City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening. I will call the City Council meeting to order at 5 o'clock p.m. Deputy City Clerk, may I have a roll call, please?

Yes, Your Honor. Council Member Barnett? Present. Council Member Gerson?

Present.

Council Member Kartzonis?

Present.

Council Member Lewis? Present. Council Member Liu is absent. Council Member Shaik?

Present.

Mayor Kalani?

Present. The council will now recess to close session to confer with the city manager and city attorney on the agenda matters listed under 13A, Conference with Legal Counsel Anticipated Litigation, 13B, Conference with Legal Counsel Anticipated Litigation, 13C, Real Property Conference with Real Property Negotiator, and 13D, Conference with Labor Negotiator. A closed session on these matters is authorized by California Government Code Section 54956.9 , 54956.9 , 54956.8, and 54957.6. We will return after closed session. Thank you. Mayor Kalani? Yes.

Can I just announce that I've been advised by legal counsel to recuse myself from item 13A?

Yes, of course. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry about that. I thought when we went upstairs.

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Good evening. We will now reconvene our City Council meeting at 6.31 p.m. I want to welcome everyone who is joining us in the Council Chambers this evening, as well as those watching remotely. We've been in closed session. City Manager, do we have any actions to report?

Good evening, Your Honor. No actions to report. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to item two, the flag salute and invocation. We honor those who make it possible for us to be here today. If there's anyone here in the audience who is on active duty or a military veteran, please stand or raise your hand so that we may recognize you. Thank you. And if you could remain standing, please. We'll have the flag salute by Council Member Shea and our invocation by Council Member Gerson.

Thank you, Mayor. Please put your right hand on your heart and begin. 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.

As we begin tonight, let us reflect on something that can be easy to overlook. A city is more than its buildings, its streets. It's more than its budgets, its ordinances. A city is a collection of people where the relationships we build with one another are most important. There is something powerful that happens when people feel welcome, when they feel safe enough to speak, comfortable enough to walk through an open door, and valued enough to know that even their silent presence matters. Kindness can still seem like a small thing, a smile, a conversation, a handshake, an embrace, and a willingness to simply listen. But small acts repeated often enough become something much larger. They become culture. They create belonging. And perhaps most importantly, they create hope. May we never underestimate our responsibility to create that kind of place, not only for those who work within these walls, but for every person who walks through these doors and every resident who places their trust in us. May we disagree without diminishing one another. May we challenge ideas without questioning the worth of the people who hold them. May we listen with curiosity, lead with humility, and remember that none of us serves this community alone. And may the work we do together be guided not simply by what we hope to accomplish, but by the kind of community we hope to be. Tonight, may we begin our work with gratitude for one another, with generosity toward those we serve, and with hope for everything we might build together. In that spirit, let us say amen.

Thank you Council Member Shaik and thank you Council Member Gerson for your impactful words. I also want to welcome a young future leader in the audience, Mr. Atharv Regge, welcome. And he's here doing a requirement for his scouting and received a Torrance pen, so congratulations. Moving on to item three, announcements of withdrawal, deferred, and or supplemental items.

Thank you, Your Honor. Adam Chapari, I'm city manager. We have two supplemental materials for item 9A from the Planning Commission and Community Development to conduct a public hearing and adopt resolutions to deny an appeal and uphold the Planning Commission's approval of a precise plan of development in conjunction with waiver of setback requirements to allow first and second story additions and attached basement level one car garage to an existing three-story single-family residence at 459 VL Chico. and determine a categorical exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act. And 9B, from Planning Commission and Community Development, to conduct a public hearing and adopt resolution to deny an appeal and uphold the Planning Commission's approval of modification to allow first and second story additions for an existing two-story single-family residence at 317 Cal and Mayor, and determine a categorical exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act. Thank you, Your Honor.

Thank you. Moving on to item four. I'll take a motion to waive further readings of resolutions and ordinances after asking for a number and title. Is there anyone that wishes to make that motion? So moved. Second.

Start voting, please. Your Honor, that motion carried unanimously.

Okay, moving on to council and committee meetings and staff announcements, item five. I ask that we adjourn tonight's meeting in memory of Mark Christensen who passed away on Sunday, August 9th, 2026 at the age of 70.

Mark Christian grew up in Mississippi where his curiosity about natural world began at an early age. He would spend his falls cataloging leaves and his winters observing how icicles formed. He was always fascinated by the small details of the world around him, and that sense of curiosity would remain with Mark throughout his life.

Mark would go on to graduate from Cal State Dominguez Hills as a 4.0 honor student, earning degrees in business and fine art. Like his father, Mark was a talented artist who expressed his love for the natural world through his paintings of nature. He began his professional career with the City of Santa Monica's Finance Department, helping to manage the North Bridge Earthquake Recovery Funds before joining the City of Torrance, where he would spend the next 38 years of his career. During his time with the city, Mark served as an administrator in the Torrance Municipal Airport before eventually joining the Madrona Marsh Preserve and Nature Center.

Mark served as a program specialist at the Madrona Marsh for over 25 years. As the longest tenured member of the team, Mark became a constant and familiar presence to both staff and visitors. He staffed after hours programs, including star parties and Audubon chapter meetings. and for more than a decade, he led the Preserve's guided night hikes. His extensive knowledge of the natural world made him a valuable resource for visitors and fellow staff alike. Whether discussing his weather predictions, sharing a theory, or answering a visitor's question, Mark had a very, sorry, Mark had a way of making every conversation an adventure.

And his dedication to the Madrona Marsh was unwavering. Mark once shared that he did not care about retirement. He just wanted to go to the marsh and work. For Mark, the marsh was more than a place of employment. It was a place where his curiosity, knowledge, and love of nature could thrive. The friends, staff, and volunteers he met there became an important part of his life, and his presence left a lasting impression on the community he served.

Mark leaves behind a legacy of public service and a deep appreciation for nature. His knowledge and kindness will be missed by his family, friends, colleagues, volunteers, and the many visitors who came to know him at the marsh.

Mark is survived by his mother, Rose, and his sisters, Karen and April. Our deepest sympathies go out to the Christensen family, friends, and colleagues.

Thank you, everyone. Now I'd like to invite our community to join us next Friday, September 11th at 8 o'clock a.m. in front of City Hall as we commemorate the 25th anniversary of September 11th. We will gather with friends of our Torrance police and fire departments, city staff, and our community to remember the lives lost, honor the first responders who answered the call, and reflect on the courage and unity shown in the days that followed. The ceremony will include a moment of silence, the lowering of our flag to half-mast, a reef lane, and a special tribute by our pipes and drums. We invite everyone to join us as Torrance comes together to remember and to ensure that we never forget. Thank you. Deputy Clerk Camarota.

Thank you. The general election will be held on Tuesday, November 3rd. Mailers will be sent to voters with important information about the election. Vote by mail ballots will begin mailing to all registered voters no later than October 5th. Official ballot drop boxes will also open on the same day. Vote centers will be open beginning October 24 and remain open through the election day on November 3rd. Voters have several options for returning their ballot. You can return your ballot by mail, use an official ballot drop box, or vote in person at any vote center in LA County.

And Deputy City Clerk Camarota, you have information on upcoming commission openings.

Thank you, Your Honor. The City of Torrance is accepting applications for the Commission on Aging, Civil Service Commission, Historic Preservation Commission, and Parks and Recreation Commission. Applications are on the City's website and are due by Thursday, September 17th by 5 p.m. Applications may be dropped off in the City Clerk's office, emailed with a signature, or mailed to the City Clerk's office. Postmarks are not accepted.

And Deputy City Clerk Camarota, one more announcement regarding community election workers.

Thank you. Los Angeles County Registrar Recorder announced that they are recruiting bilingual community members to serve as election workers at vote centers across the county for the upcoming November 3rd, 2026 general election. Election workers play a vital role in administering elections by helping open and operate vote centers, assisting voters, and supporting the voting process throughout the election period. The RRCC is seeking individuals who speak English and a high-need language, including Japanese, Korean, Khmer, Chinese, Tagalog, Thai, Armenian, Farsi, Vietnamese, Russian, Gujarati, Urdu, Hindi, Lao, and Mongolian. Election workers receive training before the election and can earn up to $1,080 during the election period, with an additional stipend available for bilingual workers who speak, read, and write in one of the county's supported languages. Community members interested in serving can apply and learn more at lavote.gov. Thank you.

Thank you very much. we'll be moving on to oral communications number one. This portion of the meeting is reserved for comments on items under the consent calendar or items that are not on the agenda. Under the Ralph M. Brown Act, city council cannot act on items raised during public comment, but may respond briefly to statements made or questions posed. Request clarification or refer the item to staff. Speakers under orals are limited to either oral communications number one oral communications number two and no longer than three minutes per speaker for in-person participants time will start when you step up to the microphone if presenting handout materials to the council please provide 11 copies to the deputy clerk before speaking handouts will be distributed while you speak for remote participants time starts when your number is called deputy city clerk has anyone signed up to speak please yes your honor Charlie Salinas

Good evening, Honorable Mayor Kalani, City Council staff, Chief of Fire, Chief of Police, and the lawyer. I couldn't be more pleased with the result I had since coming here last City Council meeting in regards to the Torrance War Memorial and the issues that my fellow veterans and I had experienced. Right away, Danny from the city managers and other representatives of the city showed up at the war memorial with me, with myself and two other veterans, and we discussed eight different issues and cooperated and found solutions to eight different issues that are happening at the war memorial. And it's going to be brought back to the full luster and beauty that it had originally. And for a city the size of Torrance to respond to an average citizen like myself, well, Like myself, some people suggest I have this big ego, but let's say any other citizen can come to the city council, respectfully ask for help, and respectfully get back that help that was requested. I think it's fantastic. It's like a small town instead of a big city. I just left Robert Vargas. He's back to work up on the wall. He wanted me to let you know that he was away for eight days because he was completing and dedicating three other murals in the area. That's how in demand this guy is. And he's back to work. He said... From morning till dark, he's going to give it 100%. He's there. The charges representatives are here. It's going to be a big celebration. He'll be done by September 8th, as promised. And he wishes everybody well in the city of Torrance. So thank you for hearing me tonight.

Thank you, sir. Anyone else sign up?

No, Your Honor.

Is there anyone in the audience that would like to step up in the mic and speak on oral communications number one? Okay, I see none. We'll now take remote participants. Callers can press star nine to raise their hand. Staff, is there anyone that would like to speak remotely?

Yes, Your Honor, we have one caller.

Caller number 6764. You have three minutes to address the council. Press star six to unmute. Your time starts now.

Good evening, Mayor and city council members.

I am Andrea Riley, representing myself as a resident of Torrance.

I have a suggestion for the Transportation Department to consider. Given there are over 800 new residential units under construction within the Hawthorne Boulevard corridor, and potential increase of 1600 cars traveling on Hawthorne Boulevard. I'm recommending that the Torrance Transit reach out to get started with the Gable House apartment management and residents at 22501 Hawthorne Boulevard. It is now open and renting units. Provide them information on the Torrance Transit route, the fees, connectivity with Metro lines, provide physical flyers and ask management to post bus information on their website. possibly offer a 10 or 30-day tap card as an incentive. There is a best stop for the Torrance Transit and Metro one block away from Gable House. Torrance Transit offers a nonstop route 4X direct to Union Station. This communication, including flyers and bus information posting on the website, could continue as each new housing complex completes construction and residents are moving in. This will be a start to convert drivers to bus riders it would be a great metric to also determine how many of the new residents use the bus system versus driving to work, et cetera. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your suggestions. We appreciate it. Is there anyone else?

Your Honor, we have one additional caller.

Caller number 7809. You have three minutes to address the council. Please press star six to unmute. Your time starts now.

Good evening, Mayor Kalani, council members, and Charlie. My name is Dale Hall, 81-year-old disabled Army veteran, 1966 through 69, 57-year Torrance resident, living alone at 19909 Gravela Avenue, retired from TRW Northrop Grumman, R6, Hall of Fame, inducted engineer, including IBM, spent 44-year career, retiring in 2006 in advanced communications, aerospace defense systems, microelectronics research and development. My credentials include Penn State, University of Texas, El Paso, United States Army Air Defense Academy, I was a valedictorian, UCLA, USC, Cal State, University of Long Beach. I'm an active FCC licensed radio amateur, kilowatt tree, Mike, Nancy, Nancy, since age 14. decades providing emergency communications when power and cell sites fail. But cannot do that now because the city seized my emergency generator, refusing to return and replace it. I'm here tonight to demand immediate return or full public accounting of my prescription wheelchairs, home mobility aids, ramps, emergency gasoline generator, all taken from my home February 17th with no notice, no valid warrant, No ADA accommodation. Florence Police formal report number 260006701, filed 17th of February, confirms the required 24-hour notice was not given in validating warrants and seizures. On February 18th, I went to City Hall. This was the day after. In person, without wheelchairs because they'd been seized the day before to demand return of all equipment. Forced to do so without my wheelchair because the city had seized all mobility devices the day before. There at City Hall, I learned City Hall provides no ADA compliant assistance, no loaner wheelchairs, no accessible seating, no support for disabled residents whose medical necessity equipment had just been taken by city personnel the day before. This is a direct violation of ADA Title II obligations for access to city services. My wheelchairs, ramps, emergency generator, air conditioning, refrigerated food are medically necessary for mobility, safe cooling, and operation of medical devices. I'm permanently disabled. Torrance is experiencing prolonged heat conditions, dangerous for permanent disabled elders such as myself. Without refrigeration and cooling, I've suffered multiple medical collapses since February 12th, including a heat-related collapse on August 11th, responding to city email. However, my home failed again this past weekend. Emergency generator is not optional. It's essential for survival and emergency communication support to the community. On August 31st, the city ADA coordinator informed me that all items removed.

Thank you, sir. Is there anyone else?

No, Your Honor.

Okay, the time for public comment then has ended, and we're now moving on to the consent calendar. Do any council members wish to pull any items listed under the consent calendar? Council Member Kartzonis.

Yes, Mayor, I'd like to pull item 8A because I need to recuse myself.

Thank you, sir. Council Member Liu.

I'm also requesting to take out 8A because I will be recusing myself on this matter.

Thank you, Council Member Liu. Is there anyone else? I personally will be pulling item 8C. Council Member Kartsonis, did you have another comment? Thank you. Okay, at this time, we'll ask for numbers and titles for 8F and looking for approval of the consent calendar except for 8A and 8C.

This is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Torrance, California, determining certain city-owned property not required for city purposes and that leasing the property is in the public interest.

Okay, looking for a motion to approve the consent calendar and approve the number and title of 8F, excluding 8A and 8C.

Start voting, please. Council Member Barnett.

So you're approving the consent calendar in its entirety with the exception of 8A and 8C.

Sorry.

Your Honor, that motion carried unanimously.

Okay, thank you. We're gonna ask council members Kartzonis and Liu to step out. 8A, is there a staff presentation? Nothing, any questions by council on 8A?

Make a motion to approve item 8A.

Second that motion. We need a number and title, please. Thank you.

This is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Torrance, California, denying an appeal and denial of a minor hillside exemption as provided for in Division 9, Chapter 1, Article 41 of the Torrance Municipal Code for a proposed 694 square foot attached garage located on the north side of an existing one-story single-family residence on property located within the hillside overlay in the single-family residential district R1 zone at 439 Villalinda Vista.

Okay, I make a motion to approve item 8A.

I would second that proposal.

Can I get you to click in, please?

Can you click on here?

I'll give you a second.

Start voting, please. Your honor, that carried unanimously. With council member Kartzonis and Liu recused.

Thank you. Let me go get them, please. Okay, moving on to 8C, I pulled this item because there's been a lot of questions from the community regarding our rubber wheeled trolleys. If there's any update that we could share with the community, we would appreciate it.

Good evening, mayor and council. Kim Turner, transit director. On August 20th, your honorable body approved the contract services agreement with Hometown Manufacturing Incorporated to manufacture and deliver 10 rubber wheel trolleys. Staff has been working with them for the past two years and they're here today to give you an update as to where we are. Art Estrada, our fleet services manager here, as well as Ryan Plumb, our Administrative Acting Manager.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the City Council, Art Estrada, Transit Fleet Services Manager. I'm gonna start by giving you a quick recap of what we have already received. So far, we've received seven vehicles, The seven vehicles have had their post-delivery inspections. Five of them have been accepted. Two will be repainted here in California. The last three, we were just there two weeks ago doing the Buy America, Build America inspection where we have to certify the metal. to make sure that they are using American metal on 80% of the structure, which they complied. We made compliance on that, and the last three vehicles completing the group of 10 will be here by the end of September. Once all vehicles are here, they will be going through some safety equipment installation, operators training, and the vehicles we plan for them to be Service ready January 2027, if all goes well. The delay came a combination of two things. Hometown manufacturing is a very, very small company, and they work at a very slow pace. Our mechanics have become very, very demanding through the bus inspection process, and they are upholding hometown manufacturing to the highest quality to ensure that we're bringing the highest product home to Torrance. So that every time our mechanics uphold them to do some rework, it throws their schedule back because they're so small. It's a family operated business. So that's what caused some of the delay in the manufacturing. But please rest assured that we are bringing the best money can buy for Torrance. And God willing, everything goes good. We should have service ready by January.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other questions from the council?

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the update. Appreciate it. Just wanted to make sure we are asking extension till December of 26, but you're suggesting that we'll have those all by September.

That is correct. All the 10 vehicles should be on our property by the end of September. However, there is a couple of loose ends that we might have to tie up, delivery of manuals and consumables, warranty, that type of stuff. We just want to make sure that everything is completed by December, right before we go into service.

And the extension is solely for the extension of the period, not extension or adding any more funds to this project?

That is correct. It's just for the period to make sure that the process is complete.

Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Anyone else? Just a question about the purpose of the trolleys, the routes they might be taking, just to share a little bit with the community.

I'd like to bring up David Mack, who is in charge of the routes for the trolleys. David.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor, Councilmember David Mock, Transit Department. So we have been planned two trolley routes with the 10 vehicles that Art Estrada, our fleet manager, had informed you. One of the routes will be the Torrance Trolley, which will operate within the city of Torrance. It will go from the Mary Kate Giordano Regional Transit Center through City Hall, through the restaurants and the hotel yards, and it'll go through the Lamo Fashion Center, along with the Madrona Marsh as well. And then it'll loop around. So our goal with those trolleys is to have it within 15 minutes frequency or less. That way it's frequent enough for passenger and patrons to take it without having to wait a long time for the trolley. The other routes that we're planning as well with the other trolleys will be the beach trolleys. And right now we're exploring the routes either to Redondo or possibly Torrance Beach, but we'll have to look at the configurations of those streets to be able to finalize it. but those are the two routes. And they both will serve the hotel here along with the Lamo Fashion Center and major destination within the city of Torrance.

And downtown Torrance as well?

That is correct, yes, and downtown Torrance as well.

All right, well, we're excited. We're excited to see them. They're absolutely beautiful. They're historic-looking, and we appreciate it. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, we'll look for a motion to approve item 8C then.

I make a motion to approve item 8C. I'll second.

Start voting, please. Your Honor, that motion passed unanimously.

Thank you very much. Now is the time and place for a public hearing on Agenda Item 9A, a recommendation of the Planning Commission and Community Development Director that City Council deny the appeal and adopt resolutions to approve a precise plan of development, PRE25-00005, to allow the construction of a first and second story addition and attach basement level one car garage to an existing three story single family residence in conjunction with waiver WAV 25-0003 of the setback requirements on property located within the Hillside Overlay District RH in the single family residential R1 zone at 459 Via El Chico and determine a categorical exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to guidelines section 15301 and 15305. The appeal process will proceed as follows. First, a presentation by staff. Next, a presentation by the appellant with a maximum of 10 minutes. Then a presentation by the proponent with a maximum of 10 minutes, after which members of the audience may speak with a maximum of three minutes each regarding the proposal, followed by a maximum five-minute rebuttal by the appellant, and finally questions from the council. Is there a staff presentation?

Your Honor, before we begin that, I need to recuse myself from items 9A and 9b because i was on the planning commission and have already made a decision on both these matters thank you sir is there anyone else that needs to recuse we'll also begin with disclosures as well council membership

Thank you, Mayor. I have a disclosure that I met with the appellant and the applicant for item 9A, but my decision will be based on the material provided to me today. Thanks.

Thank you, and I'll make a disclosure that I did visit the subject property. I also looked at other properties with addresses that were submitted, and I did speak with one neighbor as well, and all of my decisions will be based upon the material that was presented today.

Thank you, Mayor. I also visited the sites and also visited the surrounding areas and had a conversation with a neighbor on this project and I will be voting according to the information presented. Thank you.

Anyone else? Okay, thank you very much. We'll now proceed with any staff presentation.

Good evening, Mayor, Council Members, Michelle Ramirez, Community Development Director. Tonight's presentation will be done by Planning Associate Yolanda Gomez, who has been the project planner for this project.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor and members of the City Council. Tonight's item is an appeal of the Planning Commission's approval. of a precise plan of development to allow first and second story additions and a basement level one car garage to an existing three story single family residence in conjunction with a waiver of the front yard setbacks on property located within the hillside overlay in the single family residential zone. The appeal included light, air, and privacy impacts that will be discussed later in this presentation. Next slide, please. Staff's presentation will briefly cover the project location, background, summarize the appeal, discuss the additions proposed through review of the site plan, 3D aerials, and elevations, and conclude with the staff recommendation to the council. Next slide, please. This slide shows the project site centered on the map, highlighted in red, addressed at 459 Via El Chico. It is in a neighborhood that is within the Hillside Overlay District. The site is surrounded on all sides by other single-family residential properties also in the Hillside Overlay, and is one home west of the cul-de-sac turnaround adjacent to Los Árboles Rocketship Park. The blue portions on the slide reflects the properties within the 500-foot notification area. The appellant's property is located at 23719 Susanna Avenue, which is the large wedge-shaped property adjacent and east of the subject site, and on this slide to the right of the subject slide. Next slide, please. On May 6, 2026, a scheduled Planning Commission public hearing for this project was held. Aside from the applicant's representative, only one other person spoke. the property owner of 23719 Susanna Avenue. And after approximately 30 minutes of public testimony, questions from the commission and deliberation, the commission voted four to zero to approve the project. On May 14, 2026, a timely appeal was filed by the property owner of 23719 Susanna Avenue. No specific reason was listed on the appeal form except the sentence, don't agree with the Planning Commission's decision. You can see that on page 18 of your item. However, staff received correspondence prior to the appeal filing from this owner noting light, air, and privacy impacts. And that may be seen on page 78 of your item. Next slide, please. As noted on the Planning Commission staff report, staff discussed that there are two chief standards in reviewing hillside overlay projects. The typical and commonly discussed is whether the project provides a substantial or adverse impact to view light error privacy. I'll discuss this category more in depth in the subsequent slides. The secondary standard is whether the property actually qualifies for hillside overlay protections. This is usually not discussed much as it's given if the property is located within the hillside overlay, it qualifies for protection. The property owner of 23719 Susanna contacted staff to visit his property to review his stated impacts. Staff visited the property on April 13, 2026, and walked the entire property led by the owner as he pointed out his perceived impacts. They are noted on the Planning Commission staff report, which is page 41 of your item. Staff observed the existing mid-century single-family residence at the bottom of the slope fronting on Susanna Avenue. However, there were two other detached buildings under construction towards the center and rear of the property, upslope of the front unit. The building near the center is an ADU, and the third building at the rear of the property is an attached SB9 unit and a second ADU. As a refresher for council, SB9 and ADU units are state-legislated residential units that are required to be allowed by local municipalities with no subjective standards reviewed, meaning also that no public input is allowed. Only objective quantifiable development standards are allowed to be reviewed by planning staff. And that is how the appellant's projects were reviewed, only through a building permit that was required for the three units, with no public review and no review of subjective standards, specifically no review of hillside overlay, view light, air, or privacy impacts. Therefore, in preparing the item for the initial Planning Commission report, staff indicated that only the existing single-family residents had hillside overlay protections, but the SB 9 and ADU units would not. The previous city attorney had opined since the beginning of the hillside overlay that if a property was not burdened by the overlay, it would not benefit from it, and staff followed that opinion. During the planning commission hearing, a commissioner asked whether this practice was codified. Staff answered no, but has been a practice since the inception of the ordinance. The chairman agreed and noted that it was also applied to acquired views. Prior to preparing the city council item before you tonight, staff met with the current city attorney to discuss staff's opinion. And the city attorney agreed with staff and further noted that because the SB nine and two 80 us are still under construction and not finalized their light air and privacy do not currently exist. He further noted that as these would be considered acquired light air and privacy, they would not be entitled to as much protection as a home with an original viewer or privacy. if these were projects that were subject to the ordinance, which they are not. Therefore, staff's judgment stood that these three under construction units would not be protected under hillside ordinance. The original single family residence would be subject to the overlay protections. Next slide, please. This slide shows the site plan of the subject property. The addition is shown on the far right of the slide, which is the east side of the property. in a rectangular and shaded color. The additions, three stories are relatively stacked upon each other and are set back 13 feet, 10 and three quarter inches from the east side yard property line. The minimum side yard setback for this property is nine feet, 10 and one quarter inch. Therefore the project provides more than four feet of setback along the side than required adjacent to the Pellance property. The rear setback of the project is 15 feet 10 and a half inches and provides an average over 20, with the minimum requirement being 15 feet zero inches and an average of 20. As can be seen at the top of this slide, the majority of the rear property is usurped by the driveway with very little yard space beyond it for development. The area beyond the home is paved driveway access to the existing garages and proposed garage. The area beyond the driveway slopes drastically downward and would not be feasible for the property's additions. The front setbacks are what required a waiver as the minimum dimension proposed is 14 feet, nine and one quarter inch with the minimum required of 15 feet, zero inches and providing an average of 18 feet, one and a half inch with 20 feet required. Staff has no objection to the front setback waiver requests because there is no expectation of privacy along the front of a property. The additions are in line with the existing home, not worsening an existing condition. The shortage of setback is minimal and no opposition to the front setback was received. Next slide, please. This slide shows a 3D aerial photograph of the subject property from its rear view with a southbound perspective. The subject property is centered on the slide with VL Chico along the top portion of the slide. This photo allows viewers to see that the rear of the property adjacent to the existing home, which provides a circular driveway for access to the existing three car garages along the far right of the home northwest of the site. The home at the bottom left side of the slide is the appellant single family residence. The proposal's east side property line is approximately where the hedges and tree line are shown on a diagonal along east side of the subject property to the left of the driveway at approximately midpoint down the slope, with the remainder of the tree line diagonal being the property line of the adjacent property address 23715 Susanna, which provided a letter of support on page 101 of your staff report. To the left of that diagonal tree line is the appellant's property. Above his single-family home, this slide shows large trees, which is now the location of his mid-slope ADU and top-slope SB9 and ADU units. In addressing the appellant's concerns regarding light, air, and privacy, view was not claimed. As mentioned in the Planning Commission report, During the walk of this property, staff was not allowed into the living space of the existing residential single-family home, but only the rear yard. From that area looking upslope on this slide, you can see a frame of reference that there are already a bank of windows along the project's rear elevation. These will be more clearly visible on the next slide. But I wanted you to see the perspective and location of the appellant's property versus the project. For the SB9 and ADU units, you'll need to imagine their location to the far left of the slide and upslope, where there are already at least one large window facing in that direction. It is also staff's contention that if there is already large windows and a balcony deck on the third level impinging on a neighbor's privacy that were original developed areas, adding additional windows or decks in the same general area would not be worsening an existing privacy condition. When it comes to light and air impacts, the additions proposed on this slide's left side of the home are lower than the highest ridge line tucked in and would not likely cast shadows beyond what is already cast, nor would typical airflow that is typically from the west be further impeded than already from the higher existing single families ridge line. Next slide, please. This slide shows the north elevation on the top and the east elevation on the bottom. The top north elevation shows the addition on the left side of the slide. I don't know if you'll be able to see it, but there's a notation on the bottom that indicates new addition, which shows the level of where the addition goes. Beyond that, to the right is an existing single-family home. To the left of the new addition is the driveway. You'll see that the addition portion is lower than the maximum height of the home, and you'll also see that the existing home already provides what was described as a bank of large floor-to-ceiling windows and balcony decks on the majority of the elevation, which faces downslope to the homes on Susanna. The east bottom elevation is adjacent to the Pellens Rear property, I chose a large number of windows and a new balcony at the center level. The top balcony is existing. These slides show the perceived building height from the rear elevation, massing and architectural articulation. The design provides a contemporary design with elements consistent with the existing home and the neighborhood. Next slide, please. This slide provides the south elevation at the top and the west elevation at the bottom of the slide. The south elevation is what you would expect to see from the street or front of the property. Again, if you're looking at the bottom of the slide, you might see the new addition labeling, but probably not. The west elevation is on the bottom of the slide. Next slide, please. Based on the analysis provided in your packets, the Planning Commission and Community Development Director recommend that the City Council deny the appeal and uphold the Planning Commission's approval, affirm the CEQA Class 1 existing facilities and Class 5 minor alterations, categorical exemptions, and adopt the two resolutions to approve the project. Next slide, please. Honorable Mayor and members of the Council, this concludes staff's presentation. We're available to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there a presentation by the appellant, please? You will have 10 minutes. Right where you're at, thank you.

Good evening, honorable mayor, council members. I'm the owner of the property on 23719 Susanna, and the two properties in Villachico, they're almost complete. I'm not asking the council to prevent Mr. Grabowski from improving his home. I'm asking for one reasonable privacy modification involving the new second floor windows that face my property. The staff report identifies four floor to ceiling windows on the proposed second floor facing east toward my property. I understand that planning staff believes the privacy impact is minimal. I respect their judgment, even though I disagree with it. But I think there is a second and very important question for the council. The Hillside findings don't simply ask Whether the impact is catastrophic or substantial, the city's own hillside application requires a finding that a project has been designed to cause the least intrusion on the views, light, air, and privacy of the neighboring properties. So I respectfully ask the council to consider this. If these four windows can provide the bedrooms with natural light without being clear floor to ceiling windows looking towards my property, why isn't the less intrusive design the appropriate design? I'm not asking that the windows be eliminated. My proposed compromise is simple. require the clear portion of the east-facing second floor windows to begin approximately 5 and 1 half feet above the finished floor with transom glass above or use permanent obscure glazing on the lower portion or another equivalent privacy treatment acceptable to planning. I originally proposed essentially the same solution in writing months ago. It would not reduce the square footage of Mr. Grabowski's addition. It would not change his footprint. It would not prevent him from adding the bedrooms. And it would still allow natural light into those rooms. I would respectfully ask the council to ask Mr. Grabowski directly, what would he actually lose if the lower portion of those four windows were treated for privacy? If the answer is natural light, obscure glass or higher glazing preserves light. If the answer is that unobstructed glass provides more desirable views, I understand why any homeowner would prefer a better view. But that is exactly why we have a Hill Slate process, to balance what one homeowner would like against the effect that the design has on neighboring properties. And these aren't primary ocean views windows of this house. These are east-facing windows in the new bedrooms addition. I also want to address the neighborhood support for the project. I understand that Mr. Grabowski has received substantial support from other neighbors, and I respect that. The staff report reflects numerous letters of support. But I don't think this should be treated as a popularity contest. Those letters do not answer the very specific question before you. Could these four east-facing windows be designed in a less intrusive way without preventing the addition from being built? In fact, I think the neighborhood support demonstrates how narrow the remaining dispute really is. I am no longer asking you to resolve every disagreement that I have had with this project. I'm asking you to resolve one privacy issue. There's also an unusual issue concerning my SB 9 and ADU units. Staff has taken a position that because those projects did not go through the subjective hillside review process, they receive less or no hillside protection. But the record also acknowledges that this practice is not codified. And staff itself described whether these units may invoke hillside protections as debatable. I respectfully ask you not to make that unsettled issue decisive tonight when there is such a simple architectural solution available. I can create additional privacy on my property with landscaping, but I don't think the best outcome is for neighboring homeowners to spend the next 20 years screening themselves from one another when this can be addressed now with a modest window treatment. Mr. Grabowski has already made one modification to the project by lowering its height. I acknowledge that, and I appreciate that he did it. It helped with the massing issue, although it did not resolve my privacy concern. I'm trying to meet him halfway. In fact, Mr. Grabowski and I met immediately before the meeting in an attempt to resolve these issues, and unfortunately, we weren't able to reach agreement, even though I offered to accept the project with this one privacy modification. So my request denies is narrow. If the council is going to approve this project, please condition that approval so that four new east facing second floor windows do not have clear direct sidelines below approximately five and a half feet or require an equivalent permanent privacy treatment. That lets Mr. Grabowski build his addition and gives me a reasonable measure of privacy. I think that's a fair compromise and I respectfully ask the council to consider it. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Is there a presentation by the proponent? You'll have 10 minutes as well.

Thank you. Good evening, Nagy Bakum, Obelisk Architects, 3800 Pacific Coast Highway in Torrance. This was a difficult project for a number of reasons. One, you saw kind of the unusual shape of the lot. We had to find a place to provide an addition with the least impact. We have quite a large site, but we really have very few options. surrounded by homes that are substantially taller on the opposite side of the street that look through over and around our building. We tried to work with all of the neighbors and get to a place where we could minimize and not create an addition that was significant in any way. I think where Igor and our project are in disagreement is because the windows look at beautiful views and There is a component of windows facing windows. But even if we took the hillside overlay into consideration, it would be very unusual to take a unit of measure like 75 feet and 20 feet in difference of elevation and consider that there would be a lack of privacy in the windows. So 75 feet is where the mayor is to that back wall. and up another 20 feet. That's a pretty significant distance. And so we believe even if you applied hillside overlay to this concern, it would not be a privacy issue. And that's the basis of our disagreements. In the process, you know, the owner, John, who's standing next to me, met with a significant amount of neighbors. He put out 80 flyers. He met with a large share of them, and we got 20 support letters. As you know, in the hillside overlay, that might be a record. I don't know. It's pretty far up there. It's not a record. So I think he did an amazing job. A lot of follow-up and a lot of discussions. As Igor acknowledged, We did multiple designs. We flagged this thing back in August of 25. That's over a year ago. And then we re-flagged it. And then we were approved May 6th. So we've been waiting a pretty substantial amount of time for this. And we're very, very close. And I think there's just a misinterpretation of privacy at 75 feet in distance and 20 feet in elevation where we're not really seeing eye to eye. And when you're in the home looking out, you see these beautiful city views. So if you take the windows to five and a half feet, those are gone. And that's what we're struggling with to meet in response. So we've done quite a bit in terms of in the design process. We work with staff. We work with The neighbors, we modified the plans. We reset silhouettes. We did a substantial amount of rework so that we could get to this approval. And here we are. So we hope that this evening that you will deny the appeal and that we can get an approval. And I'm going to hand off to John, let him speak a few points as well.

Madam Mayor, City Council Members, thank you for hearing us tonight. I'd like to thank Yolanda and the staff for their hard work on this project. When I stand here, you know, this has been a long journey. As Council Member Shaikh said, I literally ran into him and Igor on my way to pick up some cupcakes. And it was a good conversation because one of his first questions were, You have a big house. Why do you need this? And that's a really good question. And right about then, you can hear my kids yelling from the backyard. I have four kids, all under the age of 10. And when I bought the house in 2008, I bought it out of probate, completely remodeled it. I would have said, it's crazy that I may ever need more space. But I was single at the time, and here we are now. The community outreach we did was not just simply to check a box. It truly was to find out what do our neighbors think and what do they want. And we met with all the neighbors, we took their feedback, and we came up with a plan. I understand change is hard whenever someone does an addition or there's a big change in the neighborhood. And truthfully, we're sensing the change when Mr. Nastoskan just built three ADUs next to us. I bought an R1 in 2008. I never even thought this would be a possibility that you would essentially have a fourplex next to you. But we're going to learn to live with it. We're good neighbors. You could ask, well, why is there a garage? The simple answer is, we have four kids. In a few years, we're going to have additional cars. Mr. Nastasic's project next door has two-car parking. So essentially, all the street parking in front of us will be gone. So we reacted to that when we were building the project. Someone once said to me, communication's the key to every good relationship. And I truly believe that. And if you want to hand out the flyers to staff, you can see the houses visually. that have supported us and I think when you see the visual you'll see that we really got community support unfortunately in this whole prolonged saga Mr. Nisgostin never took a meeting the only feedback I ever got from him was when he was asking me to help him with his parking issue in the cul-de-sac And I actually met with him twice within a few days to try to see what the issue was. And after him talking about his whole issues, I said, hey, Igor, we talked about 15, 20 minutes about your stuff. What about mine? And his answer was, well, I don't have bandwidth, or I don't have time, and it just seems big, and the roof seems high. So on that little snippet, we literally went back and said, How do we lower the roof? How do we make it less volume? And we ended up bringing down the total square footage facing him by 38 square feet. So we dropped the roof line down. It's essentially considered almost in torrents now as a flat roof due to its 1 to 12 pitch. When you take that roof line down, we also took slightly under 1,000 cubic feet of volume out of the addition by dropping that roof height down, and the whole addition we're doing sits well within the silhouette of the current existing structure. Mr. Dostoskian's issues have changed slightly since the last we heard from him at the Planning Commission, and we took Councilmember Sheik's recommendation to meet one more time prior to this meeting to see if we can resolve the issue and unfortunately we're unable to. If we take the City Attorney's information and say that these are not occupied ADUs and they don't count, the nearest his residence is over a hundred feet away. If we do take into account the residences that he is currently building, the closest ADU will sit 75 feet away. One of the things that really wasn't discussed tonight was the fact that in order for Mr. Nastoska to qualify to get that ADU, his front yard is actually what you would consider the side yard. So the property that you see on the silhouette that we gave you, that's actually his front yard, and there's no real consideration of privacy in your front yard. You know, privacy is a two-way street. We value our privacy as much as Mr. Nostoskin. We've been living in this house since 2009. We've known all his tenants. Mr. Nostoskin doesn't live there. And we're very friendly with him. In fact, our kids play with the current tenant that lives on his Susanna house. Our kids play together. So, in summation... When I look at this, I ask, did I do a reasonable job? Is my project reasonable? And I truly believe it is. His issue is privacy. We've been there since 2009. We've been nothing but a great neighbor. When his house got broken into, I gave him security footage that we had. When people were playing on the scaffolding, I called the police. When the place caught on fire when they're doing construction, I notified him. We're a good neighbor. We try to do the right thing. I would hope the city council tonight would vote to deny the appeal and approve our project. And the last bit about privacy is I don't know how many of you have young kids. If you can get a young kid to put their Kindle down, their iPad down, or their Legos down, or their book, and actually look out a window, that would be amazing. So when Mr. Nastaskhan talks about these theoretical privacy issues, nobody's looking. We're just trying to put an addition on so we can have more bedrooms and more space for our family. And I thank you for your time tonight.

Thank you, sir. We'll now take public comment on this matter. Each speaker will have up to three minutes to speak. Deputy City Clerk, has anyone signed up to speak on this item?

No, Your Honor.

Is there anyone in the audience that would like to speak on this item? You can step up to the mic. I see no one. We'll now take remote participants. Callers can press star nine to raise their hand. Staff, is there anyone that would like to speak remotely?

Your Honor, yes. We do have one caller, sorry.

By the city the city refuses to return or replace my emergency generator and admission that all Sir we're talking on item 9 a you're off topic

Is there anyone to speak on item 98?

Your Honor, we only have that one caller, and that person has logged off.

Okay, thank you. Does the appellant wish to make a rebuttal at this time? You'll have five minutes.

So I wanted to just clarify a few things that Mr. Grabowski said or maybe he didn't say. One of the things that he mentioned is that he tried to work with me for a year and a half and I tried to avoid him. Well, one of the things that Mr. Grabowski didn't say is his architect, Nagy Bakum, who's a great architect, happened to be my architect as well on this project. Okay, it's a little detail that kind of gets missed. So it was said that I avoided him, unwilling to work with him, and that's simply not accurate. I communicated my concerns with Negi, the architect, and there's no reason for me to believe that that information is not gonna get to Mr. Grabowski because that's how we dealt with it. So I kind of find it a little bit, not quite accurate, that there was no communication, that I wasn't trying to work with them. Everything that they've talked about is great, but if you notice, there was no mention about the privacy in the windows. The neighbors are supporting this project in general. But it does not take away my point that the hillside overlay, you know, the neighbors are supposed to work with each other. And I know we're talking about that my project is a little bit away, 75 feet away. But there's a huge elevation between his project, which is going to be moved closer by 15 feet. And when you're looking at something that just encroaches on you, it creates a different perception. All I'm trying to do, I want Mr. Grabowski to build his house. He's got four kids, got a growing family. The house is going to go from 3,200 square feet to over 4,000 square feet. That's fine. I'm simply asking for one minor compromise. And I hope that you will be able to take a look at that and reach your own decision. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. We will now take questions from Council. Is there anyone on Council wishes to speak? I'd appreciate if you could click in. Council Member Shaikh.

Thank you, Mayor. I have a couple of questions from the staff. Yolanda, you indicated earlier that there is a minimum issue for the privacy. It's minimum. You didn't say there's no privacy matter. Can you elaborate on minimum, please?

Yes, sir. When reviewing hillside overlay, privacy impacts, they would need to be significant or adverse. And in my staff report, I indicated they were minimal, that there was some privacy impact, but it was not considered of a substantial or adverse nature, in my opinion.

But there is a privacy, that's what you're saying?

Yes, sir, because there are new windows and a deck, a balcony deck that's being proposed. So anytime there is a new opening, there is some privacy impact. Is it adverse or significant? that would be up to this planner to determine. In my view of the property, from the appellant's perspective, I didn't feel it was a major or significant impact.

You also mentioned the hardship. There's also a class of hardship because of the hardship, I think. Applicant explained it pretty clearly that there is some reason that he wants to expand his or make little house little bigger. And the clause in this hardship, in your opinion, what is the hardship?

I'm not sure what you're referencing. Are you referencing the waiver request?

So on the west side, the setback, when you have a waiver of the setback because of the hardship.

Yes, sir. When we're evaluating, again, hillside properties, usually there's a topography challenge. In this property, there's a huge topography challenge where the building pad is very minimal. And as you hopefully saw in the 3D rendering or 3D aerial photo that you'll see that beyond the existing developed driveway, the property slopes down drastically. The property does slope from the street level to the building pad as well. So there is minimal area to build or add to your home, and that is considered a hardship.

Are you agreeing with the architect, what he mentioned earlier? There are very, it's a very different types of design, and they have to look at different angles to have their view, or I think applicant mentioned earlier that there, they have a way, it was very difficult to design, and that's why it is causing a little bit hardship on them. Is that part of that? Don't recall that part of the testimony. Why don't we ask the applicant, Mr. Architect, if you don't mind, please.

Yes, so what we were talking about specifically is when you're designing a project addition on a property that has an unusual configuration of boundary and also has significant topography and then add to the complexity the homes that are three stories tall looking through and around and over your property. It leaves you very little opportunity to actually design an addition that doesn't, quote unquote, significantly impact. And what we were able to do is just that, is design a home that doesn't significantly impact. What we primarily narrowed it down to today was Igor would love the windows at 5 and 1 half feet. John would love the windows all the way down to the floor. And that's where we're not able to meet eye to eye.

Yeah, your statement was that very few option to design. Correct. That's what you used. So basically what you're saying that whatever ways that you wanted to satisfy the applicant to meet his requirements, but on the same token, it is invading a little bit of privacy on the neighborhood. Is that a correct statement?

I would disagree with that because invading their privacy is when your windows are 8 feet apart, 12 feet apart, 15 feet apart, 20 feet apart. We're 75 feet apart.

So let me clarify that from our staff. Is that true that privacy is only when it's only 8 to 10 feet apart?

I don't think we would put a limit or number to that, but that is accurate. I would agree with what the architect is stating that 100 feet separation between the proposal and the appellant's house is quite significant and is no longer a privacy issue in staff's opinion.

But there's no limit about it. You cannot say that it's only 10 feet or 100 feet. That's why it is not going to invade any privacy.

Correct.

All right. Thank you. Councilman Shaikh. Patrick Sullivan, city attorney, if I could just address the privacy issue. Staff has always interpreted few light air and privacy as substantial adverse impacts, not minimal. And in the Youngern case, which is a case that actually went to court and was decided by the court, they said that is a rational interpretation by staff. So not any impact. not the least intrusive. It's a substantial impact to view air lighter privacy is how the city is always interpreted and how the court agreed how it should be interpreted.

Correct. I think that's what we're dealing with.

Well, Mr. Nastaskhan was talking about a minimal and it's not a released intrusion and that's not the standard that the city has used for years and it's not what the court found. So just need to understand that thing. And again, His houses, the ADUs were SB9 and ADUs, and they were not subject to the Hillside ordinance. And that's been the interpretation from my time as city attorney as well as the previous city attorney. So he didn't have the burdens of going through it. He didn't have to worry about any impacts to anyone else's view, air, light, or privacy when he did those projects. So you have to look at that he doesn't get the benefits now.

Thank you. A couple more questions from you, sir. What I'm hearing that you represent both or you also designed the appellant and also applicant. Guilty.

Igor and I still have a wonderful relationship. We just don't agree on this. I'm doing the best to represent my client, which is John.

Would you help me understand? Seems like I heard that from the applicant there were multiple adjustments were made?

Yes, sir.

Would you like to know what they are?

Sure.

Okay. I thought it's only the roof is the one that you guys made adjustments.

Limited time. Modifications. So we modified the height of the building. We reduced the building overall by three feet. We also changed the configuration. This particular house has a very steep gable roof design. We modified that gable roof design, eliminated it. It also has this gable roof kind of architectural detail that you could see throughout the house, different areas of the house. we took that off as well. So we modified a significant portion. We actually removed a portion of the gable roof of the existing house in order to make that flat roof that we put in look more cohesive. So it wouldn't just look like that last 14 feet that we added has this weird roof, and all the rest of the house has this beautiful gable. We modified more of the existing house to lower that roof as well to mitigate the impact of the volume. As Igor said, he gave us an 8 and 1 half by 11 of all the things that he was concerned about, and we addressed quite a few of those. The only thing we weren't able to see eye to eye on was that specific thing. Additionally, sorry, I'm looking for my notes here. We lowered the overall garage plate height. So the plate heights were a condition back when. So we lowered the plate height. We lowered the garage. We removed the architectural feature, as I mentioned. We changed the shape. And we reduced the plate heights so that we would have less impact overall. with the home.

So the communication was going between the two.

Yes, sir, there was modification as a result of the communication. Okay.

All right, that's it for now. I may come back for other questions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. Council Member Gerson.

In addition,

to the satellite and overhead images and 3D images given by staff. I did look at additional Google-generated images to get further understanding of the entire layout and kind of get a 360-degree look in my mind. First, applicant, if I may say to you, A lot of times when these hearings come across, it's very difficult because it's one person who is going against all of his neighbors. And so thank you for really doing the Torrance way and communicating and connecting with your neighbors and being a good neighbor. I really do appreciate that. I can also say that your remarks weren't necessary because the appellate did not meet any burden of argument to sway me to change my opinion of how the commission found. So, thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else on council with any comments or questions, please click in. Council Member Liu.

Thank you, Your Honor. I believe that a property should not be able to avoid the restrictions of the Hillside Overlay Ordinance while simultaneously invoking its protections. I agree with staff's analysis that said both the ADU and SB 9 units were not subject to the Hillside Overlay Ordinance subjective development standards. Therefore, it has been the consistent custom and practice of the City of Torrance that if a property is not subject to the burdens of the Hillside Overlay Ordinance, then it cannot benefit from it. In addition, I also believe that the appellant's original home will have minimum impacts from the proposed project. Therefore, I'll be denying this appeal and upholding the Planning Commission's decision. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Liu. Anyone else wish to speak on this matter? You can't get better than that last comment. I agree with you, Council Member Liu. Thank you very much. Deputy Clerk. May we have numbers and titles, please? Pardon me, let's close the, if there's no other council members that wish to speak, let's go ahead and take a motion to close the public hearing. Council Member Gerson?

I move that we close the public hearing. Second.

Start voting, please. Your Honor, that motion carries with Council Member Kartzonis recused.

Thank you, and now we'll go ahead, and if you could please give us the numbers and titles.

Yes, Your Honor. This is resolution number 2026-79, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Torrance, California, denying an appeal and upholding the Planning Commission approval of a precise plan of development in conjunction with a waiver of setback requirements As provided for in Division 9, Chapter 1, Article 41 of the Torrance Municipal Code, to allow first and second story additions and attached basement level one-car garage to an existing three-story single-family residence on property located within the Hillside Overlay District, RH, in the single-family residential R1 zone at 459 Via El Chico. and Resolution 2026-80, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Torrance, California, denying an appeal and upholding the Planning Commission approval of a waiver to allow less than the required setback requirements in conjunction with a precise plan of development as provided for in Division 9, Chapter 4, Article 2 of the Torrance Municipal Code to allow basement one and two-story additions to an existing three-story single-family residence on property located within the Hillside Overlay District RH in the single-family residential R1 zone at 459 Via El Chico.

Thank you. How does the council wish to act on this matter? And remember, there's four items. Council Member Lewis.

I am first making a motion to deny the appeal and uphold the Planning Commission's approval of a precise plan and development, also determine a categorical exemption from the California Environmental Inequality Act, CEQA, and then adopt resolution for the approval of MOD 26-001. Do I need two? Okay. I can't see the second one on my screen.

2026-79 and 2026-80. Okay.

Both of those. Because I still can't see them on my screen.

Me too.

Council Member Burnett?

Well, I think I seconded her motion, but I don't... I see it. It's not coming through. You just say it.

Your Honor, that motion carried with Councilmember. Thank you.

Now is the time and place for the appeal of agenda item 9B, a recommendation of the Planning Commission and Community Development Director that City Council deny the appeal and adopt a resolution to approve first and second story additions to an existing two-story single-family residence on property located within the Hillside Overlay District in the single-family residential district zone at 317 Calle Mayor and determine a categorical exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to guidelines section 15301. The appeal will proceed as follows. First, a presentation by staff, next a presentation by the appellant with a maximum of 10 minutes, then a presentation by the proponent with a maximum of 10 minutes, after which members of the audience may speak with a maximum of three minutes each regarding the proposal, followed by a maximum five-minute rebuttal by the appellant, and finally questions from the council. Is there a staff presentation?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Council Members, Michelle Ramirez, Community Development Director. I will turn it over to Ulysses Vasquez, who's a planning assistant and the project manager for this application tonight. Thank you.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Ulysses Vasquez, planning assistant. Tonight's item is an appeal of the Planning Commission's approval of a modification to a previously approved precise plan of development to allow first and second story additions to an existing two-story single family residence on property located within the Hillside Overlay District in the single family residential zone.

Next slide, please.

The presentation will provide an overview of the project that includes the project location, background on the case, an overview of the appeal, project plans, photographs of the site, and a recommendation by staff. Next slide, please. The project site shown on this slide is highlighted in blue and addressed as 317 Calle Mayor. It is located to the west of Via Montedoro and on the north side of Calle Mayor. The site is zoned Single Family Residential R1 and is surrounded by residential uses. The appellant's property is located at 170 Via Montedoro, north of the subject site. Next slide, please. On May 6, 2026, the proposed project at 317 Calle Mayor was presented to the Planning Commission. After discussion and deliberations, the Planning Commission voted to approve the project 4-0. On May 18, a timely appeal was filed by the property owner of 170 via Montedoro. Next slide, please. The reason given for the appeal by the property owner at 170 via Montedoro that was stated on the appeal form was, quote, the findings are not supported by the evidence presented, and the decision is not supported by the findings or the evidence. It is indisputable that serious privacy issues exist, end quote. Based on prior discussions with the appellant, the privacy concerns specifically relate to the north facing second story additions at the rear of the residence, which include a new balcony and bedroom addition. Staff visited the appellant's home initially on February 13th, 2026, and again on July 17th, 2026 to assess impacts from the interior of the residence. As noted on the planning commission staff report, staff noted that there were no significant privacy impacts to the appellant from the proposed additions due to existing conditions and distance between the two properties. Next slide, please. As you'll see on your screens, this floor plan shows the proposed second story additions, including a new 144 square foot balcony facing the north. The balcony is accessed from the interior hallway and adjacent bedroom. The proposed bedroom addition is approximately 319 square feet and includes two north-facing windows. Next slide, please. The existing elevations, highlighted in blue, show the existing second-story sundeck, which is accessed through the French doors. The proposed elevations, which are highlighted in red and on the bottom half of the screen, show the new second-story additions, including the balcony and the bedroom. The project results in an overall reduction in size of the existing second story deck area by approximately 340 square feet. Staff reviewed the project for compliance with the applicable development standards of the hillside overlay and the single family residential zone and determined that the project meets the applicable standards. During the review process, Staff found that permits from a previously approved precise plan dated December 7th, 1983 were never finalized. While all of the inspections up to the final were completed and signed off, the property owner at the time never called for the final inspection. Therefore, condition number seven has been added to the resolution, which addresses the requirement for the current property owner to finalize those outstanding permits through the modification under consideration by the City Council tonight. A supplemental item prepared includes the updated resolution with the noted condition. Next slide, please. This slide is showing you the photographs taken from the project site. On the left, you'll note the silhouette mason line that's indicating the railing height for the proposed balcony on that north-facing side. The photograph to the right was taken from the proposed bedroom area. Next slide, please. This slide shows photographs taken by staff from the appellant's property where the appellant indicated existing privacy concerns. On the left, you'll see the view towards the proposed project from the patio. A sliding glass door to the appellant's home is located behind the point where that photograph was taken. And to the right, you'll see the view from inside the appellant's home. Staff did not perceive any impacts to privacy from the site visit to both the project site and the appellant's property. Next slide, please. Based on the analysis provided in your packets, both the Planning Commission and the Community Development Director recommend that the City Council deny the appeal and approve the project. Next slide, please. And with that, Honorable Mayor and members of the City Council, this concludes staff presentation and we are available for questions.

Thank you. I failed to ask if there's any disclosures from the council. And I do need to disclose that I did visit the site on more than one occasion and also walked the area. And I'll be making my decision based on the presentations this evening. Is there anyone else?

Yes, Your Honor. I also visited the site and was able to look at the full picture, and I will be making my decision based on the presentation tonight. Thank you.

Council Member Shea.

Thank you. I'd also like to disclose that I visited the property, but my decision will be based on the material provided to me. Thanks.

Thank you. Anyone else? Thank you again and thank you very much for your presentation. Is there a presentation by the opponent? You will have 10 minutes.

Honorable Mayor and Council Members.

My name is Jillian Danis and I live at 170 Viamonde de Oro. I am respectfully asking that you reconsider just one small portion of all the improvements that are being presented to you for the remodel of 317 Cali Mayor. These changes, of course, being the ones affecting my privacy, which in turn will permanently change the way I am free to live inside my home, as well as how I can use my backyard and my pool. I love and still live in this home that my parents bought March 14, 1957. When telling their story, they would say there were often times they didn't know how they would make their next mortgage payment, but they always found a way. They raised all their children here, of which I am the youngest, and they lived in the house they fought so hard to keep until they died. And now I intend to do the same. I'd like to make every effort to express to you how my privacy will be hugely impacted, if not completely eliminated, by the proposed changes to the north-facing second story of 317 Cali Mayor. My biggest concerns are the master bedroom view window and the addition of the balcony and the sliding glass doors that will be immediately behind it. The best way I can describe my proximity to 317 Cali Mayor is I am directly below, which creates a unique set of challenges, as I am the only property physically located in this unique physical position. Firstly, I'm greatly concerned about the size and proximity of the proposed master bedroom view window, especially due to the additional proposed projection of the master bedroom further out towards my property past the current footprint. Next, my concerns about the balcony and the sliding glass doors are more complicated. I do think it's very important I make clear that 317 Cali Mayor already enjoys two existing balconies from which to see their view. The addition of another balcony as well as the sliding glass doors will just add an exponential amount of visibility into my house and yard that feels excessive. Considering the two existing balconies, the style and location of the proposed third new one is much more intrusive for several reasons. Of the existing balconies, one is on the rooftop, requiring the users to access it, enjoy the view, then re-enter the house. The second balcony is a somewhat similar situation. The difference being that the third new balcony is proposed to have clear glass sliding doors immediately behind it, which will allow a constant view from inside their house into mine each and every time they walk down their hallway. They don't need to even be on the balcony for a full view into my home, backyard, and pool area. I also have clear glass sliding doors that I walk past dozens of times a day, and I look out those windows every time I pass through. I challenge anyone not to. I have also repeatedly expressed my concern about the location of the new proposed balcony, as it lines up exactly with the direct sight line into my yard and all my windows. And I do mean exactly. A few yards in one direction, and there's my pomegranate tree, and a few yards in the other direction, and my garage is there to help obscure. Every little bit could have helped. Neither of these things would have affected the view. Both of the existing balconies are offset to either side of my property, which helps them to feel less intrusive. from the master bedroom view window this additional balcony and the clear glass sliding door the ability will exist to look directly into my sun-room my dining-room my living-room my kitchen and my master bedroom greatly compromising if not completely eliminating what minimal privacy i now still retain even more intrusively it will look even more directly into my backyard pool area and onto my patio where i regularly eat my breakfast lunch and in the summer my dinner these additions will literally and permanently change the way i can comfortably live in my own home and have been able to my whole life We are very fortunate to live in such a climate that allows us to enjoy our yards year-round, and I have grown quite accustomed to doing just that. I've literally lost sleep and been fraught with concern since the day the silhouette flags went up. There isn't a single day that I'm not looking directly at those flags from one area of my home or another. If these additions are allowed without any modifications, it will leave me feeling completely exposed in what is now my relatively private living areas. I respectfully request your attention and consideration regarding my situation as it directly impacts the value of my property and the quality of my life. Thank you. And I also presented several additional pictures that I think Ulysses might have scan for you.

Thank you. Is there a present?

Supplemental appellant presentation.

Okay, how much time was left? We had stopped the clock.

Oh, there was five minutes left, but somebody started it over when she walked away.

Okay, can we put five minutes on the clock for him, please? Thank you.

Thank you, and I'll speak fast. Good evening, Honorable Mayor, members of council, staff. My name is William Beverly. I'm at 3424 Carson Street, Suite 400 in the city of Torrance, and I'm here tonight to speak in support of Jill Danis, the appellant. I have two issues I'd like to talk about, and they have to do with the staff report and the standard. The first one I'd like to talk about is what I believe is a factual error, if not a slight misrepresentation in the staff report. At page three, second paragraph, The staff report states that, quote, the proposed additions are located within the footprint of the existing residence and replace the existing second-story sun deck, which measures approximately 484 feet. The new balcony is accessed through two-panel sliding glass doors from the proposed bedroom and renovated hallway. The last paragraph on that page, 3, also says, the proposed project does not introduce a new elevated vantage point. Instead, the project replaces an existing exterior deck with enclosed habitable floor area, thereby reducing the amount of accessible outdoor viewing area. That's a little bit inaccurate, as you can tell from the addition of this new Condition 7, because while a deck may have been approved as a part of a previous precise plan application, it was never followed through to completion and obtained the sign-off of the permits from the City, which included the fact that there was no railing at the edge of the deck, which means that the deck wasn't used for viewing because it would be too dangerous, if not illegal, to go out and use the deck for that purpose. So, in essence, what we're doing is enclosing an unusable, unused exterior space and creating a new vantage point where one did not exist potentially could have existed, but was not used because of the fact that they did not follow through and complete it. Now, I understand it wasn't this applicant who defaulted in that, but still the fact remains that the deck was not a usable deck that's now being enclosed. So we're creating new vanity space. I'd also like to talk a little bit about the legal standard because the code is very clear. It says that... the proposed development will not have an adverse impact on the light, air, view, and privacy of other properties. Now, sitting here tonight, we've heard a major impact, a significant impact, a substantial impact. Then we talk about... minimal impact none of these words are in the code and you know residents rely on the language of the code and how the decisions that you make are going to affect them so If there's a policy or situations where we use different standards by inserting adjectives, that seems to be a little bit unfair to the parties who are involved in these things. And our staff report refers five times to the fact that there is no substantial impact and calls upon you to make a finding that there's no substantial impact. I argue that the finding is no adverse impact. And regardless of that, I think the testimony is clear that there is a substantial or significant or major or certainly anything but a minor impact on this particular appellant. And we request that you uphold the appeal and deny the project as it is currently fashioned.

Thank you, sir. You have 25 more seconds. Thank you. Is there a presentation by the proponent? You'll have 10 minutes.

I do have a slide deck.

Thank you. Well, it's a pleasure to be here.

And the goal this evening is really simple. Deny the appeal and approve the Planning Commission Resolution No. 26-18, Modification 26-0001 on PP 8342. That's a mouthful. That's a mouthful. Please advance the slide. Can you go ahead and advance it one more? First of all, I want to say thank you, Your Honor and Councilmember, for what you do for this community, for making Torrance and the Hollywood Riviera a wonderful place to live and raise a family. Thank you. I also want to thank the people that are presenting tonight, the public, for taking time out of their busy schedule to come here and to discuss this and to be able to make the right decision for the neighborhood. So thank you. Please advance the slide. And one more. So who are we? Rick Keyser, Maryland born. We've been married for 32 years. We are proud transplants to come back in the community. We lived here in the 1990s. Yes, I'm an old guy. We returned eight years ago and couldn't be happier. I'm a retired SAS company CEO, and my wife is currently a professor at USC in their real estate program. She would be here tonight, but she's got a group of 30 master's students that she's teaching from 6 to 9 p.m. We own two residences in the Hollywood River area. One right now, 437 VLF Soledad, which is a small footprint. And we purchased that in 2020. And then this project here is going to be our permanent residence on 317 KMIR. We have three kids. Two of them are off the payroll. They've graduated from school. Very happy to have one that's a senior in college. Two properties, one neighborhood. We love it here. Please advance the slide. The project, 317 Chi-Mir. For the folks that have been in the Hollywood Riviera, you've probably driven by this property, and you're wondering what has been going on with this property for years, for years. So it's an original 1930s Hollywood Riviera home. We love it. Cared for by an individual by the name of Frank Myers, who lived there for approximately 60 years until his passing this past spring at the age of 101 years old. He lived at this property up until two months before his passing. I had the opportunity after I purchased the property to have him be as a tenant for about nine months. Wonderful man, right? He convalesced at this home for the last 30 years. So if he didn't finish the final permit, it's probably because of age than actually his goals. Our goal is we're restoring and modernizing. We are not maximizing this property. Our goal from day one has been the thoughtful restoration and modernization and not maximum density or square footage. This is going to be our primary residence. We've hired an expert here in the neighborhood, architect Michelle Gaynor, who has 25 plus years of designing homes in torrents in the hillside overlay. Could you advance to slide one? For us, Mary Lynn and myself, this is a labor of love. This is not a financial exercise. Please advance the slide. Go ahead and advance it one. So, facts at a glance. Planning Commission vote, unanimous approval, May 6th. Advance the slide. Balcony sightline reduction, more than 70%. Existing opening reduced. Advance the slide. Rooftop balcony, 100% removed, permanently eliminated. Advance the slide. Distance to neighbor, greater than 160 feet, half of the length of a football field. Please advance the slide. Go ahead and advance it again. So when you look at this, we've gone above and beyond. Our greatest concession, single family home over maximum density. 317 Chi-MIR sits on two full legal lots, 31 and 32, and we chose the restoration over maximization, and we're keeping the existing footprint of this house. Near unanimous neighbor support through a continuous engagement throughout the design process has resulted in overwhelming neighborhood support. Please advance the slide. Second floor balcony reduced by 70%. We're taking 37.5 feet and we're reducing it down to 11 feet of open frontage. Please advance the slide. Rooftop balcony eliminated entirely. A 40-year completed structure approved by the PP 1983-42 permanently to be removed. Please advance the slide. We've taken a sitting room that overlooks this deck right now, and we've turned it into a private bedroom. This reduces foot traffic and activity that faces the neighboring property. Please advance the slide. All concessions made voluntarily and not required by code. Please advance the slide. Sightline analysis. When you are looking at this, both balconies that were approved by that precise plan back in 1983 have been constructed and been present for the last 40 years. This property was built in 1936, more than 20 years before the property that it's overlooking. Sightlines have been there for years. Distance to the neighbor, more than 160 feet, roughly half the distance length of a football field. Rooftop balcony sightline eliminated 100%. Second floor balcony reduced by 70%. Please advance the slide. Net result, increased privacy for both projects. Robert Garcia, city planning manager, visited the site personally in June, and he reaffirmed that this project improves privacy for both properties. Please advance the slide. It's amazing the neighborhood support that we have received. Everyone gets it. We're not flippers. We're here to do what's right for the neighborhood. That's why we have 13 signed letters of support for this work. Sarah, Marion, John, Michael, Pam, Andy, Tim, Leah, Jim, Monique, Jan, George, Yvonne, all these people surround this property and they're all in support of this. attachment of the letters are in the back of the presentation restoration improves neighborhood character and appearance project increases privacy for surrounding neighbors owners have been transparent respectful and communicative throughout this process please advance slide our simple requests torrent city planning commission reviewed our project thoroughly and voted unanimously to approve it the city planning manager personally visited the site and reaffirmed that approval our neighbors overwhelmingly support it completing this project will increase privacy for both parties compared to existing conditions please advance a slide we respectfully request that the city council uphold Planning Commission Resolution 26-08 Mod 00001. Allow us to move forward with this restoration of this beautiful home for our family and for this neighborhood. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Did you want to speak, ma'am?

I think he summed it up. As the architect, I'm here to answer any questions that you might have about the structure.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

We will now take public comment on this matter. Each speaker will have up to three minutes to speak. Deputy City Clerk, has anyone signed up to speak on this item?

No, Your Honor.

Is there anyone in the audience that would like to step up? Feel free to step up to the mic. You'll have three minutes.

Thank you very much. My name is Michael Forbes. Pleased to be here. Jill Danes is my girlfriend. We practically live together. Can we bring up the pictures of the pool again? Is that possible to bring up the pool pictures? Anyway, I sit out there every morning and have breakfast. And from where I sit, I can see exactly where that balcony is going to be. And from now on, if this balcony is allowed, I will have no privacy ever in the backyard. It will be gone. There'll be no privacy in the bedroom, the kitchen. everywhere that you see, the sunroom, there will be no privacy in our home. The value of the home will probably be half. Well, the other house value will go way up. Ours will go down because, once again, the Privacy Act will have been ignored on Jill's property. Everyone, all the other neighbors in the neighborhood, are not subject to this privacy problem. So they're irrelevant as to what he's doing in his project. The project is about Jill's privacy and mine. And when I sit out there having breakfast, I don't want anybody looking at me. And as far as how far it is away, I know that in a kitchen we have binoculars so we can see the ocean. So there will be no privacy at all if this is allowed to go. I'm very upset. It's ruined our whole summer. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Good evening, Mayor, Madam, and Council Members. My name is Todd VanderPlyme. I live at 425 V. Anita. And I met Rick about a month ago, and I toured the property. He showed me what he was doing. And what I've seen from him and his family is in total support of the codes and, you know, going by the book. And what I see on the other side is not. I don't know if you're aware, but there are spike trees that have been planted on the property now to block the view that they are concerned about. And the view from that second balcony is about half the football field away. So I really don't understand why somebody wants to stop somebody from improving a 90-year-old home, maintaining its integrity, for the future, that doesn't decrease their property, that improves their value. So I really find this an abuse of the codes that are used to protect everybody, and I hope that you approve it. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Is there anyone else? Please step up to the mic. Okay, I see no one. We'll now take remote participants. Callers can press star nine to raise their hand. Staff, is there anyone that would like to speak?

Yes, Your Honor, we have one caller.

Caller 7809, you have three minutes to address the council. Please press star six to unmute. Your time starts now.

Yes, my name is Dale Hall, 19909 Gravela, continuing with...

Sorry, sir, that was off topic. Is there anyone else signed up to speak?

Your Honor, no additional callers.

Thank you. Does the appellant wish to make a rebuttal? You will have five minutes.

Hi, thank you, William Beverly again. What do I have, two minutes, three?

You have five, sir.

Do I get my 26 seconds back, too?

You have four minutes and 54 seconds.

Thank you very much. Listening to the presentation from the applicant, they seem like decent people with good motives in terms of what they're trying to do with the property. They want to preserve a historical property. I applaud them for that. But all the good things that they might be doing are not credits against things that they shouldn't be doing. For example, they're preserving the property. They're not building in excess of the height. They might be planting lots of trees. But that has no bearing on the impact on the appellant and the effects on her privacy. None of those things matter. directly related to the impacts on our privacy which is the sole issue that should be decided on this appeal as to the number of other people who are pleased with the project it went pretty quick but if you look at the addresses they're all on the high side of where the project is is being And I'm sure that their concerns were basically that their views weren't impacted. And they're not. And that's a wonderful thing, too. But that has nothing to do with the downgradient property that's wide open to these new vantage points that impact the privacy in a substantial, significant, major, and adverse way. So again, we request that you uphold the appeal and deny the project without some modification. Thank you.

I'm sorry. The only comment I wanted to make was that nobody visited my site. Nobody looked at the perspective from my house, which is remarkably different. And I have seen it from Mr. Rick's house, and it's surprisingly different vantage point. So even though it looks like there's not much to see from his house, when you look at it from my house up, it's completely different perspective. So I'm sorry that nobody from the council ever visited my house. Ulysses was there, and he brought different people at different times. But nobody from the council looked at it from. I was shocked to hear when everybody said, oh, I was there, and I was there, and I was there, and I was there. And I'm like, why did nobody come to my house? So that was the only thing I wanted to add. Thank you.

Thank you. Do any of the council members wish to speak or ask questions on this item? Please click in. Council Member Gerson?

To the gentleman for the appellant, are you legal representation? Do I refer to you as attorney? I was confused by one of your arguments, if I may take you back. Sure. Is it your position that the couple who has purchased the home but not moved in yet, that they would be unable to use the current Sun Deck because there's no railing and it would be illegal for them to use it? Was that your point?

It has been illegal since the time it was completed and not certified or signed off in final approval by the city.

With a fee and an inspection, they can clear that up.

Yes, they could. But my point is that the staff report indicated that the bedroom that's going to enclose that deck will not be creating a new vantage point because it's closing in a deck that was a vantage point, except for 20 years or 30 years. Actually, it was the 80s, wasn't it, when this thing was approved and constructed? It hasn't been used.

I believe 83 was what I heard. Yeah, but it wasn't used as a vantage point at any time because of the fact that... Sir, as I understand it, the gentleman was a bit older and maybe had difficulty, but this younger couple would be able to physically use it. Is that true? That as of right now, they do possess the property. If they wanted to go out tomorrow morning and sit on that deck, they would be able to?

Well, you could sit on your roof, too. But if what you're saying is could they get it approved, get it completed, get it legal, I suppose there's a process for that. But the fact that it hasn't been used as such, maybe it's an elderly gentleman, but I don't suspect he was the same age in 1983 that he is today.

I don't know if any of us were paying attention then if he was using it. I was just asking if this couple right now could use it as such. And so the replacement of adding a railing would not substantially change the current possible usage of it. That's why I'm just trying to understand your argument, because it seems to me that they could go out today or tomorrow morning and sit out there and use it as is, even though it may be more dangerous now than after their remodel.

Well, they could, but they shouldn't until it's legalized. And then there's an additional balcony being created.

Now I think I understand. Thank you, sir. No further questions.

Thank you. Council Member Liu.

I have a question for staff. I was wondering, the balcony, the north-facing balcony that the applicant used, alleged as a deck, is that part of living space, like part of the living spaces of the house? Has it been permitted to be part of usage kind of for living?

Council member, the balcony can be used by the property owners. However, it does not count towards livable area inside the home.

I say not inside a home, and if it was to be used, shouldn't there be railings if we allow it to be used? Then it seems like it would be dangerous without railings over there.

Yes. So the improvements under the modification of the precise plan will be adding the railing to the balcony, which will ultimately be reducing the square footage of that Sunday.

But currently there is no.

Currently there is no balcony.

No balcony.

Sorry, no balcony railing.

No balcony railing.

Mayor, council members, Michelle Ramirez, community development director. So that anything that has not been finalized or anything that is in violation of a code now as part, if this project was to be approved, would have to be brought up to today's standards and today's codes. And that would be done through the building and safety when they submit plan checks. They will verify all that information.

I see, thank you. I have three points to make. First of all, the city council was in receipt of new information that came in earlier today by email. This information was not, the planning commission and the city staff did not have this information from this email that was provided to us, our city attorney has notified us that we, the city council, can consider this new information. So besides the appellant herself, one of the applicant's resident owners, a neighbor, has emailed all of us saying that the proposed project blocks her view from her home. She has enclosed photos that showed how her ocean view will be blocked. And she has stated that the reason she is only sending the email today is because her mom was dying at the time and I can understand that this proposed project was not her main focus at the time when your own mother is having health problems. So now she has come out in opposition of this project as she states that it will also decline the value of her home. She stated that she has relied on the enforcement of the hillside overlay ordinance when she first bought her home. She also alleged that the raising of the roof in front of the home is for cosmetic reasons, and it is not necessary as this violates the property rights of a couple of the neighbors. I believe that the hillside overlay ordinance protects residents from having their property rights, especially that of the view or privacy, from being altered or partially blocked. That is the point of the ordinance. My second point is that in the case that this appeal is denied by the city council, I want to note that it is stated in the letter that the applicant owner had promised to cut down his trees along his current roof line. If this proposal is to follow through, I would like to see that the applicant's promise to cut down the trees be fulfilled so that the neighbors can remain amicable. Thirdly, I find that the argument of the second speaker for appellate to be valid. This is the man who said he is a supplemental appellate who is an attorney. The appellant alleged deck indeed has no railings as said by staff just now. And I believe that it has not been used as a deck. In fact, it will be dangerous to be out on that flat roof I see in the photos. So I disagree with the staff's finding, and I believe that the appellant's right to privacy will be violated as described under the Hillside Overlay Ordinance. Therefore, I'll be voting yes on the appeal. Thank you, Your Honor.

Thank you.

Your Honor, if I could have a moment, I'd suggest, Ms. Patrick Sullivan, City Attorney, I didn't realize that that email had not gone to the project applicant, so I'd suggest we take a recess so I can go print a copy and provide that to him if the council's going to consider it, he should have a chance to look at it and respond to it.

Okay, how much time do you need?

Five minutes.

Okay, we'll take a 10-minute recess.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 🎵 🎵 Thank you.

We're back from recess at 9.02. We were speaking with Council Member Liu. Did you have other comments at this time, Council Member Liu? No, Your Honor. Thank you. Is there anyone else with comments?

Yeah, I had someone.

Council Member Gerson.

Thank you, Mayor. So I'm looking at one of the pictures and I'm a little confused. Can I ask the applicant? So I'm looking at the one through the window. There's a TV, there's a red arrow.

Yes.

Can I ask you for your interpretation of this picture before I ask you mine?

Yeah, somebody just put where they thought that the ridge would be, I think. There is a string up there. We're only one foot above the existing maximum height that it is now. And it just is a little triangle. And while that angle is that way, I think it's a bit higher than what it is going to be.

Thank you. Did the applicant want to make any comments before?

I did. I did. Thank you. I think I will have a few. Rick is, you know, a great guy, and it's been a wonderful family to work for. And I've worked in this city for over 40 years. I hate to say that. And grew up in this city, too. And I've worked... the Planning Commission for many, many years. My first priority is always the views of the neighbors. We held a neighborhood meeting on February 7th. So right after we submitted to the Planning Commission, we held a neighborhood meeting and invited everybody within the radius to come and see the project and talk to me. I had the plans. and talk about anything, because I said, let's handle these conditions now. Let's handle these things now that people might say once the silhouette was up, because it was up, that we can adjust before we go to the planning commission, because I don't like to go to the planning commission with a lot of opposition from neighbors in the hillside overlay. It's a very emotional and difficult area to appease everybody. So I felt that we did a really good job of keeping the height, maximum height down. There was already that deck.

Can I ask clarification on that? So if you just say what is the current height and what will the new height be?

I think the...

I know it's in the plan, sorry. Sorry.

So many plans I look at. I know we're less than 20, okay, here we go, hold on. So the current height is going to be 25 feet, eight inches for the proposed height. And the existing maximum at the west end was 24 feet, eight inches. So we're a foot above.

Perfect, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Sorry, can you repeat those numbers for me again?

Yes, the maximum height now is 24 foot eight. And that ridge runs east to west. So that's all the way across the west part of the facing the street across the view. Our height goes north and south. So while the neighbor up there who had the picture has that sort of angled, our goal was to keep that height low. If I had taken over all of that balcony with addition my roof would have been too high i couldn't have roofed it without making a flat roof but because of the architecture and the integrity of the architecture i wanted to keep it as spanish and and style as as it was so that balcony acted like a break between what was the existing roof on one side of the house and our proposed addition so that I could make that roof just go over that addition and not take up that whole area or turn it so now that the ridge would be going east to west, blocking the view all the way across so that I could get that whole width done. So we had a lot of design work And I told Rick and Mary Lynn, the most important thing is the views and keeping the roof, you know, as low as we can go.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Director Ramirez, do you have anything to add or clarify?

Your Honorable Mayor, Council Members, Michelle Ramirez, Community Development Director, it can be a little confusing. If you look on Attachment 3A7 of your staff report, You will see where the applicant's architect was talking about a straight across by where the chimney looks like. You see the chimney? Want to make sure everyone's up to date.

Yes, thank you.

Attachment three.

So I'm referring to this page right here.

What number is that?

A7. So if you look where the chimney is, that's where at the highest, you'll see where it was 24 feet, and where she's talking about it's only going up about a foot and a half. But it's also, if you look where this peak is, at this peak, it's actually going up more than a foot and a half at that peak. That peak is going up about two and a half feet. So it can be a little confusing.

Okay.

Thank you, Mayor. I have all the information I need.

Thank you. Councillor Rushek.

Thank you. I think a lot of clarifications. Thank you, staff. Thank you. Just to make sure I understand that you are increasing the height by one foot. Question to the...

Yes. As Ms. Ramirez said, we're increasing it one foot from the highest portion of where the roof is. But where that roof coincides with the existing roof, it is up higher than that existing roof. And I would like to say, just based on the email that we just read, it's just kind of disappointing that we held neighborhood meeting February 7th I passed out my business card my plans have been all over the city and my choice would have been to talk to people in that early stage so that when we got to the Planning Commission not here that we could have worked on that roof height you still have the opportunity to work with that yes but but we've but coming in at such a late time has put us at a disadvantage to addressing their concerns.

Well, I can see that you guys are having so many different outreach. You made a lot of modifications. You made a lot of changes. Even when I'm reading on page four, it says that the deck area reduced from 484 square feet to 144 square feet. Was that because you wanted to reduce the privacy?

Absolutely, because I explained to my client that second-story balconies and decks are usually frowned upon in the hillside overlay. But because this was, in theory, an existing deck that went all the way across the back, even though it didn't have the handrail yet, we just wanted to keep a small portion of it. The other thing is that right now, while I labeled that room up there a bedroom because of the assessor's clarification of how many bedrooms were in there, It really reads as like a family room, sitting room up there that has those French doors, the existing room with the fireplace. There's a dumb waiter, and then there's a deck above that. So there's a deck up on the roof of the second story that we're completely eliminating.

But you see the concern. It's pretty clear that because that you're impeding the view for the adjacent next property.

My question to staff,

If the applicant want to make changes now, they have an opportunity to make those changes and come back to the council or how would that work?

Your Honorable Mayor, Council Members, Michelle Ramirez, Community Development Director, if the applicant wanted to voluntarily say they wanted to look at this again and the Council was willing to allow them to do so and to bring it back at a later date, then that could be done.

Thank you. Just a question, Simba. Would you consider making those changes to What changes would that be? Reduce that by one foot. I think that's what is, I think whatever is needed to reduce so they can have their view for this, what they're talking about here.

I mean, we're always open to reducing. You know, we're at 4 and 12 of the slope, so we've left ourselves. The problem is that it changes the slope of that roof compared to what the existing roof is.

I just wanted to go back to the Planning Commission, then you go start all over again.

Well, I didn't, you know, the appeal here wasn't about that email. That's what's confusing me.

But it is competing the view, obviously.

Right, but wouldn't that have been brought up during the Planning Commission? I thought this appeal was about the privacy.

I think you heard what Director Ramirez pointed out. We're giving you an opportunity. Absolutely. We're always willing to. Absolutely.

But I thought we were here talking about the deck and the privacy of the property below. It's news to me that we were blocking anybody's view with that, because that silhouette has been up since February. And while I understand the personal reasons why that neighbor didn't come forward until now, That would have been something that we would have dealt with months ago.

Okay, thank you. But yes, we can. Thank you for your flexibility.

Obviously, we don't want it to not be approved because we're unwilling to compromise.

That's exactly my point, and thank you for your flexibility. Thank you for understanding. That's my point.

Right, I just didn't know we were here since this is... literally last minute, we haven't got a chance to really review it, to look at it, to see what house it is. And just based on somebody's photographs and the red line that they put up of what they're blocking, is that really actually?

But I think we're giving the opportunity to you if you want to work with us, and the staff will go ahead and look at it, and according to their estimation, whatever works for all of us. Absolutely. I'll have a director of your staff.

Mayor, council members, Michelle Ramirez, community development director, if the applicant's willing to reduce it now by that one foot, then we actually don't have to go back and forth. That could be a condition that is put in place tonight by the council.

May I comment? Yes, please. We've been in the queue since January. We held numerous meetings. And in the prior material, I've outlined all the people that attended this meeting. This person did attend this meeting. OK, of those meetings. And then post, coming up to the Planning Commission meeting, and then after, I have sent letters around to everybody, keeping everybody informed and asking them. And so this is, we are here for an appeal on privacy. And to get this on the date of this appeal is just unusual. It's just very, very unusual. and also not looking at this in great detail on the, I don't know to what extent this is or it's not, there's no comment about the rubber tree being removed, which is the vast majority of the view that's gonna be restored through this.

All I'm saying is that I cannot just ignore the fact that I see clearly there is an issue here. Clearly there is, so I'm just trying to work with you and see if there is a compromise here.

I'm always open for compromises, and this whole project has been a list of compromises, okay, because we're not maximizing the development.

Have you seen this before?

No, I have not. That's what I'm saying.

This is something new that came to me, so I just cannot ignore it.

I understand that, but also at the same time as being a property owner that I cannot use the property, and I'm experiencing high expenses on carrying this, right now. This can't go on for another nine months.

It cannot. All we're saying is that we can put a condition that you reduce that by one first. That's fine.

If there's a condition around that, then we're open to do it. But I would say probably I think the most logical thing here is to do an automatic reaction that has not gone through planning commission and that they thoroughly looked at it is probably not the best way to solve the problem. And so I appreciate your guide.

Thank you.

We are willing to bring it down at that, but I agree with him that I don't know that this is an accurate depiction. I've been through plenty of Planning Commission hearings where people can zoom in, zoom out, make lines on pictures.

I understand. I just want to say I'm not sure how others are going to vote, but I'm just saying that for my vote, I just want to know if you're willing to compromise rather than going all the way. There's a condition we can put on reduce to one foot to meet and let you start the project. So I will base my vote on this request. If you're willing to do it, I don't know how others feel, but that's my request. Thank you.

Council Member Lewis.

I'm good. They just answered my question. I just wanted to make sure that they understood that we were talking about reducing the height for one foot and then we would not have to come back, correct? Perfect.

Council Member Gerson.

I appreciate the person who submitted and upon looking at the picture I don't see significant reduction even with the one foot increase when you take into account the perspective and the distance. I see no need for me to request anything other. As I said, I've received enough information, and I'm ready to vote regardless of, or not request any modifications.

Thank you.

Can I make a comment?

Sure.

And then I would like to, sir. Thank you so much. I just want to say that existing height is 25 and 8 inch. I'm sorry, 24 and eight inch. And they're increasing to 25 and eight inch. The existing is 24. So it's a one foot adjustment. So that's what I'm saying. If we bring it back, there shouldn't be any problem.

Thank you. But I'm okay with it as proposed.

Okay.

Thank you. So I do have some questions. Mine's for the... for the appellant. I just want you to know that I did go and visit outside your property and I could clearly see some of their property and some of the windows. Are you able to currently see windows in their house and the deck area that So you're clearly able to see that from your pool right now. Sure, you can step up. I'm trying to determine if you have a new evasion of privacy, or if already you can see their windows and they can see down into your yard.

Yes, I can see. I can see windows, but the balcony has been in a direct sight line between a tree and my garage, where right now there is a tiny little window. And this is this perspective that this previous 1983 balcony that was never used in my entire lifetime, that I didn't realize was ever approved as such, because it was never finished and never used. So it was just a ledge, so I never realized that ever was one. The only thing I could ever see through my perspective was this tiny little window and French doors off to a side.

Okay.

So what they're doing is moving now this balcony over to... moved it over to where it's in my direct sight line. And I don't know if that answers your question. It does.

I think I was able to see what you're describing.

Okay, so it's that perspective of moving it over where it's more problematic.

And I have another question regarding, thank you very much, for staff or for the proponent. I looked at the silhouette flags. I did not see a significant difference from the existing roofline. Are they in the correct place still? That's my question.

Yes, staff went out on a site visit in February, as mentioned previously, and we verified the silhouette locations as well as the heights.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

And yes, adding to that, they've been certified.

Okay, so I did not see a significant difference in the existing roof height from the silhouettes, personally. Are there any other questions from the council? Yes, Your Honor, I have one.

I just want to kind of substantiate this. In looking at the staff report on page seven, you have the existing north elevation, And the balcony that runs across there with no railing runs the whole distance of what you have circled in blue, correct? Number, page seven, where it shows them. It's the staff report, the presentation, sorry.

Ulysses Vasquez, planning assistant.

I'm looking on page seven. Has the existing north elevation

Yes, of the presentation, correct? Yes. Okay. Yes. And may you repeat your question, please?

My question is the balcony, even though it does not have a railing, runs the full length of everything outlined in blue, correct?

Yes, correct.

Okay. And... Under the new proposed, the balcony is only over the sliding glass door, it looks like, correct?

Yes, correct.

Okay. Is that balcony extended out any further than what it was under the old existing balcony, or is it the same?

The balcony is extended about one foot from the footprint.

Okay, just in looking at this, and I realized that there were sliders or probably French doors in the middle and a smaller window on one side and window on the other. I just don't see any significant difference at this particular time. And that's what I just wanted to clarify. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Liu.

Yes, I have a question to the applicant homeowner. Or your representative, either one of you. I read that your RIC, I suppose you have offered to cut the existing trees down the current roofline. That's a promise that you've made. Do you intend to uphold your promise there to cut your existing trees?

Absolutely. Absolutely, we want to be able to reduce those trees and increase the view on the front of the house and the existing rubber tree and the rubber tree. All three of those, and it's actually in the plan right now, one of the trees in the front is being removed because it's not healthy. The other one will be trimmed accordingly, and the rubber tree will be removed. And if when you're looking at the river tree, this is the one where the punch out is going, you'll see that from her picture in here. It will radically improve her view by removing that tree.

That's a tree where the arrow is.

Yes, yes, yes. And in the second picture, the second picture where she had a black line that you can't see, that whole view is going to be restored if we're approved.

I see. So that tree next to the chimney was cut down.

And actually, everybody's referring to it as a chimney. That's not a chimney. That is a dumbwaiter that services the deck on the roof. OK, there's water up there. He was going to put a hot tub up there, folks. And if people are complaining about the view, if we don't get this approved and that deck eliminated, We could put an umbrella up there, okay? And that's going to drastically impact people's views. We would like to restore this house to its beauty. It's one of the original homes here. We don't want to put a flat roof up there. That's not going to look very nice. I mean, it's a beautiful property. We have a sense for style here. There's a lot of boxes. I'm sorry, I've got to apologize on that. A lot of boxes. It's a beautiful home we'd like to restore.

I appreciate you saying that. If this project is approved, you will actually be giving them more view, you said?

We will be giving them more views if this project is approved. Because those trees that have been existing there for 30 years growing have not been trimmed, have not been properly trimmed. So their views have been impacted. And we're going to be restoring that. And that's how the vast majority of people are really excited by this.

I see. I'm looking at the picture. All right, thank you. Sure, thank you.

Anyone else wish to speak from the council? Okay. If there is no other council member who wishes to be heard, I'll take a motion to close the public hearing.

I'll make a motion to close public hearing.

Second. Start voting, please. Your Honor, that motion carries with Council Member Kartzonis recused.

Thank you. Deputy City Clerk, may we have a number and title so we're ready depending upon how the Council votes?

Yes, Your Honor. This is Resolution No. 2026-81, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Torrance, California, as provided for in Division 9, Chapter 1, Article 41 of the Torrance Municipal Code for the approval of a modification, Mod 26-00001, of a previously approved Precise Plan of Development, PP83-42, to allow first and second story additions to an existing two-story single-family residence on property located within the hillside overlay RH in the single-family residential district R1 zone at 317 Calla Mayor.

Thank you. How does the council wish to act on this matter? And if making a motion, remember there's multiple items on your motion, possibly.

I've clicked in.

Council Member Gerson.

I move that we deny the appeal, determine a categorical exemption from CEQA, and adopt Resolution 2026-81.

I'd like to make a little amendment to the motion. There's a second already. It's already second? OK.

I second that motion. Start voting, please.

Council Member Liu?

Okay.

Your Honor, that motion carries with Council Member Liu voting no and Council Member Kartzonis recused.

Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to go get Kartzonis. I got it. Everybody okay to keep going? We're we're moving on to administrative matters 10 a from the city manager is there a staff presentation, please Musical chairs here

Good evening, honorable mayor and city council members. I'm Fran Fulton, economic develop, is it on? Okay. Yeah, I hear it now. I'm economic development manager for the city of Torrance. Item 10A is an update from the Office of Economic Development with information provided for the period January through June of this year. So a mid-year check-in, if you will. The format for this presentation continues to evolve For the year-end recap, we plan to create a booklet to go with the slide presentation, and we'll also include year-end totals for certain data such as business license numbers. This presentation highlights not only the businesses and investments coming into Torrance, but also the work we are doing to support existing businesses, activate our commercial areas, promote Torrance as a destination, and strengthen relationships locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. One of the key themes throughout this update is measurable activity and measurable results. Incidentally, the image that you see here on the screen shows the Torrance Commerce Center, which is being developed by the Saris Regis Group, with the advanced manufacturer Hadrian's expansion prominently displayed along Western Avenue. Next slide, please. While we continue to see continued investment and growth in the aerospace and defense sector in particular, we also provide support to smaller traditional manufacturing companies, such as family-owned Pell Manufacturing, where we were able to provide a grant loan of $5,000 to assist them with updating their website and marketing efforts to help them diversify and better promote their spiral binding and printing offerings. This is an example of how we serve both large and small businesses, keeping the businesses that we already have here, understanding their needs, and creating an environment where they can grow and invest. Our continued outreach through business visits, approximately 24 for this period, regular meetings, ribbon cuttings, and business roundtables allow us to identify challenges early, make connections, and look for opportunities where the city can be helpful. The relationship between the city and our business community is an ongoing partnership, not a one-time transaction. Next slide, please. This past spring, we launched the Torrance Passport Program that was designed to turn awareness into actual engagement with Torrance businesses. Nearly 400 businesses participated in this program, including local favorites such as Red Car, Local Kitchen, and King's Hawaiian, and many of the restaurants expressed their appreciation for the city's efforts to support them in this way without them having to do anything besides be open and welcome customers. This was an example of using relatively simple marketing tools to create measurable interaction between consumers and businesses. We plan to bring the program back again next spring, bigger and better, and to include retailers as well. Next slide, please. Del Amo Fashion Center remains one of our region's most important commercial assets, and a strong retail and restaurant environment contributes to Torrance's overall competitiveness and helps reinforce our city as a destination for shopping, dining, entertainment, and services. Some examples shown here, such as Moo Moo Hot Pot, are a direct result of city engagement at past regional events focused on Trans-Pacific investment in the U.S. and the ability to promote torrents to investors. Additionally, there have been tie-ins and further promotion of torrents through social media spots with Doubletree Dodgers mural artist Robert Vargas, both at the mall at Origami Hand Roll and at Village Del Lamo Shopping Center's Pho Hue Oi Vietnamese restaurant. Next slide, please. This slide is a teaser of what is coming to Del Lamo. Retail activity is an important indicator of consumer confidence and the attractiveness of Torrance as a place to do business. Community development staff and economic development recently met with representatives of Olive Young, popular Korean-based cosmetics, health, and beauty product retailer to facilitate their plan check questions and to work with them to keep on target for holiday time opening. Next slide, please. A new offering instituted in the first half of this year is our office hours program. where we have met with commercial property owners to share data-driven insight, thanks to the use of Placer AI, which tracks place visitation by mobile devices. This information can help property owners better understand market conditions, consumer behavior, and or reinforce what they may already know about their property. It can also help them make informed decisions about the future success of their investments. This slide shows an example of one of the properties that we analyzed. Next slide, please. And this slide shows the other property that we studied in this period. Special thanks go to Irene O'Neil and Sunny Lai for their valuable assistance on packaging the data that we found from Placer AI and joined us in the office hours of meeting with these property owners. We want to make sure that Torrance is competitive, not only because of its location, but because we are responsive, informed, and proactive. Next slide, please. Oh, and right before that, we do welcome other property owners to contact us to schedule their office hours. This slide shows the automotive sector remains an important part of Torrance's commercial economy, as well as the peak in sales shown in May, which was a month, which happened to be a month with five weekends, as well as the Memorial Day holiday. This indicates fluctuations as shown in quarterly sales through last year that highlight seasonal and market-driven factors. The most recent highlights related to automotive is the opening of the Tesla Service Center at 21515 Southwestern Avenue, which is shown here in this picture. This was the site of the former Mitsuwa Marketplace adjacent to the Miyako Hotel. Next slide, please. Economic development also means making sure people know about Torrance and giving them reasons to visit. The California Welcome Center, located inside Del Amo Fashion Center, continues to serve as an important resource for visitors to Torrance and to the South Bay. And special thank you here for Debbie Hayes and Team Orange for all that they do. They are members of Discover Torrance and partner with the city and with Simon Property Group to run the Welcome Center, which literally puts Torrance on the map. Also, the Samurai of the Diamond mural with its augmented reality feature has tracked over 22,000 views since its creation. Thank you to Robert Vargas and the Doubletree Hotel team. These initiatives help extend Torrance's visibility beyond our boundaries and help tell the story of what makes Torrance unique. Next slide, please. Hospitality numbers are also encouraging. While occupancy has remained relatively steady, hotel revenue is continuing to rise. Revenue per available room as of June was an average of $137.84, compared with $132.27 in 25 and $130.99 in 2024. More importantly, transient occupancy tax revenue was approximately 9.3 million for the first half of this year, representing a 7% year-over-year increase. This is an important indicator of the strength of hospitality in Torrance and its contribution to the city's revenues. On that note, city staff have also held several meetings to support discussions on a major Doubletree investment in their property, which underscores the close collaboration and facilitation for business support across city departments Including community development fire and the city manager's office. Next slide, please With the original within the original footprint of the city the downtown area continues to serve as an important destination for residents and visitors Events and programming are helping strengthen the area as a place to spend time shop dine and participate in community activities during the period January through June downtown Torrance experienced approximately 2.5 million visits and the average amount of time visitors spent in the area was 77 minutes. These measures are useful because they tell us not simply how many people go downtown but whether they're staying and engaging within the area. We want to not simply increase foot traffic but to create an environment where people choose to stay, participate, shop, dine and return. The images shown here were from the first Metro-funded Kick It in Downtown FIFA World Cup Watch Party. Thank you to Carlos Huizar, all of the city team, and the Downtown Torrance Association for the hard work on these events. Next slide, please. Special events and filming provide another source of economic activity and visibility for Torrance. Film permit revenue for the period totaled approximately $83,000. And Torrance High School continues to be a popular location for filming. Just ask the Buffy the Vampire fans whose numbers grow each year in June when they convene in Old Torrance. Beyond permit revenue, filming brings crews, vendors, and other economic activity into the community. It also provides valuable exposure for Torrance when our streets, businesses, and locations appear on the screen. Next slide, please. Our international relationships continue to create opportunities that go well beyond cultural exchange. They are creating opportunities for business development, tourism, technology, investment, and new partnerships. In the first half of the year, we moved forward with an agreement with the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee to welcome their delegation of torrents for the Olympic Games in 2028. They will be occupying 50 hotel rooms for much of the month of July in 2028. In addition, their group is planning to come next summer for a period of time as well for practice and acclimation. As a result of the city's annual participation in the Los Angeles County Economic Development's Select LA Summit, the Office of Economic Development is building a relationship with the Latvian American Chamber of Commerce and their investment and development agency, with one business roundtable meeting held in June and another scheduled for this month. City staff also participated in the Smart Air and Mobility Exchange hosted at El Camino College, also in June, which allowed us to promote Torrence to a variety of high-tech businesses based in the Netherlands and strengthen our partnership with the college on an economic development level. As it relates to Friendship Cities, the Office of Economic Development plans to continue to honor our existing commitments with those with which we have signed agreements. but to hold on establishing additional Friendship Cities for the time being while we work these current relationships and identify and support benefits to existing Torrance businesses. The 310 Baseball Group is interested in continuing the Friendship Games program with the intent to bring representatives from OSU to Torrance again next summer. They also have an interest in including our sister city, Kashiwa, as well. There may also be an opportunity to expand the program beyond baseball and include other sports such as soccer. City staff will focus on how best to connect Torrance businesses with these types of events and activities. Next slide, please. The Office of Economic Development and the City of Torrance continue to participate in conversations and opportunities that extend beyond Torrance. We take a leadership role in organizations such as the South Bay Economic Development Managers Roundtable, realizing that strong regional partnerships make Torrance more competitive and help us bring outside opportunities back to our business community. As mentioned, we actively participate in not only the LADC's South Bay Economic Forecast Conference, but their Select LA Summit. And we have noted that more cities are now participating in these events in the past as they realize the benefit in participating in such activity as well. Many City of Torrance departments also actively participate in the annual South Bay Cities Council of Governments General Assembly, where best practices are shared across the region. Next slide, please. As we look forward, our focus is on turning the activity we've seen during the first half of 2026 into durable, long-term business growth. We plan to continue aligning business outreach incentives and retention efforts with Council priorities, stay engaged with existing businesses while pursuing opportunities to attract new investment. Prepare for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games represents a significant opportunity. And we are planning a Los Angeles County contracting workshop for small businesses to help local businesses understand and pursue opportunities associated with the games. This was actually held the week before last. So, we're moving past the June time period into the next period. We will also apply for the LADC Most Business Friendly City Award. And on that, we submitted the application today. So, we'll wait eagerly to hear the results of that. Thank you to Jen for all her diligent work on that, and thank you for the contributions of the rest of the city team. We will also refresh our economic development marketing tools so that we can more effectively tell Torrance's story and compete for investment. We'll deepen relationships, expanding business visits, develop business welcome packets, enhance engagement with the city's technology committee and other partners, such as the Torrance Area Chamber of Commerce, which is planning to hold their annual business expo at the Torrance Cultural Arts Center this year on October 22nd. And with that, I thank you very much and I stand by for any questions.

Thank you so much. We'll go to public comments. Really appreciate that presentation. It's exciting times in Torrance. Deputy City Clerk, I think I know the answer. Has anyone signed up to speak on this item?

No, Your Honor.

And I told, I knew that one. Is there anyone online? We'll now take remote participants. Callers can press star nine to raise their hands. Staff, is anyone online that would wish to speak?

Your Honor, yes, there's one member of the public waiting to speak.

Star six to unmute yourself. Your time starts now.

Yes, this is the second half. I was cut off after about a minute of my... You're off topic, sir.

Is there anyone else?

No other callers.

Thank you. Any questions from the council? Please click in. Council Member Liu.

Hi, Ms. Fulton. I just want to say thank you for all the wonderful work that you're doing on this. I'm very impressed with all the things that were going on for our economic development. I've known about your office before. I was a city council member. I know you did a lot, but this really is very significant how far you reach out. Just one quick question that I was wondering about in the last page. You said to compete in market, refresh economic development marketing tools to tell the Torrance story. What kind of marketing tools are we talking about that you're going to be refreshing?

As you know the council member the City website is being updated so we will have An economic development page as we have had so that creates an opportunity for us to streamline and update our messaging with council priorities and some of the items that we're looking forward to so that's one thing and Giving a refresh to our printed marketing materials. We have developed various pitch decks and industry-focused marketing materials. So we'll be able to update those with new imagery, new data, as some of our data gets outdated. So those types of things. Using social media, working with our communications team more closely in making sure that we're sharing the messaging of what the city's doing and what we're doing in economic development.

That sounds great, and I love that I can go on social media for our city and find out what new places I can go visit to go eat, to go drink, and drink coffee, I mean.

Yes, coffee.

Yeah, and El Brewery. Our business is very good, too, our community there. But thank you. Thank you.

Council Member Schenck.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Fran. Again, I appreciate your hard work and reaching out to all the business community. You're very well known in our community for business people. Thank you for all your hard work. A couple of questions. I think last time we talked about facade improvement. We need to modify that. I think if you... want to elaborate a little bit what we have done with that program and we're merging into economic development area. So if you want to just elaborate, what does that mean for the community, please?

Sure. We will continue to offer assistance with external commercial property enhancements. One of the things that we're looking at doing is using economic development assistance funding to help cover the costs of any permits, city permits that are associated with those types of improvements, potentially for the purchase of materials to improve. And we're hopeful that that will be more enticing for property owners, where the model that we've used that would include labor requires the payment of prevailing wage. So that's been a little bit of a stumbling block for some of the applicants that we've seen.

So we, if I'm not mistaken, we allocated about $250,000.

Initially, we had rollover money from the COVID assistance fund, and it was just under $250,000. The remainder of that that hasn't been spent on facade improvement has been absorbed by the general fund. However, we do have set aside economic assistance money. And that can be used towards this as well as providing assistance like that grant loan payment that I mentioned for Pell Manufacturing.

Right. How much have we given it to our business community from economic assistance? Have we given anything to anybody or we haven't started that?

We have done some offsets for conditional use permit modifications. And then also the business attraction incentive program that we had provided a commitment letter to Hadrian to keep them here in Torrance, and that is up to $100,000 to offset the cost of the permits for their building construction of their expansion.

Yeah, so I think that it's not giving anything, it's just absorbing their permits and stuff like that. Right. take advantage of incentivizing them to stay here and also help them to grow. Also related to that, what are our efforts to retain businesses besides economic assistance program? Do we have another strategy in place?

So one of the things, I mean that's actually kind of almost a daily occurrence, is providing assistance to our business community whether moving to a different location or they're making some changes to their building, working hand in hand with our community development department, fire prevention. The Office of Economic Development will help assist with that and connecting those business owners up with the appropriate staff, arranging meetings with staff to advise them. Our business visitation program gives us the opportunity to go out and meet with businesses, to meet the mayor, to meet council members, various staff that are members of the economic development team. So whether they have a need today or in the future, we're building that relationship. So it's all about building that relationship, educating them about services that are available through our full service city or through external partners. such as the Chamber of Commerce, the Small Business Development Center, the South Bay Workforce Investment Board. So it really depends on the need. If we're outreaching and we're finding out what their concerns are or their needs are, or they're contacting the city for help, sometimes even just businesses that are contacting us asking about locations to come to, we can help them with site selection assistance. There are a variety of things that we do on a daily basis that really just show that we're here to support them in their growth and staying here in Torrance.

Councilman, if I may, thank you for an opportunity manager. Every tree we plant, every median we improve, every sidewalk project, every camera we install, I've said this before, I'll say it again, it creates an ecosystem that embraces and creates the conditions where if you drive around Torrance, you can see distinctive quality of space and we create the environment which allows businesses to remain and thrive furthermore we're also exploring empty storefronts as a potential activation of space so we can highlight the vacancies we are not perfect we're also looking at potentially getting Vendors pre-qualified so they could do awnings and paint some smaller projects on a proactive basis on more busy corridors, which can attract future tenants. At the same time, it's the concept of being a business-friendly city where we truly come together. And thanks to Mr. Santana, Assistant City Manager, Michelle and her team over in the city, our finance, fire, police. This is not a... just an economic development initiative. This is the city-wide conscious effort to realize we create the conditions for businesses to thrive. And then we'll continue, every sidewalk we replace a downtown Torrance, the string lights, the lights that we put in the parking structure, all the different initiatives, they all come in to create that synergy which will set us up for the parking structure at the transit center. Then eventually connecting to the, in a way that's favorable to Torrance on the K line, and the advocacy that comes with that, leveraging the Olympics, the Super Bowl, and future events to so find dignity, really becoming the hub and the center of the South Bay, and leveraging that energy to hopefully get our hoteliers to continue to invest and improve the products and tours so we can build more capacity to attract the tourism dollars coming in. Thank you.

Yeah, and thank you for that. I think when we spoke earlier with Fran, you gave us a couple examples which businesses we helped to retain. Hadrian is a great example. if I'm not mistaken, that they were looking for a bigger facility, and then we helped them to expand within the city of Torrance. That was a great partnership. That was a great way to retain those businesses. So that's why I was telling you, if you next time bring some more examples like that, these are the businesses that we helped them to stay, and we provided them the incentives, like 100,000 dollars. It's a big company. They probably don't need 100,000 dollars, but the relationship, the partnership, and how to make it easier for them to stay here. These are the examples that are helping our local businesses that you can put your information, how many businesses you help to retain. One thing that I was going to ask you, the trending is right now a lot of online business. Even the auto industry, there are a lot of ways that you can place orders online. The data that you provided us for the Auto Dealers Association, do you know they included the online sales in this data?

I don't think so.

Mayor, Council, Ian Daly, Finance Director, I would assume not. Those would probably be purchases that maybe originated online, but receipt was taken at the dealership. So, you know, if you're dealing with, say, Toyota on PCH, that would have taken place point of sale at the physical location, which would generate sales tax for us. If I may, real quick, too, to kind of echo the city manager's comments about the ecosystem that's created, there's always a number of ways you can measure whether that's successful or not. I think a couple, well, a few, we touched on occupancy tax, that having strong year-over-year growth as evidence, that Torrance is doing well. And then two other areas that I think are extremely important are property tax and sales tax. That's indicator of investment in property and generating sales tax within the city. With respect to property tax, from the most recent assessor's role, While we're still ranked eighth in all of LA County, we have the third largest growth in assessed value of all cities, third to City of LA and Long Beach. So that's remarkable. And right now, our ranking continues. While we're still eighth, we continue to climb up the overall rankings and anticipate passing cities such as Pasadena and Glendale in the near future. And then with respect to sales tax, in all of L.A. County, we're the third largest sales tax producer of all of the cities, third to City of Los Angeles and City of Long Beach. And so I think those are helpful additional items to remind ourselves of the level of success we have as an organization, attracting businesses, retaining businesses, and being a powerhouse of economic activity.

When can we number two?

If I can comment on this too, those are some statistics that we'll include in our refreshed marketing material. And also, can't underscore enough Aram's comments too about safe and clean, how vitally important that is. And then also all the new housing development that community development is approving. Employers need employees and they need to be able to work, they need to be able to live somewhere close by.

Yeah, I think what I was alluding earlier about the online trending, that's a new trend, so we need to isolate and see what is trending and how can we benefit or make little change in our strategy, which way to go. If that online strategy we need to work with our business people to help them and see, Based on the data, how can we help them? If there's online trending is increasing, then we should work on that aspect and see how we can strategize and help them. Lots of industries that I know, especially auto industry, lots of orders are now online. So it'd be beneficial for us to see which way the sales are trending.

So if we can look into that way. Council Member, if I may, Ian Dilley, Finance Director. With respect to online sales, the city benefits quite well from those types of transactions. Anything that happens online through the Bradley Burns sort of sales tax allocation process, everything goes through what's called the county pool. And then based on the remaining point of sale percentages throughout the county, it's then proportionally distributed. So of all of the money that is, or all of the purchases that take place online in Los Angeles County, the city receives about 2.9% of that. So because we have strong anchors like the Del Amo Mall, that allows our percentage relative to the remainder of the county to be elevated. And so we receive a larger percentage of online sales as a result of that. Online sales tax has been quite strong for us over the last 12 months.

So if I purchase, if I'm a resident of Torrance and I purchase anything with the address of Long Beach, Long Beach would get benefit than Torrance. It bases on where the purchase is being ordered, the address of that purchase.

Mayor, Council, Ian Daly, Finance Director, with respect to Bradley Burns, it goes through the county pool. So no, it doesn't matter where you're receiving that good. WITH THE BRADLEY BURNS PORTION, IT FLOWS THROUGH THE COUNTY POOL. WITH MEASURE SST, THAT WOULD HOLD TRUE.

THEN WHY PEOPLE GO TO DIFFERENT COUNTY TO PURCHASE THEIR PRODUCTS?

THAT'S WHAT THEY DO. ORANGE COUNTY, LESSER TAX. MAYOR, COUNCIL, DIFFERENT COUNTY WOULD BE A DIFFERENT SITUATION. I'm referencing Long Beach all within Los Angeles County. It would all be subject to the Los Angeles County pool. All the money flows through there and then is proportionally distributed to local agencies based on point of sales relative to other municipalities.

All my request was to look at the trend. If we're increasing more purchase online or through the bricks and mortar so we can strategize accordingly.

Mayor, Council, I can speak not in specific percentages, but online sales has been strong quarter over quarter. In-person auto sales has actually been a little bit soft lately. But online sales, if looking at Q1 2026, it was our single largest growth category of our sales tax mix. All right. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Kartzonis.

Thank you, Mayor. And Fran, I just wanted to thank you. I've enjoyed our conversations regarding your goals going forward, and I want to thank you for being so responsive to my ideas and my requests. I know when I was in the back and you guys were having your hearings out here, I was asking for stuff and getting it while I was just hanging out back there. So I really appreciate that. Sort of piggybacking on what on what Councilmember Shaik had said regarding digital storefronts. I know we help with storefronts in our city, but, and this is probably a conversation to have offline, but is there a way that we can help as a city, digital footprints of some of our businesses, especially the commercial properties? I don't know if you have a response to that or if that's just something to talk about offline.

Yeah, I'd be glad to look into that further. I mean, it's funny because I remember years ago when people started to sell online, we were kind of like, oh, no. But now there's ways to actually be able to recoup some benefit from it. I think it's worth looking into and tracking.

Sure, and even beyond just selling online, just the ability for people to find our businesses, if we can help them be more attractive online, through search engine optimization or social media optimization or something, then it's a benefit to the city. The only other question I had was in regards to the passport program. Are we planning on doing that again?

We are. We're looking at probably doing it at the same time frame in the spring because we had heard from our restaurant businesses that that tends to be kind of be a time of lull in their business. So we're looking at doing that. maybe doing something where we focus on each district in the city and potentially adding retailers to the mix as well and not just restaurants. We are planning on bringing it back.

Great. More things like that I think would be fantastic. I don't know if we're already thinking about a version of it for major events, Super Bowl, Olympics, Paralympics. If there's a way to play on this theme with visitors coming to Torrance, then it might be worth thinking about.

Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I had a couple of comments, if I could, please. What an exciting time, Fran. Thank you so much for everything that you're doing. Could you share a little bit more about the office hours and all a business has to do is contact you and what do they have access to? Placer AI, things like that?

Yeah, so the two examples of the shopping centers that contacted us, the first one, actually both of them have done a really good job at having a good tenant mix, and they kind of have a good feel for their centers. But I think they wanted reaffirmation that they're doing the right thing. Are there some things that they're missing? And they actually reached out to the city to find out, do we have the right tenant mix? Are there things we could do better? And that's when we indicated we have this tool, Placer AI, that can really identify what the foot traffic is, even the demographics of the type of people, what time of day they're coming. how much time they spend there, where do they go before and after. So yes, I encourage really any business, property owner, if they're interested in that kind of information, then we can look at that specific address and the area around it and do this analysis through the tools that we have. And our team puts together this awesome package and a presentation. We invite them in and we go through it, just kind of a slideshow where we analyze the data that's there and kind of paint this picture of what they have, what are some of the possibilities, if they have any vacancies, if there's concern about bringing in another eating establishment, if there's limited parking, it can't be sit down, it can only be take out. So really get into the nitty gritty of things that might be really beneficial for their business. So yes, it would be great. We want to have more people come and schedule office hours.

And what is the price for that?

It's absolutely free.

Excellent. Just their time. Excellent. I'm excited to share that this council is very engaged in the community. They're out a lot. They're stopping in. They're visiting restaurants. They're doing selfies. I think that we should keep track of that because those are city visits that we're doing. So maybe we can create a little tool or something that we let you know that we visited them so we can just keep track.

That would be great. Jen and I were just having this conversation yesterday about tracking our activity more closely. So it'll help to report out. And I agree. And as Aram mentioned, also, the whole city is really an ambassador for the services that we offer. So that's great. We appreciate Mayor and Council's activity.

Mayor, I want to ask the City Manager, we can create a reference guide resource that you can actually take with you. Because every touchpoint should be a call to action.

Exactly.

So it's a white torrents hashtag. It's our if we're promoting a particular venture or our place or AI service or concierge service, or hey, if you ever think of expanding in your new location, please contact Office of Economic Development. And we also, we heard through our strategic plan survey that some of our businesses are not aware of the resources, so that's another area. And Mr. Corbin Carson's in the audience actively taking notes. Part of our communication strategy is We're focused on our residents and our visitors, but there's a huge business community that may not necessarily live in Torrance, but they transact, they come through Torrance, and we want to be able to capture. There shouldn't be a single person or business or visitor that doesn't know how to communicate with us or seek the resources that we're offering. So that'll be a commitment we're making, and that's one we'll measure into next year. And then we'd like to leverage all of you as ambassadors to be able to amplify that message.

Thank you, looking forward to that.

Can I interrupt and file my objections now? Because I really don't want to track that I went from the bakery to the ice cream shop to the dumpling restaurant. That could be problematic. To the brewery.

That could be problematic, I'm just saying. I think we need to track that. Um, economic development, the dashboards included in your presentation, I think are amazing. Should we make that shareable?

Is there a way online that we Yes, and we we have posted those in the past and archive them so we can make sure and we can also, again, through communications team, we can send that out to and share that via social media.

Or on our website on a dashboard under economic development and just update it. That would be great as well. And finally, I promise this is the last thing. Council Member Kartzonis and I had an opportunity to visit a research incubator that was amazing. And I know it's a real stretch, but I don't know if there's a... you know, a city office or something where a company that's just starting could rent a desk until they can get off the ground, or maybe they just rent a desk because they're an online, you know, provider that needs a dress and a place once in a while to meet a client.

We can certainly do that. We had sort of that concept with the South Bay Entrepreneurial Center a few years back, So it's definitely something we could bring back. And then also for the case of the Lundquist incubator, we definitely can create graduator space. So once they're incubated and they want to move, we want to bring them here to Torrance. So that would be a great idea. I love that. We should explore it more. Thank you.

Something to think about. Because it was fascinating. And to hear some of the businesses that just needed a little boost and became unstoppable.

Absolutely, thanks.

Thank you. Anyone else? Okay, I don't see anybody has clicked in. Is there a motion to concur with the recommendations of the city manager on item 10A?

Yes. Council Member Gerson. I move that we accept and file the economic development report.

Second. Start voting, please.

Council Member Barnett.

Council Member Barnett, did you vote?

Yeah, probably.

Your Honor, that vote passed unanimously.

Thank you. There are no agency agendas. Anything? Okay. We'll move on to oral communications number two then. This portion of the meeting is reserved for comments or items that are not on the agenda under the Ralph M. Brown Act. City Council cannot act on items raised during public comment but may respond briefly to statements made or questions posed, request clarification, or refer the item to staff. Speakers under orals are limited to either oral communications one or oral communications two. and no longer than three minutes per speaker. For in-person participant, time starts when you step up to the microphone. If presenting handout material to council, please provide 11 copies to the deputy city clerk before speaking. Handouts will be distributed while you speak. For remote participants, time starts when your number is called. I don't see anybody in the audience at this time, but if there is, please step up to the mic. I see no one. Do we have any member of the public that is on the line? Callers can press star nine to raise their hand. Staff, is anybody online that would like to speak?

Your Honor, we have one caller, but this caller has already spoken during oral communications number one, so they wouldn't be eligible to speak for oral communications number two.

Okay, thank you very much. So, now it's time to close public comments. It has ended, but we will return to the council in council order. Council Member Dr. Jeremy Gerson.

Okay, you want me to talk? Of all the cool stuff this week, I was visited by a friend of mine, Boy Scout Wally, and got to go on a tour. Don't wanna give last names, he's minor. Visited the chamber first, I quizzed him, and he was able to answer some complicated questions, and thanks to all the different offices, it got some cool stickers, and we went on a little scavenger hunt, sorry. The city attorney's office was vacant when we went through, but the city manager and the assistant city manager both spent some time. talking about their roles in the city, and we went into the third part, our part of the third floor, and just had a great time. So that was the most fun I had in the last week.

Thank you. Council Member Kartonis.

All right, thank you very much. It was a busy week, as usual. Mayor and Councilmember Shaik and I went to an LAEDC event at the Verizon Innovator space and ended up running into some Torrance business owners from Aura Seating there, so that was exciting. We took a tour and visited the treasurer's office There was a ribbon cutting for all yoga. I attended an event by the mayor, Council Member Shaik, and Council Member Liu regarding the seaside lights. I'll let you guys handle discussing that. A fantastic event by the Torrance Fire Department. The save event for a group of people that went above and beyond and ended up beating the odds and saving a life. A man's life. So that was fantastic to be there and recognize them. Torrance Employee Day was awesome. Staff did a fantastic job putting that together. I was just honored to have been invited. I had a lot of fun. My family had a lot of fun. It looked like everyone else was having a lot of fun. I'm pleased to see that all of the city director-level staff are able to still use your ice cream scooping arms after that long day out there. And Jai Ho was fantastic. And Councilmember Shaik and I ended up breaking some boards at an event that we went to go help support the World War II Camp Wall group. So it was a fun and busy week.

You forgot Sipa Japan? Oh my gosh, yeah.

I go through my pictures when I write down everything that I did. Sipa Japan, that was awesome. That was really, really fantastic. And had some sake, had some Japanese beer, had some tuna, which they actually... cut up and prepared on stage, which was really fantastic. And I was lucky enough to be last in line for the tuna because they gave away all the lean tuna at the beginning. So all the fatty tuna was at the end. So word to the wise for next year. Hopefully they come back, be last in line because you're going to get the top tier, the best tuna. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Thank you for that recap. Council Member Lewis.

I just want to wish Council Member Shaik a happy birthday. Thank you.

Council Member Luke.

Yes, hi. Thank you, Your Honor. Following up on what Councilmember Carcione said, several of us attended the Seaside Neighborhood Association general meeting on the Sleepy Hollow Holidays Lights Extravaganza, what's going to happen this year in December. Thank you very much to Community Development Director Michelle Ramirez, Assistant to the City Manager's Office, Jamie Lee and Police Chief Bob Dunn, along with many other officers there to tell the community what's going to happen. Many thanks to our Community Enrichment Chair Committee, Chair of the Community Enrichment Committee, Council Member Assam Shaikh for being there and telling and conducting the meeting about the seaside ordinance. And please let us know some more during your orals. And then second thing is I also want to thank staff for soliciting comments from our Torrance community in regards to the hillside overlay ordinance on our website. You made it very easy for our Torrance residents to submit in their comments. about what they think or how they think we can further improve our hillside overlay ordinance. Many people participated and submitted in their comments. I believe the last day was yesterday. It's been online for quite a while. And so I know that staff is now analyzing the comments and researching various modifications to the hillside overlay ordinance. overlay ordinance that I'm so passionate about. I really look forward to seeing the proposal from staff to strengthen this ordinance. And thank you all for your work on this important issue to our residents. That's it, Your Honor.

Thank you. Council Member Barnett.

Thank you, Your Honor. Well, first of all, I attended the Historical Society. This year had late nights, and this was the last one that they had for the year. And our former city manager, Leroy Jackson, was doing a presentation of Wilson Park. So it was really very interesting. It was nice to see that people showed up for that and to hear what he had to say, our historian himself. Also, I attended the... torrance employee family picnic which was absolutely awesome um i can relate many many many years ago they used to have a employee picnic and i was kind of laughing about it because it was held at wilson park and i think everyone bought it brought a dish to share and so this was just unbelievable i want to thank staff you guys did a lot of work And for everyone that participated in preparing and setting up and putting everything together and creating the different bags that went out to everyone, I mean, that's a lot of work, and I want to say thank you very much. I think it was well attended. I think everyone had a good time, and I think it's awesome that we're doing that. The last one I attended was Jai Ho, and it was the Indian Independence Day celebration, and it's of course the first one I've ever been to, and I just think that it was just a lot of fun. They had a lot of performances, they had booths there. All the people were very friendly and nice, and I have to tell you, the costumes or what they wear is very, very beautiful and vibrant, and just what they performed was really nice, and I really, really did enjoy myself there. So those are the three that I intended this week. Thank you. Council Member Schick, happy birthday.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, thank you. Feel like 25 again. Yeah, it was a busy week. I think we visited a lot of different areas, including ribbon-cutting for yoga. I also had a chance to attend Rancho Palos Verdes State of the City. That was a wonderful event. Obviously, the best one was the Save Recognition event. Also had an opportunity to participate attend the employee family picnic, absolutely wonderful event. I think I ate twice or three times the burgers. That was fun. Sip of Japan, visited Tanaka Farm in Irvine, and also attended the Cal City's Advancing Equity Advisory Committee meeting, and couple other events, but it was a busy week. Thank you.

Thank you, and it was a busy week for me as well. I made it to all of those except the Historic Society and Tanaka Farms. But it's really a great opportunity to just see everything that's happening in our city. It is really amazing. So we are gonna go back into closed session at 10.25, and we'll be back to close the meeting as soon as we can. Thanks, good night, everyone.

Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

So,

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All right, we'll now reconvene our City Council meeting at 12.12 a.m. Good morning. As we conclude today's meeting, I want to say happy birthday one more time. It's actually your birthday right now, so happy birthday, Council Member Assange John Shea. Thank you to everyone who actively participated and stayed interested and informed. I'll take a motion to adjourn.

I would make a motion to adjourn this meeting to Tuesday, September 15th with 5 o'clock as an exec session and 6.30 at regular council meeting.

Push the button. I'm trying to push second. There we go.

Start voting, please. Your Honor, that motion carried unanimously.

I know. I got to go home.

Thank you. Good night.