Planning Commission - Special Meeting

You you work on the fire. Is this installed or Uh yeah, I just I have I used I use this notebook LM and I put the the documents in there and then I just do queries and then I edit it query again. So I so I wanted to do a comparison because they're asking us today, you know, which document and then I also did usability. So at the end there's a usability comparison. Okay. So yes, no. Okay. No, she's she's having a medical procedure or something, which I don't I hope it's not a big deal, but

Did you get my email? Yeah, I'm going to just read when I Did you Did you get my email about the They sent me a link to pay for the Yeah. So, just check your email. You'll see it. cuz the the submittal's complete. Just have to pay. [laughter] You have to pay.

No, just means we're submitted. That's all it means. Just officially start the the review process. you know, they [clears throat] don't uh they got they got a few hurdles just to submit.

Okay. [laughter] Anna, do you want to wait for Jake or [clears throat]

you ready to go? Okay, I'm going to call the special meeting of the planning commission to order. Can we have a roll call, please? Commissioner Alborn here. Commissioner Allen here. Commissioner Cara Pekco here. Chair Le Page here. And Commissioner Walk is absent.

Okay. Uh first item uh the public appearances. Any members of the public can speak to the planning commission at this time about any matters which are not on our agenda today? Um, anybody any uh come forward? This is this is about items which are not on our agenda today. I don't know if this is on Okay. Well, we'll come on up. We'll we'll we'll let you know. Hi. Good afternoon, guys. Um, my name is Ranata Perry. Um, I'm sorry. Slow it down a bit more. Is that better? Thank you. Thank you.

Rewind my time. Um, my husband, Frank, and I are full-time residents at Carmel by the Sea, and I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Uh we strongly urge the city to adopt the 0 to5 foot defensible space standard regardless of whether the state mandates it because our geography and top topography are unique uh especially when compared to other areas in California. And furthermore, it's common sense. A large section of our community lies within a WOOI zone, and our area has been recently classified, reclassified, as a very high fire hazard severity zone. This reclassification will increase building regulations, defensible space requirements, and unfortunately, insurance challenges for homeowners. uh why not be proactive instead of reactive or simply compliant with the state? Given these realities, it's difficult to reconcile some of the existing practices with modern safety standards. From our own experiences and observation and given the close proximity of our homes, materials such as cedar shaped roofs, wood fencing, bark chips, and planting of large trees close to structures can significant significantly increase the fire risk. While these features may align with the Carmel's historic aesthetics, they can conflict with today's fire mitigation science. We understand that the city currently allows bare earth within the 0 to 5 ft defensible space. However, bare dirt can appear uninviting, barren, and poorly maintained, potentially affecting neighborhood appeal and property values. Carmemell is a community built on pride of ownership and thoughtful design. Fire

safety and beauty should not be mutually exclusive. The city allows pavers, but only within very strict lot coverage guidelines. We respectfully propose that allowances be granted for lot coverage when used specifically for not only fire medi uh mit mitigation, but for safety and aesthetics. This is especially important for properties with shared driveways and for those that have proper drainage systems and rainwater collection mitigation measures in place. Homeowners in high-risk wooi areas should not be penalized for choosing safer fire resistant materials. Adopting practical fires safe design flexibility would demonstrate that coral is proactive rather than reactive. It would help protect lives, preserve property, maintain insurability, and uphold the charm and pride that define our community. We respectively ask the commission to prioritize fire safety within the design guidelines and to provide reasonable common sense, flexibility that supports defensible space compliance within without compromising neighborhood character. Thank you so much for your time and consideration. Okay. Uh that's it's kind of related to what we'll be talking about tonight. So when when open up to the public, you may want to give your opinion as to whether you feel the uh the draft document addresses the fire safety enough. So I just want to let you know that.

Okay. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you for your comments. Okay. Anyone else in the chamber like to make a comment on anything which is not on our agenda tonight? Don't see any hands going up? No, sir. Okay. Um I'm assuming we don't have any announcements. So that will bring us to the public hearing. So tonight we're going to be receiving a uh presentation on the design traditions 1.5. Can we have the staff report, please?

Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to I'm going to join you this evening. Um as I've been a part of this project since the beginning. Um I'm going to get my presentation up here for you. We're still doing the two two screen mambo here. Hold on just one second. There we go. All right. Excellent. Okay. So, as I mentioned, we are here to talk about the design traditions 1.5 project. Um what we're here for is the city council uh got the same presentation that this commission did recently uh and requested us to return to the planning commission to receive your direction and preference on the nor essentially the Nory winter draft version versus the the version that was created through the steering committee efforts over a couple of years focused primarily primarily on the usability and functionality for the planning commission as one of the main bodies. uh that uses the design guidelines to render decisions on projects within the city. Uh following tonight's meeting, we will we will be returning to the city council for their March meeting to report back on your direction um and then take take direction from them moving forward. Uh, one note that's that's important is while we are certainly uh will collect and take any comments that we received tonight on the content of the design guidelines, the the big ask from the the city council was which version uh would the would the planning commission see as a more functional and usable version for them uh in the future being used as as design guidelines. So, that's the most important question to be answered this evening. Um, but we can certainly take more feedback than that. I'm going to go really quickly through this. You've seen this before. Project background. We started in March of 2022. We hired a consultant. Uh we had a steering committee that was appointed. We had a number of workshops. There was a

strategy paper. Uh then we began drafting. There was a a draft version prepared uh by our consultant Noria Winter that came out in February 2023. Uh the steering committee uh reacted to that and reorganized and create a revised version. the steering committee version that was organized under the core principles intended to be more user friendly, less redundant, fewer pages. Uh so then Mar from March of 23 to November of 2025, that version was drafted and refined. Um in November of 2025, this is we're getting to present day now. In November 2025, we came to this body as well as the city council and presented the draft and its current the forum at the time um to update both bodies and and get any feedback there. As I mentioned, the council directed us to come back to the planning commission and get feedback on which draft uh would be more usable for them with a caveat that what needed to happen was is that the current draft of the steering committee version needed to be brought to a more applesto apples format. That was a term that they used meaning that we had pictures that weren't shown yet. There were sections of the overall design package like an index, uh some hyperlinks, uh other other things that we'll go through in this presentation that didn't exist. So it wasn't really a fair comparison at the point to be able to decide which version would be more usable. Um and so we're back now with that that version. So we spent about a month month and a half with a small work group non- brown act body uh creating that apples to apples version. It included staff members of the planning commission members of the steering committee and and some members of the public who had special technical abilities and taking photographs uh because that was one of our charges was to put good photographs in there. So, we had a a nice crisp work group um that that worked on this over over a month and a half period. Uh some of the highlights you'll remember from the updated draft guidelines. We all know we all know what the Nory winter version uh

looks like. It functioned much like our original guidelines with some additional um information in the margins uh and additional explanations. The updated draft guidelines prepared by the steering committee were organized under six core principles that you see are there on your screen. Was a reduced page count. Uh reduced the number of photographs. Uh we uh restructured so that you could find specific topics via index uh hyperlinks and some of the supporting sections were revised as well. So quick recap of apples to apples work that was done and then I'm going to go through and show you some examples. Um the formatting was re was revised to be more intuitive meaning there's indexes and and and glosseries. Um there also was an eye to not making it so visually starkly different from our existing guidelines so that there was a bit of a visual cue to the original ones. uh the navigability of the document was was enhanced u by filling out the table of contents more creating some keys creating that index and actually creating hyperlinks which you would have seen in the online version and I will demonstrate here on the screen at the end of my towards the end of my presentation uh there were narratives added to each of the core principle header sections as you get to a chapter there's the core principle and there was a little bit of an explanation added to each of these uh which was feedback that we got from the planning commission oops, too far. Uh, the process section of the design guidelines was also updated. We added that narrative application form that we'll show you uh which which requires applicants to explain how they meet the guidelines and also added a process flowchart which again exists in the nori uh the flowchart does existed in the nori winters version but it didn't exist in the draft uh steering committee version. So again, apples to apples trying to make it a full document so you can make a real comparison about how it might be used in real life. And then of course, as I mentioned, this version that you have now has photographs where the one

before just had gray boxes with TBD in it. Um, so really quickly, I'm just going to go through some of these things that I highlighted. This talks about this is an an example of the look and feel. Uh, we we brought back some of the the imagery, the feeling of the existing guidelines, uh, while still making it look and feel new. Um, but this way people wouldn't feel so disconnected uh from what they're so used to seeing. Uh, we added some keys. Um, the image symbols. This was this was new. Uh, the the check marks and the X marks. And especially what's new is the I guess the the minus mark. This is meant to be more of a neutral. And these were I'll get to these in a minute, but we added keys. So, you could see what those are. We also in our in our links we used uh we used acronyms for talking about where we were linking out to from the document. So for example, if there was a general plan reference uh we would use GP and so you would know what section of the general plan the the reason this exists this way for now at least is that there's only a few of our documents that exist. Our municipal code you can link directly to a section of the municipal code. The general plan you can only link to a chapter or an element of the of the general plan. So we wanted to find a way to be able to point people so we can say GP and then give them the policy number. Uh so any the keys were meant to help with the navigability. Uh this was what I mentioned earlier about the core principles being explained. Uh you can see where there's a background on the core principle and where it falls in the process. This again was a way to help people understand uh how to navigate the document and how it relates to the overall process. This is something that the Nory winter version and our existing version does do. It talks about where you're at in the process. you know, phase one, phase two, those kind of things. We did we thought that it in order to have an apples to apples comparison, we would do that here. Another note, just so you can tell, uh the blue the blue text is where text was added. You probably noticed this when you were going through the draft online.

Uh another new section here, this is something that came out of the planning commission is a fire alert, making the entire document fire aware. This happens very early on in the document. Um there was some conversation about creating a whole new core principle, but where where our little our our work group landed on based on the feedback from this planning commission and the city council was to make the document fire aware so that as you're going through the whole document, you know that everything you do, you need to keep an eye and a mind towards fire awareness. Um there is some yellow text throughout the document which you probably noticed. These are suggested omissions. Basically, they're non-guidelines. And so when we were going through, we realized and these all remained. Nothing was taken out. But we wanted to highlight for the planning commission when we come back through next time um whatever version we're we're working with, we're going to have to do some more work on the on the language. And we did recognize as a group that there are some things that really aren't guidelines. They're more process things that don't necessarily need to be in the guideline section. They should be somewhere else in the process. So again, we left these in here. We don't have to spend a lot of time talking about it, but if you were wondering what the yellow text was, that's what that was. As I mentioned, we added this sort of like neutral yellow box along the way. And what this is is is essentially a condition preference. So, a green check mark, that's obviously a yes. A red X is obviously a no. But a yellow uh neutral sign is meant to indicate that okay, if you can't meet the the best example of what a guideline says and you have to be somewhere in the middle, then this is how you would do it. But it's still not the the guidelines first preference. So as you can see here, the first preference is to avoid changes in grading at all. Uh if if the transitions are unavoidable, you're in that sort of conditional area. If the transitions are unavoidable, then use a slope planted area. And that's what the diagram on the right is is illustrating. It's not a it's not a straight preference because

we would prefer you don't have to do that at all, but if you have to, this is how you would do it. So that's what the yellow neutral sign is meant to indicate. And again, that shows up in the key earlier that I mentioned. Uh we added process documents uh to this. The big one is this new concept of the narrative uh document that I'm sure you saw, but on the left hand side of your screen here, it's just one example. The notion is that when you come in to apply for a project, you have an a form that has all six of the core principles, it writes them out, it summarizes them, and it asks you as the applicant to describe how your project is going to address this principle. Uh you probably noticed also in the attachment, the full attachment that there is a supplemental sheet that allows people to include visuals because this is a visual medium of course. Uh so that's the first process document that was added. And then just like in the Nory winter in our existing version, we brought in uh a flowchart. This is only part of it, but so you can see it walks people through the different steps uh from site assessment to concept review to final review. As I mentioned, we included an index. This is now how you would navigate through the document. Um through all the meetings we've had, the windows came up a lot and so that's why I took this screenshot specifically. You can see Windows if you want to if you want to find out anything about Windows, those are the pages that you can reference and these will all of course be hyperl as well. Speaking of hyperlinks, uh we went throughout the document and admittedly we didn't in the you know month that we had to do this project to get it back to you for an apples to apples comparison. We did not do an exhaustive uh exhaustive push through the document to get everything hyperl, but this is an example of what it looks like. Uh so you can see MC is municipal code. Um and then in the next uh what I'd like to do here is just pause for a second and show you real time how this works. So I'm going to do this and then I'm going to go to here. And so this is this is the document again. So you would scroll

through uh we have hyperlinks within the document that allow you to go to different sections of the document. But then also I probably went too far there. Just a brief example. We all understand how hyperlinks work, but I do think it's important to show you in real time. So, for example, we have uh a link to anytime it's underlined uh it takes you to outside source. California WOI code is referenced here. You would know that that's a hyperlink and it takes you straight there. Um so as I mentioned we didn't do an exhaustive dive on this. We just didn't have time for that. But the idea is that we will go through uh and do the entire document including linking to documents like preliminary site assessment forms um land use codes. We have links to the general plan and of course you know directly to sections of the municipal code which fortunately has links directly to the code. Um, so that's that. Oh, and of course my PowerPoint doesn't start right where I left off. Forgive me, please. Hyperlinks we talked about. So, that gets us to what we need tonight. I've already said it once, but I'm going to say it again. uh city council sent us back here, asked us to do this apples to apples work that I just shared with you so that the planning commission can do a fair comparison between the Nory winter draft version and the steering committee version and provide feedback to the council. They specifically would like the commission to ask answer the question which version will be more usable, more functionable for you as a planning commission who has to render decisions on development projects within the city and then we will take that feedback uh back to council in March for their meeting. Um before I go on to the next thing, I do want to take a minute to thank everybody who was involved in

this overall project for the last multiple years and then even this last push here. Of course, our steering committee members, three of whom are here this evening. um one is at home um and not able to join us this evening. And uh this is the first public meeting we've had I believe uh since our friend and colleague Don Good who passed. So I want to acknowledge him and thank thank for all the work that he did as well. We did adjourn one of the more recent city council meetings in his memory. But I think it's important to to mention him in this um just all the work that he put into this and all the years of dedication that he gave to this city. So thank you to all of our steering committee members who are here in one form or another. Uh thank you to our community who who came out and participated in this over and over and over again. Thank you to our wonderful planning staff, the city council, and of course this planning commission uh for all your feedback and hard work along the way. Uh, I also want to give a shout out to the folks that helped with this workg group recently, Ian Martin who's here, uh, Eric Dyer, who I believe is joining us via Zoom, uh, commissioners Leage and Lock who gave their own time during the weeks to do this. And of course, uh, Victoria and Doug who are here from the steering committee along with Hannah and Jake as well who all gave their time. Um, it [clears throat] it was a it was a good push. We worked very hard for a month and got a lot done. Um so with that in mind talking about the committee before I end my presentation because this is not has not been a solo endeavor by any means I just wanted to give an opportunity if there's any members of the steering committee who are here who would like to speak on the current draft uh their preferences their thoughts that they'd like to give to you um outside of sort of the public comment as part of our our staff presentation. So, I'll look to my committee members and see I see the chair of the steering committee getting up right now uh Victoria Beach um to offer some thoughts.

Thanks, Brandon.

Thank you. terrific um presentation and um I I'm bearing um a message from our absent uh member uh Melanie Billig who told me it was okay to say that she is at home on medical with medical issues and is really regretful that she couldn't make it. and she she told me all the things she wanted to say and I'm not going to do it justice, but I'll just just for if you'll indulge me for one moment, she wanted to be very clear that she supports this document and the reasons that she supports it and this is her, not me, although I agree with a lot of what she's saying, but just to be clear, is that um she feels that the um she was on the first steering committee, if you can believe it, more than 25 years ago. And um she had a sort of front row view, I guess, to how it was to work with our consultant then versus now. And I know this isn't the most cheery news, but she was very struck by how different the two interactions were, bringing the gentleman out of retirement for this one versus whatever was going on in his career then. and she wanted me to make clear to you that that's why she felt so um devoted to getting the public input and the steering committee input and the planning commission input and trying to um make something more out of what we received from the consultant. Um, she also wanted me to say that uh the she thinks one of the big pushes for from the public and this is something we heard over and over again when through the Nory gatherings but also through other gatherings with the public was to try to make this thing easier to enforce for everybody who's concerned whether it's applicants trying to decipher what

they're trying to do and for what you all trying to decipher how to apply the principles and So that's a lot of the genesis for how we ended up reformatting and as um and then I then shifting away from that to a comment I have. I want to thank Mel again for doing the analysis that we tried to stick to and I think she indicates that we did of not tinkering too much if at all with the principles that we have brought forward for 25 years through this process and to stick to that usability accessibility um desire and so I think and I don't want to misquote you Mel but I think you had done this comparison of documents and found that over you know the mid 90s percent was basically original language and rephrased maybe. But I did want to take an opportunity to just um in our rush and I know this is not the topic but just in our rush to produce this for you today um it occurred to me literally on my way over here that we didn't highlight for you those spots that we did change that remaining five or 6% um and I think there are five spots um and I'll just list them for you 2.5 4.2 22, 4.32, 4.4, and 5.45. And I will tell you briefly what those are just in case you're curious. Mostly we were making shifts that are slightly they have content implications, but they were for clarification. So in the first one, the fences issue, which I comes up all the time, I'm told, um, we wanted to clarify that the the push is supposed to be for continuous forest. um and that that's hopefully the default for people, but there are other options like fences and garden walls and things like that. So, we wanted to give the a structure to that. So, you'll see in the guidelines when we get to that that the first choice kind of like what Brandon showed you about the slope. First choice

is natural slope. First choice is natural forest in your front yard going into the street. Second choice is if you can't do that for some reason, there's something about your site or maybe a pets or whatever, then here's how how you have to do a fence. And we so we tiered it. That's a change I would argue. Um, but it's really a clarification. It's with the spirit of what was intended by the first document. Secondly, uh, on 42.2, we're talking about just I think we added some language again to clarify the quality of materials you should use. So historic architecture, we don't have to worry about it too much. They used real, you know, barrel tile roofs for mission style things. And so we wanted to just rephrase that in such a way that it was clear that we still want to have that level of quality if no matter what type of language of architecture you're using, try to use original type materials with sort of hefty solid feel to them. So that's clarified in 4.2.2. I don't think that was explicit in the original document. We added a clarification on metal roofs because we felt like first of all that's not addressed at all really and you guys are dealing with that all the time. So in 4.3.2 we try to make explicit what our recommendation is for that. Um and there's another clarification on glass the use of glass in 5.4.5. We're trying to make really clear to be sure you're using glass that's appropriate for the style of the architecture. So, if you're doing a mission sty, it's easiest to pick on mission style. If you're doing a mission style building, it's supposed to have small openings. Why? Because it's a stacked adobe or brick construction. It can't have huge spans unless there's a piece of lumber we can see spanning. So, we're trying to get people to understand the authenticity of the style. And I would say them those are all clarifications that have slight content implications. And the only other one

that I could find on my way over here literally was 4.4, four, which really was an update that we felt was necessary about materials. How do we handle all these new materials coming at us all the time? And that's only going to be more and more, I'm sure, happening more and more in the future. And we just were trying to um guide ourselves as a community into sort of a really easy um authenticity approach for that. So, that's all I'll say that. I'm sorry that was so long. Um, and I would certainly like to just say that I lend my support to this document. I think it's come a long way thanks to the recent collaboration um, especially on this push and I have to say the deadline that the council set for us. I know it was sounded so brutal, but it really lit a fire and um, I thought that was kind of fun, frankly. Um, so, um, happy to talk more about that later, but thank you so much for listening to that. And I I I think I should invite Doug and Maryanne to say what they feel about whether they support this document or not. I think that Brandon asked me to do that and or asked for that to happen. So, since we have two steering committee members here, they're so demure. You wouldn't think that they were as feisty as they are in our meetings.

If you look at the city as a stool, a three-legged stool, they're really three supports. One's the general plan. Second is the zoning code. And in a community like Carmel, the design guidelines are the third. That's the importance of this document. And just like the zoning code needs to be consistent with the general plan, this document needs to be consistent with the general plan and with the zoning code. So I wholeheartedly [clears throat] support the effort that the staff and the committee has put forward to bring this to you and hopefully onto the council.

Thank you, Doug. So then I just want to support what doctor just said. It's a really important document. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Marian. Okay. So Bran, you feel like that? Yeah, thank you. I just And so that that concludes my presentation which which included some some feedback from your from the steering committee. Um so with that I and the steering committee members are available for questions from the planning commission before you hear from the public sir.

Okay. Questions for uh staff for the steering committee members go for Mr. Albert. Thank you chair. Um Mr. Swanson, you mentioned uh in your first slide um content will be addressed following council direction, right? Yes.

And um does that mean one of my notes coming into the meeting? Um I I was I was one and I apologize. I only had a quick look at the document uh late this afternoon. So um I do apologize for that. Um, but I was wondering if there might be a a list or a matrix of the changes, uh, deletions and edits and additions. I'm I'm I'm accustomed to updating a regulatory document where you begin with the legal version and then you look at each

piece [clears throat] and then you have a notation about whether it's staying as is or it's being deleted or it's being changed and so on. Um is that what part of what you're considering for the content will be addressed after council direction? Yeah. So that's it's a wonderful question. We've talked about that a lot even in our in our steering committees. Um, and so what you're the draft the steering committee draft right now that that didn't have like its own predecessor. So there's no there's no matrix for for this version the steering committee version but there Oh, sure it did. Well, there we use now.

I know that's that's where I was going with that though is that so from from the version you saw of this steering committee draft like two months ago to this one now the changes are noted in blue text in this one. But what we will be doing we need to do is uh doing that matrix change because ultimately when whatever we take forward to adopt by the coastal commission they will require that as well and we should have it for ourselves when we start going through the adoption phase. Um, well, we don't h we don't have it right now. Um, just because of the the the way we went through uh admittedly the way we went through uh creating this revised draft. Um, we didn't we didn't set it up early enough. Um, but we can do it and we will do it. But the reason I have that note there at the bottom about content will be addressed following the council direction is the council sent us back with kind of like one primary question was format functionality. which one does the planning commission prefer? Um, so that's that's what that that note at the bottom is is generally about, but to your question, we will also do what you're talking about. That's going to be a very important part of it, too.

So, council is asking for comments about format and function. The the black and white sort of easy way to ask the question is, you're planning commissioner. Which one of the two versions would you prefer to use to do your job? I see. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I I have a question. Question. Go ahead, Commissioner. Um, so should should we So when the steering committee created this version, did the steering committee use the existing design guideline or they started with the Noro Winters version and added that?

They um I think we used the existing, but they're they're all the same. Uh so the Nory winter version didn't have necessarily new guidelines either. We used the existing again. remember it was a 1.5 project so it wasn't writing new guidelines it was reorganizing restructuring so uh it might be 61 half a dozen and the other to that question but the the version uh the steering committee version used existing guideline language and then um there were some some small modifications like Victoria mentioned in her her her uh comment but um those those were all marked up um so we know what we what we changed from that language

but no contradictions between the two. They that they have the same messages. It's just that uh the Nora Winters version is the shorter one and the steering committee version is the expanded one with more clarifications other way around. So the the Nory winter version was longer because it said the same thing in multiple places. Okay. And so you would see you would see guidelines repeated in different sections of the Nory winter version. Okay. Yeah.

All right. Okay. Any other questions for staff? All right. Okay. Uh at this time, I'm going to open up to the public for public comments. Anybody from the public can address the planning commission at this time with their comments. Hello. Excuse [clears throat] me. Hello. I'm Kevin Roose. Um, I'd like to thank the steering committee and staff for the level of effort apparent in this document. Um, bringing it to its current state. I read through these guidelines a number of times a few years back when we did a project and I read them again earlier this year and late last year out of interest. Um, I do want to say um, and this follows from a comment someone made earlier that I applaud the occlusion the inclusion of fire hardening criteria um, in the guidelines. It needs to be understood that these considerations, especially as codified in official documents, superior to anything this city can produce, will rule whenever there's a conflict. I'd like to see a core principle identified in this document that states how the guidelines can never override a superior document that may be obvious to uh legislative bodies. Um I don't know that it's obvious to the public or to people who are filing applications with the city. I'm not talking about the professional architects and developers, just people doing a remodel project. Um, the description of the track 2 process, I'm just bouncing around a little bit here, seems to say that the planning department has a whole year to formally respond to an applicant. I'm not sure if I read that right, but that's what it seemed like to me. There was a year to respond after the initial survey. Um, hopefully I read that wrong, but that seems insanely long to me. Um I also have a general observation and this this partly comes from the experience we had doing a project. Um which is that the guidelines in the process seem designed to make it hard to do things in Carmel.

Um I'm personally conflicted as to whether this is a plus or a minus. Um, but it's hard to escape the conclusion that trying to remodel or build something in Carmemell seems to inevitably encounter a baked in ethos that discourages anything that doesn't conform to a very narrow set of requirements. It's almost as if we've intentionally created an ownorous HOA um which doesn't strike me as the way a city should be. Um, this isn't a walled gated community. Um, so we have a long history here of supporting the arts and there are many important houses and buildings that represented substantial departures from traditional architecture. Uh, let's make sure we leave room for celebrating innovation, realizing appropriate structures may look very different from anything seen before. Um, I'm a fan of some of the very innovative stuff we've seen around here over the last few years. Honestly, I would like to see more of it. Um, let's see. Also, um I was happy to see the inclusion of the metal roof standards. Um I'm puzzled that what strikes me as a random um exclusion of one type of metal roof. I'm puzzled by that because it makes no sense to me. I'm not sure why one type of metal roof is is okay and another kind isn't. Um uh again, I know I'm bouncing around here. So, the document calls for enhancing the forest as a core principle. I think this is um but the word enhancing suggests more rather than better. And um I'm going to suggest and this is this may get lynched on my way out the door. I'm going to suggest that we have enough trees here. I do not think we need more. Um let's take good care of them. Let's replace them when when one dies or falls or if one gets taken out to accommodate a project, put another one in. I don't feel like we need more trees. Um anyway, um I do want to acknowledge that

I generally like the guidelines. I don't want to couch these as complaints. I think it's a very useful document that that identifies what the ethos of this town is and encourages people to stay within um for the most part a pretty reasonable space when you do a project in this town. Um and I'm really just providing input because that was the purpose of this meeting. So, thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Ian Martin. I'm a resident. Um, and uh, I wanted to just complement the herculean effort that the steering committee undertook with a great support of staff and including yourself and uh, Stephanie Lockach, Chair La Page. Um, to me this is a no-brainer. I mean, you you have a uh the a choice between uh a consultant who does not live here and uh a product created by people who live here full-time uh or are live, you know, nearby, right? Um and having local knowledge that you live in a moment by moment, you know, uh dayby-day basis can give you insights that you simply cannot get if you live somewhere else. I mean there's a reason why U5 planning commissioners are required to live inside the municipality because I think the unspoken expectation is that it gives you a deep familiarity with the community and I think that that applies here to this uh these design guidelines, right, which is as uh Doug pointed out one of the most consequential documents shaping the look and the feel of Carmel by the Sea. And so having people who are not only full-time residents but also professional architects, some of them who have uh served in government be it Doug Schmidz, former city administrator, uh Victoria Beachch who was a uh former mayor prom uh Don Good Hugh and you know who we we all miss. Um he's a on the planning commission and of course a

brilliant architect and uh Melanie Billig of course uh was heavily involved uh and is heavily involved in this community and Marian Chicatons has created remarkable contributions to the architectural context of our village and the surrounding area. So these people all live and breathe Carmemell by the Sea and they have a familiarity with it that has shaped this document um in ways that are profound and deeply meaningful and help guide the f the future of this village but also keep it rooted in its past and that's why we call it uh traditions. So uh thank you for your consideration this evening.

Thank you Ian. Good evening, Chair Leage, members of the commission. I'm Adam Jesselnik, local architect. Um, admittedly, I'm a little bit late to this party and to the as to the design guidelines. I've been following the progress over the last number of years, but in part have not um been directly involved um just because knowing the folks who were involved and um trusting their uh careful deliberation and uh considerable amount of effort that that has been spent um in updating these guidelines. Um as you know, I've uh lived and worked here for a number of years. Um designed a lot of houses in the village. I think to me what really stands out about the effort of the steering committee is that [snorts] the way that the guidelines are presented to me is very intuitive. You know, it has the these core principles that we'll be looking to see in every project. Um, and then as you go through the document, the principles that are listed under those core uh principles are subordinate to them. So to me, it does seem very intuitive. Um it seems uh in my read through of the latest draft very clear um and uh I think that it's going to be a really great tool um for the people who are responsible for designing and building houses in this community for a long time. So, I just want to applaud the efforts of the committee and and lend my support to to their version um because I do think it is uh so important that it's rooted out of uh the efforts of people who live and work here and have known the community for a long time. Um with all that said, I did just want to bring up a couple of things that I noticed that are really minor, but since we have this form, I thought I'd I'd bring them up. Um,

to me this is just a formatting thing, but the way that the document reads right now, um, there are images and then the the language that's associated with the images below it. I think that that should be reversed. Um, it seems strange to me. Usually, you would have the text and then the images follow below it. So, uh, that's just my personal preference. I don't know if that's something that could be looked at. Um, in terms of the diagrams themselves, you know, this was always something that I think a lot of the people me and my colleagues would chuckle about because the the diagrams were in some cases of the of the current guidelines a little bit rudimentary uh maybe not that illustrative of particular site conditions. So, I think that the new diagrams are better. I did notice that there are fewer of them and they're also very small. So from a again from just a formatting uh standpoint, I would try to make those diagrams bigger. A lot of times we're looking at stuff now on our phones or our tablets. So um you know I don't think the page count really matters. I just think the readability of those diagrams could be improved. Um and in some cases maybe you know diagrams added back in or updated um where appropriate. Um, the last thing that I'll mention is, uh, as you've heard from a number of other people, it has to do with the fire hardening. Um, I think it it's great to have, uh, sort of set the tone at the beginning of the document and point out that fire awareness is something that should be a part of of everything that's built here. Um, but I think it falls apart a little bit in individual guidelines that are listed. Um, and I'll just mention one specifically that I know you've heard a lot about, you know, as it relates to site coverage, um, and, you know, the 0 to5 distance around the house. You know, what are appropriate, um, site material, site coverage materials, um, and then how that relates to the trees and the landscape as well.

So, um, I think there could be a little bit more work done on that. Um, I think that where there's opportunities, um, like, uh, Kevin mentioned, you know, just to tie back to what the state code and regulations say or, [clears throat] um, I think that that would be helpful. Um, just to have that as sort of a guiding uh, principle. Um, so that we're all doing our part to help make the the community more fire resistant and sustainable for the future. Um, that was all I had to say. Thank you. Thank you, Adam. [snorts] Okay. Uh, any hands up online, Shelby? Yes.

Yes, we have Eric Dyer. Eric Dyer.

Uh, Eric, go ahead. Thank you, Charlie Page. My name's Eric Dyer, architect in town. Um, I just wanted to say I've seen a lot of progress made since the council meeting in January. I think it was really huge having the two most senior planning commissioners, Chair Le Page and Commissioner Lockach, taking part as well as Victoria Beach and Doug Schmidt representing the steering committee and of course having Brandon, Anna and Jake to provide leadership and staff support. I really think that turned into a really good team and then I have to additionally say having the proono professional services photography services of Ian Martin was really important contribution. Um I think what you have in the latest draft is a solid base and format to begin the finalizing of the guidelines update. Um, with this draft completed, the project can move to the next stage, which I think is just really dealing with the fine print of the content so that it's really well coordinated, made more clear and consistent and consistent, you know, internally to itself. Um, maybe a little more as Adam was talking about with fire resilience guidelines as well as all other policies and foundational governing documents in the city. As I said at the council meeting in in January, I do feel this format prioritizes and emphasizes the core principles which I really think is important. I'm afraid the lack of fidelity to these guidelines or principles um is really what creates some of the more problematic projects we've seen in town. And I think emphasizing them along with the new proposed narrative which has the applicants describe you know how the project complies with each of those principles will really keep them front of mind for the designers um for the very beginning of the design process and

I believe the result will be a more successful projects for the village. Um, another important point I guess because I I heard you know the council kind of wants to understand um how the planning commission uh uses and and uh how it how it deals with the document. Um I just would like to say there's you know obviously multiple audiences for it and I would argue the most important would be the applicants and designers who use it because they're the ones that have to apply it. Um, of course, the planning commission is is crucially important for them to be able to interpret that and make judgments on those projects. So, while I do support this overall format of the draft, I absolutely think there is more work to be done on the contents itself. It mainly deals again with bringing more clarity and eliminating contradictions. Um, for example, I just mentioned the issue of of windows and glass and the scale of that uh used in traditional buildings versus modern styles. I think could be made more clear. Um and then also maybe a little more emphasis which I think is shown in the original document about the importance of diversity and creativity in Carmel. Um I little things like I I keeping a clear separation between the workflow process which is going to be uh you know part of this as a as a chart and another description but making a distinction between that and the guidelines themselves. So, I think there's some edits to be done on that. Um, [clears throat] finally, I think moving forward, I would really recommend um utilizing this newly formed production group, which is not a Brown Act committee. Um, I would, you know, it's made up of planning commissioners, the steering committee. Maybe you could add a council member to that. Um, but I think and with the staff support, I really think that's a a very efficient way to move this thing forward and get

it completed. Um, I wouldn't recommend dissolving the steering committee necessarily, but I do think that the public hearings about the about the uh guidelines should now just be handled by the planning commission because it's you guys that are going to be finalizing it and approving it as you see fit. So, with that, um, thank you. Thanks, Eric. Any other hands up online? Yes, we have Carol Hall. I can't I can't see it. So, Carol Hall. Oh, Carol. Carol, please go ahead.

Okay. Uh, thank you. Um, having been a part of these meetings for many moons and having uh read Nory Winter's initial proposal, um, I was very relieved when Victoria Beach and Melanie Bilig took it upon themselves to try and uh, initiate a much smaller version of what I called the tome and trying to imagine builders and architects reading this very large document that had incredible redundancy in it and I thought they did a great job of bringing out the important points uh at the time didn't include fire so much at the time but um it has been added and uh and doing a very careful job of trying to keep the content of what was in the design guidelines and not change it but make it better, make it more readable, and make it easier to follow both for the planning commission and and the people that were applicants and the um planners. So, um hats off to them for doing that and uh we have met so many very very many times and will continue. I guess some people will. Um, I think that, um, if we kept the Nory winter version, I think very few people, frankly, would read through it. Mel probably would, but I don't think most people would would have the patience or the tenacity to do that. Um, and um, I think that is what I'm trying to say is that I'm really supportive of this briefer version. Uh, however, it comes out in the end. I know there's

still more work to be done, but uh but a lot has been done on it already and uh I think it, you know, it'll just be a matter of hopefully a few months before something comes together if if you decide that that's the better way to go. Thank you very much. Thank you for your comments, Carol. Any other hands up? We have Vince Kohler. Go ahead. Hello, Commissioner. This is Vince Kohler. Can you guys hear me? Mhm. Great. Yes. Go ahead.

Um I'm a 35-y year resident of Carmel and um uh what I've sort of experienced in that time and I think we all agree on that that the visual differences that Carmel has almost against almost every other city in Carmel is the scale of the buildings and of the roads and how they're subordinate to the landscape, the the forest that it's situated in. And I really appreciate your role uh on this commission uh in keeping the fidelity of that original design which is what draws us here, what makes us enjoy living here and also what makes people want to visit. Um I did a remodel in town about 20 years ago at a time when the previous guidelines were still pretty new and I have to say that the process was not easy in part because of the redundancies. I thought the guidelines were pretty good then, but they were there were definitely res redundancies. I remember the planning department at the time patiently guiding me and our architect and contractor through uh this what I thought of as a much more complex. So, I took a look at this revised version kind of with that remodel in mind and thinking, you know, what would that have looked like to me? And I have to say that it would would have been much much easier. So I find even from a the the perspective of a of a homeowner who wants to, you know, be guided through the process, uh, I I thought this version was was much clearer and and would would have made that remodel easier and I think the job of the planning department and ultimately the planning commission which had to approve the designs easier uh, compared to the ver the earlier version. So that was my experience. So, I really appreciate the work that's gone into this. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Much appreciated. Anybody else? Okay. Um, one last call for the chamber. Anybody else want to come up? Okay. Looks like we have some uh encouragement here. All right. Um I don't see anybody coming up. So I'm going to close the public comments, open it up to the commissioners. Uh Commissioner Cartoff, would you like to begin or um Yeah, I can. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah, I I play with the uh latest version of the steering committee um guideline and it uh it's easy to navigate. Um I actually use the search function. I think the search function is very efficient. You can go for the PDF document and find what you need. Um, my test for the document was basically looking at the issues that we encountered in 2025. You remember, you know, I have a list here. We had flat roofs, decks with jacuzzi's, tops, barbecues, balconies, oversized skylights. these are my kind of it's my top list from 2025. And so I did a search and tried to figure out if the design guideline will help me with that. Um I didn't get a hit on flat roofs. Um maybe it's hidden somewhere, but there's nothing specific to flat roofs and when it's appropriate to use them. Um there's no hit on jacuzzi. Um hot tub is not there. Deck. I found two decks but only in the historic section where it talks about the past of Carmel the early 1900s. Nothing contemporary. Uh barbecue is not mentioned uh as a word barbecue or BBQ. Nothing. And balcony is mentioned once um but there are no details about our understanding how a balcony should work. Usually the problem we have with balconies is glass everywhere, privacy concerns, uh, and everything that happens in the balcony. Um, and skylights are mentioned a couple of times, but not oversized skylights. Now, in the past couple of meetings, we had this problem. Supposedly, some manufacturer came up with these giant skylights that are 10 ft by 3 ft large. They look like really like the

International Space Station. So, people seem to like to put one of this right on top of their dining table in the living room. Seems to work design-wise and size-wise, but um doesn't really uh match our understanding of how Carell should look and we don't have a statement about that in the document. So, um I like the document. I like the pictures. I like the structure. I'm just concerned that some of the topics that came up in 2025 are not covered. So I have no way of using this document to address these issues. Thank you.

And and you uh do you have an opinion about specifically about the Nory winter versus the Syrian committee? I I think the steering committee is is better organized. It's easier to navigate. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Uh Commissioner Albert, your comments. Uh thank you chair and I hope you'll go through this with us at some point. You know the your uh comparison.

No, I'll go through that one. Okay, good. Thank you. Um you know I attended a few of the design tradition meetings. They were public meetings and in one of them I was very specifically told that I could not comment and I just want to state that in public. I think it's important um that that be stated that I tried to speak in the meeting and I was told that I could not comment. So you all get to hear all of my comments tonight. Um general comments. First, the this is a regulatory document. It's got to be certifiable, right, by the coastal commission. Uh second, um we've got to somehow conduct an enduser audit. Um the most consequential omission in my opinion in this process to date has been the exclusion of input uh from the documents primary users. Uh that includes planning commissioners. It also includes uh staff. It also includes the planning director. uh no credible regulatory document revision process in any professional field especially in a municipal government excludes its primary users. And third, my third general comment, um we have to build a document that stays current and it appears that there's been some steps in that direction. Uh, the update has got to correct that critical deficiency that's in our current adopted guidelines um with the embedding of specific standards and codes and texts and materials lists, things, anything that's subject to change on a cycle that's shorter than the document's own update cycle. And right now, I think we're on what, a 20-year cycle. So, um, it it matters. And similarly, and I'm um I'm pretty adamant about this, uh I think that any information that is

published elsewhere in the city's library of governance in our general plan or our local coastal uh plan, um and especially information that's been created by certified professionals. And this is our historic context statement. I believe it does not belong in the document. What if there are conflicts? What if there are conflicts? And likely there will be, right? Um our certified uh historic context statement um that is our document for the historic context of this city. And to have a multi-page um section of a separate document written by other folks regardless of how professional and fine that work is, I believe that is a mistake and it does not belong in this document. And then for city council um recommendations to city council um I think they need to be clear what they mean by an update to this document. This is a different council uh sitting than initiated the process. Um and in the first three years of this project primarily the document has had its paragraphs reorganized right some graphics have been deleted some changes have been um to pictures and also the city's own directive the the previous council created a strategy paper that outlined what this document should be and that hasn't that hasn't been fully followed. Um, it's up to this council to decide what they want this document to be. And I recommend I feel that that the update might be missing and council needs to decide what they mean by the update. Um, second, I say that the update is missing because um, in its most basic format and and and

Mr. Swanson spoke to this. Um, a regulatory document needs a content audit. We haven't had that yet. Um, we're that seems to be in the plan, but we absolutely need that. We need a systematic sentence level, illustration level review for our outdated regulations, for regulations that are frequently omitted as um, Commissioner Cara Pekkov is speaking to, you know, our conditions of approval, you know, things that we need that don't exist or things that do exist that we can't follow any longer. um things that we wind up having to modify and consistently through conditions of approval. Um we also need to look for new regulations that are mandated by law and how they're either cited or included in some way if we need them. And also additions that might improve the process for the applicants because this really is we serve uh the city. That is why we're here. this systematic review. I'm it it disappoints me that that didn't occur sometime in the past three years. Um the the the committee appeared to act entirely independent of the city planning process. They didn't have any access to professional operational level information, nor nor did they seek it. Um, they didn't seem to request data on how many conditions of approval this commission winds up awarding. [clears throat] Um, they didn't seem to ask what municipal codes are in conflict with the guidelines and vice versa. Um, reorganizing paragraphs with outdated content is not a regulatory update. Um, we the it's worked backwards. We it it was a flawed approach and I'm very glad to hear that there will be a content review. We absolutely need that and the city has its own stable of land use

professionals. Um we have a planning director, we have a city manager, we have planning staff. Um they really are our in-house experts. Um it will be very simple for them to produce a content audit. I imagine they could sit down in a in a staff meeting and get a pretty good stab at it really quickly. Um I recommend that after that audit happens, you know, a new text block for the document is produced. Whether it is the um Nory winter version or the steering committee draft, I have no comment on that. Um, but before that structure gets any more time invested, here's my third recommendation to city council. If they haven't already, I recommend council have a conversation with the coastal commission. The coastal commission has a standard regulatory structure for design guidelines. It's used throughout coastal cities. They're all based on building elements. We we now have a proposal that recommends Carmel abandon that that structure, you know, proposing that we replace it and reorganize in a different way. Newport Beach, Santa Barbara, Carperia, San Clemente, Roondo Beach, Pacific Grove, these and most other California coastal cities, they all organized their residential design guidelines the same way that our original was. Now, it's I'm not saying that I'm against change, and I think it'd be wonderful if Carmemell was was the change agent for that. But before any more time is invested into formatting, perhaps it's a good idea to have a conversation with the Coastal Commission to see if they'll even consider this change because it's a very large change um when compared with their standard

structures. Um, and um, also before much more time is invested, I'd also recommend city council consider a conversation with the planning director adopting in in many ways. This this appears like a new regulatory structure. It's organized in an entirely different way. At some level, it's going to require retooling at the staff level and and retain retraining at the commission level. It's going to change how staff conducts application reviews. It's it's going to change how the planning commission rewrites conditions of approval, at least in the short term. That takes time and it's going to take time away from the existing daily workload. And we're already anticipating a significant increase in planning applications related to our arena. So, I do recommend city council consider the realistic capacity of the planning department and check in about any impact this change might have um in on the city's planning department. And lastly, my last comment, I think it's worth restating that the current version has after more than three years has never had a functional review from the people that use this document the most. And no credible document revision process in any professional field excludes its primary users. None. Planning staff processed almost 400 applications last year. That's a lot. They use this document daily. Uh we heard about 50 of those. And neither group, the two primary endusers of this regulatory tool, was ever invited to provide feedback. Well, and I was specifically um told that I could not um and no one was provided feedback until perhaps today. Um how will these proposed changes benefit the city? Uh will they shorten the approval cycles? Will they reduce the number of

conditions of approval? Are they going to reduce calls in to the planning text? Are they going to simplify the process for the applicants? That's the end of my comments. Thank you. So, Commissioner Alurns, as I understand it, you don't have an opinion about the uh the Nory winter document as compared to the steering committee draft in terms of usability. Yes, sir. I don't think there's enough information yet. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Allen. Your comments, please. So, I do have um an opinion on that. [laughter]

Um, so I went back to my notes, you know, like from a long long time ago when um when the consultant was brought in and and the sessions that we had back then. And um I believe that the steering committee has um is in the process of hitting the mark on what we need for residential guidelines here in Carmel. And um they've done a fantastic job. I looked at this through the lens of someone who, you know, is relatively new to the city and coming in and and trying to navigate through a remodel or um, you know, building a home. And um, and the steering committee draft really does do a fantastic job of explaining the why and the how. Um, and I think that's super important because I think we take for granted that people just understand what subordinate to the forest means or what um uh some of our context is um because we we are all so used to it. But but really um as a newbie when you start when you come in and you have those preconceived ideas of what you would want in your home or or in the surrounding um uh you know areas of your property. Um it's totally different. Um you come in thinking the that common thought of I want a big patio. I want I want to, you know, put down um a bunch of pavers. I um I need a fence. I need a

gate. Um and and when you get here and when you start really understanding what makes this place special, that's when you start to understand um why we have the guidelines. And so um so I I'm very happy with um with these. I think we've reduced redundancy. I think we've brought this into the you know this century um in terms of being able to navigate through it quickly. Um and um and if you look at it from the eyes of you know an applicant I think it it uh I think it is very v viable. Um, if you look at it from the standpoint of a planning commissioner, the language change has made it a a lot easier. This isn't just recommendations now. It's um it's actually like, you know, language that that we can um we can stand behind when someone is in front of us each month. And so um so I would I would feel very comfortable moving forward with the steering committee draft. Um there are some things um that have been pointed out that potentially we may need to um look further into. I know that I mentioned in the last meeting, you know, there's just things that we see every single month um that that should be easy to find and easy to reference and and the why and the how should be um uh you know, relatively um uh you know, clear and and um and the ability of the applicant to to find

those quickly on some of these um common issues um are would be fantastic, but otherwise um uh overall uh I'm I'm I'm happy with the progress that we've made. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Hen. Um do you want can you put my comments up on the overhead? Is that possible? So I can just kind of go through. I I approached this with trying to answer the questions that were presented to us by council. which document do we prefer and which one is more you know usable. So the first thing in order for me to understand

Mr. Chair I just want to sorry I'm so sorry to interrupt but for anyone that doesn't have we have printed copies of what he's about to go through here on the counter if you want to come grab one and then I think we're going to we will put it up on the overhead projector as well so that folks on Zoom can see Email me that version. What's that? Do you want to email me that version? I have Yeah, I will. I I'll email it to you. I can't do it right now, though. I will. We just flip through it over here. That's fine. Okay. Is that fire resistant?

There you go. It's really nice dense oak. So, yes, it's very dense. When it burns, it burns hot though. [laughter]

Yeah. Well, okay. I'm sorry I couldn't get you a file on this. I My computer's updating. So like I said the way you know in order for me to understand the two documents first thing I did was do a comparison of the two analysis and I organized that into uh these headings. So uh I'm just going to go through that. Uh the first was organiz organization and scope. Uh the nor winter version uh is organized primarily into two separate uh booklets. You have the design concept review focusing on site planning, massing in the forest and the other was the final details review which was about materials, windows, architectural character. The steering committee draft uh uh integrates the residential commercial municipal guidelines into a single comprehensive package. It also adds significant new front matter including a um a really extensive uh history visual history of Carmel with a lot of really great photographs and explanations as to all the different architects who practiced here the significant buildings they built. Uh it's it's it's a very very detailed and uh lively description of the architectural history of Carmel which when you read it you realize how important it is. It's really a statement of 20th century architecture and really it is you know this place it also talks about the forest but the architecture is really a repository of really 20th century architecture and all the thought that went into that and there's also the critical fire alert statement in there. So the next item were the core principles and language. Uh there's consistency of the core principles in both documents. Enhance, subordinate, fit, um retain, design, and detail authenticity. But there's difference in subjectiv subjectivity versus objectivity. While

the uh the Nory winter version focuses on qualitative aspects of design, the Syrian committee version particularly the 2026 layout attempts to translate these into mandatory uh quantifiable standards. The shift aims to reduce board uh member uncertainty by replacing subjective terms like modest with measurable caps such as floor area and plate heights. Uh the third item was the fire resilience. This was a critical gap between the two documents. The Nory winter version really promoted natural materials uh particularly wood without any um reference at all to fire safety codes and the Syrian uh committee document um addresses that. It mandates fire uh resilience, serve as the pre premier guide for design requiring all exterior components to comply with the California uh wild urban interface, the wig code and utilize ignition resistant materials. The next area was applicants tools and review process. And um the steering committee has has induces a core design principal narrative form. And I think this is really a strength that guides the applicant to have a narrative which explains how their project meets all the core principles. And I think that uh with that in the in the context of the historical statement and just the the form and the organization of the steering committee document with the core principles uh really creates accountability which I think uh commissioner Albornne was was addressing. Also the uh the visual keys throughout uh image symbols key to explicitly label designs which is supported or conditional or unsupported. Uh process changes the current draft links uh design review tracked more closely to

the preliminary site assessment and mandatory volume studies to ensure compatibility with final approval. Also uh material specifications. The uh the Syrian committee document explicitly is prohibiting faux materials uh which I think is a statement to strengthen the authenticity of the architecture. Also, it addresses sustainability um emphasizes ecological building standards such as design for disassembly and cra uh cradletodradle certifications as part of the detail principle. So the key take takeaway in this comparison analysis is that the Nory winter uh document and the steering committee version reveals that there's been an evolution of the traditional design booklet toward an integrated mandatory regulatory uh package that prioritizes objective in wildfire resilience. Now, as far as ease of use comparison, I thought that would that would once I've got a comparison, I would look at it in that way. And um so I compared these for ease of use. And the first item was uh integrated versus segmentation organization. Uh the new winner draft this version was segmented into two different separate booklets, one for design and one for final details. Whereas the Syrian committee draft uh integrates the all the residential, commercial missile guidelines into a single comprehensive document package and it's a uh it's a onestop shop approach which makes it easy for applicants and officials to find re relevant regul regulations in one place. Uh there's also predictability through objective standards. Uh the nor winner as I said was more of a qualitative whereas the steering committee document is moving towards mandatory and quant quantifiable

standards. uh interaction uh interactive applicant tools. Uh the Nory winter document was obviously very dated. There's no there's no hypertext. There's no linkage whatsoever and there's a lot of u mention of things in various parts. Whereas the Siri committee introduces core principles to organize a narrative form. Uh the tool educates applicants by requiring them to certif certify and describe exactly how the project harmonizes with each of the six core principles as uh for the from the earliest stages of design. Um it also provides uh visual keys to help them understand that process and with the hyperlinking it will provide a much easier document to use and a more modern document and that's really critical for this update. uh the safety alert and educational content. Um the uh nor winter document followed traditional references for natural materials and um things like flammable shingles without explicit mention of fire safety. The uh steering committee draft addresses the critical gap of fire safety. Uh it establishes a resilience premier guide and it uh makes mandatory the uh California WOOI code and compliance. It also has a contextual education and the the draft adds significant front matter including visual history of Carmel which is very explicit and very helpful and very educational to help applicants understand you know what is the architectural legacy of this community and what makes this community so special and what the value is that we are trying to protect and replicate. I think for me this has been the thing that I really appreciated about the new draft document is all of when you look under the core principles you see a background and each background gives you

a historical context so you really get an understanding of what it is we have here what it is we're trying to promote and what the challenge is and the value is for the applicant to do that. So in conclusion, I think the uh I mean I've used I used the original design guidelines for the last 20 years and and it was a great document and it really it really is makes it it provide it provided an awareness. It was a response to an awareness of this what Carmela is so special and we're one of the few communities that really have a document like that and I think it has done a good job. It's been a good do guide for me as a person reviewing this for staff and also for applicants, but it was time to update that. You know, we're living in an era where there's a lot more modern tools available. Uh, and also the new document is organized in such a way that it takes the clients, the applicants through the process. It makes them aware of what they need to be aware of in terms of the historical context, the challenges that we're facing today because of climate change like fire safety and provides a lot of interactive tools for us to do that. So, um I I think you know we can make a recommendation at least I can make a recommendation to the council very easily that this is a much better document and that it is a lot more usable. So um with that I don't really have any further comments.

Can I add something? Yeah, go ahead.

Um so I was reading again this fire fire alert section and it's stated in the document there a couple of definitions what it is. One is one place says it's a premier guide for design. Another place says it's a primary driver of a design. So, it's a pretty important thing and I wonder if it's important enough to be elevated to a um principle. Right now, we have a principle enhance the forest. What if the principle is balance the forest with fire safety instead of just saying enhance the forest? Uh it is right now it's kind of out there. It's not a principle. It's not clear what it is. It's just an alert. Uh it looks like a after fault is something that was inserted last minute and I think it's important enough and fundamental enough to be included in the principles. I will say there was a lot of discussion about this in the in the steering committee and um we decided to move it to the front of the at least at least my understanding was we decided to move it to the front of the document uh because as I had suggested in a presentation I did earlier was it was it was like the uh the last core principle. So we I think the intent was to get it uh premier in the mind of the applicants, make them aware of it, but um it's still open for discussion whether or not it needs to be it if it has more impact as a core principle or it has more impact as a preface. So um I mean that's that's kind of an could be an ongoing discussion. Uh, as I understand it, what we're being asked here today is if we are going to send a recommendation on to the council that the steering committee

draft is one that we favor over the Nory winter uh draft and also a um I would assume that by making that referral that we think it's more usable. So that the planning commission is making a a referral for a a vote for the usability.

Um so chair, what like where do we stand with um some of the things that um Commissioner Alurn brought up? like are we are we addressing any of um her concerns around the process or do we want to um suggest changes in how this process goes or what are your thoughts on that?

Well, I we're we're still in the process of developing this document. This is not a done document. Uh so really we're we're really being asked kind of a narrow question today just to kind of filter out you know one or the other document. Uh generally I've heard pretty positive you know I think uh review of of the the steering committee's draft and I think that the the uh issues that commissioner Alburn brought up are all important. They're all part of questions that need to be focused on this going forward. And I know she's also made some comments about you know what happened in the past and um there was there was a lot of time that went by and some things that happened you know we went through through co we went through a lot of personnel change while this was uh this this this uh review of the design guidelines was happening. I started on this back with uh I think there were two other previous planning directors. You know, I started this with Mark Winer and it was a very small committee just myself and one other planning commissioner.

Was it 2018 probably? Yeah, I think it was a reference. Yeah. So, uh so it it's it's been a real evolutionary process and and it's still in an evolutionary state. So there's going to be a lot more opportunity for input and needed too. Go ahead. Eight years. [laughter]

Yeah. I I just you know we um I mean I I want to acknowledge that but that's all I want to do. We we have to right now we we really have focused on this and there's been a tremendous amount of work done to complete this draft in the last month. Uh it was a lot of hard work but I think you know when you when you have a deadline like that you know you just get down and you do the work and that's why sometimes you have to do that you know so um all all I want to say is that some of the complaints you know that happened in the past those need to be addressed need to be acknowledged and then moving forward we need to make it as inclusionary process as we can and and and keep working towards getting this finished up because I think it's it's something that's necessary. I haven't really heard any comments from the public saying they don't think it's necessary. They obviously have different opinions about specifically what should be in it, about how it should be organized. Um, we got some good comments from um, Marishia Katans today about specific uh, you know, illustrations in there and I think there was a lot of there was some good suggestions. So, there's a lot of details in this need to be worked out. And it was also suggested to me today that one of the things that we should do going forward is I rather than disbanding this committee which has been working on this. So I think we need to keep this group of people together which has members from the planning commission, members from the steering committee and members from staff and take whatever direction is given to you know through the the review bodies you know the planning commissioner or the council and get that into the as quickly into the documents we can and then get it back for review you know in a public hearing by the planning commission and then on to the plan to the uh council. So I just want to make the point that

this is an evolutionary developing process. This is not um a final approval or a vote to accept this steering committee document. Really what we're asking is is to just say which we feel is better and do we feel that the steering committee uh document is uh providing better usability. Um and then chair uh I don't know if you saw it in our packet today but from Monterey Selenus Transit um uh they actually have um brought to the attention that potentially um there would be some sort of transit guidelines within the document. So I just wanted to make sure that that was called out um depending on uh where that conversation would be. Yeah, that would be part of this ongoing review process and recommending how how that could possibly fit into the document, which core principle it would be under and so forth. So, Commissioner Albert, you have a comment?

Um, yes, sir. Um, whenever this comes back, I'd like to just return to um when this document was made available to members of the planning commission. Sometime somehow everybody else received it. I I still have yet to receive notification in my city email. Something was sent to my personal email and then it got whatever else might have followed after that just vanished into all that happens in my personal and business email. So it was not noticed to me in my city email. And um should we come to this review process the next time when I have about 10 minutes to look at the document, I simply won't participate. I'll simply be absent

because it just I can't I can't do proper justice to this great work if I don't have time to review it. Yeah, we need we need to be able to make sure that every you know all the commissioners get the Yeah, absolutely. I didn't I wasn't aware of that. So that was obviously a mistake and so we will make sure that that doesn't happen in the future. Apologize. We maybe we could just do

do a test of the emails and make sure that everybody's you know I'm I mean I'm getting you know personally I'm getting notifications about the planning commission meeting with links to the agenda uh at at different emails. I'm getting one at my my business email. I could not find one at my city email this time. Um, I couldn't find that. So, I had the same experience. I had a little bit of a an advantage because I was working on the committee and I had other emails. So, I, you know, also I was looking at the document, you know, through the process, you know. So, but u it's really it is really critical that planning commissioners get these documents as quickly as they can because many times, you know, we're being asked to review things that you know we have very limited time and and so um but but let's we let's let's work on that and make sure that uh we kind of get um I mean I think at the very least we should get every notification sent to our city email account. I don't mind getting it sent to my other ones too because I but I do I do check all those. But what I think that's kind of like my baseline. I figure I'm going to go to the city email to get all my official notifications. So, okay. Um any more comments? So, um just for the recommendation, I'm going to going to poll all the commissioners here again. So, I'm going to start with Commissioner Alborne is and and we're polling on which document you prefer and do you which you feel is more usable?

I still have too many questions. I can't give you an answer. So, I'm I'm a I'm a no answer. Okay. All right. Commissioner, I'm going to go with the steering um committee's draft. Okay. Yeah. All right. And Commissioner Kadgraph. Yeah. I I would prefer the steering committee draft uh with the additional information if it can be included about this item from 2025 that are still missing. Um yeah, that'll be my preference.

Okay. Yeah. And I u I too make a strong recommendation for the steering committee's draft. So unless we have any other comments, I think that kind of concludes the business on that. Was there anything from the director that you wanted to report to us? Okay, thank you everyone. We're journed.