Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome everybody to the. What is today's date? Time's flying October 6th. Planning Commission meeting. We have a roll call.

Commissioner Chan.

Here.

Commissioner Quigg. Vice Chair Choi.

Here.

Chair Davis. Here. Four planning commissioners are present. Commissioner Wong is excused.

Thank you. Time for the pledge of allegiance. THANK YOU. UNDER AGENDA REVIEW, ANY COMMISSIONERS HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY OR ANYBODY ON STAFF?

GOOD EVENING, CHAIR DAVIS. JUST ONE POINT ON THE AGENDA REVIEW TONIGHT. WE DID HAVE A TYPO ON THE AGENDA UNDER ITEM 4A FOR THE CEQA EXEMPTION. THE WRONG EXEMPTION WAS IDENTIFIED. IT'S CATEGORICALLY EXEMPT PURSUANT TO 15061B3 BECAUSE THE ZONING AMENDMENT ONLY WILL AMEND THE PROCEDURES FOR PROCESSING A DENSITY BONUS APPLICATION. THE FULL TEXT IS CORRECTLY IDENTIFIED IN THE STAFF REPORT AND RESOLUTION. I JUST WANTED TO POINT THAT OUT ON THE AGENDA. WE DID POST A CORRECTED AGENDA ONLINE AND IN THE GLASS OUTSIDE AND IT IS AVAILABLE HERE IN THE CHAMBER. identifying the correct CEQA exemption. So just wanted to point that out before we begin.

All righty. Thank you. Anything else? No. All righty. We have one set of minutes from September 15. Any comments or emotion?

Kathy?

Oh, there you go. Okay.

Please refresh. Am I on? Okay. Please refresh my memory on the minutes at the end when we were announcements. There was an announcement for something on October the 3rd. Can someone please refresh my memory on that one?

I THINK COMMISSIONER WONG WAS SAYING THAT WAS THE GATEWAY NIGHT MARKET.

NEW SPEAKER OH, OKAY. THANK YOU. THERE WAS SOMETHING GOING ON. NEW SPEAKER ANY CHANGES?

ANY MOTIONS? I'LL MAKE A MOTION TO ACCEPT. MINUTES. You got a motion in a second can we vote.

Thank you motion passes for their own.

All righty except is public communications this is the time set aside for people that would like to address the planning commission on something within our purview but not on tonight's agenda. Any speaker slips our hands on zoom. No speaker slips or hands on zoom already. Thank you. We'll move along. Next up is our public hearing. The density bonus ordinance amendment. And we're to review and recommend to the City Council and amendment to the city's density bonus ordinance to allow local density bonus incentives in addition to incentives provided by the state bonus bonus law. And this is continued from August 4th. You have a staff report.

Good evening, commissioners. So tonight we're joined online by our consultants from Harrison Associates. Zare Marin will be presenting the item tonight, and he's joined by Hida Mosesman. Go ahead.

Hi, Zare. Did you want to present the slideshow yourself, or did you want me to share it?

Yeah, thank you. If I could present, that would be appreciated.

Okay.

And currently, just a heads up, it's just myself from Harrison Associates. Akita Mosesman should be joining shortly. And let me screen share with you all. Just quick confirmation that you all can see that. Seems to be the case.

Yes.

All right, well, good evening planning commissioners. As Andy noted, my name is Xavier Morin. I'm a project manager at the consulting firm Harris & Associates. The city engaged our firm to analyze a local density bonus incentive that the city can provide in addition to density bonus provided by state law. Real quick note, Andy, it looks like Keita just joined and just needs to be promoted to analyst. But myself, Nita, and I believe the city attorney shall be here to answer any questions once we go through this presentation. To start, we want to provide a brief reminder of what density bonus is. For this, there are three important things to consider. First, density bonus is an incentive that allows developers to build more market rate units on a housing project in exchange for making a portion of all units affordable. Density means more units on a site, even more than what the city might regularly allow through its zoning. A bonus comes in the form of being able to build more market rate housing units in exchange for including some affordable income restricted units. The bonus is calculated based on the number of total units proposed for the project before any bonus is applied. One final note, density bonus is a requirement from the state and applies to all California cities. The second important thing to know is that all additional units that can be built through the density bonus are a market rate. For example, for simple math, say a project meets the incentive requirements and a developer can build an additional 10 units. All those 10 units can be billed as market rates and there's no requirement to make any of them affordable or income restricted. And this is a factor or rather a structure of the state law. The third important thing to know is the benefit of this incentive is that the revenue on the additional market rate units offset the cost of affordable units, which generates significantly less revenues. The idea is to help make the economics of housing projects Deputy bonus allows developers to balance the cost of providing affordable units with the higher profits on a larger amount of market rate units. And ultimately the goal is to incentivize overall housing development and increase housing supply. Next, a quick reminder of what inclusionary and affordable housing is in the context of the city. starting with basics, inclusionary housing, and affordable housing, effectively the same thing. They refer to units that are income-restricted per levels determined by the state. Cities can create requirements for the inclusion of affordable housing in housing projects. This is called an inclusionary housing requirement. The way we see that play out is that housing projects must make a certain percentage of the units affordable. The city requires this for all projects except those with 10 or less units. Those projects are able to pay a fee to the city if the developer does not wish to include any affordable units. An important note, the city's affordable housing requirements depend on the type of project. For ownership projects or a project where units will be made available for sale, the requirement is that 15% of units be affordable to households with moderate incomes. For rental projects, the city requires that 10% of units be affordable to very low-income households and 5% to low-income households. These affordable units can only produce below-market rents up to a certain level that are determined by the state. And again, the city's requirement for rental housing projects is that 15% of the units be affordable, the 10% at very low, and 5% at low. Taking a step back, we're discussing these requirements because they tie directly to the structure of the proposed city density bonus. The proposed city density bonus is structured to make meeting these requirements more appealing to developers. That in turn will help the city ensure that necessary affordable housing units are constructed. Before presenting the proposed city density bonus policy, we first need to understand a nuance regarding state density bonus law. I'll say up front that if this information comes across as a little complicated and convoluted, that's because this area of state law is a little complicated and convoluted. With that out of the way, state density bonus is provided on a sliding scale in two tiers. What we show here is tier one. And a note that a larger version of the tables that are going to be shown on this slide are provided as an appendix in the memo noted as attachment four in your package. Tier one of state law allows for bonuses on a sliding scale based on the allocation of very low, low, or moderate income units. Here we show a table that summarizes the amount of density bonus that a project can receive based on the noted allocation of affordable units. Tier one reflects the original state density bonus scale. Through the passage of AB1287 that went into effect in 2024, a second tier that provides projects even more density bonus was created. However, for a project to access those tier two bonuses, they must first max out an allocation of affordable units in tier one. On the table to the left, we show three subtables. What Maxi now looks like is providing an allocation equal to the last row of each subtable. Tying that to specific numbers, that means a project must allocate either 15% of units as very low, 24% of units as low, or 44% of units as moderate in order to access the Tier 2 scale. After doing that, a project can access the tier two scale by allocating additional units as affordable. Of note, this tier only provides additional density bonus for an additional allocation of either very low or moderate income units. This tier does not specify any additional bonus through the allocation of low income units. That gap in the low income category is something we kept in mind with the structure of the proposed city density bonus policy. The city's current density bonus ordinance defers the state law by describing a developer's process to obtain a density bonus in a manner compliant with state law. However, in the last three years, there have been multiple updates to the law, most notably through AB1287 that created that tier two sliding scale that we just saw. The amendment to the city's density bonus ordinance thus accomplishes two things. First, it current state law. Second, it adds a proposed city-provided density bonus, which supplements bonuses provided through state law. In this table, we have a summary of the structure of the proposed city-provided density bonus. Similar to the city's affordable housing requirements, the incentive differs for rental projects versus ownership projects. For rental projects, if a project allocates 5% of their units to low-income households, the city would provide a flat density bonus of 15%. This bonus would be in addition to anything the state provides and is aligned with the city's rental affordable housing requirement of 5% of units allocated to low-income households. Additionally, for rental projects, if a project allocates 5% of units as moderate income, the city would provide a density bonus equal to half of that provided through state law in that income category. A reminder that for rental projects, the city does not have a requirement as it relates to moderate income units. This portion of the policy assessment to help incentivize the production of this housing type. And of note, the city density bonus is calculated based on the tier two table we saw earlier. For ownership projects, if a project allocates 15% of units to moderate income households, the city would provide a density bonus equal to that provided through state law. This effectively doubles the bonus provided by the state and is calculated based on bonuses provided in the tier one and the tier two tables. And this bonus is aligned with the city's ownership project affordable housing requirement of 15% of units allocated to moderate income households. A note here, the number of units added through the city density bonus is calculated separately from the state density bonus. This is done to achieve maximum rounding benefit and therefore the maximum number of dwelling units. Quick example, if state law provides density bonus that calculates out to 1.5 units and the city policy provides a density bonus that also calculates to 1.5 units, rather than summing that up to three, each of those 1.5 unit values are rounded up to two for a total of four density bonus units. The city density bonus policy would not apply citywide. It would only apply to projects located within the Millbrae Station area boundary or downtown and El Camino Real boundary. To the left, we have a map outlining the boundaries of each area, which is included as attachment number two in your agenda packet. The city focused this incentive on these areas to facilitate log consolidation, development, and redevelopment in these zones. On April 16th of this year, the city held a local property owner and stakeholder virtual outreach meeting, which was attended by 14 people. That said, the invite was sent to a larger group and made available for access by the larger public. During this meeting, attendees were provided a presentation overviewing the city's inclusionary housing requirements, existing state law, and the proposed city policy. Examples of rental and ownership developments were shared to illustrate how the city provided density bonus would both complement what is provided by the state and would enhance the financial feasibility of new housing developments. On the right here, we have a summary of feedback that was collected during the outreach session. In summary, several attendees noted that local density bonuses can help incentivize new development, particularly in cities like Millbrae, which have small lots and limited available land. Attendees also provided feedback regarding the potential impact of higher density developments in the city's downtown region. On the following slides, we'll provide examples that illustrate the city's proposed incentive through two example housing projects. For the first example, we're using a 10-unit for sale project. For the second example, we're using a 100-unit rental project. Now, full disclosure, these are round, simplistic numbers that we're using to show what the city's incentive would look like. Each property is unique, and the number and type of units that make sense to build can vary significantly from site to site. And first we'll start with an example ownership or for sale project. A reminder that for these types of projects, the city requires that 15% of units be affordable at the moderate income level. By meeting that requirement, the project gets density bonus from the state. What the city wants to do is add to that to essentially reward the project for meeting its affordable housing requirement. I'll bring your attention down to this table. So with the 10 unit project, in order to meet the city's 15% moderate income or moderate income unit allocation requirements, the project effectively needs to allocate 20% of its units as moderate income. The reason for that being 10 units times 15%, 1.5 units, we need to round that up to two rather than one in order to meet the requirement. So this project starts with two moderate income units and eight market rate units. What state density bonus provides this project through the allocation of moderate income units is two additional market rate units. The city's policy would match the amount that's provided through state density bonus law. So in total, through the allocation of moderate income units, this project would receive four market rate units or could build up to an additional four market rate units. And breaking that down one more time, the 20% moderate income unit allocation would allow this project to build two extra market rate units through state law and two extra market rate units through the city policy. Moving on to an example rental project, a reminder that for rental projects, the city requires that 10% of units be affordable at the very low income level and 5% be affordable at the low income level. I'll bring your attention down to this table. Starting with a 100-unit example project, we're looking at very low, low, moderate, and market rate units. It's assumed that this project would seek to allocate at least 15% of their units as very low income. Note that that is above the city's requirement of 10%. The reason for this higher allocation is for this project to be able to access the higher density bonuses that are available in the Tier 2 scale. The 15% very low income allocation is essentially one of the max out options in the Tier 1 scale. This project would also include 5% adherence with the city's requirement. And the project would include 5% of units as moderate income. That's not a requirement by the city, but by including those additional moderate income units, this project can access those tier two additional density bonuses. starting with what state law provides through the allocation of very low income units and moderate income units, this project could build up to an additional 70 market rate units. Factoring in the city's proposed density balance policy through the allocation of low income units and moderate income units, this project could build up to an additional 25 market rate units. So bringing that together through the current state density bonus law and the proposed city density bonus policy, this project could build up to an additional 95 market rate units. Breaking that down a little further, just making sure all the numbers here match up, the 15% very low income unit allocation allows this project to build 50 additional market rate units. The 5% low income unit allocation provides this project up to an additional 15 market rate units through the city incentive. And finally, through the allocation of moderate income units at 5%, the project can build up to an additional 20 market rate units through state law. Just tying here, the 70 is comprised of the 50 noted here and the 20 noted here. And the moderate income allocation also provides the project and additional market rate units through the city policy, tying the 25 here to the 15 noted here and the 10 noted here. So big picture, how will this city-provided density bonus incentive help incentivize development? The policy will allow developers to build more market rate units. The additional profit from these market rate units helps cover the cost of including affordable housing in housing developments. Higher profit margins on the additional market rate units can also help offset the cost of log consolidation. Lock consolidation is the process of gathering multiple smaller pieces of land in order to build a project on a larger piece of land. The reason lock consolidation is sought is because it allows for the development of larger projects that can benefit from economies of scale. The process can be expensive, time consuming, and can increase development risk significantly. The city's policy will allow developers to generate more profit on their housing projects through building more market rate units. Additional profit translates to lower risk for developers and makes their projects more resilient to changes in market factors, such as interest rates, rents, sales prices, and development costs. To help incentivize housing development, many other cities are instituting local policies like the one we're discussing tonight. Notably, the cities of Chico, San Diego, Long Beach, and Culver City have instituted city-specific policies that complement state density bonus law. With that, thank you for your time and for bearing with us on this dense technical topic. We and city staff are here to answer any questions.

Thank you very much. Questions?

Nathan?

Yeah, this incentive program, I think, is very exciting and would, I think, would really kickstart development downtown, I think, which is something that I know we've been working on for a number of years. I wanted to ask, you know, I believe there are a number of existing apartment units sprinkled throughout the downtown. And I know that under state law, there's some kind of protection for and mitigation for displacement of any residents who live in those, any residents who might be displaced by a new development like this. Could you just remind me what, if you happen to have this available, could you remind me what those provisions are? Or could we, or I'll just ask the question.

Yes, I know those provisions would be separate from the policy that were discussed tonight, but he does there anything that might be able to add on this?

Yeah, I'd be happy to. Hello chair and members of Planning Commission. Yes, there is a requirement that housing units at affordable income levels, which would need to be determined if they are not income restricted, the income levels of the current residents would need to be determined upon a redevelopment project and replacement units would need to be provided for the units that are lost as either part of the project. or would have to be identified or built or income restricted in another development. So basically the law provides for, you know, you can't reduce the number of units available. So not necessarily, even if they're not technically income restricted with income restrictive covenants, adopted as part of the project, you would still need to, for example, if there's a moderate household that was moderate income in a non income restricted unit, that unit, the household would need to be placed in a unit, whether that was part of the redeveloped project, or whether it was somewhere else in the city, so that that household would not be displaced.

Thanks, that's the answer I was looking for.

Other questions?

I have a question regarding this letter from Cal HDF. They raised some legal concerns. Could staff talk through to us about that?

THEY DID AND THE REASON WE'RE HERE TONIGHT IS BECAUSE WHAT WE DID IS WE WENT BACK AND WE UPDATED THE CODE TO REFLECT THOSE TO ADDRESS THOSE CONCERNS. AND I'M NOT I'M GOING TO HAVE HE TO FILL IN ON THE DETAILS BUT EFFECTIVELY YOU KNOW WE WE FOLLOWED THROUGH ON THAT AND WE'RE PRETTY CONFIDENT THAT THE ORDINANCE TONIGHT BEFORE YOU HAS ADDRESSED THOSE. WE DID FORWARD THIS TO THEM. WE PROVIDED THEM A COPY OF THE AGENDA PACKET AT THE SAME TIME WE PROVIDED IT TO THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMISSIONERS AND WE MADE SURE THAT THEY GOT A COPY FOR REVIEW AT THE SAME TIME AS EVERYONE ELSE AND THEY HAVE NOT PROVIDED A RESPONSE LETTER IN TURN. WE HAVE NOT HEARD FROM THEM BUT WE'RE CONFIDENT THAT WE'VE ADDRESSED THEIR CONCERNS. Hida, do you want to just touch on some of the details for us? Or Zaire?

I can start and then maybe I'll pass it to Zaire for more of the technical details. But just as an overall statement, I would say that the density bonus law in California keeps changing. And so you have an ordinance that you adopt and then it changes the next year and the next year. And so it's not that the city's density bonus ordinance was out of legal compliance this whole time. It's just that the law keeps changing and it is very difficult to keep up with those changes as they happen. And so in general, I can tell you that we work very closely with the city's legal counsel brought in specifically for this purpose. to go over section by section of the Density Bonus Ordinance and confer and ensure that we've met all of the current requirements. But I would also defer to Zeyer to talk about maybe some more of those details if I've skipped anything.

Zeyer. Yeah, I'll just add that a majority of our, a majority of Cal HDF's feedback didn't relate to the proposed city density bonus policy language, largely focused on language regarding waivers, concessions, and I believe parking requirements and some design standard. components to the majority of our time spent with the city's legal counsel was replying that language.

So you said this was updated for that review. What was changed?

so um zair do you want to give the the fine details of the changes because the the lane we did not provide a red line to the commissioners tonight um but uh if you want to touch on the details Yeah, absolutely.

And if I'll just take a second to pull up our red line version of the agency bonus ordinance, which I believe can also be provided to the commission group after this call. So one quick second here.

And just while he's bringing that up, just to kind of a high level overview is that a lot of this was clarifications, also updating it to identify the changes in state laws. They are said it does change frequently. The codes, the state laws have been changing annually, and it's really hard for cities to keep up. And so sometimes when we start work on these things, the next thing, you know, there's a new law in effect. And, um, and so, um, uh, we did do a number of, um, just clarifying changes. And I think if this air brings up the red line, you can just see kind of a. JUST AT A GLANCE. THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST COMPLICATED ACTUALLY THIS IS THE MOST COMPLICATED ORDINANCE I THINK I'VE WORKED ON IN MY ENTIRE CAREER AND IT'S NOT BECAUSE OF OUR END OF IT WE WANT TO MAKE IT AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE FOR THE PUBLIC FOR DEVELOPERS FOR APPLICANTS BUT IT'S REALLY BECAUSE IT'S A VERY COMPLICATED STATE LAW TO BEGIN WITH. And when they added the tier two standards recently, that just added a whole another level of complexity. As you know, we were planning on doing this. It's identified in our housing element. It's a policy, something that we wanted to do. We want to incentivize the development of affordable housing in the city. We saw this as a means to do so. And of course, you know, with the passage of, I always forget the number, AB, oh my goodness, 1287, Um, you know, sometimes that sometimes our plans get a little bit changed by the state and you have to come back and adjust things. But, um, you know, like I said, with that, I'll hand it off back off to there.

And just for for visual reference, I'll share the red line version of the ordinance. Um, it's. And so hopefully you all can see this Word document. Wait, what's the case? Looks like that's the case. All right, so this initial opening language was updated to that. We could actually spend a lot of time on this, but I'll go try to stay high level and can pause for questions if needed. A majority of this language was updated to include the proposed city density bonus policy. So you'll see reference here to the city's density bonus policy and the fact that this applies specifically to the Millbury Station area and the downtown and El Camino Real specific plan area. And specifying that the city policy is, city policy and bonus is separate from state law. This language was removed here. Let's cross out and zoom in just a little bit more here. This language majority of the language that was removed here and added was either to update the ordinance to be compliant with current state law or to specify some of the specificities of the city-specific density bonus policy. Keep going through this. Here we're specifying the application form process that developers should follow in order to request the city-specific density bonus policy and the state density bonus policy. Apologies for the silence. I'm trying to describe the changes here in as concise of a manner as possible. Here, broadly, we're specifying aspects of the acreage and the total number of units for project. This requested incentives component, this language is largely modified to be to better align with current state law. And same case here with the requested waivers. And the most significant changes were made in section two regarding the density bonus. And this largely boils down to specifying in the code that this new proposed city policy is being added and in the subsection 2C describing how it is that the policy applies both to rental projects and ownership projects and how that should be calculated for the different income categories that we're considering. That's the allocation of low-income units or moderate-income units, what we went through in detail in the presentation earlier. In that sense, through the section here. Also added language within this specific section of the city's ordinance to note that all projects need to be developed in a manner that is consistent with the airport land use compatibility plan. Add some added and refined language here regarding incentives and concessions to better align with state law. Kind of the same case with the waivers here. And this is, this is a little hard to describe. Some of this removal of the language is actually because we kind of consolidated the ordinance language to build upon it. I believe for this section in particular, we built out portions of section three. So it was found that this language wasn't needed because otherwise it would be redundant. Since we're updating the ordinance, we spent some time on the affordable housing agreement section. This actually wasn't a section that CalHDF provided feedback on. These are adjustments that city's legal counsel recommended as we were going through each of these sections in detail. The affordable unit standards, so this was a section that CalHDF had some feedback on regarding refinements to better align with city law, or not city law, state law. And same case here with apartment standards. That was a majority. Go ahead.

Oh, keep going. I was just going to jump in, but go ahead.

And those were the majority of the edits. The rather those are all the, we passed through all the sections where Cal HDF provided specific feedback. These other sections were refinements that city's legal counsel recommended as we were going through this.

So I would say that when you look at the red lines, it's incredibly confusing. That's one of the reasons why we didn't provide it to you. If you look at the clean copy of the ordinance before you tonight, it's a lot easier to read. It's a lot more simplified. We put a lot of thought into the wording. And like I said, it's very important to have ordinances that are very clean, readable and understandable. My, my philosophy, when you write a zoning code update, no matter what it is, it's not what you add, it's what you take away. When you add more language, it gets more complicated, more convoluted. So the goal is to say what needs to be said with as little language as possible and to use it in plain language. And so that's, that's a lot of these changes that you see before you tonight, because as I said, THIS IS A VERY COMPLICATED ORDINANCE THE REASON WHY IS WE HAVE TO WE HAVE TO CRAFT IT UNDERNEATH STATE LAW WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF STATE LAW AND IT'S NOT IT'S NOT THE CLEAREST STATE LAW SECTION AND AS I SAID EARLIER THE BILL THAT AMENDED IT ONE TWO EIGHT WHAT'S THE NUMBER I ALWAYS FORGET THE NAME TWELVE EIGHTY SEVEN AND SO WE FEEL LIKE THAT THIS VERSION BEFORE YOU THIS EVENING IS THE BEST PRODUCT MOVING FORWARD, IT'S A LOT SIMPLER, A LOT EASIER TO READ THAN THE VERSION THAT WE SAW. AND WE DO APPRECIATE THE COMMENTS THAT WE RECEIVED FROM CAL HDF, AND WE'RE VERY CONFIDENT MOVING FORWARD WITH THE REVISIONS THAT WE HAVE BEFORE YOU TONIGHT.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU FOR THAT WORK. I WOULD ARGUE THAT WE ALWAYS NEED TO SEE THE RED LINES. THE REASON WE POSTPONED OUR LAST MEETING TO THIS MEETING WAS BECAUSE CHANGES WERE GOING TO BE MADE, AND IT WAS NOT CLEAR AT ALL WHAT CHANGED. and you should include the red line and the clean copy because we need to know how it changed. I assume the spirit and the goals of the ordinance are still intact. And of course, I appreciate better writing and more concise language, but we can't do our job if we don't know what changed. So next time, please give us a red line.

No, I agree. More specifically, I have a question on the incentives and concessions. So with the changes, Is it fair to say that it limits or at least changed what comes before this commission with respect to discretionary approvals on projects that are seeking density bonus? Sorry, could you repeat the first part of your question? So with respect to incentives and concessions, right, it seems like any project that is applying for density bonus law would, essentially there's no, it's not up to us to grant concessions or incentives or to weigh in on whether we, because there are no longer.

Yeah, there wouldn't, the decision of whether or not to allow it wouldn't be in the purview of your decision. Okay, all right.

it would it would have to follow the law but it wouldn't be a decision point for the commission okay um and i the way i understand it staff has already reviewed everything by the time it comes to us with all of this detail and you'll just say there was a density bonus applied you might say tier one or tier two but you've done all the calculations. It's not up to us to check it out. We've got people that looked at our last one because you have to send it out to everyone. So they looked at it and it's not very clear. So we had to make it more clear or clearer. So, but I agree with Chair Davis that we got this and it's like, what did we really do to change? And how much of it did we change? And it looks like it changed a lot. It wasn't just a few minor changes. No wonder you needed a couple of months to do it.

I think the key point is that what you reviewed last time is there. But the wording is different. But the structure is still there. The standards are still there.

Yeah. And it's the same consultant did the first one and now They've made corrections to it.

We've been using Harris from the beginning.

Okay.

Anyone else? No. Do we do public comment again this time? We didn't do it last time. I couldn't remember. Okay. Well, then let's do some public comment. Is anybody out there?

There are no hands raised on Zoom or speaker slips. Okay. There's nobody out there.

Well, but there could be somebody here.

Yes.

So can we close the public comment? We have a motion. I move to close.

Use the little box. Oh, gee. I move to close the public comment.

Okay. Well, you seconded it. Nathan beat you.

That's okay. That'll work.

That'll work.

I agree.

All right. We can vote now.

thank you motion passes for 0 public comment is now closed all right thank you all right any further discussion or motions just following on that minor point we we talked about I would make sure that when this goes to the City Council the red line version is also included

I think that when when the when your recommendation goes the council is just to clarify they will be receiving what you recommend tonight If we provide that red line between your first and second version of council, it would not It would not help their decision In my it's my recommendation. I think that would just confuse the matter further But I do recognize your point about having it for us for you. I but i think for the city council's purpose they will be reviewing what you ultimately recommend to them so if you provide them a draft version i don't think that will assist them in their decision um but i certainly can do that if that's the record okay i appreciate that just to clarify the council hasn't seen the draft we saw in our previous meeting no no they have not okay then yeah they don't need the red line then

But somebody should be able to review that. The public should see it. If we can go with our minutes, that would be fantastic. Yes, we can actually accommodate that, yes. How about that? Okay, cool. Thank you.

All right. I'll just say that for myself, I mean, I see Chair Davis and Commissioner Quigg where you're coming from. Well, all the three of you, why you wanted the red lines. And I think I would have appreciated them too. But I also feel like when I was reading through the ordinance for the second time, I did notice how much more streamlined it was and how many fewer questions I had about the details compared to the first time we had to review it. So I certainly felt that I very much appreciate how much more readable this is and I would have no problem making a recommendation of the clean second copy to counsel for consideration. right do we have a motion there's one do we have a second i'll second uh so i move that we approve uh and recommend to the city council an amendment to the city's density bonus ordinance to allow local density bonus incentives in addition to the ones granted by state law

all right we're good vote thank you motion passes 4-0 all righty thank you very much new business we don't have any staff updates

I have a couple of staff updates for you. These are also flyers in your packet tonight. The first is we have an upcoming planning commissioner's training on Wednesday, October 29th that you all have been invited to. This is a training done in conjunction with Cal APA. 21 elements and home for all San Mateo County on climate resilience. Again, that's Wednesday the 29th. They do have a request to register by online by Wednesday, October 22nd. You're all welcome to do that on your own individually. Otherwise, you know, you can certainly email Michelle and I, but it probably easier if you did it yourself. So that is that training is available for you and we encourage you all to attend. Of course, if you do attend, please adhere to the proud act and YOU KNOW, MAKE SURE YOU'RE FOLLOWING THE STANDARD PROTOCOL AT SUCH AN EVENT WHEN OTHER COMMISSIONERS ARE PRESENT. AND THEN IN ADDITION, ON THE TOPIC OF THE BROWN ACT, WE ARE ALSO HAVING AN ANNUAL COMMISSION AND COMMITTEE TRAINING ON WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15TH FROM 6 TO 8 HERE IN THIS ROOM. AND THE TRAINING WILL INCLUDE THE BROWN ACT, RULES OF ORDER, PUBLIC RECORDS, RULES OF COMMISSIONS AND COMMITTEES, GOVERNMENT ETHICS LAWS AND THE APPROPRIATE USE OF PUBLIC RESOURCES. SO THAT FLYER IS ALSO IN YOUR PACKET. THERE IS NO RSVP FOR THAT. WE JUST EXPECT YOU TO BE HERE. SO WE REALLY APPRECIATE YOU ATTENDING THESE TRAININGS. AND I THINK WITH THAT, THAT IS ALL I HAVE FOR THIS EVENING FOR STAFF ANNOUNCEMENTS.

NEW SPEAKER NO PROJECT UPDATES OF ANYTHING THAT YOU CAN THINK OF?

NEW SPEAKER OUR NEXT MEETING IS SCHEDULED FOR WEDNESDAY I'M SORRY MONDAY OCTOBER 20TH AND ON THAT NIGHT WE EXPECT THERE TO BE CONSIDERATION THERE'S GOING TO BE CONSIDERATION OF LAND USE DETERMINATION REGARDING A LEGAL NONCONFORMING USE AND SO THAT THAT WOULD BE SCHEDULED ON THE 20TH THAT'S MY ASSUMPTION IS THAT WE'LL HAVE IT AT THAT MEETING OKAY THANK YOU

like how big a project are we talking about?

I don't want to preclude your decision, so I'll go with that.

Okay, then are there any announcements from commissioners?

Volunteers of the year event awards dinner is on the 17th. There's still time for some reservations.

Just wanted to wish a happy mid-autumn festival to everyone who was observing today.

Did anybody look at that moon tonight?

Gorgeous.

I mean, it is like twice the size of a moon. I mean, I came down and I went, oh my God, my eyes went. I try to take pictures of those, but they just never come out quite the same.

All right. That's it. We're adjourned.