City Council - Regular Meeting

Yes, we are ready.

I know, I know. OK, work with me, John.

I'm out.

Good evening. I'd like to welcome you to our City Council meeting for May 20th, 2026. And I'm noting that I am late this evening and it is starting at 6.05, much to the disgust of someone else sitting next to me up here, but next time I'll do better. And at this time, I'd like to ask if you'll participate with us in the Pledge of Allegiance as you can. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

All right. May I please ask for roll call?

Council Member Ding?

Here.

Council Member Farrar-Rivas? Here. Council Member Gurney?

Here.

Vice Mayor Low? Here. Mayor Wellender? Here. Thank you.

Very good. There was no closed session this evening, so there is nothing to report. And so at this point, I'd like to turn to my fellow council members for approval of the agenda or comments.

I WOULD LIKE TO APPROVE THE AGENDA TONIGHT.

I'LL SECOND IT.

ANY DISCUSSION? I DO BELIEVE I'VE JUST BEEN FORGIVEN FOR STARTING FIVE MINUTES LATE TONIGHT. I EXPECT FULL APOLOGY. ANYWAY, SO ON THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE AGENDA THIS EVENING, IT WILL BE JUST A VERBAL. SO ALL THOSE IN FAVOR SAY AYE.

AYE.

OPPOSED? So at this point in time, we are now at where the public has the opportunity to speak on items not appearing on the agenda. Now, please be advised that these items we cannot take any action on or deliberate up at the dais, but we will be here listening intently. There will be an opportunity for 10 individuals to speak at this point in the meeting, and should there be more than 10, then the opportunity will come back up at the end of the city council meeting. I would like you to go ahead and queue up and then as part of it to state your name and you will have two minutes to express your thoughts and comments and so at this point I would say you're welcome to step forward if we have anyone. Well, I don't even have to worry about the next 10. We have no one. So in an effort to make up some time, I will not linger. So thank you. We'll be closing the comments for the public and moving on. Do I have a meeting dedication? We see no movement on that. No meeting dedication. And now at this point, I will turn to my fellow council members for reports and comments since we last met.

I'll go ahead. As I report on the Sonoma Clean Power meetings that I attend, and I attended a meeting on May 7th, the board of Sonoma Clean Power. And one of the things I just wanted everybody to be aware of is that they have provided a $500,000 grant and a $4 million loan to a new business called Boss, which is a business that's supporting new business development. And it provides all the services for a business at that site. And it is at 350 East Street in Santa Rosa. but still services would be provided, of course, to new businesses in Sonoma. Those services are not free, but they're done at very fair prices, but provides all of the different types of services a new business might need to get started, including kind of a roadmap to how to start a new business. So I just wanted to make sure that folks were aware of that, that that is available now. And then I also continue to remind people about one of the things that we're really trying to do is to be able to have geothermal here in the county of Sonoma Mendocino and ideally over the long run Lake County we have the capacity of building it we have the geysers a site to have it there's legislation going on right now in our state legislature to be able to have the initial exploration on sites for geothermal that they would not have to go through CEQA. If they were to then go ahead and actually build a site there, they would have to go through CEQA, but just to get the initial work done. There is a program called Utah Forge where they've been able to do this and create jobs and electricity and support the Utah economy. And right now, so what the issue is, we want you to, you know, for people, if you are interested in this, to let your legislatures know, because what it basically would do is bring jobs and electricity here versus having to pay probably over almost $2 billion to bring electricity in from states like Utah and Nevada. So it's about having our electricity here versus having to bring it in. So that's my Sonoma Clean Power report. And there's many other kind of community activities that I attended over the last couple of weeks, but I won't let others.

we're also there remark on those thank you councilman dean thank you mayor i don't have any in the meeting to report tonight thank you thank you councilwoman sarna thank you um so uh at the last meeting um when i arrived late it was because i was at lafco and we voted on whether or not to approve um an out the alexander valley water district And that's why I was late and it was a very long discussion. I'll give you the short version. It was turned down primarily because they were putting together a property owner district rather than a voter-initiated district, which meant that all of the people on the board were the major property owners within the Alexander Valley As you know, a very rich agricultural area, desperately worried about water because of what's happening up in the Potter Valley Dam and so forth. So it was a very long conversation. I actually wanted to keep it going because I was hoping we would find they would be able to revise their proposal and bring it back. And because really nobody came in to speak against it. And when no one comes to speak against something, even though intrinsically I was totally hoping for a voter-based board, as most water districts are, It concerned me that we didn't really have anybody talking about, well, my rights are being taken away or whatever. So anyway, I, along with Supervisor Rabbitt, both voted to extend it, to say no on the resolution to keep it going. But we were in the minority on that. And so now the proponents will have to come back with a new proposal. And they have a year to do that. So we're hoping that something will come forward. There's a lot going on up in that area, including Riverside County Water District up there looking at whether or not they want to control the water in the Alexander Valley. Anyway, it's a complicated proposal, but it's something that will affect everyone in Sonoma Mendocino County, of course. So that's where I was, and it still goes on, and there's a lot happening with it. So anyway, my apologies for being late last time, and now you know a little bit about why. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you. Councilmember John.

The only thing to report. And Councilmember Patricia Farrar-Rivas was also participating in the finance committee meeting in, when was that, last Friday, I believe. And we are continuing the discussion around the finance situation and the budget. THIS FRIDAY. SO IT'S A WORK IN PROGRESS AND WE HOPE TO BE ABLE TO REPORT BACK DURING BUDGET HEARING. NOT HEARING, BUT WORKSHOP THAT WE HAVE COMING UP. THANK YOU.

VERY GOOD. THANK YOU. A COUPLE OF BRIEF NOTES FROM MY PAST COUPLE WEEKS. I HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO GO TO FIREHOUSE NUMBER ONE AND SEE THE SONOMA VALLEY FIRE DISTRICT'S PINNING FOR VARIOUS VOLUNTEERS THAT HAVE BEEN RECOGNIZED AS WELL AS SEVERAL THAT HAVE BEEN ELEVATED UP TO EITHER ENGINEER AND OR CAPTAIN. I'M HAPPY TO REPORT THAT IT APPEARS WE CONTINUE TO HAVE A VIGOROUS FIRE DEPARTMENT AND VERY COMMITTED FIRE DEPARTMENT AND I WAS HAPPY TO SEE BOTH THE PROFESSIONALS AND THE FAMILIES CELEBRATE THAT EVENING. I HAD THE CHANCE TO MAKE A QUICK DASH TO THE RIBBON CUTTING OF THE SONOMA VALLEY VISITORS BUREAU NEW LOCATION AT THE TOSCANO HOTEL. And I believe that that was with the move from Carnegie to Toscano that it's a win-win. And I think that I'm very happy that we've done that. Probably the most insightful event that I had was to go up and tour part of the Sonoma Water Department up in San Rosa. recently installed a new radar that is a weather radar that is helping us to be much more accurate with our predictions and it's one of I believe four that are throughout the North Bay and I CANNOT GET INTO ANY MORE OF THE TECHNICAL STUFF BECAUSE I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND IT, BUT I'M JUST HAPPY TO SAY THAT SONOMA WATER CONTINUES TO BE KIND OF ON THE FOREFRONT OF BOTH THE WEATHER PREDICTIONS, MANAGING WATER, ETC. SO, AGAIN, I THINK WE'RE FORTUNATE. And the last item was an event that I appreciated. I had the chance, I was invited to have lunch with our state senator. And that was Mr. Christopher Caledon this past Saturday. And I'm just happy in the sense that we were, I won't say spoiled, but the fact that our previous state senator lived in Napa. And Mr. Caldwell-Dawn lives in the West Sacramento area. There was some concern about distance and being forgotten. I'm happy to say that he has not forgotten Sonoma. And I do believe that there is a commitment to continue to be a good representative for us in Sacramento. So that wraps up my comments. And with that, I would like to then turn to our interim city manager for a update, please.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and council members. I want to start off by thanking eight community volunteers along with city staff who participated in the Veterans Cemetery volunteer work day this past Saturday. Volunteers assisted with weeding and mulching and new plantings, helping refresh the site in preparation for the Memorial Day holiday and observance, which is taking place on Monday the 25th at 11 a.m. and open to the community. A COUPLE OF BIG RECOGNITIONS. THE CITY RECEIVED TWO PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER AWARDS. THERE'S STATEWIDE EPIC AWARDS PRESENTED BY THE CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICIALS AND THOSE WERE PRESENTED AT A CONFERENCE LAST WEEK. THE AWARDS RECOGNIZE PUBLIC INFORMATION AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT. WORK DEVELOPED AND IMPLEMENTED BY OUR VERY OWN IN-HOUSE SENIOR MANAGEMENT ANALYST AND PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER SARAH TRACY. SO CONGRATULATIONS TO HER. Um, one award recognized the cities, also the city cemeteries, communication and public access improvement efforts, including outreach, supporting an expanded cemetery capacity, volunteer work days, public information resources, and a development of new tools such as the interactive burial map and locator. The success of the cemeteries communication campaign is closely tied to operational improvements and customer service efforts led by cemeteries manager, Carolyn Fulton. So appreciation and recognition to her whose work has helped improve responsiveness, public trust, and overall the customer experience. The second award was recognized by the city's just broader public information and engagement program. And these awards reflect the city's ongoing efforts to provide effective and transparency, transparent community-centered communications while maximizing our limited resources. Just a note that we all know, and it's getting hotter, that fire season is upon us. The elevated fire weather conditions that we experienced over the weekend serve as an important reminder to start preparing for our home, protection zones, weeding, and defensible space. I'm sure many of you who read this spring's weather patterns have resulted in more weed and vegetation growth than typical across the region, so city crews are actively working to address vegetation management on city-owned properties. The Sonoma Valley Fire District's annual weed abatement and vegetation management efforts are also underway, and additional wildlife preparedness information is available through the Fire District's website. I also wanted to mention that the Sonoma Valley Fire District released their 2025 annual report, and the fire chief will be here at the next city council meeting on June the 3rd to present that report to the council and community. An update on Measure M. There's talk underway about the possible extension of Measure M, which is Sonoma County's parks sales tax measure, which provides important funding for parks, open space, and recreation improvements throughout the region. The city receives approximately $150,000 a year through Measure M funding that has directly supported specific park and open space improvements in the city. Our very own parks and rec director, Dave Jan, spoke at the county board supervisors meeting this week in support of a potential extension and highlighted how Measure M specifically has supported projects in Sonoma, including the rehabilitation of Olsen Park, and restroom improvements and site improvements at Depot Park, a hub for community activity that's adjacent to county recreation space and connected to a regional bicycle pedestrian pathway, support and partnership with the Sonoma Ecology Center for ongoing maintenance of the Montini Open Space Preserve and treasure protected open space heavily utilized by Sonoma Valley residents. More information can be found on the city's website. Just put the search term Measure M and you can find that website. I also wanted to extend congratulations to all the Sonoma Valley High School graduates. Graduation is happening Friday, May 30th, and next week we'll be lighting up City Hall with green to celebrate them along with a banner. Congratulations banner on City Hall for the occasion. And then on June 1st, we'll switch the lighting over for Pride Month, which we're gonna recognize in a few minutes. So rainbow lights will be lit on June the 1st, and then Sonoma Valley Pride will be hosting a celebration on June the 14th from 2 to 5 in the plaza. And then finally, I just wanted to make a note that the city is launching a new partnership this year with the National Academy of Athletics, bringing a new lineup of youth sports camps for ages 4 through 13 to Field of Dreams Park this summer. So the programs will include multi-sports camps, soccer, flag football, cheer and dance, t-ball, lacrosse, and there will be scholarships available. So there'll be more information on the city's website later this week, and a long-awaited recreation guide will be also coming out shortly in the next week or so. That's all I have for you. Thank you. Chair, did you have a question? Yes.

I just wanted to add one thing. It's on Thursday night is the Creekside High School graduation.

And now we'll move down to the left and ask for our attorney for any update, please.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. I did attend the Cal City City Attorneys Conference last week in Universal City. When I wasn't assisting staff with reviewing staff reports and agenda materials, I did have the opportunity to attend some interesting sessions. As a sign of the times, there were two sessions that related to AI. make our lives easier and one about how it's made our lives a lot more difficult but it was it was a good session we also did have our meeting of the legal advocacy committee while we were down there in person which was good a number of interesting cases there's a PRA case we're gonna ask to have published out of San Diego that basically holds that the amount of time that a city is that a city has to actually produce the records is as case-by-case analysis, depending upon how many records is being requested. I think the newspaper in that case said, well, no, we should get it within a couple weeks. And in that case, it took the city of San Diego over a year to provide all the records. And the court said, that's fine, because you asked for a lot of records. So that's a good case that hopefully we can get published. And then another interesting case that we're seeking publication over that I've asked published, I don't know, I haven't got the results of the determination yet, but out of the municipal water district, a rates case. They passed some water rates. They had the rates validated by a validation action, which is a form of procedure that binds the world to the decision that these rates were lawful. And then someone came around a few months later and said, no, I want to challenge these rates under Prop 218. The court said, sorry, the validation action applies to you. You should have come. and appeared in the validation action. So we're working hard to preserve local control, and that concludes my report.

Very good. Thank you. BEFORE WE MOVE ON REAL QUICKLY TO OUR PRESENTATIONS, I DO WANT TO MAKE ONE UNANNOUNCED PSA, WHICH IS GOING TO CARRY ON TO OUR INTERIM CITY MANAGER'S COMMENT. MONDAY, THE MEMORIAL SERVICE IS, IN MY OPINION, ONE OF THE MORE SIGNIFICANT EVENTS THAT WE HOST OR HAVE HERE IN SONOMA BEYOND THE 4TH OF JULY PARADE. And I would strongly encourage about 300 people to turn out. The speaker this year is going to be our own Bucky Peterson, a retired colonel, Marine colonel. And so again, I believe that it's well worth the investment and time, and a time for us to reflect on how fortunate we are for those that were willing to protect us. That's it, and now we're gonna move on to what will be a fun part of our session this evening, and that is the presentations. And this evening, we have the opportunity to introduce and recognize the 2026 Student Creative Artist, and there is a artist and a merit award winner, and we'll start with the number one, and that's Sienna Kelly. And the merit award winner is Cassandra Castile. And at this point, the chairperson, chairman of the Cultural and Fine Arts Commission would like to come forward and say a few words, I hope.

Yes, thank you. First of all, I'd like to express the appreciation for the staff who did an amazing job of putting together the interviews for 19 student artists, record number of student artists from four different high schools in the area. And they just did a magnificent job of putting together the portfolios, the artist statements, setting up the interviews. It was quite an extensive process over several nights, and I don't even know how many hours our cultural and fine arts commissioners spent. One of them is here, our new one, Jamie Love. And it was her first meeting, and I told her, it's really not that hard to do this commission work. And then boom, we got hit. But it was so exciting. And the excellence that we saw, the outstanding artistic achievements, it was the best since I've been on the commission. This award was established in 1988 for high school juniors and seniors working in visual, literary, and performing arts. In 1992, it became the Steve Silver High School Honorarium to recognize an art student that had died and their parents had established that. And in 2002, it became the Student Creative Arts Award Program. I don't know many cities that do this, that recognize emerging student artists, creatives, and I'm very proud of our city for doing this. We picked Sienna Kelly, who actually had applied last year, and she reapplied this year. for the 2026 Student Creative Artist of the Year Award. She has won $4,000 to be used however she wants to to pursue her field. Her media arts teacher is Peter Hanson, who is retiring this year, and he was incredibly proud of her. And she explores themes of human connection and emotional complexity through film. Her goal is to create work made by people, for people, and about people. And she submitted Hold Me Close and Let Me Leave, an amazing film, and then I went to see her work at the Student Film Festival, where she did an exploded version of another film. She's a superstar. We also could not ignore Cassandra Casillo, so we gave a $1,000 merit award to Cassandra, who had a strong commitment to character design and storytelling across multiple mediums. and a unique visual style through both digital and traditional techniques. CFAC looks forward to seeing their continued creative growth, and we believe that the creative future of Sonoma Valley is in good hands. So shall we have them come up?

Please. Would you like to share a comment, please? Please, go ahead. You don't have to.

I have to say just, excuse me, just many thanks for this opportunity and for this scholarship. It means a lot to put myself out there as a creative and to have my work seen and appreciated by people because I think that art and specifically film, because that is my passion, is such a form of connection and such a form of, like it's part of who we are as people to be artists. And so this commission in itself and specifically this award to recognize students I think is amazing and to recognize and uplift student artists equally is something that is so impressive. So I'm very thankful for this opportunity and not much else to say really. Thank you.

Very good. Please.

I would really like to say thank you very much. It really shows that I guess just as an upcoming artist my art can just be appreciated and be awarded such something for me is something really big and something that I never thought would be possible. Really, really a thousand thank yous.

Oh, excellent.

Thank you.

Before I come down for the photo op, I just want to read these recognitions. It says, Cultural and Fine Arts Commission, 2026 Student Creative Artist Award is hereby granted to Sienna Kelly for outstanding artistic achievement and dedication to your craft presented this 20th of May, 2026. And then, in a similar fashion, Cultural and Fine Arts Commission 2026 Student Creative Artist Merit Award is hereby granted to Cassandra Castillo for outstanding artistic achievement and dedication to your craft presented this 20th of May, 2026. And I just, it's a little bit atypical. Normally we say we have items suitable for framing, but there's actually something on the backside that actually may be more interesting. of the paper.

This is significant.

Get all of you in there. Ready? One, two, three. Perfect. Thank you.

chair yes I just asked our chair of their our Commission where we can see their work and it's available on the city website excellent thank you for sharing that oh absolutely and when we went to Sacramento for the last League of Cities thing I went to a workshop on getting young people involved and

And they had all these circuitous ways, in my opinion, of getting young people involved in commissions. And I just said, well, we just put them on the commission. And they said, everyone? I said, yeah. Including the planning commission? Yeah. And everyone, they were just kind of shocked, you know, because remember that, Patricia? It was like, so I just want to think that, you know, say that when we see this sort of thing happen, it doesn't happen without some of the policies that we've passed here to be very actively not just like, okay, you know, We're going to give this to you. It's like they're being honored and their peers are involved in these conversations. And I think that's really important. And I just wanted to mention that.

Well, thank you. Very good. So the second presentation we have this evening is actually a proclamation. And we're designating the month of June 2026 as Pride Month in the city of Sonoma. And before I ask Mr. Saperstein to come forward to receive this proclamation, I would like to go ahead and read it briefly. And, excuse me, the whole group, please, are welcome back. Proclaiming June 2026 as Pride Month in the City of Sonoma, the City of Sonoma is proud to honor and celebrate the rich diversity, resilience, and contributions of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual community, and Pride Month commemorates the historic Stonewall Uprising of June 1969, a pivotal moment in the ongoing struggle for the LGBTQIA plus civil rights and serves as a powerful reminder of the courage, strength and activism that have brought us closer to equity and inclusion. The Sonoma Valley is home to a vibrant LGBTQIA plus community that plays an essential role in the cultural, economic, and civic life of our region, enriching our neighborhoods, shaping our local businesses, driving tourism, and creating a more compassionate and welcoming community for all. So as therefore, I am resolved, I, Ron Wellander, Mayor of the City of Sonoma, do hereby proclaim the month of June 2026 as Pride Month in the City of Sonoma and encourage all residents to recognize and celebrate the valuable contributions of the LGBTQIA plus community to stand against discrimination and hatred in all its forms and to affirm that in Sonoma, everyone belongs. Would you like to speak before? Oh, speak? Well, you've never been shy.

Well, thank you for that. We really do appreciate it. I probably don't have to tell anybody in this room that we're living in challenging times right now where there are many people, especially politicians, who literally want to erase us. Right now in Florida, the governor of Florida has declared that no agency, no governmental agency can celebrate or recognize Pride at all this year. So things like that are happening all around the country. Just this past week, it was wonderful in the Press Democrat, I had an event and the Press Democrat wrote about it in the Index Tribune. They also picked up a story on our Sonoma Valley Pride. The hatred and vitriol that people spew against other people is really very sad, very sad these days. But that is not what we are going to do at Pride. We are here this year to celebrate queer joy. And that is what we're going to do with Sonoma Valley Pride because we live in a town that will recognize us. So thank you very much for that.

I echo all of that Gary and I also just wanted to point out that this is the culmination of a lot of work of our community and you guys have played a part in that every year over the past several years. This year we have a whole weekend of pride. Friday, we're going to be having an amazing concert at the Sebastiani Theatre. Saturday, the thing we're really excited about is the General's Daughter is back in the fold, and we will be having a big dance at General's Daughter, and I hope that some of you decide to come. It's just going to be really fun. And then Sunday we have the whole southeast quadrant of the plaza, and we're going to make a really big family-friendly, fun day with Sandra, who's going to be one of our speakers. And we're going to have just a really fun time, so I really hope you all come out. And I just brought you a little commemoration gift. It'll be a collector's item. And if you want it, you can post it.

And for those that aren't aware, this is Lisa Stormont speaking.

Yes, and I will just echo what the both of them said. We're so thankful that our city supports us and makes a space for us to have our pride openly. And we're so welcoming of our allies. So we hope everyone can come and support and have fun and just have a beautiful day in Sonoma.

All right, one, two, three.

Thank you.

Hey, could you introduce, I didn't get your name, sorry. So, Matthew. Matthew Long, just so that everybody knows who is represented. Thank you. Well, fantastic is amazing.

This is really great. And there's still stickers around town of the one that I had designed a few years ago. And I didn't do it this year. We didn't reprint them. And I thought, oh, God, I'm asleep at the switch here. And then this is so great. Thank you so much. Oh, that's great. So is there a sticker or something like that that can go on businesses? Okay, well, that would be great. I had them union printed. If you want to talk to my, I'd be happy to connect you with my printer. I used the California Professional Firefighters print shop out of Sacramento, and they did a little bit faster.

I was remiss, we have two more presentations this evening. And we now are very happy to recognize the City of Sonoma's Public Works Department. This is the National Public Works Week, May 17th through the 23rd. And we do have our Public Works Director, Mr. Berger, here to share a few thoughts, please.

Thank you, Mayor Wellander and Council, and thanks a lot for giving us the opportunity to recognize Public Works this week, National Public Works Week, as you said. I'm Mike Berger, Director of Public Works for the City of Sonoma, and I wanted to just take a little bit of time tonight. The theme this year is Rooted in Service and Powered by Community for National Public Works Week for the APWA. And some of the two things I'm going to do tonight, I'm going to celebrate some of the people that we have and some of the projects that we've done in the last year. And I want to just highlight some of the things that engineering and operations do at Public Works. We have teams that show up every day with positive attitude, want to maintain the city's critical infrastructure, serve their community, working on roads past sidewalks, ensure that everybody's got clean water when they turn their tap on and we also maintain parks cemeteries and all of our open space design manage projects that enhance the parks buildings utilities roads and bridges and sidewalks in the community and then ensure compliance with environmental and uh permit regulations and oversee construction of CIP development and encroachment permit projects in the city of Sonoma I brought with me five people here tonight that are all with Public Works Department and I'll start over at the wall and that is our streets crew supervisor Tommy plume and And Tommy is in charge of running the crew that oversees all of our streets from back of sidewalk to back of sidewalk. Our signs are striping, our storm drains underneath, the condition of our roads, and looking at the bridges and all the other different objects, trees that fall on the roadway around town. And that's part of what his crew does. The next person in is Alif Myers. And Alif is our environmental compliance analyst. And she came to us with just a ton of environmental knowledge and problem solving skills and has applied it to overseeing the city stormwater program and other environmental programs that we have to adhere to and overseeing all the work on our mitigation sites. In addition to going around town and looking at job sites and making sure that all the stormwater coming off the projects are nice and clean and able to flow into the storm drains. Next person over is McLean Mann, and Mack is in charge of our water department, and he is D3 certified, and he's recently become D3 certified because that's a qualification of his recent promotion to be water supervisor. And that's a really big job because that could be a water break in the middle of the night. And one thing about the water crew, you always know that you pick up that phone, you make a phone call. They're going to be out there. They're going to get the job done. Streets, parks, other departments go out and help them out. So great job there. And then our next person over is Terrence Erickson, and he's our recently promoted operations manager. And what does Terrence do? Let me think, what doesn't Terrence do? Operations manager does just about a little of everything. Other than overseeing all of our different operations out at the yard, he's in charge of our fleet, our facilities, and making sure that when people go in and turn the lights on, the lights work. and a multitude of other tasks. The last person in the five is our project and administrative manager, Ashley Cotter. And basically, while Terrence takes care of everything field project oriented, Ashley takes care of everything management, office related, contracts, encroachment permit oversight, development project oversight, capital improvement project oversight, and all the budgets and project management associated with that. So I would just like to thank again our crew. And then one other thing is that all the operations people there, they've all been internally promoted. So one of the things that we take pride in out of the yard is train our people and get them fitted for taking that next step and becoming promoted to the next position on the hierarchy chain. So thanks again. Yeah, and then just to highlight a few of our projects. Okay, this is one of the slides I put up for streets, and this demonstrates some of the work that we've done in the last year with our concrete on-call. A little over a year ago, we started our first project over at the Mason Avi House, redoing the sidewalk out in front, put a little retaining wall at the back of the walk so we could save that oak tree with a little bulb out. And then we move right on to doing ADA handicap ramps and entry ramps, bicycle ramps to the trail project on Third Street. We did five or six handicap ramps on Third Street prepping for our, Go Sonoma pedestrian and bicycle safety project and then also over at Friar Pickett and Nash prepping for the Friar Pickett Nash paving project that just completed. So in addition to doing concrete on call the streets crew is always out doing upgrades on safety upgrades for striping signage on the travel way in bike lanes and in the road. Next slide I have is water and some of the projects that our water crew did recently. We just did a water line repair on the level by road bridge, which is outside the city limits. But the city does serve water out there and we over the water department oversaw the contractor doing the construction did all the inspection and testing associated with the job to get that water line which was leaking and old and rusty replaced on the low valley road bridge and there's about 20 people out there that are served by that on one side of the bridge and that was a great job and then there's one of the many repairs just a photo one of the many repairs that they do um both during the day at work and after hours The next slide I have is one of our environmental mitigation sites, and this is one of the projects that Leif's been working on, but she has been alone. These jobs are collaborative projects, and this is one of the mitigation sites that we had to do as a result of one of our construction projects. This could be for the Chase Street Bridge. And basically what we have to do is because we cut down 10, 15 trees at the Chase Street Bridge, we have to go plant 10 or 15 on the other side of town. So this is over by the hospital. The photos on the left and the one in the middle is the most recent photo that we have. And basically these projects, which have been in the works for between five and 10 years are gonna come to fruition this summer. And we're gonna have reached our commitment with the permitting agencies on our mitigation requirements. And then off to the right, there's just a snapshot of paving last week on Friar Pickett Nash Paving Project, one of the biggest street jobs that the city's done in a few years. And basically, other capital improvement projects in the wings are we'll be starting our slurry project in the next month. That project will go out to bid. And then we're continuing to work on design for our Go Sonoma pet and bike safety project. and our SCT Sonoma County Transit electrification project out at the yard where we're going to be charging an electric bus for them. Moving right along to my next slide. Talking about parks, and if you're going to talk about parks, you might as well talk about the plaza. We've done a couple of really neat projects up at the plaza recently. Not sure if you saw, but all the snow fencing, protecting the new grass there's a picture of the project as we were planting the grass and then the grass as it grew a little while later we had all that cordoned off so that the grass got time to uh just get healthy before people started walking on it and now we got a brand new segment of beautiful grass out on the plaza and then the other project is the duck pond and yeah we did a deep cleaning of the duck pond this year and when we do that that's all hands we get a vac truck out there and um We clean all that stuff off the bottom and it's, you know, probably lasts a couple of weeks and then it's starting to get like it needs a little cleaning again. So that was all hands. Everybody worked on that and we got the job done. And just speaking all hands collaboration today, one of the streets crew was out assisting parks with our recently purchased flail mower. That just works great. And if you look on the left side of that path where the excavator is, Over on the right side is what it looked like before he took the flail mower down it. Wonderful piece of equipment and a really great addition to our fleet out at the yard. The last two slides are from Field of Dreams. And here again, this was an all-hands-all department project. basically uh dave janz parks and rec department director and myself spent a lot of time managing this with field of dreams dave's going to be talking about it tonight these are just a couple of shots of the project and here again our concrete on call the streets crew did the demolition for the brand new handicap ramp that's right there and then our concrete on call came in poured the concrete Sarah's construction paved that section of it. And then our streets crew went back and put all the signage and striping down to make it a legal ADA compliant handicapped spot. So once again, thank you. We are founded in service and community and appreciate your time again tonight.

OK, I believe there was an introduction to our next speaker.

Chair? Through the chair? I just want to thank everybody for all the great work. Because it's so often we hear about what people want or what's not happening. It's really, I mean, this is what's on an ongoing basis what's happening. And the amount of dedication and work and money it takes to make this happen. So thank you, Mike, and thank you, team. I know we had a water issue at our house, and folks were there right away to let us know that it was happening. Thank you all.

Good evening, Mayor, Council Members. I'm Dave Janz, Parks and Recreation Director, and I think it's fitting that this presentation is coming on the heels of what Mike just shared, as we're going to talk about here this evening. And I will be brief, but this really was an all hands-on, which included multiple city departments. But I think the big... Big lead item is the involvement of the community to make this project happen. So I'm here to give you an update on the Field of Dreams site improvements and set the table for the upcoming 2026 Transcendence Theater. You may recall I came before you in December as we were about to kick this project off. I'm very pleased to share that we are nearing the very tail end of this project and getting everything squared away for the upcoming theater season. So some background. Again, this will be a reiteration of some of the information we covered in December, but Transcendence Theatre has been performing their Broadway Under the Stars performance at the Field of Dreams site since 2024. During the summers of 24 and 25, they were located on the Fazio Field, which is the northernmost section of the Field of Dreams site. During the 25 season, the city received several concerns about the noise issues out there there was community discussions i know discussions with you as council members so at the conclusion of the season we brought back an update to the council and the council approved moving forward with transcendence for the 2026 season but requested the staff look into sound mitigation efforts So based on the community feedback and what we heard from the council, our main focus was seeing how we can reorient the stage and get sound going in a different direction. So to take a look at the timeline of going from that August 20th to where we are today and actually a couple weeks into the future. So in August, we approved the 2026 season. So immediately after that, our staff team met with the Field of Dreams board as well as representatives from Transcendence Theater Company to see how we can mitigate these sound issues. So we spent a lot of time at the Field of Dreams site. taking a look at what the options were on the existing facility, looking at other locations, looking at how we could reorient the stage, looking at how we could have potential sound mitigation efforts. Ultimately landed on that we thought it would be feasible to move the stage more southwest on the field into the area that's adjacent to Peterson Field. I'll have an aerial view here for you in just a second. And so we focused our efforts on how we can move the stage from Fazio to that location for two reasons. One, first and foremost, was looking at the sound mitigation. But what that would also do is reactivate Fazio Field as a sports field for our softball players and other youth participants. So it would reactivate that space as a youth field. And we've seen that happen this season. So November through December was a lot of planning, working with local experts in the engineering, construction, and surveying field to put together detailed plans. The work began in February, and the bulk of the work continued February through April of this year. And the project is just about complete. We're doing final walkthroughs and getting everything situated here in May. And we are on track for Transcendence to have their first performance in the new location on June 12th. So quick look at the site. Um, here's an aerial view. You'll see in the top right corner, the red location, just as orient orient those looking at this, um, the red square at the top, that is Fazio field. That's where the stage was previously located. And the yellow rectangle on the bottom, that is the location of where we're looking to relocate or have made improvements to relocate the stage. So after some white, lots of walkthroughs, we worked and thankfully he's here. I know for another topic, but Chad Maul had an instrumental role in this project and developed detailed plans of how we would move through grading and construction of this project. So we came up with a preliminary drawing and then worked closely with the Field of Dreams board and local contractors to put the plan into action. So if you've had a chance, this location is just outside of this building and what you see now is the finished product and a lot of it's above ground and it looks like a new all weather surface. But what you may not see is there was a lot of work that happened underground, a lot of prep work that went into it. So here's the high level look at the various enhancements that took place. So this started with demo, this removed an existing backstop, removed sections of underutilized and unused natural turf areas and essentially prepping the site for construction. Then moved into site grading, so Saris Corporation graded 15,000 square feet of both rough and then moved into refined grading out there, leveled the performance and seating area as well as access points. There's the installation of over 112, I think close to 120 linear feet of new storm drain system and that intertied to our existing storm drain and new inlets and drains were added as well. Bio-retention swale was added at the southern end of the project that's to help capture additional storm runoff and help with pollutant capture and Then the big area that you're gonna see out there is the addition of this all weather surface material and so 10,000 square feet plus or minus have been added out there and that will provide not only location for the stage for access points but should provide an area that's all weather year-round and so Really, the intent of a lot of these improvements was to create a new home for transcendence, but also be an improvement to all users of Field of Dreams. So this will be an area that families can gather, that award ceremonies can happen. There's the potential that Field of Dreams programming can happen even during the winter season. We're going to test that out as we get into those months ahead. So the intent is this would benefit all users, not necessarily just the transcendence, but that was the focal area of the move. And then finally, some improvements to the pedestrian and bike pathway that was leveled, scraped, and then re-asphalt poured on there. And then as Mike mentioned, the installation of a brand new ADA parking stall and access from that parking stall to the pedestrian walkway. Here's a few pictures in addition to what Mike shared of the crews at work out there. And ultimately wanted to share this we're still fine tuning with transcendence and they're set to begin their move in at the end of next week, but this is ultimately. What their layout will look at will look like on the site with the addition of the stage performance area and, as you can see. The new access points there's a few modifications when they were still working through them on them, but this will give you an idea of how that site will be utilized in the near term. And speaking of Transcendence, a quick look ahead of what their schedule looks like. So load-in will begin next week. I'm sorry, that says May 12th. That is May 28th. That did not already happen. That's happening next week. We do have three productions on three separate productions that Transcendence will be putting forward, one in June, July, and August for a total of 26 performance evenings. um the change from last year's there will be just one single performance during the month of july and that will allow the performances to come to a conclusion in august so same general number of performances a more condensed schedule and the reason for that that will allow youth sports to get back on to field of dreams sooner condenses that over overall timeline and potential impact of noise and really concentrates those performances to the summer months and not so much into the school year And I think the most important slide here is a huge thank you to all of the community partners that made this happen. I'm up here giving the presentation, providing the update, but this was an initiative that was really led by others in the community. Mike and I had a role to support their efforts, but really want to thank the Field Dreams Board, specifically JJ Abedeli, MT Robertson, Seamus Canning. They had a critical role from start to finish in project management, really took the lead. Transcendence Theater for their willingness to pivot and reimagine how they would put their performances in place in a brand new location. And then city staff, specifically the public works department, really stepped up to come out here. And each three of those first groups really was, hey, we've got to come up with a solution. And all of them said, yeah, let's figure it out. And this would have been an easy thing for them to say, this is too difficult, this is too challenging. But they were all willing to jump in. And so that's really the project management team. But looking at the community contributors, really the ones that made this happen. So Saris Corporation donated money. A lot of time, materials, expertise to this project, really the ones that moved literally the earth out there and made it happen. Chad Maul came up with the design for this project and was in it from start to finish. And as you can see, a whole list of others who donated either materials, time, labor, expertise to make this happen. So this really was a true collaboration of community spirit and happy to say that we are are close to the finish line. I will point out this is we we are putting this together in concept. We are going to monitor how things go this summer. We realize there's probably going to be modifications that need to be done at the end of the season, both from a a theater performance standpoint, but also from a site standpoint. So it's something we're going to continue to monitor, make sure this is the best home and location for this type of use, as well as how Field of Dreams uses it in the future. And our hope is that we'll continue to make improvements to this site, as well as the whole Field of Dreams site in the years to come. So with that, the last thing I'll mention for those that are available, there is a ribbon cutting being hosted by the Chamber and Field of Dreams tomorrow evening right outside at 5.30 to recognize the new location with the stage set to come in the following week. So with that, just a big thank you to our community partners and happy to answer any questions you may have.

Anyone, questions?

I just want to say thank you. I still remember our city council discussed the resolution. We didn't follow up, but step by step, you all really did something, and also all communities contributed their efforts. Thank you.

Yeah, great problem solving.

I think this is an excellent example of what small communities like Sonoma have to collaborate and put together to make things happen, because the original Field of Dreams was a community project that many, many hours were spent on, I believe it was the OLDER GENERATION OF THE MALLS THAT PARTICIPATED MANY YEARS AGO ALONG WITH THE PETERSON MECHANICAL, ET CETERA. SO IT IS EXTREMELY ENCOURAGING TO KNOW THAT ALTHOUGH IT MAY BE AWKWARD FOR SOMETIMES IT TO GET PUSHED THROUGH CITY HALL, THE IDEA OF PUBLIC-PRIVATE COLLABORATIVE COMMUNITY PARTNER PROJECTS IS EXCITING, AND I REALLY THINK THAT THIS IS AN EXCELLENT EXAMPLE, AND SO I WANT TO THANK YOU. Okay. Now, in an effort to continue, we are now moving on to our consent calendar. These items are going to be looked at together unless anyone up here at the dais would like to pull any item out of the consent calendar where it will be discussed individually. not we'll be looking at items 7.1 through 7.4 collectively with one motion so do I have any thoughts about either accepting the consent or making pulling an item I move the consent calendar I'll second that very good Right here, public comments. Would anybody from the public like to speak to the discussion we just had or the comment about accepting the consent calendar? Seeing nobody, then we've got the motion, we've got a second, and I will now ask for a roll call, please.

Councilmember Ding?

Aye.

Councilmember Ferraris? Aye. Councilmember Gurney?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Low? Aye. Mayor Wellender?

Yes.

Thank you. The motion carries unanimously.

Very good. Thank you. Now under item 8.1 we're moving on to the public hearing aspect and this is regarding the status of the City of Sonoma's vacancies and recruitment and retention efforts from January to December of 2025 in compliance with

sacramento's assembly bill ab 2561 and we have the assistant to the city manager ms yankovic here to present welcome thank you mayor and council so as a mayor reference to this is an annual public hearing where the city of sonoma reports on our employee vacancies and our recruitment and retention efforts so it's It's a moment in time from January 1 through December 31 of 2025. And on January 1, we had a total staffing of 45.5 employees with four vacancies, which was 8.8%. Of the four vacancies, all of those were in our one represented group, which is our SEIU. group and that was in 13.3% vacancy rate for the group. The rest of our employees are unrepresented management employees and you have one contract employee for the city manager. So just as you look the next visual is our month by month summary and as you can see we stayed fairly consistent until the end of the year where we had some bigger changes, some of which you saw earlier this evening with our internal promotions. So we did have quite a few internal promotions in the last several months. You met Terrence and you met Mac and Mike was touting that we do love when we can bring people on and provide pathways for them to continue to serve our city and use their experience. And we actually have quite a few local staff people here. And so we're excited when we're able to retain them as a small agency. That's often difficult. A lot of times we train them up and then they move to bigger places. So whenever we can do this, we feel pretty proud. So we also, the next slide will show you that we added a position. Dave Janz is here, our parks rec director superstar. And we ended our year with 46.5. full-time employees. We also had an internal promotion in Dave's department where we were able to fill a supervisor position with one of our long-time experienced maintenance workers. You guys probably know Tom Arrington and he has a great background in a lot of arborist work and we're very fortunate to have kept his experience on our Staff he comes in. He's a Sonoma County resident from Petaluma and we were excited to keep him And I'm up to that our Community Development Department as you remember from 2024 had a fairly significant reorganization and so Some of our longer-term vacancies were from that department, and that can happen when you have a reorg. We had some administrative assistant positions that were changed into permit techs. We had a new chief building official that was hired the previous year. And so, again, with our permit tech sometimes and building inspectors, those are sometimes the people we bring on, train them up, and then they move on to other places. And we did experience a little of that last year, as well as a sustainability coordinator that was a part-time vacancy for a couple of years. But even though they're not showing up on last year's report, because it's a moment in time, those positions have been filled since so you have a bonus visual that you'll see tonight that will show you where we are right now and we're pretty happy about that um next we have a just a summary of all the positions including the internal promotions and new positions So again, reiterating that of these six of the majority of those are SEIU represented positions. The next slide will show you our retention summary. So this outlines the total vacancies and why we have the vacancies. So again, we had three internal promotions, one new position, a retirement, two involuntary separations, and six voluntary separations, which are more of those they move on because they typically find better opportunities for career advancement. The last slide will show you how we ended our year with our vacancies by employment group. As I said, we gained one full-time position with our parks director. We ended the year with nine vacancies and eight of those were union represented vacancies. When you have over a 20% vacancy rate, you are required to kind of share why that has happened. With the unions, we've notified our union, Tommy, who was here that you were introduced to as one of our union stewards. And we also work with our union rep, Joel, and they didn't have any questions or feel the need to provide a presentation tonight because they understood everything that was going on and it felt like it was definitely in the realm of normalcy and appropriateness, particularly with the fact that we had very busy VACANCY FILLING MONTHS IN OUR FIRST QUARTER. SO AS YOU'LL SEE IN THE VERY LAST SLIDE, WE CURRENTLY, OUT OF OUR 30 REPRESENTED UNITS, FULL-TIME EMPLOYEES AND OUR 46.5 EMPLOYEES HAVE ONE, WELL, NO, JUST THE UNION REPRESENTED, WE HAVE ONE VACANCY LEFT. to fill and that is, as I mentioned before, kind of part of that reorg as we've shifted positions and added some permit techs and we brought a building inspector on. We're still kind of looking. We also have a whole automatic permit system on board. So it's really changed a lot of how we do things in our community development department, which is why you're seeing that one long-term vacancy. And then other than that, the only other two Current vacancies are for our finance director, which we're just getting ready to get into a recruitment on that, and our active recruitment for city manager, and we have our interim here helping us with that. So if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer anything, and if not, that's where we are. Any questions?

Just brief, how do we compare with other communities as far as retention? Because I think we're special, but that doesn't necessarily mean people want to stay. Do you have any idea?

Of course we're special. Does that make our retention better? I think it's... Our trend lately has been we've like we just hired someone today that lives in Sonoma and was super thrilled to be here that knows an employee that works here that knew another employee who worked here. So I do think that bodes very well for retention when we are able to go on a it kind of trends. I think right now we're on a really As I mentioned, a lot of our employees are local. Mac, who you saw, was in my son's high school class. And so he started as maintenance worker one, worked up and was able to be a senior maintenance worker, and then was just promoted to water supervisor. Kind of to your point, I think that's kind of special. And Tommy is a Sonoma High grad. And I think when the guys know other guys and they see that they're happy and they take pride in service and community, we have really great department directors that encourage that and really try to find pathways and advocate. So I think our culture right now is really strong.

Very good. Thank you very much. Sure. Oh, please, one more.

Because right now we are doing 2026 and 2027 on the budget. For the budget, yes. Have you, you know, remind our staff and consider these kind of positions, the changes, or when you can? and hide this person to fear the deposition.

Right. And all the department heads do look at their needs for the coming year. They look at their employees and see, hey, do we need to... They do look at that analysis and budget for that in the future year if they feel like they need to do any tweaking or... hey, we really know the community expects a certain project, so we want to make sure that happens, particularly with newer departments like our parks department and when we have larger projects expectations and projects that the community and the council um i think uh mayor wellander was actually he brought a helper on a project he just recently worked on um doing some some tree work so i you know i don't know oh look i got so excited so he's already grooming people to work for the city so um definitely they're forward looking at at the budget year for next year thank you sure

All right. So we now are moving on to.

Mr. Mayor, just to remind you, this is a public hearing. So in case there's any public that has comments that they want to make regarding our recruitment.

Regarding our recruitment.

Vacancies.

Let me go back. regarding the presentation we just had is there anyone that would like to step forward and make any comments regarding our retention our recruitment and how delightful it is to work in Sonoma seeing none I'll now close it I would say thank you for the reminder mr. attorney but Okay, now, we have two choices. We can jump right into this, or we can take a five-minute break, or we can be optimistic that this is gonna go smooth and will not tie us up for the next hour and a half. So what's the druthers? I got fine. Those that count say stay, so we're on.

So with that- Apologies, Mayor, if I could interrupt. If we can get a motion and a second for the vacancies report.

I move to receive the vacancy report. I second.

Is there further discussion?

And now the roll call, please.

Council Member Ding?

Aye.

Council Member Farrar-Rivas? Aye. Council Member Gurney?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Low? Aye. Mayor Wellander? Yes. Thank you. The motion carries unanimously.

Okay. I think the path has been cleared. We're moving on to 8.2, which is a public hearing to consider, discuss, and approve a use permit and design review for the construction of, and I'm going to jump ahead to a total of three houses that are a combination on 4th Street East and Brazil Street. And with that, I will turn the mic over to our Community Development Director.

good evening mayor and city council as previously stated we do have three items before you tonight but i am going to separate them into three different public hearings so um the first project that we'll be talking about is 149 fourth street east So in 2018, the city council denied an application on appeal for a proposed single family home at 149 First Street East, as well as on lots 227 and 228 Brazil Street. The lawsuit arose from that denial and through discussions, a settlement agreement was entered into. The agreement requires the applicant to submit new applications for all three properties and the city council to consider approval at a public hearing rather than a planning commission. tonight City Council will be considering all three projects individually based on their revised applications that were submitted to the city in 2024 in the end of 2023 the plans were reviewed by the Public Works Department the Fire Department Community Development Department as well as permit Sonoma for the sewer who have all provided conditions of approval for the project. This morning you received an updated draft of those conditions of approval for your consideration that are also attached to the agenda. And these have been reviewed and agreed to by both staff and the applicant. The red lines show these changes that are proposed since the conditions of approval were published last Friday. All projects have the same conditions of approval. So on 149 4th Street East, we're going to start with this project. This is a project in our residential hillside zone, as well as land use in our general plan. It is in our historic overlay, and it is in the northeast section of our city. The project is proposing to construct a new 5,580 square foot single family home, 600 square foot pool house, and an 885 square foot detached garage on a 2.92 acre lot in that zone. And on the image that you see before you is the location of that lot. So again, this is on the hillside on the northeast side of town at the end of 4th Street where it meets Brazil. And you can see that lot there. The very top of that image on the left, you'll see a dashed line. That is our city's boundary. So here is an image of the site plan for this 149 4th Street East that shows you the intersection of 4th Street and Brazil as you see it on the far right corner. And the site will be accessed from that intersection from an existing road that will be widened. A fire truck turnaround is proposed at the end of the access road for this new residence where the detached garage will be located. So you can see that where you see the circle in the middle of the image. And at the end of a proposed walkway that will extend from that driveway to a single story single family dwelling with a covered patio that will step down with the slope to a pool and pool house and also contains a covered patio. So I am going to try this laser pointer feature. Here we go. So it's going to, again, entry is here. This is an existing road. It's going to be expanded. This is that turnaround that you see in the driveway. Garage is here. Here is the walkway that leads to the house. Here is the house. There is a covered patio here. And then you go down the slope with the steps and you'll come to a pool. And then here's the pool house. The nearest house is this one right here. It's about 150 feet, and that is a historic home. That's down there. It's a two-story historic home. So here is the images for the house. The one you see at the top is what you would see if you were standing at the pool house and looking towards the house. And then the one at the bottom is what you would see from the driveway. And then here are the two sides, the east and the west. This is the pool house, as seen from each side. The front is the bottom right here. And so that's what you would look at from the pool into the pool house. This is that covered patio I was talking about. And then these are enclosed areas. And then here is the garage that's proposed on the site. So this would be on a higher area of that site that then slopes down with the house and then again to the bull house. Here are the project materials and colors. So natural and neutral colors are being proposed for the house. And these are the same for all three houses. So a preliminary stormwater control plan was provided for this project along with the proposed projects for lot 227 and lot 228 along Brazil Street. It identifies 15 bioretention areas, their drainage management area, the direction of the runoff being captured by each, and that bioretention capacity. And that was attached to your staff report. The city engineer must approve that final stormwater control plan prior to issuance of a building or grading permit. It also must include an operation and maintenance plan that will include best management practices that will be recorded on the property. An example of a bioretention area in the grading plan that was in your civil packet is in this box here. So that's one of the 15. So if you look at the civil plants, you'll see these bioretention areas throughout the entire project on all three lots. In addition, an erosion and sediment control plan is required to be approved by the city engineer before issuance of that building or grading permit. And again, best management practices will be specified in that plan and will be implemented before and during any rainfall event. Grading will only commence when erosion and sediment control measures have been installed, implemented in, or maintained on the site to the satisfaction of the public works director. So again, just showing how this looks in the sense of here's that zoom in area of the driveway and the turnaround with the garage. And then here is the house and then the pool and pool house. And as required by the city's tree ordinance, an harvest report was prepared, which in 2017 identified and evaluated 74 trees on this specific site. And construction of the proposed project would require the removal of 38 trees. Tree replacement is required on a one-for-one basis. with one 15 gallon tree for each six inches of the trunk diameter being removed. As a condition the landscape plan will be submitted with the building permits and shall identify that each tree shall be at least 15 gallons inside along with an updated tree removal and protection plan. you can see the trees on that grading plan as well in the civil drawings so these are trees clusters right here that you would see and these are the ones that are being proposed to remain and then when you see x's on the civil plans these are the ones being proposed to remove The new wildland interface requirements under chapter 7a of the building code will apply to this site including the vegetation management and use of fire resistant exterior materials. The updated arborist report will identify the additional trees that will need to be removed due to these new regulations that are in place as of the beginning of this year with the identification of a very high fire severity zone. A letter was received from the attorney for the applicant requesting a modification to the condition of approval to not require the replacement for these additional trees that must be removed to meet fire requirements. The proposed language will be provided during the applicant's team presentation. So when we look at projects in trying to determine whether they are consistent with our zoning code, these are the development standards that we look at and we get all of the information from the plans and we double check. And so part of that is on the left hand side is all those development features that we are looking at. The next column are all the standards that we are looking at for a residential hillside zone in the northeast area of town. And then whether or not it complies. And so you'll see that the house and the proposed structures do comply with all the required setbacks, our floor area ratio, as well as our site coverage, the height as well. And then it does provide the required covered parking. We also are looking at specific guidance in our hillside development standards and guidelines. And so this is a summary of those features as well on the left-hand side. The proposed project does comply with all of these. It meets the requirements of the structure's height. It does provide the information regarding greenage drainage, providing that the proposed buildings are going to be blended within our existing topography and not flattening out large expanses to create lot pads. It also, in regards to that lot pad greening that we talked about briefly, In the hillside design standards, this project is going to exceed the current 5,000 square foot maximum lot pad grading. In 2021, when the settlement agreement was agreed upon, the design standards were not mandates, but rather guidance. In December of 2022, the language for the design guidelines was changed from should to shall, causing a difference between our current development code standard and the development settlement agreement, which specifically allowed this lot only to have an 11,000 square foot maximum. And the total proposed grading for this site is 10,718. And in addition, some other key aspects of our hillside is that there are no retaining walls that are going to be taller than five feet. And then also that the slopes will be restored and the preservation of our ridge lines, which this site is located below the ridge line, as well as the peak of Shockin Hill. So it won't be visible from if you're looking towards Shockin Hill's peak. so single-family dwellings require a use permit within our residential hillside zoning district along with the objectives that i talked about that are identified for hillside development the proposed single-family dwelling and accessory structures is consistent with the development standards that were described above on the previous slides. And the location, size, design, and operating characteristics are also compatible with the existing and future land uses in the vicinity. The proposed use will not impair architectural integrity or character of our zoning district as the area has diverse size, massing, and design of dwellings. The project site is planning to design and comply with the objectives of the city's hillside development criteria, including protecting the natural topography to the greatest extent possible and utilizing a variety of setbacks, building heights, and forms to blend in with the terrain. The project also requires a design review permit. And the project's design and architecture comply with the applicable policies and regulations that are within our development code. And it also will meet the standards, again, for the residential hillside zoning. The project is consistent with our design guidelines that are contained within the Northeast Planning Area and also meet all of the development standards themselves. The proposed project is within the historic overlay. However, the site is not a historic resource and is not located within a historic district. While some of the proposed improvements would be visible from limited public views to the east, in general, the project is tucked behind the existing vegetation and would not significantly impact the public and private views, nor the view of the historic home that is located on 4th Street East in front of this site. So for this, the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA as we like to call it, was looked at closely by our consultant, AECOM. And with that, you have a memo in your attachments as well as additional reports to support those findings. So class three exemptions allow for construction of up to three structures and accessory structures as long as the exceptions do not apply. And as provided in that memo, the project does qualify for that class three exemption. So the staff's recommendation for 149 East 4th Street is to adopt a resolution approving the use permit and design review to construct the new single-family home, detached garage, and pool house. And this would include approval of the categorical exemption and also the proposed subject to the findings and conditions of approval. so in the conditions of approval the applicant is requesting six years to complete all three projects instead of our standard two this is allowed under the code and is incorporated in the draft for your consideration the red lines you received are further clarifications on the conditions that were presented on friday Staff is available to answer any of your questions. We have Trevor Smith, our fire marshal, Mike Berger, our public works director, John Moe is our consultant engineer for the city, and Matthew Gherkin, our CEQA consultant from AECOM. And then Chad Mull and Kenneth Holder from the applicant's team has also prepared a presentation for you tonight. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

so before we continue i must turn to the is and ask if there are any council members that need to state any export communications yes i just want to let everybody know that i went and walked the site with engineer chad maul on this monday at 10 a.m

I VISIT YOUR SIDE SEVERAL TIMES IN THE PAST YEAR. RECENTLY I JUST VISIT THE NEXT NEIGHBORHOOD, THAT IS 131 ART.

OKAY. THEN WITH THAT, DO WE HAVE ANY QUESTIONS FOR STAFF AT THIS TIME? Okay, then at this point I'd like to then invite the applicant forward to make whatever level of presentation they so choose to.

Perfect. I'll raise this up. Good evening, Mayor Wellander and council members. My name is Chad Maul. I'm with Maul Design. I am the applicant for the project and also the civil engineer for the project.

Good evening. I'm Kenneth Holder with Holder-Parlette Architecture.

We felt it important just to give a quick kind of rundown on the history of the project. I started working on this project in 2015, so more than 10 years ago. We prepared an application and submitted it. We worked with city staff. We worked with planning commissioners at the time. We worked with other departments to incorporate feedback into the design. So we had an initial design that we worked on. We adjusted it to meet requests and feedback from a lot of different parties. After back and forth, the project was approved by planning commission. Shortly thereafter, it was appealed, went to be reviewed by city council where the appeal was upheld. The appeal was challenged and after back and forth, the result of that was a settlement agreement. The settlement agreement, which Jennifer alluded to, had kind of terms that we as a project team need to meet. It requested we come back with a revised application to hopefully address those terms, which we did. I feel confident in that. And that's where we are here today. We've made the application. Again, we went back and forth with city staff for probably approximately two years. The goal with that was really to feel confident on both sides that the hillside development guidelines, the stipulations in the agreement, city code, those items that we can stand behind it and feel comfortable that we are in compliance. In Jennifer's presentation and her checklist, you noticed every single line was complied. And so that is a big difference, I think, in the presentation that we're bringing to you today is really meeting those terms. So that's kind of where the project, it started over 10 years ago. We've listened to a lot of people. We've made a lot of adjustments. There have been adjustments, which we'll get into in a little bit, to the project, and with the goal of complying with the requirements that are set forth.

All right. So I just wanted to go ahead and just take a moment just to express appreciation to the city council and to you, Mayor, just for your taking your time to consider this application. And perhaps even more distinctly, I'd like to really thank Director Gates for her time. She has been in the principle that I call communication, collaboration, and what's the other one? concessions, basically. There's always, in this process, there's always gonna be some give and take, and I think Director Gates really helped direct that pretty perfectly. So, in interest of moving along, her presentation was so complete, I'm just gonna skip along. We are trying to present tonight mostly in a relative way. how is this different from 2017? Because you as the hearing authority are being asked respectfully to conduct your own review and to offer a compliance evaluation and approval, hopefully tonight. So the first slide, we just got basic criteria, but that doesn't mean as much as, say, the relative criteria of the next page. This slide just summarizes some of the criteria of our compliance with the settlement agreement. What does that mean? You've got the first one was PAD grading. There was the standard set. that it was to be no more than 11,000 square feet. We've got 10,718. The lot coverage is down to 1,464. And perhaps, you know, one of the criteria that seems the most significant is the detached accessory structure that was downhill That thing has been, we'll show you as the presentation goes on, it's been reduced significantly. The maximum ridge height was dropped by seven, nearly seven and a half feet. So the project overview has already been covered so well. I don't think I'm in no need to drag everyone through that. She walked you through the site. If there's any questions or anything you'd like for us to specifically address, feel free to interrupt. OK, and then this is probably where you want to talk about site design and grading.

Yeah, so specific to 1494th Street, there was several design considerations that were done to ultimately locate where the house, the driveway, and the other structures would go. The main goals, the house did not move. It is one story. It's contoured to shape, or it's shaped to move with the contours. to avoid really large differences in height between. So that's why we were able to comply with kind of the overall building height. One of the hillside design guidelines is kind of working and mimicking the existing topography. And so you'll notice the house, once you leave the back of the house, you go down steps to the pool, to the lower patio in the pool house. Those are approximately six to seven feet lower in elevation. And so we are tiering and stepping down with that existing terrain instead of staying up high and forcing the project on it. We're working with it and kind of mimicking the existing topography. We also took kind of the local site features on the property into consideration. And so the majority on this site, because there's no major creeks or no major big ridge lines or anything like that, would be trees. So with that, the topography and the trees really helped to kind of force where the buildings and the driveways and everything would go. Main goal, reducing grading, reducing tree removal, and trying to limit the area of disturbance outside of it on the property. One important item of note is the area where the pool and the pool house is located is actually relatively flat. So we put a portion of the program down around grade, but it's also existing grade probably around three to 4%. So Hillside is typically above 10%. Now that obviously exists on the property, but a good chunk of what is being proposed is down on flatter terrain. Visibility was a big thing too, being sensitive to the valley floor and views. Along 4th Street on the project side of 4th Street East is a very thick grove of trees along the frontage, as well as you climb up through the property. And that really, really restricts your views of the building site and where these structures are gonna go. So that is something that's a key component of the design. That is a site coverage exhibit which shows the overall property. Our project is in compliance with both site coverage and PAD grading with the limitations that were provided to us. Again, Jennifer alluded to this, but drainage from hardscape areas are directed to bioretention planters. The goal of that is to take water, instead of rushing it off the site, is to take it and induce it back into the ground. So groundwater recharge is what that is called, and that's a goal. It's a code item, but it's also a good thing to do to help kind of get the water back in. And I know drainage is a very sensitive subject in this neighborhood, you know, down below, as well as, you know, in this whole area. We definitely put a lot of thought and effort into how to take the water, where to put it, and hopefully get it back into the ground. Really large storms will run off, but your everyday storm is going to be collected and held in those planters and forced back into the ground as opposed to running off. Fire access is a big key component on this. We have a fire department turnaround between the detached garage and the main house. We also have a second fire department turnaround on the neighbor to the west. So we are doing some minor road updates to widen so that there's multiple points of access for emergency personnel on a project of this scale. We really don't need to get into this too much, but this is the exact definition of the pad grading and what we used as our basis for determining the calculations. Here's the pad grading. The result of this is we are under the 11,000 square foot requirement. Site coverage, we meet as well.

So if we go back to more of just the architectural concerns, the main residence, I don't think previously there was as much objection to the house. It's not visible from essentially anywhere off the site. So there were not as many changes to the main residence itself. There are the two 12 and 8 sloped gable roofs, the south facade area. However, we were able to reduce that a nominal amount, 86 feet. It gives the summary of the two south facade area. If you could see the house, those are the areas that it shows reducing. The overall intent, right, was keep this building as mapped as closely to the site as possible. Follow the cues from the natural topography. So in the end, this house, I think it may have been clear that that's where the square footage is and the iPad. grading numbers were different, you'll see, from the other two applications. They are larger. The house is completely a single story. At no point is there even stacking. The house is terraced down the slope naturally. The accessory structure was quite a lot larger, so we actually significantly reduced that from 2108 to 600 square feet. So if you're interested, it gives the summary of the data around that. But the effective square footage at 600, you can see that percentage of change. As Director Gates alluded to, we have chosen a very neutral palette, hopefully with the idea that it is going to blend in as naturally as possible. It would be worth looking at By our very loose but important calculations, we looked at previously that the house had about a 2% reduction in visibility due to all the different massing changes. But the main point is the house was so carefully mapped to the natural vegetation, the house will be largely screened from any direction downhill or to the east. You can see the effective massing profile. The lower image here shows the previous accessory structure. The top image is the current proposal for my very compact structure that we're proposing. Again, from a side view, the elevation reduction. There was a very large accessory structure. It's been now reduced to something very modest. THESE ARE SOME OF THE CONSIDERATIONS WE HAD IN OUR MIND THROUGHOUT THE DEVELOPMENT. THE ONE IMAGE, THE ONE BIT OF INFORMATION THAT WE JUST WANT TO HIGHLIGHT IS THE TOP LEFT THAT DIRECTOR GATES HAS ALREADY REFERRED TO, THAT IN THE CONDITIONS OF APPROVAL, THERE IS AN INTEREST IN HAVING MODIFICATIONS TO THE CONDITIONAL USE. DID YOU WANT TO SPEAK TO THAT AT THIS POINT?

JUST A LITTLE BIT.

OKAY. WE'LL COME BACK TO IT. So, this is basically just a summary of the efforts to comply fully, and no need to go back through this. Director Gates' presentation carried it very clearly. There is the same thing, the key findings of all the criteria that we were asked to address. So, and this just comes back to the point, your point about the, Chad, about the trees. So, you want to speak to that?

Sure. So I wanted to give you just a quick little bit of background for the two conditions that we're asking for some minor amendments to. With regards to the request for six years instead of two years, these three residences is not the goal to build all three at the same time. I never was. The public review process has kind of pulled these three individual projects into one project. And so building projects of this nature are not a very quick endeavor. And so what we don't want to get into is, you know, we'd like to build one house and then move to the next house. And so to feasibly do that within two years is too tight of a timeframe. So what I don't want to get happen is for us to have to come back to this process for if we go beyond that two year once we exercise the use permit. And so it gives us time to build the projects. There will be infrastructure and common improvements, but to build a house, it takes time, and then to move on to the next one, so we're asking for additional time to be able to accommodate to do that. With regards to the with the trees, we respectfully request council to direct staff to incorporate the proposed clarifying language in Mr. Tooney's letter into the conditions of approval prior to final adoption, carving out only state mandated defensible space removals from the one-to-one replacement and the in lieu fee and requirements. This project is located in a very high fire hazard severity zone, and state law and government codes require removal of these trees for defensible space. And the fire district's conditions of approval, which are in your packet tonight, confirm that this framework applies by operation of state law. City's tree replicant ordinance creates a practical conflict where we would be required to plant new trees to replace the fuel that the state Legislature has determined must be removed for fire safety City staff has confirmed in writing that the tree removal permit process is can be administratively waived for these state mandated removals So Our goal, you know, we made a lot of attempts to try and avoid tree removal, and we designed the site to avoid, you know, to minimize that. And so what we're asking is essentially, you know, the trees that are going to be forced to be removed outside of our project but because of new fire, you know, high severity areas, we'd like to, you know, avoid the in lieu fees, you know, and mitigation that comes with it. Just real quick, and I know we've really spoke long here, I'm sorry, but this is just my, from a civil engineering standpoint, I stand behind this project. I've been on it for a long time. We've made a lot of design changes. We've really jumped through hoops to try and comply and meet, and I feel very strongly that this application before you meets the intent. It's a residential zone parcel. We're coming with a residential application. We've gone through all the steps to try and comply, and I stand behind it. So we request an approval and hope that you guys see it. But we're also available if you guys have any questions.

very good i think at this point we will open it up to the public for anyone that wishes to come forward and speak on this item okay uh seeing none yes oh sorry you said i should speak tonight robert demmler of first street west

I have some throwaway remarks, like most of mine, before City Council. This project has taken 10 years. Yes, Chad? The Ting project has taken 12 years. Derrish's hotel took 14. The derelict cottage behind the Mesa Navi house, there's no time on it. So, in fact, this really confirms the fact that Sonoma really is a chitty, slow village.

Okay. With that, I think we'll close the public . Do we have any questions for either staff or the applicant at this point from the DINOS?

I have one clarifying question on the removal of the trees for the state mandated trees removals. Are those all within the property lines?

So yes, each parcel will have additional trees that will need to be removed due to their proximity to the new structures.

And they're all within the property lines?

All of them will be within the property lines.

That was just one last question.

Yes, most of these are right in the center or on the edge next to each other.

Okay, thank you.

My question regarding emergency vehicles turned around. On the map, this map, I saw everyone. Because this here site with the slope, I'm wondering if they are flat enough or grading that vehicle they can operate properly and turn around. That is my concern.

I won't speak for our fire marshal, but he did review all of the proposed turnarounds as well as the sloped for all of the driveways, and they did meet his requirements.

Thank you. No, he did it.

Trevor, give him a thumbnail.

So, Jennifer, just a point of clarification for me. I reviewed a redlined condition of approval document earlier today, and I just wanted to make sure that what we're talking about is, in fact, the redlined copy that was passed out.

So the red line copy that you got this morning is the most recent version, and it does include the six years. What it does not include is the trees that came from the attorney letter today. That section is not incorporated in the red lines.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

In a previous presentation today, we looked at trees that were from a different place being planted in another location. So it makes me want to ask the question whether or not something like that could happen in terms of maintaining our total tree canopy. I'm thinking of, well, you know, I'm always going to talk about the park on the corner of MacArthur and 5th Street West because a meeting can't go by without me mentioning it. But it looks like a site that could use a large oak tree or at least a small one that might grow, or somewhere else. Is that within reason?

So the ordinance does contemplate the potential that the on-site replacement is not feasible. And so there is an option to do an in lieu fee instead of planting on site. And so that is included within those conditions of approval to pay the in lieu fee. And you will be hearing that item at the next meeting of what that potential in lieu fee would be.

Thank you. I do have a question, and I think I would like to just get a little bit of clarity, if I can, regarding the mandated removals. I understood that the mandates hadn't been GONE INTO EFFECT YET THAT THERE WAS SO MUCH BLOWBACK FROM THE COMMUNITIES THAT IT WAS THE GOVERNOR PUT IT ON HOLD AND SO ONE IS I'D LIKE TO KNOW WHEN THE NEW DATE IS AS FAR AS WHEN THEY TRULY WILL GO INTO EFFECT BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY TO THIS PROJECT CONSERVABLE EFFORT HAS GONE THROUGH WITH THE IDEA OF MAKING THESE HOUSES UNVISIBLE, VERY QUIET, NOT SEEN. AND WHAT I'VE SEEN IS CONCERNED EFFORT TO DO THAT, INCLUDING THE HARVEST REPORT THAT HAS IDENTIFIED THOSE TREES THAT NEED TO BE REMOVED IN ORDER TO PROVIDE CONSTRUCTION. AND I DO KNOW THAT WE HAVE THE VARIOUS DIFFERENT DEFENSIBLE SPACES, THE ZERO TO FIVE FOOT, THE FIVE FOOT TO 30 FOOT, AND I THINK OUT TO 100 FOOT. MY, I WOULD LIKE CLARITY FROM THE FIRE MARSHAL THAT IN THIS PARTICULAR CASE, Are we going to be talking about all trees having to have 10 foot canopy clearance within that 100 foot all the way around and or if you cannot achieve that then such trees would have to be taken down. I really would like to kind of know how impactful it will be on this site in order to achieve these state mandated removals.

Trevor Smith Fire Marshal a couple questions you asked so let me start at the beginning you mentioned zone zero rules and the adoption of those rules they have not been implemented to date if they are prior to building permit submittal they would be in effect for new construction that's the direction that the state's headed in regards to existing construction and how that implementation phases over time, specifically in regards to the zero to five foot zone, that's to be determined. I would say odds are rules in the zero to five foot zone will be in effect prior to building permit submittal, meaning that these properties in question would have to comply with that. Are trees an issue? No. Mature trees typically don't represent a hazard. I have not toured the property, other than with satellite and looking at the images, in regards to tree canopy clearance. Depending on the slope, public resource code 4291, which would be in effect, this is a state law, which would be in effect within the city limits, secondary to The fact that this property is now in what's called a local responsibility area, very high fire hazards, very zone. Does have provisions for tree canopy clearance on mostly level ground, it's 10 feet. On steeper ground, it's 20 feet. And on the steepest ground, it's 30 feet of tree canopy clearance. What's not defined is how big is a canopy have to be. Does it mean a single specimen of one tree from another tree or cluster of trees? And that can be looked at on an individual basis based on the threat the property poses through the topography and the natural weather patterns and how we evaluate that. How it's going to affect the property, we'd have to take a deeper look at what the proposal is. Do I think there's going to be a larger number of trees removed than originally proposed? I don't believe that to be the case. Trees within this quote zero to five foot zone also aren't typically a problem and trees adjacent to the home are not typically a problem unless they are within 10 feet of a chimney or stovepipe.

or if they have dead and dying material any tree that's got dead and dying material would probably be recognized on the arborist report and already slotted for removal um and i believe i answered all your questions yeah you did thank you and it's not the zero to five that i was necessarily concerned about what i'm concerned about is the fact that this is a fairly forested site and i know that in another conversation we had in the past regarding riparian corridor and trying to interpret what the severity mandates were and talking about canopy separation. That's when the red flag went up for me and said, okay, how are you going to interpret that? Because again, there are a lot of trees on this forest hillside, which makes it charming. And if now, because it's being developed, being built upon, then if the intent would be to either A, pull back and prune back to get the canopy clearance and or tree removal, I am just interested in knowing to what degree that's gonna impact the visibility of a project that they've worked extremely hard to make invisible.

Correct. I would encourage the applicant during the time of the building permits submittal to propose any changes they wanted to make to the environment or the landscape. My intent is that a well-groomed tree without ladder fuels or bushes underneath it that's pruned to a height commensurate with the slope that it's on poses little risk. to the adjacent communities and or the existing structure. The trees are there today. They're probably riskier today than they are when the site's undeveloped, meaning that in a developed site, we'll have a buffer or create a buffer or a safer area where we can access, number one, a fire and mitigate a fire when it slows down because it's hitting these reduced fuel zones created by the defensible space on the property. I don't think the trees are going to pose a significant threat to the development of this property.

Thank you very much for the clarity. I appreciate that very much.

Thank you.

So any other questions for staff and or applicant? And so at this point, can we have any discussion at the dais regarding interest in moving forward with the motion?

Do we want to have a little more discussion in regards to whether or not we want to accept the new language? Absolutely. That's all open. So I tend to be, I'm in favor of fire hardening. And so I think it's very difficult when you have someone that is caught between two different you know, a code and then the state regulations. And when I was on the property being kind of a burn freak and looking at like, yeah, I've attended different prescribed burns. And so I look at property that way. I'm looking at it to see like, well, you know, how how potential is there for a fire. But when I looked at the, and I did look at the trees in regards to, well, if you, the trees, the canopies are high enough, and what the issue is, there's a lot of trees that underneath it have multiple branches, many that are almost on the ground, you know, but on a tree with a high canopy. So those, I think, are trees that And the ones that would be removed, the one I thought that looked like it might need to be removed was very close and really did not provide any other additional coverage. I mean, it would cover coverage right in from the house, but as far as being down on the street, it didn't make a difference. So I kind of would like to support their ability, that if the regulations go through at the state level, that they would be able to you know, not have to do the one-to-one. On the other hand, I know that we want trees and other places, but I guess I have a difficult time when people are caught between an ordinance that we have and a state law to then require them to do, you know, they have to do something and you have to comply with this otherwise. So my, I guess I'm leaning towards allowing the new language and the conditions of approval.

that their attorney is requesting.

Any other thoughts?

Also, I'm concerned about drainage and the system you already introduced. The reason why I'm concerned is I look at the west side of Fourth Street East, the drainage system that is owned by the city, the condition is so bad. I checked in the neighborhood, and during the flooding time, they always have the difficulties, and the water gather through. So right now, we have three of the big houses were being built over there, so we should and developers should contact with the city and see how we can improve that is storm and water drainage system. That is my concern. Another thing I think when we look at these three in the projects we just look at it one by one so now i believe in the future they should be accumulated affection each other so that may have no more issues but at this time we haven't anticipate but during you know construction period of time if you have anything new or potentially ending the risk especially you know drainage or and erosion, and I hope you will work with the city very closely. For sure, this is a new community with the safety and long time and lasting. That is my concern. Thank you.

I think that it's my understanding to address. And I could be wrong, and I'd be good to hear from our public works director. But it's my understanding that as the project goes along, we have to go in and be looking to make sure that they're meeting all the requirements that have been agreed upon in the settlement to create the pools to be able to collect water versus water running down the hill I wonder if there's, and I don't know the answer to this, but maybe this actually improves that situation versus makes it worse. Because those pools do not currently exist to collect the water. and they would exist after this and every step of the way, isn't that correct that Public Works needs to go in and make sure? I think that that's your department, if I'm correct. If I looked at it, I looked at the list of everything that has to be checked and there's quite a bit on every single step of this project that needs to be looked at and approved of by public works?

Looked at and approved along the way, you're totally right. And in addition to the pools that are being constructed for the long term water storage, there will be interim BMPs they're called best management practices like soil logs on the road on the sides of the hill hydro seed spray. And number of other features that are going to be required to be put up surrounding the construction site to limit slow down and clean the runoff as it goes down the hill during the construction process. Does that answer your question. Wonderful.

Back on the discussion regarding the tree replacement, I do agree wholeheartedly that it seems counterintuitive to have state mandated removed trees and then have an override that says, but you have to replace them somewhere else on the site that would be, quote, acceptable for a defensible space. So I have no problem with that particular language. The other thing I've been kicking around, and I can't quote the exact number of trees on each of the site, but I also think that because this is in a high fuel zone, that our current ordinance on trees that have to be removed in order to facilitate the construction of the projects, I think there should be some flexibility there that those can be replaced one-to-one where it makes sense. design and fire defensible space standpoint and then in that particular case those trees that don't seem to fit so to speak would love to see either the in lieu fee or and or a sponsorship of some trees planted somewhere else within the city relative to what currently is a one-to-one replacement on trees that have to be removed in order to facilitate the project but it's again I I think that The one-to-one ratio has always been prompted by the fact that we want developers, builders to be Thoughtful in the removal of trees and that's just not willy-nilly in this particular case. I think it's different I mean we have a forested hillside Setting and we have some constraints and some mandates and I just think that I would be open for discussion or consideration that let's just say hypothetically on the side you have to replace 40 trees, but making a nice setting that still meets the defensible space requirements they could put in 10 trees then it would be great to have the ability to either have trees planted elsewhere in the city for the direction of parks and rec or public works and or an in lieu fee to build up that slush fund to help us DO MORE TREES. SO THAT'S MY THOUGHT AS A CONTINUATION ON THAT. SO WE'RE BACK TO, AGAIN, DISCUSSION AND OR INCLINATION TO MAKE A MOTION.

I REALLY APPRECIATE IT, We've heard a lot from the neighbors in the area regarding their fears of fire. I mean, we've all lived through fires in Sonoma, and so that's not an unrealistic concern. So with regard to that, I'm totally fine with the appropriate removal of the trees. as needed, and I agree, and I have said this, when other projects have come forward, we're actually creating defensible space when we're with these projects. And some people think, well, it's making it worse, and it's really not. So I really appreciated your report, Fire Marshal, and because that is something that we do here a lot. And so I just wanted to comment on that. Making things safe is always the primary importance, because that's our number one thing, is to make sure people are safe in this town. So for that, and then of course I concur with the mayor's suggestion of figuring out another way in lieu with that. My only other comment is, and it's not something we can consider here, but I just wish we were approving some affordable housing. I just have to say it, that obviously you've done more than required to meet the letter of the law, and they're absolutely beautiful designs, but we just have such a crying need for affordable housing in Sonoma that, and sometimes when we have proposals for affordable housing, We have lots of people come forward to complain about traffic and fire and all sorts of things. But we have these two beautiful home, three beautiful homes and not a whole lot of discussion about it. So it just kind of breaks my heart a little bit that when we do have projects that come forward that do have affordable housing components i'd like them to be received as politely and as earnestly as we are potentially approving this one thank you okay well i'm actually prepared to make motion but i'm still not clear with regards to the applicants

proposed language, whether we want to incorporate that into conditions of approval or not.

I think we should turn back to our community development director. And you've heard our comments, and you know specifically what is on the table. Could you please either repeat and or make a recommendation from staff's perspective on what we should accept?

There was a little hum over there. So in our conditions of approval, can you go ahead and turn on my screen, please? You know, that is not Sonoma, and that is not the screen that I was going for. You know, these little displays, multiple displays. Let's just move it.

See?

I'm growing talented. All right, so this is the conditions of approval that were presented to you this morning with the red lines. And you can see on number five is the tree replacement preservation and mitigation standards. And so you'll see in here where we talked about the replacement plan and then also protection plan and then that the replacement shall be with the one to one ratio. payment of the in lieu fee so that's already included so we would be adding a language as proposed that would specifically remove any of that ratio or one in lieu fee from any replacements required because we had to remove it for fire protection I heard three

yeses I think so I'm almost there do you want do you want to put the other language to remove yeah the language from the attorney app sure because then I think it helps with the clarity and I do think that there's a little it's the the one-to-one replacement seems like that that may it's the in lieu fee there we're asking for some other compensation, maybe not one to one for the state ones. Just for the state, we're just talking about the state trees.

So this is the language that was provided by the attorney. Tree removal is required by the government code sections regarding state mandated defensible space as documented by the qualified fire protection plan preparer shall not be subject to the one replacement requirement or the in lieu fee. tree removals related to the development of the project shall remain subject to those provisions.

Works for me.

So that would be added as letter D or E, something like that. OK.

Absolutely.

Everybody?

Yeah. I saw all nods. So the motion would then include that modification to the condition of approval. Do you want it back up on the screen?

I have one more question. I remember when I was city council and go back six year ago, we talked about some of the developer will contribute certain amount of money to support on the local affordable housing building. Conditioning anything in writing or is this a good time for us to raise this?

reminding so It's 50 so in the current settlement agreement. There is an obligation to provide $50,000 to the affordable housing trust fund So that will be required okay And that is for each parcel or for all total total, okay, great.

Thank you OK.

Please.

All right. I'd like to make a motion to adopt a resolution approving use permit and design review, UA24-2, for construction of a new single family home, detached garage, and pool house at 149 4th Street East, APN number 018. 051014 including action to approve a categorical exemption pursuant to section 15303 a class 3 new construction or conversion of small structures of the state CEQA guidelines for new construction of up to three residential units and accessory structures as proposed subject to the findings and conditions of approval with the modification of the language addressing tree removals as discussed.

Is there a second?

I'll second it.

Would we like any further discussion on this before we take a vote? Roll call, please.

Council Member Ding?

Aye.

Council Member Farrar-Rivas? Aye. Council Member Gurney?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Low? Aye. Mayor Wellander? Yes. Thank you. The motion carries unanimously.

Thank you very much. And I'm going to be less charitable. I'm not asking. I'm dictating. We're taking a five-minute break.

All right, so we are back for lot 227. Again, Jennifer Gates, community development director. And with this lot, we are going to be moving up the hill to the city's boundary. So lot 227 off Brazil Street, again, same zone, also historic overlay in the northeast side. This one's our smallest lot. It's only two acres. And the proposed project includes the construction of a new 5,212 single family home and 612 square foot detached garage. Again, as I stated, it's up the hill from 4th Street, again at the intersection of Brazil. The site will be accessed from that same entrance off of 4th Street East and Brazil Street from that existing road. The fire truck turnaround is proposed at the end of the access road that is shared with lot 228 Brazil and that new residence where the detached garage will be located. At the end of a proposed walkway will be the single family dwelling with a covered patio. Laser pointer. All right. So we're going to go up the hill. This is where that road goes off to the other site we just talked about. And then we're going to go wind up here. This is 228. This is 227. So shift 90 degrees, your north arrow. So again, garage turnaround here. That fire turnaround is right there. And then here's the house. And then here's their pool. So here are the images. Again, so from downslope looking up, you're going to see this side right here. Here is the entrance from the walkway. This is what you would see from the driveway. And then this is what you would see from the opposite side, which would all be natural land. And then this is what you would see on the other side. So per the settlement agreement, the buildings are not allowed to have second stories, but they may be tiered and stepped down the hillside. The project proposes a tiered building design with the upper level overlapping the lower level by approximately 1,200 square feet of the proposed 5,200 square foot home. This is 24% of the house that overlaps. The step design is also consistent with our hillside design standards where there are below grade rooms and the roofs of our lower levels are used as decks for our upper level. So what you see here is the main level of the house. This is the lower level. And this is where they overlap. So this is going to be all main here and then all lower here. So overlap. And then this is where you see that overlap in the section cut through the house. This is a patio that's covered in this portion right here. This is that below grade room. And this is tucked into the hillside. Here is your grade that's existing, that's being cut. Also, the garage is being tucked into the hillside, as you can see here. So it's, if you noticed in that other site drawing that you would come up and come into the garage here. And again, this is the slope of the existing grade and it's being tucked in. So this is the back side. We also talked about those natural materials and neutral colors. So this is as proposed. So you see kind of that stone veneer. This is where it would be placed, and then stucco walls, and then the roof. So as described in the last project, there is a preliminary stormwater control plan that is provided for this project as well as the prior project and the next project at 228 Brazil. And that plan, a final version of that plan and the erosion control plan will be required for this project as well. And to help explain some of these grading drawings, if you were wondering, we talked a little bit about the slope of the driveway. And because of the steepness of the hill, we needed to keep a pretty consistent grade coming up. And so what you see here, that hatched, is kind of a buildup of the road from the existing topography. So you'll see areas on this drive where we're building up on a side, but maybe level on the other side. And then where we're going to have to dig into the hillside. But again, no retaining walls that are going to be larger than five feet. And then on this one, as required by our tree ordinance, there were 37 trees identified for this site and 19 trees that would be removed. Again, same idea. These are being saved, and then the ones being removed have Xs. And we talked again about the other site. And our fire marshal gave a great talk about what that means for potentially additional trees may or may not need to be removed. But that will be analyzed with that final building permit. The site is consistent with all of our zoning code requirements. It meets our setbacks as well as our site coverage and height. It also complies with all the hillside design standards. In this case, the lot pad grading is restricted to the 5,000 square feet, and it is meeting that with 4,947 square feet. Also, we talked a little bit on that other slide about the retaining walls. They're going to be a max of actually four feet along the side of the proposed road. That road that goes up, also you can see little areas where we have turnouts because the road is skinny that cars may need to come off if there's a conflict with a fire truck going up. So again, the proposed single family dwelling and accessory structures do require a use permit. And this is consistent with our development standards, as well as the hillside development and design standards that is described in your resolution. And again, meets the hillside development objectives that are also required to be met as part of that use permit findings. And then also with our design review findings, this site is a little bit visible from the south as you're driving up 4th Street. But again, tucked behind existing vegetation that exists on the site slopes as it slopes up. But it's not significantly impacting any public or private views, again, of Shock and Hill. This is the same categorical exemption. That categorical exemption was developed for all three sites as one project. And then again, staff's recommendation is to adopt the resolution approving the use permit and design review for the single family home and detached garage. And then subject to the findings and conditions of approval, we are recommending that conditions of approval for all three lots match. And so with the prior modification, we would ask that you would make that same modification with your motion if a motion is being presented for approval. So that concludes staff's presentation. And the applicants do have another presentation that they are just going to show you the differences between the old and the new.

Before we welcome them up, I just want to make sure, do we have any questions from the dais to staff? OK. Please.

Mr. Mayor, if we could just do the ex parte disclosures since we are treating these as separate projects and a site visit to one doesn't necessarily mean a site visit to the second.

I will be happy to. I'm requesting council members state any ex parte communications regarding this project.

So yes, I did the site visit to visit 149, is it? 149 also. Get close enough to 227 without walking through more bushes and potential all sorts of critters or whatever. Visit this site as well on last Monday with the engineer, Chad Mall.

Okay. Same disclose like I said before. And I visited there several times and the most recently I visit art, and the grandees in the house that is immediate to the neighbor with the number 131 for the streets east.

Okay, thank you.

So just to keep things brief, we'll go ahead and jump to the really relevant slides, skipping over all the material that was already covered. This slide actually shows the results of a visibility study. It's using a measure that is considered to be objective. It's used at Lake Tahoe in the same way to basically try to predict the actual visual impact. The results done by Walton Architecture years ago found basically about, I believe it's a 2% visibility calculation. If you take that image that was photographed and then with the, you know, predicting the actual mass would be visible. So that because it was so low and there weren't specific objections, there wasn't quite as much done, again, to this main house. There were some reductions that, there, I'll jump to this slide. This is, well, I'll go here with the materials board. Let's go to this elevation. The modifications that were studied and are put forth primarily relates to the pool area. The massing around that was greatly reduced. And that led to a 10% what we would call kind of the area, the visible area from that side. Same here on the west elevation. Actually, I don't know these numbers by heart. What does that say? Eight percent, thank you. You can see in the lower slide was the 2017 approval with the much larger pool area and then it was reduced and the elevation was modulated with some planters, things like that. So and it was just to come back briefly because this is an important part of the conditions or the settlement agreement said step design, tier design was acceptable. And so just to answer that, put something in your mind just to evaluate. Even though there's that percentage of overlap, I think it was 24%, What we would put forward is what constitutes tier design is that both levels meet the grade, the adjacent grade naturally. You can step out from that. This is not a hovering two-story structure going straight up. From at any point, you can step out onto the surrounding grade. So then in that one point, it says, in a true two-story structure, level overlap would approach 100%. We're only at 24%. So that's about as well as we could do and still create the stairs and any other. So you could see from the section that Director Gates showed that much of the house was masked. primarily a lot of the lower level is nearly fully subterranean. And so and this is that same slide actually that she's already presented. So okay.

I'LL BE REAL QUICK. FROM A CIVIL ENGINEERING STANDPOINT, WE ADDED A FIRE DEPARTMENT TURNAROUND AFTER COORDINATION WITH THE FARM MARSHAL. WE ALSO PLUMBED THE POOL TO HAVE A DRAIN TO A DRAFT HYDRANT SO THEY'RE GOING TO GET THE BENEFIT OF ABOUT 20,000 GALLONS OF WATER IN THE If there's an event. The drainage-wise, we did look at all three projects together. So our drainage reports and our stormwater reports look at everything and then, you know, but also focus on the exact parcel. So we have bioretention planners, again, to try and take water and induce it into the ground instead of running off. So it does help the overall runoff. afterwards because we are taking water that normally ran off the hill and putting it into the ground. But, so we did the, Oh, also just a key thing for this specific project, part of the Hillside Guidelines is taking into account kind of features on the site. And so on this parcel, we located the house behind mature trees, which was mentioned before, but there is a really large rock outcropping to the west of this. And so to be sensitive to that is really when we walk the site where we sited this house is to avoid disturbing that large rock outcropping. So we took the existing

features into you know into account when we located these structures yeah we're here if you guys have any any questions thank you please I'm just curious on the driveway and as it weaves its way up to the to the house location I understood correctly you have to build up a to put that driveway in so all the x'd out gray areas they don't represent downhill or uphill for retaining purposes or are they all uphill or downhill, or either?

It's a combination. Where the driveway does a curve and it runs parallel to contour, we have a retaining wall on the uphill side to reduce excavation on the uphill side. Towards the upper half of the driveway, I'm not going to be able to do the laser pointer, but the Kind of just above the north arrow, the hairpin turn on the uphill side is an excavation. And then on the, as we make the other curve to come back where the fire department turnout is, we are in fill there. One question that was asked on the previous project was about the slope. of fire department turnarounds. So 8% is the maximum to make it usable. You don't want to turn around a fire truck on a really, really steep slope. So we built up the driveway in advance to be able to have a nice, flat, usable fire department turnaround. So that's one of the benefits of kind of building the driveway up. Coming down low, really, really steep into the turnaround. You don't want that. You want to have a little more gradual slopes. So part of that includes some fill placement kind of around those curves. Those are two to one slopes. They'll be planted. There's a slope restoration plan that we did as part of this package that talks about how to handle that to avoid any nuisances that may come from it. so are there any natural swells that are being diverted i guess my question no drainage wise it's primarily all sheet flow up in this area we do have so no swales that are going to be rerouted there but we are going to collect sheet flow with proposed swales and and route it so the drainage runoff that falls on the driveway will be taken to bioretention planner so if you see between The lower hairpin curve, there's a kind of a trapezoid. That is one of those bioretention planters. So it's taking the runoff from the driveway, putting it there, trying to soak it in the ground. There's another one below the lower part of that driveway. And so the goal with that too is then if anything does spill over, it's spreading it back out to overland flow as opposed to concentrated. Thank you. Sure.

Please. From this map, can we see a retaining wall

The retaining wall, it's not specifically called out on this. This is the fire apparatus access plan. But the retaining wall is, so where the driveway exits the common driveway and it has its first turn, As it enters, there's kind of a bold property line as it enters there. The retaining wall is really from there to before the lower hairpin turn, so it's about 300 feet long. There's several mature trees on the uphill side of it, so it's really important to add the wall to preserve those trees on the uphill side.

Thank you.

Okay, anything else?

I just want to add a comment to this. A lot of work is being done to get the water back into the ground, but this is not going to guarantee that in extreme weather events that there isn't water coming down the hill. I just like to set people's expectations that this doesn't fix everything. It goes a long way. to make it better than it is right now. But still, there's going to be instances where there's still going to be water coming down.

So I'd like to, at this point, without any more questions from the dais, open it up to the public for any questions or comments. Seeing none, we'll close the public comment session. There was no questions asked of staff from the public. So we're just going to go down to further council discussion and possible motion. So I would just say that it appears that a lot of the same principles that were expressed in the first are being executed in the second. In fact, there's a lot of similarity of approaches. And so I think that from my point of view that it seems like it's been consistent with the concerns and that I'm prepared to make a motion, but I don't want to take the opportunity away from anybody else. Okay. Okay, I make a motion to adopt a resolution approving the use permit and design review for construction of a single family home and detached garage at lot 227 Brazil Street, including action to approve the category exemption class three, THE STATE OF CEQA GUIDELINES FOR THE NEW CONSTRUCTION UP TO THREE WHICH IS REDUNDANT, I'M NOT GOING TO SAY IT, AS PROPOSED SUBJECT TO FINDINGS AND CONDITIONS OF APPROVAL AS WAS MODIFIED. IS THERE A SECOND? SECOND.

FURTHER DISCUSSION?

ROLL CALL, PLEASE.

COUNCILMEMBER DING?

AYE.

COUNCILMEMBER FERRARA-RAVIS? AYE. COUNCILMEMBER GERNY?

YES.

VICE MAYOR LOWE? AYE. MAYOR WELANDER? YES. THANK YOU. THE MOTION CARRIES UNANIMOUSLY.

all right so this is the third of the three homes on lot 228 brazil street so again the project is applicant is proposing to construct a new 5127 square foot single family home in a 539 square foot detached garage on a 2.6 acre lot again in the residential hillside zoning and historic overlay districts this is the lot directly adjacent to lot 227 again at our city's border on the north side northeast quadrant of our city again shift all of your thoughts 90 degrees to the right and that is the north So as we saw a very similar image here, this is lot 227, but now you're going to see all of lot 228 in this image. So again, same road. This is where entrance is, and you're going to wrap around. This is where we talked about turning into 227. And then, sorry, my thing wasn't on. Laser pointer error. Did it come on? Uh, shame on it. Nope. It doesn't like me anymore. Anyways. Um, so you go around the corner and you're going to go to lot two to eight where another turnaround is being proposed in front of that garage as well. And then the single phone, a single family home is being accessed directly off that driveway. So here is the house as you would see it from either side as well as from the driveway itself. This is the front at the bottom. And then this is what you would see from the back side or the slope. The pool is located up here on the top tier. And then these are the landscaped sections. So again, as we described in lot 227, this is a tiered building design that is allowed. So the upper level of the proposed project overlaps the lower level by approximately 1,300 square feet and about 27% of the house. You can also see that there are below grade rooms and that the roofs of the lower level are used as decks for the upper level. Let's try the laser pointer one more time. It does not. um so main level floor plan uh floor that's our main level footprint is going to be the blue and then the stacked is the hatched area and then the lower level is the yellow and then again this is a section cut through the house and you can see on the second level the covered or not covered patio but a patio and then that lower level living space as well as upper level living space again the hatched area is the stacked And then here is the garage. Again, it is proposed to be built into the hillside. Materials are consistent with the other two sites. And then again, same as the last two projects, there's going to be the final stormwater control plan and erosion control plan for the entire three sites. And then on this site, there was only seven trees that were actually evaluated for this project, and only two trees were actually going to be required to be removed. And then, as we already discussed as well, it being in the high fire security zone, we'll look at it one more time in regards to if other trees need to be removed or not. This site is, the proposed project is consistent with our zoning code. It meets all of our setbacks and site coverage and height again. And it also complies with all of our hillside development standards and guidelines. This lot also has the 5,000 square foot lot pad grading requirement, and it is proposing 4,882 square feet. Just like the others, these requires a use permit for the approval. And those fines were provided to you in the resolution, and that it meets all of the development and design standards, as well as our general plan. Again, also the hillside development objectives. Our design review findings for the northeast. Again, some of these improvements will be visible from the south, but it is tucked behind existing vegetation and would not significantly impact public or private views. And you can still view the peak of Shockin' Hills. CEQA is also consistent, as described before. And staff's recommendation is to adopt the resolution approving the use permit and design review for the project at 228 Brazil Street.

Thank you. And this time, I'd like to request the council members state any ex parte communication before we continue.

Yes. When I visited the other two sites, I also visited this site. There we go, thank you. Same date, same date.

I did the same. I visited neighbor, Art Grandy. The address is 131 4th Street East.

Okay, any questions of staff at this point? okay then at this point if the applicant would like to make a brief presentation he's welcome to they are welcome to come up so desired

So of the three, this house had some objection to the massing and the size of the house. It was, as you can see, the results of this same method, this visibility study, that there still, though it was a 2% visibility study for the 2017 design, I'll show you in the next couple of slides that we reduce the height, we reduce the plates, we push the house down into the grade. In the end, the resulting, we calculated around 1.5 percent. It's small, but they are none the same. This is the summary of all of that, but I think it gets a little overwhelming, so I'm just going to go. This is just the material board. This shows, again, quite a neutral palette for the house, intending to blend in as much as possible. Injustice. We did so, but it's nice to see that we've got reasonable people