance. Um it is being brought for discussion purposes for the commission um just to pro provide context to the development agreements. Um so that is all happening on the 29th. Uh in addition to that you'll also be uh reviewing your annual report um from the last year and establishing the work plan um for the subsequent year. Um at the moment we have no items on the November 5th and November 19th meeting. We're not cancelling those meetings as yet um you know as we just want to make sure um you know that we have no no available items you know on those meetings but Ethan will reach out um you know on meeting schedule um for the architecture review board um at the October 6 meeting there were three projects reviewed all were or excuse me two were approved and one was continued um 1437 Lincoln and 2901 Santa Monica Boulevard both of those are housing projects were approved approved and 1399 Olympic um was uh continued at the November 3rd meeting. So, next month's meeting um is the uh review of the 1320 Pico Boulevard project. Um that is also a housing project. Um, at the Landmarks Commission uh October 13th meeting, which was just this past Monday, the commission uh denied uh the um designation or potential designation of 26 Arcadia Terrace and approved a certificate of

appropriateness for 451 San Vicende Boulevard. Um at city council, um a lot has happened since the um commission last met. So, at the September 30th uh meeting, the council heard um or held a discussion on the AHPP off-site affordable housing pilot program. Um as we shared at your last meeting, that pilot program was initiated um at the August 12th meeting um and due to terminate on September 30th. So, at that meeting um council received a status update um on the program. uh we did receive six applications totaling a thousand units. Um so the initial objectives of the pilot program were met um in terms of uh spurring interest, you know, moving forward um housing projects. So there are about 30 projects representing about 3,000 units remaining. Um council gave direction to return with an ordinance um to allow those remaining uh previously approved projects to participate. um in this program in addition to direction on various aspects um of the program, you know, with a focus around, for example, the gap financing um amount um which was a point of discussion um of this uh planning commission and also providing more certainty in the um development of the affordable units by um requiring milestones. Um so that's due to return. We anticipate to council um probably the November 18th uh meeting, but that's all being worked on at the moment. Um at the September 30th meeting, council also adopted the um trienal update to the California building code. So that's now going through the process um of uh you know get getting into um adoption and it'll take effect January 1 of 2026. Um there were also two map amendments um that were uh correcting um you know

apparent uh errors um at 264430th Street and 1331 Wilshire uh Boulevard. Um and then at the October 14th meeting, which was just last night, um the council just on those map amendments, they did adopt second reading um for uh both of those map amendments um and also accepted um a voluntary agreement from the property owner of 264430th Street um recording restrictions on uh redevelopment um on the portions of that site, including the parking lot and the building um for 10 years. Um so council accepted that agreement. There was a signature events resolution uh which is part of um an overall effort to uh memorialize um sort of these signature events you know where fees have been waved over the years and sort of just uh formalizing you know these these known events large events that happen on a regular basis um uh each year uh in the city or on a bianual basis. um and uh waving fees for those. So, it just provides more predictability um for those events. Um and it's part of a broader effort to, you know, look at spurring um uh more events um in in the city. Um and then uh finally the council um uh heard or or or gave direction on the uh extension request of the exclusive negotiating agreement for the civic auditorium reuse. um council gave direction to not extend um the ENA and also directed staff to um uh study uh you know all the potential options for the site um with and without uh constraints. So it it really is coming back with additional study. It wasn't a

direction to do anything. It doesn't um it really is allows the city more more flexibility to um have um other folks come in. And um there was a lot of discussion from the council around you know wanting to bring back a concert venue and um you know so very much I think that that idea um is is still alive and it's just opening up um you know for other parties who may be interested as well. Um at the uh October 28th meeting um which will be upcoming um there'll be uh the contract adoption for Mills Act. There's three new contracts this year and there'll also be um an update to the outdoor dining fees. So these are the sidewalk dining rates. Um there's an effort to streamline and simplify those rates. Um and also an ICO that's going that day to uh remove some design standards, you know, just to so that we have all the design guidelines in one place which are adopted design guidelines. Um and then finally just uh giving for for the commission's um awareness uh on the October 28th meeting um the city manager will be presenting um the year- end budget and organizational realignment plan. Um that's a effort that's been underway for you know probably the last uh couple months um or so um in terms of you know red re redefining uh mission and values um and purpose. Um so there'll be a roll out of the broader organizational realignment plan around it strategic objectives um related to uh public safety, economic opportunity and housing. I wanted to highlight for you just a couple things that the department is working on um that we received direction on with respect to a vacant property registration ordinance um and rent registry. Um so those ordinances will be coming forward on October 28th. Um uh largely work carried out by our code enforcement division on the rent registry. That's a partnership with housing and human services and also the

um rank control board staff on the uh development process. Um you know we've mentioned this before that the city's in the process of implementing a new land management system. However, you know, software doesn't address sort of you know process. So there is um work very much underway and in earnest in uh reviewing um the city's overall development process from you know um what that experience is like for a customer you know from sort of the preliminary work uh through entitlement plan check and then into construction you know all the way through we're really taking a top to bottom look um at that in concert um with the uh new land management system. So those are all um uh you know that that that's sort of highlights of some of the things you know that the department is working on. Um and then we also want to note that we're currently um have initiated the five-year comprehensive fee study. This is an opportunity organizationwide um to review the the city's cost recovery fees um you know so that work has commenced um and it's uh on ongoing and will be you know ongoing for the next few months um in time for um next year's uh budget. So that's my report. Have any questions?

Thank you. Jen Commissioners, do any of you have questions? Start with Commissioner Fresco. What's the What's the name of the new computer system? Because I keep hearing people refer to a thing and I wonder is that a new system? Oh, yeah. So, the software itself is called Clarity with an I. I keep hearing that word. Yeah. Okay. Yep. You just clarity. Clarity. Yeah. C L A R I T I. Y Yeah. Commissioner Vasima. Uh yeah, real quick. uh at the very top are the development agreements for next meeting. Are they four different development agreements or uh because there's four addresses or is it one or

four separate? Yeah. Sorry, my eyes are like going on me right now. But it's four. Yeah. Okay.

Any further questions? Great. The next item on our agenda is planning commissioner announcements. Um to begin with uh some general procedural issues regarding speakers. If anybody wishes to speak on an agenda item, uh, you must submit a speaker's request form that looks something like this, uh, to the commission secretary who sits on my left. And all requests to address the commission on public hearing items must be submitted uh, to the commission's consideration before that item actually comes up. Okay. regard the next item is regarding public input. Actually, before I proceed to the next item, do any of the commissioners have any announcements? The next item is on public input. Um, public input is permitted only on items that are per public input is permitted only on items that are not on the agenda that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of this body. and state law prohibits uh this body from taking any actions on items that are not listed on the agenda, including issues raised under this general public input item. Uh we can now move on to the consent calendar. Uh, commissioners, I do have a speaker's request on item 7B. But before we take action on that, do any of you wish to pull any other items off the consent agenda? Uh, do I have a motion and a second for

pulling item 7B from the agenda? I'm move to pull 7B from the consent calendar and in the same breath move 7 A, C, and D. I'll second that. Great. We have a a motion by Commissioner Ree and a second by Commissioner Wasserman to take item 7B off the consent agenda and to move uh the remaining two items 7 7 A 7 was it just 7A Commissioner Ree? No, 7 A C and D I was

A C and D. Okay. So, Commission So, Commissioner Ree moves and Commissioner Wasman seconds. Um, moving items A, C, and D as well. Great. And we can do that as a voice vote for the approval of the consent items. So, all in favor say I. I. I. All in opposition. I hear none. So, 7 A, C, and D are approved. Commissioners, um, can I ask that we wave the staff report on this and go right to public testimony? So move.

We have a Can we get a second? I move that. Don't we have to vote on it to Yeah, he's looking for a second. She said so I think she second. Oh, great. All right. So, Commissioner Reese moved. Commissioner, make a motion. Okay. Commissioner Reese moved and uh Commissioner Fresco seconded that we wave the staff report for item 7B. We can do that as voice as well. So all in agreement. Yes. I position I hear none. All right. So and we should do exparte discussion since we're pulling that item.

So commissioners, do any of you have exparte discussions on this? I do not. There are no expert discussions. Great. So, we can move on to the public comment then. I guess before public comment, we should see if there's a present. I know you waved the staff presentation, but if there's an applicant presentation. Very good. Is Is there an applicant repres presentation? Looks like not always good to ask.

So then yeah, we can now move to public comment. Very good. Um, so we have one request for public comment from uh I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing this right. Bert Hill Hilkus. Very good. Um, you can come forward to speak. Uh you'll see a timer on the podium that will give you three minutes. Thank you. Uh to speak. So I hope I have it right. This is uh with regard to the construction that's planned for um 152717th Street. Is that correct? 7D.

So I just wanted to voice my concern because we live in the building owned by the same people who are uh proposing the construction immediately adjacent and to the south. And uh our building is orientated such that our living rooms and our um uh kitchens are facing the construction. So it's a long skinny single story building and we have California windows which are circa 50s windows that with the slats. So our concern is that there's going to be the last time this was approved um we were told it would take 18 months from beginning to end to start with the digging and all this and the moving of the current structure. So, we're we're expecting 18 months of a lot of noise and uh pollution and a lot of um trucks in the alley and in the street. We're separated from this property by only about 16 ft, a very skinny lawn. And um frankly, I'm also concerned and annoyed that apparently this developer looks for properties like this where they're going to be protecting a building and so thereby they get around certain bylaws and rules about how close they can construct to to the edges of the property or how high they can construct the building. So it's going to be much taller than they're allowed to usually make it. So they're allowed to get a lot around all of these rules. So, we're going to get a very large structure right in front of our windows at the end of the 18 months of noise. Um, that's going to be basically blocking us. There's going to be a a sound tunnel between us and 16 ft away at this building. And, um, so it's going to be a lot of hardship for us. And then at the end, we're going to have this thing that's going to be blocking the sun. So, um, I've come to voice my concern about that and my dismay that this is being put upon us and at the end of it all, we just lose what used to be in front of our living

room windows, which was sky. And uh, I was wondering, I don't know much about how this works, but it seems to me that we could be do some kind of compensation for the period during which there is this construction. And while we have to put up with all this noise, it's my experience that even though in a loose kind of way, construction is not supposed to start until 8 o'clock in the morning, I believe it is. What does happen is that these big trucks that are diesels and they run their engines. They don't turn them off, will come and stage and in their parking, they will when they back up, they beep. So, we've been woken up by the building behind us whenever they're doing something big, the business behind us with trucks that come at six o'clock in the morning because that doesn't seem to be part of the rule. So, we're expecting a lot of disruption and uh and um we don't know in what way we may be able to be compensated for that or um so that's what I wanted to say. It's going to be hard for us. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioners, do you have any questions of the speaker? Does the applicant have a rebuttal on this?

I don't think we're here.

Thank you. Any commission discussion?

Well, I'll discuss that. I'll start with just saying that, you know, I feel I feel for your pain. Construction is never easy in any stretch of the imagination, but as I understand this project, it is completely within the code and that we do incentivize the the um protection of structures of merit. And because of that, the city has crafted a zoning code that allows for incentives to do that. And part of those incentives is to maintain the existing building. and in exchange you get some some benefit. So from the city standpoint, we're not only getting new units, but we're also getting a protected unit. Uh members, sorry, we're getting a historic land a landmark building structure of merit.

So those are important considerations to the city and that's why we've created that ordinance. Um, in terms of construction noise, you know, they do have rules they have to live by and you should be very you should part of that will be they have to provide you contact information and you should be very willing to use that and um hold their feet to the fire that they're good neighbors. And I know that's probably not really helpful to you, but we don't have a ton of discretion in this situation because this project meets the code. May I move?

Yes, Commissioner Fresco. I would like to move item 7B on the consent calendar. Second. We have a motion by Commissioner Fresco and a second by Commissioner Reese. So the is the recommendation to the staff's recommendation to approve the map and Yes. and the sequel findings. Okay. So uh Commissioner Fresco, yes. Commissioner Reese, yes. Commissioner Wasserman, yes. and Vice Chair Choco.

Yes. The next item on our agenda is item eight. That's the study session. While she's getting ready, I want y'all to know I paid my earthquake insurance today. That is the best introduction I could have. Uh good evening everyone. I'm Lindsay Call. Um I serve uh as the chief resilience officer for the Office of Emergency Management. Thank you for having me tonight uh to present on our 2025 local hazard mitigation plan update. Um, so forgive me, I'm not a planner. I'm an emergency manager by trade. Um, our office of emergency management team is within the city manager's office office currently. Um, and it consists of two divisions. So, public safety communications, our consolidated 911 uh dispatch center for police, fire um and EMS dispatching and call taking and our emergency services and preparedness team that uh is responsible for the emergency response uh and preparedness plans, our disaster cache, and our emergency operations center. So what is the local hazard mitigation plan? Well, this is an a very important plan especially for two reasons. Number one, the planning process um is multidisciplinary and where it really educates city staff and community

stakeholders on our local hazards and risks. It really raises awareness of both city staff, stakeholders, and the community. um and and provides a synopsis on what are the natural hazards that Santa Monica needs to be prepared for. It also identifies community priorities. How are we going to address these risks? How are what is our plan to reduce them? Um and then it also meets uh important FEMA requirements so that we are eligible for different types of hazard mitigation funding that is not disaster related. Um one part of this plan is once it is approved it has to be approved by both Caloes and FEMA. Um once we complete FEMA approval process it will be uh serve as an appendex to the safety element as well. So again this has been a large team effort. We had a resilience planning committee that consisted of both city departments and um city stakeholders including our local hospitals, other uh jurisdiction, emergency management agencies, business stakeholders, etc. so that everyone really had a stake in this plan, understood what the again the hazards that are in Santa Monica, what the hazard scenarios are, and then collectively work together to figure out what the mitigation action items would be and how we should prioritize those. It has been a long road. Um, so we started this plan. Every five years you're required to do a hazard and mitigation plan update and our last plan was um updated in 2016. We planned to revise it in 2020 and then you know a little thing called COVID happened. So

we have been on this road since 2023. Um one of the important elements to this plan is community participation. So in partnership with community development department, we conducted a public survey to um gather feedback from uh community members on what hazards they find most concerning. What are their what is their level of preparedness? We conducted public workshops. Um department experts were involved in reviewing uh the different chapters of the plan. And so and we have just closed our our public comment period. Again, once council adopts the plan, it will go to Callowes and FEMA for review. Um, we don't know what the turn it around time will be with FEMA at the current state. So, TBD. Oh, and one um one other piece of this is that after we complete the the FEMA approval um and we adopt those changes, uh we also are engaging in a project where this is a very large complicated document and it's not very user friendly for the average member of the public. And so taking this document and turning it into kind of a magazine style format um available in six different languages and a website that really explain the hazards that exist, the mitigation items and how people should prepare for disaster. Um it's also been a bumpy road since 2023. We've had lots of natural hazards occur during the planning process and writing process um that have were a very tiny team in OEM on the emergency services and preparedness side. So it has been a balancing act of planning and response. Um the biggest challenge was the January 2025 Palisades fire um which

was a very large response and recovery effort from OEM and also required the rewrite of two of our um hazard mitigation chapters as well or hazard chapters and also um a rewrite of our hazard mitigation actions to ensure we were incorporating wildfire. So again, it's a big document. Uh it's three different volumes. Our action plan, what we have done, our update from the 2016 mitigation action items, what we're planning to do. Um now, and then um volume two is a chapter on every hazard that we identified. We were working in alignment with CDD to make sure that our hazards aligned with the safety element. Um, we also used the same consultant to try to streamline the process, speed this planning process up as much as possible um, so that we could be uh, quickly eligible for grant funding. And then volume three is our appendices. There's many resources maps available in that section. Um, one thing to note that confuses a lot of folks is this is not an emergency response plan. It is specifically it has to meet FE very specific FEMA requirements and it is meant to take a look at every hazard and assess the risk present potential scenarios but it doesn't dictate how to respond to those that is not its purpose. Um we do have a lot of uh emergency operations plans within the city. We have a overall uh multi-hazard functional emergency response plan and then we also have tsunami plan, peer emergency, civil unrest, alert and warning, crisis communications, department procedures. So there's many different plans that guide our response activities. This document helps us learn about what are the what need to be the priorities, what

it should be our next plan that we write related to response. Okay. So I'll move into the hazard analysis findings. So our greatest risk uh of the hazards that were studied are earthquake, tsunami, wildland fire, flood inundation due to the Stone Canyon dam failure, if that failed, uh severe weather and sea level rise. The lower risk was coastal flooding, landslides, structure fires, hazardous materials release, and airport crashes. um how did we come to these findings? So, FEMA has a GIS risk assessment tool called Hazis that we ran these scenarios through. Um it only is available for earthquake, tsunami, hurricane and floods. It is not available for wildfire um or extreme heat, sea level rise. Um so these type these scenarios that we received from haz were presented to the resilience committee so that we could really understand what would be the impacts if the worst case scenario of these events occurred. Um, we also have a damage assessment tool uh used by OEM and CDD called crisis track that we can estimate property loss of a disaster um using tax assessor information. And so that was also used to complement hazards and especially when uh it wasn't available for a specific hazard like wildfire. And all of these estimates only um are looking at Santa Monica impacts. So for example, the San Andreas fault scenario is just looking at Santa Monica, not the entire region. Okay. So for earthquake, we looked at four different uh scenarios again with a

very large earthquake occurring on all of these faults. the Santa Monica, Newport, Englewood, Palace Verdeise fault, which is the tsunami scenario um where the the local earthquake would prompt a local tsunami and then the southern San San Andreas fault shakeout scenario which is tomorrow. Um so for our earthquake risk analysis the largest damage estimate uh was for the Santa Monica fault scenario and that is because the fault would be in our own backyard with tremendous shaking fault rupture um and the highest possibility for um landslides or liquefaction occurring within Santa Monica as the fault uh as the distance increases between the fault in the city the the risk and the um damage level decreases. So for San Andreas, we always think of that as our worst case scenario, but actually the the estimated injuries and um economic loss is significantly less. However, um and this is a big however, it doesn't take into account the regional impacts. how what kind of damage could it do to trade or our transportation routes and things coming into the city even though we may our our structures may be standing and things like that. Um this just shows the distribution of residential building loss um based on the earthquake scenarios. Again, it focuses on the where the fault is in the direction of likely travel of the of the earthquake waves uh into the city. And similarly, this is the commercial

building loss um estimate for each earthquake scenario. More good news. Um tsunami is our next hazard that we're looking at. Um there are two different types of tsunami. A local source tsunami which is a seismic event that occurs nearby and it prompts an immediate tsunami and then a longd distanceance teles tsunami which is similar to the one we just had a couple month ago, two months ago um where an earthquake is occurring or a underwater seismic event is occurring far away and then we have a few hours to prepare for the tsunami event. So this is the statewide state statewide tsunami inundation map that looks at a telesunami occurring um with the origin in Alaska and a 20 foot runup um to the north of the pier. It goes up to Pacific Coast Highway, but unlike the movie San Andreas, it does not go over the bluffs and into West Los Angeles and all that or to downtown. Um and then south of the pier, um it really impacts our park areas, um and beachfront parking lots. Um there are condos to the south of the city that could be impacted. And we used TAS again to do the tsunami risk analysis um with this uh showing our exposed population casualties and estimated damage for to buildings. One thing to note on this uh scenario and all of the scenarios is this just takes into account our residential population. It doesn't necessarily account for a beautiful sunny day in Santa Monica where we have a beach full of tourists.

Um the other thing is that the range so the range is for uh a few different reasons but there are significantly less impacts to casualties um when it's a teles tsunami and we have ample time to evacuate a local tsunami you have about 10 minutes and uh especially for persons with access and functional needs or challenges evacuating uh by foot or bicycle bicycle, scooter, um that could be a challenge. Okay, next is flooding. Um our risk of coastal flooding or um other normal types of flooding is minimal. And so we really are looking at the uh Stone Canyon Dam failure, which is um up at the very top of the map um in Bair. if that has a this is the catastrophic dam failure scenario. So I just want to stress that um it would the flooding would stretch all the way to the marina um and Marv Vista. So within Santa Monica um this shows the area of the you know this eastern part of the city that would be impacted by flooding. Um it could be as the maximum depth of water would be could breach 12 feet um with it being uh significantly less um the farther west you move. The thing to note is on this map it doesn't show the impact to west LA. So from an evacuation standpoint uh your evacuation directions are limited. you don't want to go into the flood zone and um we'd also be dealing with the entire uh West

LA region uh evacuating. So, it would be a a massive response, but again, a worst case scenario and they have done uh seismic modeling for this dam uh thinking that it could s sustain an 8.0 earthquake. Um this is the commercial building loss for uh this scenario. Uh same water levels and then again this is the haz um risk analysis for that area. Um about 56 million to $120 million in loss per building loss. Total economic loss of 227 million. um and but a displacement of 464 households. The evacuation time for this scenario is about an hour and a half. So it would uh result in a a very widespread public safety response. Okay. So when we started this planning process, this was our wildfire map um where the uh very high hazard zone ended at the Santa Monica border um where we were really focusing that chapter on the things we deal with usually during wildfires, smoke, transportation issues, things of that nature where Santa Monica is more in a support role. Um however um you know the Palisades fire occurred in January where we have a new reality with wildfire uh from what we saw in Eden and Palisades especially in extreme wind driven events where wildfire uh isn't just a wildfire. It's no longer a wildland urban faced urban

interface fire. It's now structure to structure. And so um we were presented with a new reality where we needed to pivot on our chapter and our mitigation action items. The state came out with new uh fire maps uh after the Palisades fire. This is the new map where Santa Monica is in the very high high and moderate hazard areas. Um the estimate from our crisis track data is that if all of these structures had damage, it could range from 60 to $660 million based on the uh tax assessor data. Um it is important to note that the northeastern section of the city does hi have a population that is older and more persons with disabilities. which could prove challenging during an evacuation. Okay. Um we also looked at climate change hazards. Um again, we've had many different storms, atmospheric rivers that have been occurring frequently. And so this is something and we're having a lot of different disasters happening over and over and over again. And so this was an important element to include. Um in addition with climate change, we looked at extreme weather events. One thing to note, it is very difficult to kind of capture the damage that climate change is doing um in a financial term or a loss of life term. Um and it is dependent on our our ability to uh reduce greenhouse gases. So one of the things that we looked at most carefully was this impact of sea

level rise on our coastline and the impact that that could cause. So um if the analysis that has been done shows that if sea level rise continues um and is not you know not cut back by 20 2,00 2100 uh it could total $847 million in losses for the city um based on pier impacts uh beach impacts and property damage. Okay, so that is the end of the bad news. Um, moving forward, a briefly share what our mitigation action plan is, what we are going to do about this. So these are projects, plans and activities that were proposed by the resilience planning committee. Um, to address these items, we really tried to focus on what is tangible within a fiveyear period. where can we make our mark? We also understood that the city has limited financial resources and so tried to look at our existing body of work or what we are planning to do and where can the the work align. These are unfunded projects. So, if they weren't already slated, um, then, you know, we we will try our best to go for grant funding and things like that, but also be mindful that grant funding is a much more difficult uh scenario currently than it was last year. Um so yes, funding, grant instability, staff capacity to implement uh regulatory hurdles especially on the coastline and then unforeseen events similar to what we experienced with CO. Okay. So for local planning, we we categorize these mitigation action

items. These are everything that we are hoping to do within the the five-year period. um water deconliction planning, identifying immediate long-term portable water services during disasters and how we prioritize um water usage during emergencies. evacuation plan and route uh evacuation plans, route plan uh evaluating multimodal evacuation routes and having a citywide evacuation plan for emergency events with special consideration for persons that don't have transportation or are have an access or functional need. Um the next is Santa Monica airport design, ensuring that we have uh we're forward thinking in disaster planning as we prepare for the airport both in our response capabilities uh public safety as well as incorporating resilient elements, sustainable elements. Um the next group was local assessment and regulations. um ensuring that we're doing monitoring, inspecting the bluffs and our uh I 10 freeway slope for brush fire and uh slope instability and taking action when we identify issues uh related to that. The next is red flag warning restrictions. This was a new one after the Palisades fire. um having restrictive measures when red flag warnings are implemented for to enable first responders to actually respond and then also putting um restrictions on activities that could pose a fire ignition risk. Resilient city facility design standards.

This would be creating a set of design standards for all new city construction where we are implementing best practices when it comes to uh pre you know preventing uh disaster building you know risks and loss um make maximizing post- disaster capabilities um and ensuring continuity of government operations. Hang in with me. There's only a couple more structure and infrastructure um doing every looking at our water infrastructure system identifying where are the points of vulnerability especially where the water system crosses our Santa Monica fault line area and how do we install um you know different uh retrofit projects for older pipelines um making sure we are leaning in on that to reduce seismic vulnerability. backup utilities uh at city facilities and other essential emergency community facilities working uh to install solar plus storage micro grids and things to ensure we have electricity at those locations. Tsunami alerting system. We have implemented a small section of overhead paging at the Santa Monica Pier. We are testing it tomorrow for the shakeout drill. Hopefully everything works. So, um, and but we want to see if we can make that more a more robust system for the pier or the coastline. Um, and also look at other um, communication methods that would really be focused on tourists and making sure they evacuated promptly. a natural dune systems improvement. Uh continuing to expand and maintain the

natural dune beach restoration for both tsunami and climate change resilience. And then also uh continuing our community garden program, increasing food production grown and donated from those gardens uh to improve disaster food resiliency of the community. education and awareness. Um, ensuring that our emergency communications is multilingual, um, and reaches all different types of populations within the city. Um, looking at tourists and persons with access and functional needs, specifically local wildland fire safety education. Um, a lot of people don't know that we have these new fire hazard maps and so educating that population with in the northern part of the city what it means, what are the new requirements uh, living in that area and how they can take action on that. And then finally expanding expanding critical emergency management technology making sure we are using mapping dashboards other types of technology to our uh to the greatest extent so we're making smart decisions during disaster response. Okay. So that is our five-year plan. It is a hefty mission but we have uh identified departments and stakeholders or specific individuals who are responsible for that work and then we are OEM is tasked with monitoring it annually at least uh to ensure that we're we're making progress or we have a plan or we understand what the barriers are to implementation um if if there are any um our approval timeline we are shopping this plan around to commissions and and then we'll go to council in November and then again we will send

this to Callowas and FEMA for their approval or their edits and then um hopefully we will initiate that accessible plan design shortly after and happy to take questions and feedback and thank you for letting me present. Commissioners, do we have any questions for staff? Um, Commissioner Fresco. Um, first I just wanted to make sure I understand that the idea behind this plan is not what we're going to do when the emergency happens, but how we're going to be as minimize our risk as much as we can in the interim so that when that happens, we're not as vulnerable as we could be. Is that right?

That's perfect. That was a great explanation. Yes. So um so many times disasters happen to communities time and time again where things are rebuilt and then the disaster occurs again and then it's rebuilt the same way in the same place etc. So this federal program was really designed to take a look at that and say how can we incentivize doing things differently and baking in risk reduction strategies um early on um and also post disaster. So um how do we prepare? Well, first I just wanted to point out when I looked at those maps, you know, we do in our planning work, we look a lot at uh I mean we're all a high resource community, but there are lower resource areas. There are areas where people who are more vulnerable live, who are lower income and so forth. And it looked like all of those maps like they were targeting those areas. So, that's just a thing to think about and maybe you would want to look at those same maps that we looked at and notice that and think about targeting some of your work in those areas to prepare. That was just something I noticed.

No, that's an excellent point and something that we look at too. That's why we've layered the social vulnerability analysis on top of these maps. Um, and that is why one of our strategies is to take this plan and turn it into we can use as an education tool because we want to make sure people really have to have a an understanding of the hazards in order to act. Um and so u making sure we have that baseline understanding and we do community outreach uh events to promote it and then working with those communities to implement preparedness and mitigation measures.

So uh my last question well it's sort of two but they're kind of related. One is are there really things we can do to be more prepared in when we do have millions of people at our beautiful beach or you know when we are having a big tourist season again God willing. Um I think education is the the best thing that we can do for these um low frequency but high impact incidents, right? Is

um for I originally come from Kansas for people from Kansas making sure they understand what a tsunami is and that they are in a tsunami zone and that if there is an earthquake they just need to get away from the ocean. Like those type of simple tangible items. um I think are achievable

and we have great I will say we have great partnerships with u like Santa Monica travel and tourism and things like that where we can really leverage those partnerships to drive that messaging forward. And my last question is, God forbid we should have the Stone Canyon rupture. Uh, and not only will so much area be inundated with water, but Santa Monica will be inundated with people. And, uh, are there ways we can be prepared for that?

So, there are a couple ways. One is in the plan, we didn't address the Stone Canyon Dam inundation in the last hazard mitigation plan. So, this was really an opportunity for all of the city staff to be like, "Oh, this is a this is a big deal even though it is um a low frequency like hopefully uh it won't happen, but I Googled it and it said it never happened,

right?" which we we we want to believe, but uh making sure that we incorporate that hazard into our evacuation planning. Um we're building out evacuation zones and making sure that we build zones that are mindful of that inundation area so we can quickly implement those um and people know I live in this zone. Um making sure we do education in that specific area. So I think there are those types of actions as well as when we look at the airport design um that is outside of the inundation zone. But can we turn facilities into shelters? We have a very limited uh capability to turn city structures, city facilities into public shelters right now. We are very dependent on the school district. And so um that could be an opportunity Okay. And just so you all know, I did uh send in some uh of notes of course on the history section in the thing because I always do that. So just

we appreciate that very much. Sorry. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Wman,

thanks. Um yeah, and then thanks for the presentation as well, Lindsay. Um I I so first I was wondering um I guess the the biggest hazard that stuck out to me is not at least having its own big chapter heading was I don't want to say routine air quality issues but severe error days not caused by wildfires or not caused by immediate wildfires. Um I imagine a lot of the mitigation measures would be similar but I guess from the plan from other work that your department is doing what what mitigation steps are being taken about severe air days.

So, with the FEMA plan, it really stresses looking at natural disaster hazard events. And so, air quality on um what we call a blue sky day when there's not a wildfire occurring or not a natural hazard um wasn't necessarily a part of our our planning process. But we I'm a I'm a master of public health. So I understand very well that um air quality plays a tremendous role in the morbidity of our population especially children asthma rates um those types of things. So, a lot of the the measures of um high-risisk populations, understanding their risk based on where they live um also um promoting things where we're reducing emissions, we're reducing that pollution and then um how where to get that information when we have um uh days where the the air quality is poor. taking taking actions to reduce personal risk.

Great. And then the you know I don't want to say worst case scenario. There's a lot of worst case scenarios in this report. Um but thinking about any of these events happening during a mega event, the Olympics, the World Cup.

Um what kind of planning mitigation ahead of time is going in into that work? So it is um it is happening. There are there are a lot of different committees looking at a lot of different things related to contingency planning um and the role that LA County um LA city and then the jurisdictions who don't have games how we are all um cooperating and participating in that. Um, more to come. I think right now they're trying to figure out the final venue cities list. Um, but that will be a hot topic in the in the years coming up.

Great. Um, a quick question. You mentioned there was a a public survey. Was that just um survey open to everybody or was there some statistical sampling method? No, it was just a an opt-in survey um no budget survey where um we posted it online um as well as the public library so people could do it in person um in English and Spanish trying to get as much feedback as possible. Um then um the there were various section that sections that mentioned um the role of transit or just generally people who don't have cars how how they're going to evacuate. Um so I was glad to see that throughout the different sections of the report. I guess what plans do you have to get out the word now like oh a bus will come? Um you know where do you go? What number do you call um if you don't have a car um to get out of the way of a fire or tsunami or something like that?

No, absolutely. So um for example, in Palisades fire, we set up big blue buses with different stops and we actually did um we did door-todoor pickup um in certain situations uh where we so so we have implemented that before. Um we have a robust presence from our transportation team in our emergency operations center plan both on the mobility side and the big blue bus side. Um where we can come together and and figure out those plans. Um but we we have implemented that in the past. I think the mitigation action item is that we want to do more and there's also challenges with transporting people by bus if they have they use a wheelchair or they have different access and functional needs and so really diving into those challenges and seeing what we can do um and how we can best educate that population there. One other two other quick notes. There's a really great program that Santa Monica Fire has implemented where folks with different um access and functional needs or pets or businesses can upload their information into a system so firefighters have it ready to go. Um and then the other thing is in a tsunami we do not want you to evacuate by bus. Um if unless it's say a teles tsunami, if it's an earthquake, we want you to to go scooter or bicycle are very appropriate, but foot is by foot is fine, too. Um and then uh we would assist in trying to figure out if there are other if there are persons that can't evacuate that way, how to get them out. Um but we don't want you sitting waiting for a bus, right?

Yeah. Just to clarify. Um, and then the last thing I was wondering, so I, um, uh, the kind of list you had of the mitigation measures, um, I think PD was only mentioned once. Um, I mean, I I I think about like, you know, during Katrina, the, you know, New Orleans PD very different than SMPD, but the distrust that it had with the community and it definitely hampered uh, disaster response efforts. Um, I guess what kind of work is being done with PD? Not just to prepare for the stuff that you have to do in a disaster, but like community trust during a disaster. Is there some sort of nonsworn people who can do the same work? Things like that.

So, typically in a disaster, police has a a very specific role. So, they're tasked with evacuations and getting folks out and doing mandatory evacuations. uh traffic management um but not necessarily that the community trust there. We have the American Red Cross, we have community emergency response team who serve as our friendly faces in disasters, right? To um have people come take shelter, connect people with uh different needs that they have, setting them up on the road to recovery, but it's usually not sworn law enforcement.

That's it. Thank you so much. Yep. Thank you for the presentation. Can you explain to me why we wouldn't when we're looking at this why we wouldn't include the potential tourists and out of town people we have here because it's very likely that they will be here. We we mentioned that we would include that in our response plans. It was just stating that in haz you put in your specific demographics within Santa Monica like you select your jurisdiction and then the different statistics. There is not a a metric for Okay. So I I guess I missed that that you would plan for that. It just wasn't part of that. Correct. Representative.

Yeah. It's just not represented in the data.

Okay. Thank you for that clarity. Then looking at table 4.5 and the hazard mitigation actions, the constraints, there's two that keep coming up and one of them is funding and the other is staffing and it's almost in every one of these. How do we I mean and we're still going to meet all these these timelines. So I think the work is divided amongst different divisions and we I was very straightforward with departments that we should only select mitigation action items that were realistic and achievable um to our best ability. Um, but I mean you're talking to my acronym is on there a lot and I'm a team of one currently for as emergency manager and uh so I I understand that very well. Um how we resource this I think is a question above above my pay grade and that um how do we best implement hazard mitigation as a standard of city practice and we incorporate it and build it into our culture of what we do and incorporate it into our existing work um as a starting point.

Okay, I appreciate that. I guess I just kind of wanted to say that out loud so that it was pretty, you know, nobody's being fooled that this is going to be an easy task and that we have these resources and that we really these are important things that, you know, we have so many important things in front of us, but this is something we have to keep up there as well. I appreciate that very much. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Liz. Um, I also have a couple of questions, but I did want to thank you for the presentation. As a new resident of Santa Monica, it's definitely very educational for me and I appreciate it. It's sort of a little bit of a wakeup call, but also good to be aware of the magnitude of these issues. So, I appreciate that. Couple of quick clarifications on the slide that uh speaks to the Stone Creek flood scenario. Uh it's not evident from the map, but am I right in assuming that I 10 would be significantly impacted by that event as well?

So the there are areas where there's flooding over the freeway. Um but for the most part the freeway is raised to where the flooding would not impact the roadway. Um now the integrity of the area you know it's like if an overpass goes down the entire freeway is impacted. So um but so there could be sections that are impacted and I see that on the map um but not the entire not the entire roadway. I see

the 405 however is severely impacted. Um, on the map that shows the wildfire hazard, it's the first map I think you have. Um, I was just curious about the red dots on that map. What do they call out? Those are fire stations. I see. Okay, great. Um, my

just to why that's important. Um, so there is one of the things that the fire department looks at is their placement of fire stations and currently there's not one in the northern section of the city where the highest fire risk is. So that's an important element for their planning um as they move forward. Um the more general question I have is you touched on the importance of education as a key focus and I'm just curious about how um schools and children factor into that question u in a constructive manner without necessarily scaring people too much.

Um absolutely and and that's a great point. I I'll highlight one program I'm u closely involved in is that Grant Elementary School does a project based learning activity for the entire school year on the third grade class. They learn about natural hazards. Um they do they create their own mitigation action items pretty much and they can be a little wild but they have their own design. They create diaramas and um different displays to show those designs. Um I participate by answering the students questions. They do interviews of me um to learn more about hazards. And so that's a great example that we're hoping to highlight in that magazine style document where it's getting the family involved, right? It's a non-threatening way to learn about natural disasters, learn about hazards. Um, it in it gives a feeling of empowerment to a child that you can do something about it. Um, and it also uh helps educate the family on preparedness that they actions that they could take and maybe they should be taking it more seriously.

Great. Thank you. I have one other question, Commissioner Fesco. Um, I was just thinking, uh, when we recently looked at the new park master plan and we were talking about, uh, using parkways for like foodbearing trees. Did you have something to do with that? I did not. No. Oh, well, maybe you should talk. Sounds delicious. It does. And it's part of your plan, too. So, maybe you should talk to those guys. Perfect. Yes, we could we could incorporate that where it adds that element of resilience

just like in making parkways more like Olympic Boulevard to make it a more amenable place for use as a park space to add trees that give shade or food. I think one of the the goals of the resilient design um mitigation action item is that so often we we implement a a park or building or a project and then a year afterwards we say oh I wish we would have done that or it would have been so nice to use it for that too and facilitating um a process and to make sure we're incorporating the subject matter experts of all city departments when we're working on design and creating those standards in the first place.

Thank you. Thank you. I take it there's no public input on this. All right.

They don't. So I had to learn about them when I lived here. Do they have I am an expert in tornadoes. Yeah. And bioteterrorism events, but that's for another day. Is there any further discussion with the commission? We need to hear about biote. Thank you very much. Thank you. And when you make your magazine, you should use the same designer who made this report. It was very attractive. It will not be me. I was the one who did that. Yeah. And it we'll we'll find we'll find a professional. But yes, thank you.

All right. With that, I'll close the study session and um I believe the next item then is item 14. Commissioner Wasman, would you like sharing fun articles? Um, we talked about streets and what they could be used for other than just driving last meeting in the parks uh plan. And so there's a little short brief from a colleague at UCLA trying to quantify how much value there is in our overwide streets and what else we could do with it. So take a look. It's printed over there.

Thank you. No, I just have to say that I read your article before I read the some of this documentation and I thought maybe we shouldn't narrow the streets so that the emergency vehicles can go through. So, it's kind of a they make smaller fire trucks. They have them in in Asia, right? Well, I have one there's Bay Street, which I take every time I come home from city hall, is one of those narrow streets where you have to take turns to pass. and that you know it's a thing to think about that's all. Thank you. So with that I think we're ready to adjourn. Thank you everyone.