Planning Commission - Special Meeting

We I love it. It was impressive. [Music] [Music] Get going.

You want to do this? Are we ready? Okay. Hey, I'd like to welcome all of you today to the special meeting of the U Car planning commission. Uh, can we have a roll call, please? Commissioner Alborn here, Commissioner Allen here, Commissioner Carropov here, and Chair Leage here.

Okay. Uh, first item of business, uh, the public appearances. uh any members of the public may address the planning commission on any matters of municipal concern which are not on our agenda today and um you need to abide by the uh Brown Act rules. So at this time I want to invite any members of the public to make any comments to the planning commission that they would like which are not on our agenda today. Anybody in the chamber want to come up? Nobody. Any hands up online?

No sir. Okay, we'll move on from the uh public appearances. Uh I'm assuming there's no announcements. Any announcements from staff? No, sir. Okay. Any announcements from the commission? Anyone in the public want to make any announcements? Okay. Okay. Um, so that brings us to the uh orders of business. And today we are reviewing the uh six cycle housing element amendment. So we are going to have a staff report on that to begin with.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for letting me sit with you this evening. Anna, I apologize for not being here. She had some family matters to take care of, so I get to pretend to be planning director today with you. Um, I'd like to give just a glad to have you back.

Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Um, I just like to give a brief introduction for Marne who's going to do the heavy lifting here. Um, as always, these are these are a bit of a hefty presentation, so you'll have to bear with us. But, uh, start off as always with thank yous to Marne, to Anna, to our consultant, Veronica, to the AHA citizen group for all the work that's been done to get us to this point. It's been a long road. Um, and as you know, we're returning uh basically with a homework assignment that was given to us by our city council to amend the housing element to remove the two city-owned sites and find alternative housing solutions that better spread housing throughout the city. Um, as you know, last year housing element was adopted, which we are very proud of still because it kept us from being in a position of uh falling under builder's remedy uh so we can be more in control of our future. Um, but like I said, we're here today uh returning to to fulfill that homework assignment from the city council. Um, and I'm really excited on a personal level and I'm really excited about the amendment itself. Um, and and what what it what it does and what we've done. Um, we definitely met council's goals, but I think we've gone above and beyond and created something for you to review and consider. Um, that's even better than that. It spreads housing throughout the city better. Uh, we have fewer eggs in just two baskets. I think it really has increased the likelihood of success. Um it's it's truly it's truly um viable to have successful housing spread throughout the city. Uh we can still develop those city properties. There's been a lot of questions throughout this process and all the community meetings. Those city properties can be developed in the future. The great part is though because they're not in the housing element. Uh at least in this draft anyway, if it gets amended, uh if they're not in the housing element, we get to do it our way. uh including community input. We're not tied to any timelines from the state. There's a mix of affordability. We can do do what's right for us. Uh the total number of housing units, how the property is utilized, what we do with it, uh you

know, arts, parks, um commercial uses, all those things. We we have more control over that when it's not part of our housing element. Um so, what what has been done? What are you going to see tonight? It's lar largely the same what you saw back in May. Um we we took some of your comments there. Even it was it was largely positive what we heard back then. Uh we took some of those comments. We've worked through those. Um but it's largely what you saw back in May. There's a little more detail about how we're going to do what we do. Um and I'm saying this uh because I just want you to be assured and the community to be assured that there's, you know, no surprises. Everything's basically the same. We still want that feedback from you because what we're going to do is we're going to take it to the city council next. But so we want that feedback and if you've had new ideas or new thoughts since then, those are still very much welcome. Uh we're excited to get that feedback from you. It's also worth mentioning and then I'll stop babbling. Um I want to thank also our partners at the state at HCD. We spent a lot of time with them over the last few months. Um many detailed meetings back and forth going through minutia that we all love talking about. Um including the state our state partners. Really positive feedback on where we've gone with this amendment. We've worked really hard so that when it shows up on their doorstep for the formal submission, there's no surprises for them either. Um, they've used words like innovative, uh, really unique. Uh, one of the one of the sayings that came out of our meetings with HCD was we've we've turned constraints into opportunities. We're really proud of that. Um, I also know just because I live in Pacific Grove. Um, some of my colleagues that work in Pacific Grove have had HCD throwing our name at them saying, "Hey, you guys should be more like Carl." I'm like, "Yeah, all right." Um, so anyway, I was really proud of that and so that's worth tooting our horn a little bit about. So with that, I will hand it over to Marne who's going to run you through this 20ish 25ish minute presentation. So thank you and thank you again to everybody who's been involved to get us here today.

Thank you Brandon for the introduction. Um, so we're going to go ahead and kind of walk through the revised draft um of the proposed housing element amendment and then take an opportunity to receive uh comment both from the community as well as the commission. So, uh just starting off like uh I normally do um with California's housing needs. Uh so this is kind of what uh each housing element cycle starts with is the state of California estimates uh what the state's housing need is for the upcoming planning cycle which is currently an 8-year period. So the state estimated 2.5 million new homes um statewide um that was broken down to a regional share of a little over 33,000 units for Monterey and Santa Cruz County. um counties and cities. Uh and then that was uh divvied up uh and Carmel's share of that is 349 units of which 231 um need to be affordable. Um and so our charge uh through the housing element is to identify um housing sites that can accommodate these units over um our planning period uh which is 2023 uh through 2031. So, how we accomplished this originally, uh, with our adopted housing element, uh, this is a map of our sites inventory. Um, we identified 11 sites. Um, we reused 14 sites from our last housing element. Um, which we refer to as the fifth cycle since we're now in the sixth

cycle. So, in total, um, we identified 25 sites for, uh, a total of 288 units. Um, and as you can probably see on this map, this does include, um, the city- owned sites. This didn't quite get us to the 349, but we had some other strategies, um, including a hospitality employee housing program, um, some ADU projections, and then a couple, um, projects that were in the pipeline, which means they were either, um, in planning review or had planning entitlements and were working towards building permits. So in total um we had identified 410 units. Um and again this is in our adopted housing element. Um and what you see below that 410 you're going to kind of see that formula throughout my presentation. Um that's the breakdown by affordability. And you can see the little key at the bottom of the slide. So starting from left to right, that's 114 very low, 87 low, 58 moderate, and 151 market rate units. So this is what is in the currently adopted um housing element. Um it meets our regional housing needs allocation. Um it meets uh state law requirements and uh it includes a buffer between about 15 and 20% uh which is what most cities were sort of aiming for this cycle. Um and that buffer is an assumption that some of the sites may not develop. So you have a little bit of wiggle room there. Um, and we were right right kind of in the the middle of that target. So, our housing element was adopted in

April of 2024. Um, in July, the city council adopted a resolution uh directing staff to uh look for some alternatives to the city-owned sites. Um, this was, you know, an effort to look for ways to disperse our housing opportunity sites throughout the community rather than concentrating them on the city- owned sites. Um, this effort has been a collaboration between city staff and the AHA residential group. Um, and for those who don't know, AHA stands for the affordable housing alternatives. Um we've been meeting uh together on a regular basis uh since at least December of 2024. Uh there have been community meetings um in August of 2024 as well as March of 2025. Um and then as Brandon had mentioned, there's been multiple meetings with uh the state department of housing and community development to review and receive feedback on the strategies um as we've been developing them. they've been very generous um with their time and giving us uh feedback as we've been going along. Um and then we also were before both the planning commission and city council um in May of this year uh to talk about the five strategies um before sending a draft um to the state for what we were calling is a friendly review which was just an informal look um at our strategies um to see you know if there were any kind of holes or any any glaring um things missing in our analysis that we might need to address before submitting a formal amendment. So, HTV completed that review and gave us um some feedback and we've been working on um completing the analysis

um and you know getting the document ready for um for the formal submitt. Uh so on this slide um what you see is a comparison of our existing sites inventory um and the uh proposed map uh which shows the new sites inventory. Um and I think what you'll see is most notable is the the difference in um the dispersion of potential housing opportunity sites. Um there's also a color coding which identifies the different types of housing opportunities um that the proposed amendment offers. So again, we're still reusing some sites from our fifth cycle housing element. Those show up in yellow. Um we have three church sites which we've identified that um we would get Reena credit for. Uh so in our current housing element only one site um is included and it's um all market rate. Um so with these three church sites uh the strategy allows us to um count them towards our lower income arena. We have some new um ADU projections um as well that uh differ from our adopted housing element. Um and then again um making sure we capture our pipeline projects because those do count uh towards our arena. Some additional um housing sites opportunities include our mixed income incentive program um which we have uh 12 units identified, our new live work program, and our hotel to residential conversion program. Um

and I'm going to touch on each each one of these. Um but in total we've identified a potential for 439 units. Uh so a little bit more than what's in the adopted housing element. Um and you can see the affordability breakdown there as well. So with these revised strategies uh we would still uh achieve our regional housing needs allocation um but we would do it in a way that disperses the housing units um throughout the village. uh rather than than concentrating them on uh a few sites. So what happens next? Um so there is a a public comment period um which you know has started with the release of of this staff report. Um so if anybody has any comments, questions, you know now is the time to definitely send those our way. Um, we have our special meeting tonight and we'll be having another meeting on November 3rd. Um, so again, this is to give the public an opportunity to review the amendment again, submit any comments or questions they might have. Um that's also an opportunity for um both the planning commission and city council um to give staff comments um so that we can incorporate any revisions before submitting the formal amendment to the state. There is a 60-day review period. Uh once we do submit to the state, um there will be a a 30-day mid-review check-in um with staff uh which is pretty customary where they kind of give us a heads up on how the review is going. Um and then at the end of that 60 days, we'll receive a letter from HCD which says, you know, your your

amendment is either ready to adopt or it needs some additional revisions to meet state law. So now I'm going to touch on um the five strategies. Um I'm not going to go into painstaking detail because um you know the strategies have are the the same strategies that we've been you know discussing since um December. So I'm going to kind of do a high level. Um there is more detail in the slides though. So if you do have questions we can certainly come back to it. Um I think it is worth noting that of these five strategies you know four of them are in the housing element right now only one of them which is the downtown live work program is truly a new strategy. Uh so what we've done um in working with the AHA group is really looking at what was in the housing element already um and what could we do to really retool the program so that we could get RENA credit for it. Um and so starting with the hotel to residential program um you know this is the program that really um I think I don't I HCD was really um intrigued by this particular program. Um it's not something that they've seen before. um they're very very interested um in it um as are we um and seeing how how this moves forward. Um so this is the program that identifies the smaller underperforming hotels um within the village. Um it encourages the conversion of those hotels to multif family housing. Um and then as an incentive for doing that allows for the transfer of

those hotel development rights to another site um within the commercial district. under the existing program, the way it's written, um the conversion of the hotel would include 15% affordable units. Um and none of those affordable units were captured for RENA credit. So we had zero credit under this program. Um so under the the revised program um 75% of the converted hotel rooms would be affordable and we would get RENA credit for those um hotel rooms or for those for those units and in exchange um to help support and incentivize the program um those Hotel keys would be transferred to another site downtown. Those keys could be um sold. They could be added to an existing hotel or a new hotel could be um constructed with those keys. So, there's a couple different options um that those hotel keys could be used for. um and we would get uh a pretty sizable amount of affordable units um in the process. The other thing that we really like about this program um is that many of our older hotels um were originally conceived as apartments. So, there's opportunities to um really convert existing buildings back to residential use. Um but there certainly um are opportunities as well for uh those

buildings to be reconstructed um as multif family. So that is a possibility. This is an updated flowchart that shows how the concept works. I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on this, but we can certainly um come back to it during the discussion if there's any questions. Again, the incentives under this program are really allowing the transferable development rights. Um, what would normally happen under sort of a traditional zoning situation is that once that hotel converted to residential, um, the hotel use would just simply disappear. Those development rights would go away. So, um, under this program, being able to transfer those hotel keys to another site, um, really is is a valuable investment. Um, there also is, you know, we talk a lot about prioritizing water to support these housing element programs. Um, so just ensuring that we have water available in our affordable housing um, uh, category, uh, you know, to support these. And as you can see as on the comparison on this slide, a hotel room and a one bath apartment uh use about the same amount of water. Um so not a big not a big difference there. Um but certainly, you know, transferring those hotel keys off site are going to require some additional water allocation to really make this project um or this program um viable. Another incentive um is the potential for some additional floor area increases. Um there's also um an incentive for hotel residential suites. Um and this is a hybrid type of unit where

um it would be uh an owner occupied unit for a portion of the year and then it would be in the hotel inventory for um the remainder of the year. And so, you know, part of this really is making sure that financially this program is going to be, you know, sustainable. It's going to be viable. Um, you know, converting an existing hotel to affordable housing. Um, is not a like a profitable enterprise. Um so you know looking for incentives to sort of offset um that cost I think is going to be really key to the success of this program. Um and then of course you know streamlining the project review, expediting permitting um and then looking at our permit fees are you know just kind of key components to all of these programs. I do want to kind of mention at this point um because I was going to mention it earlier before I started but you know these programs um that are in the housing element once they get adopted they don't become actual laws or regulations right they're policies and programs that still need to go through a process a public process oftent times they're going to require zoning code amendments um and that's where we're going to further develop the finer details of what these incentives look like um and what portions of the code need to be amended for the program to actually be implemented. Um so I just wanted to make sure that that part was clear. Um this is sort of the the policy programmatic side. there's still an implementation side um where we would get into more of

the details of how to implement each of these each of these programs. So again, the the benefits of this program um are many. We've talked about these before. Um I think it's just worth highlighting that, you know, this is a privately funded endeavor. Um so this program doesn't rely on public funding. The whole intent behind the incentives um and transferring the development rights is really to allow for um redevelopment that that is going to be self- sustaining. Um and so under this program um you know we looked at the universe of um hotels uh within the village um and identified a a subgroup um that totaled about 379 units um that could potentially fit the category of underperforming. Um so these are um opportunities for potential conversion to multif family units. Um we looked at a conversion rate. So it's not going to be one to one, you know, one hotel room to one apartment unit. Um so based on some um conceptual designs, uh we landed at about an 85% conversion rate between the you know hotel room to um apartment unit. This also allows for a mix of um unit sizes. Um, and then just to be conservative, we cut that in half. Um, so you can see the the the potential that out that that's out there is is much greater than what we're estimating, but we're really being

um conservative when it comes to what we're asking the state to count towards our our uh arena. Um, and based on our conversations with the state, you know, we believe that they're comfortable um with this with this methodology. So 161 units under um this program. You can see the income mix there. So a pretty significant contribution uh to our regional housing needs allocation. Moving on to the next strategy, our downtown mixed income incentive program. Um again, you know, our existing housing element talks about um mixed income projects, mixed use projects, but doesn't get into a whole lot of detail that allows us to take Reena credit uh for those programs. Um so this is another program um that largely, you know, with the work with the AHA group was really further developed. Um the core principles behind this program was really inspired by the layout of TET Court. Uh for those who don't know, um this is a 14 unit low-income senior housing project on an 8,000 square foot lot. Um it achieved a density of 76 dwelling units per acre, uh which is pretty um pretty significant for for our village. So, you know, looking at the possibility of what can be done um under that model and my numbers are still messed up. I swear I fixed that. Um so that that's kind of how that's how this uh program sort of began was just looking at that model of Tvette Court, looking at the size of an 8,000 square foot lot and what could be done. Um the

second core principle is really you know again incentivizing mixed income housing rather than 100% affordable housing. Um our code currently has provisions for 100% affordable housing. Um and we have not had um anyone build 100% affordable housing um outside of this one Carmel Foundation project. Um so looking for other strategies to actually produce units um and doing that through a mixed income model and again doing it without public funding um and then also looking for ways to accommodate families with children. So some of the incentives under um this program um include a byite density of 22 to 40 dwelling units per acre. Um so this is a change uh from both existing conditions um as well as what's in the adopted housing element. So in the adopted housing element, the plan was to raise the minimum density from basically zero to a floor of 33 to really encourage the production of more units. Um what this program uh proposes to do is to create a range of 22 to 40. um our current um density um of 22 um aligns with um this the amendment proposal um under this program. We also would eliminate the requirement for a conditional use permit. So that streamlines the process. There's no affordable housing requirement within this density range. Um, so this this program sort of creates a foundation by which new units can be

created. Um, and then layers on bonuses and incentives for um, projects that incorporate affordable housing. Um, and that's where the up to 88 dwelling units per acre comes in. That's an existing ceiling, so we're not proposing um, to change that. Um, also looking at floor area uh ratio bonuses as an incentive for affordable units. Again, that priority water allocation, expediting applications, waving permit fees uh where we can. Um, and then providing pre-application development meetings. Um, so program benefits, it really increases opportunities throughout the commercial districts. um creates incentives for mixed income housing. Again, another project that doesn't rely on public funding, uh which can be very competitive and and very scarce. Um and then again, that goal of trying to get to larger bedroom counts, um to accommodate families with children. So for this program, we identified two sites uh for a total of 12 units. Um the potential downtown is certainly um much greater. Property owners can can take advantage um of this program. Um but for uh asking the state for credit for our reena um we've identified uh just the two the two sites So, we're going to move on to the third strategy, um, which is the one that I had mentioned is a truly, uh, brand new strategy, um, which is the downtown live work. Um, and so the way that this would come to fruition is simply by creating a

new land use category, um, that would allow for a hybrid of both commercial and residential in a single tenant space. Um there are many off- streetet and upper storyried commercial spaces that are underutilized or vacant. Um the AHA group did um an amazing um safari of the downtown where they walked and inventoried um all of the commercial buildings and just identified a tremendous opportunity for uh a program like this. Um, and so, you know, under under this program, a property owner has the potential to make more money um, charging an affordable live, work rent than they do right now charging uh, commercial rent for some of these sort of off off thebeaten path spaces, these smaller spaces. So, we really think there's some great potential here. Um, and we've identified a number a number of sites that we think um could work um under this program. So, similar incentives that that you've seen for the other programs with water um priority processing. Um, one of the great great benefits of this program is that it's utilizing existing building square footage. Um, so taking what's underutilized and really activating existing spaces, um, encouraging more residents full-time downtown, activating storefronts, um, opportunities, you know, to, uh, for affordable housing, you know, for our local artists. um bringing local

serving businesses back to Carmel, reducing vacancy rates. There's a lot of positives um under this under this program um and again allows for the creation of affordable housing without public funding. So under this program uh we've identified the potential for 78 units. Um and again this isn't the entire universe. Um this is a selection of sites that we identified um that we thought, you know, had great potential, but certainly, you know, any property owner downtown interested in the program um can absolutely take advantage of it. They don't have to be specifically on this list. Um and these all contribute towards our regional housing needs allocation. Okay, moving on to accessory dwelling units. Um this is an existing program in our housing element. Um you know we are working on our ADU ordinance. Um we have a responsibility to process um amendments to our local ordinances as new laws are adopted. Um there are other state law requirements that we're bound to um adhere to. Um, so that's all the pretty standard stuff, but under the proposed amendment, some additional commitments um that have been included are a pre-sales inspection program. Um, and this is to identify um, you know, ADUs that are out there that maybe aren't currently being counted towards our inventory. Um, so bas basically getting credit for structures that um, we aren't currently aware of. um a renter match program to help with occupancy of ADUs. Um looking at different ways we can incentivize affordability. Um and then just doing more robust

outreach and education when it comes to accessory dwelling units. So based on our um our past trends, we had to kind of go back and kind of look at the data. Um, we updated some of our annual reports that were submitted to the state, looked at our average between 2019 and 2024, um, and we permitted we issued building permits for about 10 um, accessory dwelling units uh, per year. So using that projection uh we're proposing uh 70 accessory dwelling units over the um entire planning period which goes through 2031. Um so that would yield 70 um 70 units that we can count towards our regional housing needs allocation. Um and so that is um also part of the strategy. Um and then I believe this is the fifth strategy uh which is the religious facilities. Um so we've got um three church sites that we're currently working with that are all interested in doing some type of housing on their property. Um Senate Bill 4 um allows four churches to build housing on their property without having to uh reszone. Um, so looking for ways to kind of uh take advantage of that um and really further kind of their mission um in serving people um by providing for uh housing needs. Um similar incentives um you know these sites will need water allocation um help with you know permitting fees. They're certainly going to need some technical assistance. Um and then also would be a good candidate for um some trust fund

support. Um as you may recall, we have a program to set up a housing trust fund um as well. So across all three sites, we're projecting um potential for 65 uh units. Again, all counted towards our regional housing needs allocation. Um so when you add all of these uh strategies together um this is what sort of enables us to um sort of re retool our sites inventory be able to replace those city-owned sites with more dispersed housing uh throughout the community. um our capacity, our projected capacity at 439 units uh would achieve our arena just like our current housing um element does uh with a little bit more of a buffer at about 26%. Um so there there is definitely a potential here. Um, you know, and I think as Brandon mentioned earlier, this doesn't necessarily take the city-owned sites completely, you know, off the table. Um, what it does is just relieves the pressure. Um, as you may recall, under the housing element that's adopted, there were some very tight timelines that the city had to perform under for the redevelopment of those sites. Um and as we sort of felt with the tight timelines and getting the housing element adopted, you know, it doesn't always yield the best um the best outcome when we're put under a lot of pressure. So, um, what these strategies do is it still achieves the goal of meeting our regional housing needs allocation through some really innovative strategies um

that we do believe will will actually produce housing. Um, but the city-owned sites still remain available. Um, and it could, you know, at the council's discretion, um, be utilized at some point in the in the future. So, some other revisions. Um, I did go over this in May. Um, so, and not a lot of this will really, um, be new. Um I did want to spend a little bit more time though on this one. We have a current program for um employee housing. This relates to hospitality employees. Um we have retained this program in the housing element. Um originally it did contribute towards our arena. Uh we've actually sort of backed this one out and we're no longer asking for arena credit. Um and part of the reason for that was um there was a again a a a deadline some pressure kind of being applied that if the program didn't perform by a certain time um then we would have to do some type of reszoning to sort of force the program and we weren't really comfortable with that. We wanted it to be more of um an incentive. So we do think that there's some interest in this program. So, we didn't want to eliminate it from the housing element, so we've kept it in. We're just not going to um include it for the Reena credit. Um we have uh deleted a couple programs. Um I did mention this um back in May. I've been kind of going back and forth with the local universal design standards. You know, it was in, then it was out, and then I put it back in, now it's back out again. Um so apologize for any confusion with that one. Um with the

recent changes in state law about not applying any um additional uh local codes uh to uh residential. Um this one has since come back out again. So uh formatting changes again. We you know did some kind of rearranging uh hopefully to make the document a little bit more user friendly. We have populated all of our quantified objectives and included all of our time frames. The scattered quotes have been removed. Um this is a summary uh from the May uh 14th meeting that we had with the planning commission. um general support for the programs and the approach. Um what we heard was uh wanting to ensure that the ADU program has a way to capture affordable ADUs that are not deed restricted. Um this really is an implementation measure. Um and we definitely hear that comment um and are looking at um different opportunities that we could get credit for those ADUs. Um so that will be something that we continue to to kind of work on as we get into implementation. Um water uh you know acknowledging our 14 uh acre foot um allocation. Um live work program bringing diversity to the downtown. Um so this is this is what we heard from May 14th. Um, we're still looking for some additional um, feedback that the planning commission might have. Um, and then I'm getting close to the end here. Not sure if I made my 20 minutes, but our key takeaways are, you know, this um, proposed amendment does accomplish

the goal of dispersing the 149 units on the city-owned sites um, throughout the village. Um, implementation will come after adoption. So again, you know, these programs aren't going to just magically start happening once, you know, uh, a revised housing element is adopted. Like there's additional work that needs to be done. There's additional community outreach, input, um, amendments. Um, I just want to assure everybody that it's this this is not the end. um these programs need to be um worked into ordinances um and some additional decisions would need would need to be made um at a future date. Um the substance of the revisions to the housing element do focus on these five strategies. Um and again as we go through our formal review with the state, there's always the potential that there might be some changes. Um, so that's just uh something to keep in mind. So with that, I will end my presentation. Um, this is just a recap of the next steps that I already kind of went through. Um, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Questions for staff? You have a question? Go ahead. Well, first the question is, could I please hear a round of applause? for this outstanding work truly. Um Marne, thank you. Uh and to everyone who's been a part of this process. Um uh first a question, just a process question for for clarity. Um the the decision to move this forward to state that's a city council decision, right? That happens at city council level. Yes.

Yes. Okay. Um and another sort of process and documents control question. The I was I I I made note that the footer in the the documents for today, the footer seemed to read um Carmela by the sea sixth cycle housing element update adopted November 2025. I didn't see the word draft in there. Just a documents control note. Okay.

Um the city hired a consultant to support the project. Do you happen to remember the amount of that contract the the value of that contract? Uh so that contract is not to exceed um is not to exceed the 5999, right? Yeah, that's what I remember, but I thought I'd double check with you. Yep.

Okay, great. Thank you. Um and the so with the with our 2024 adopted element there were and I mentioned this in our last meeting planning commission meeting there were uh 27 programs with promise dates between last year and coming up in December and it seems that with um with the uh the proposed amendment there's quite a few that that straddle one another. I know that there's been some adjustments. Um, do you know off the top of your head how many? Um, some of those we've completed, haven't we? Some of those programs, some of the MUN code amendments and things like that.

Uh, we have completed the reasonable accommodation policy update, right? I remember. Um, and we're currently working on the water allocation policy updates. Right. And the ADU ordinance. We're working on working on the ADU ordinance. Okay. Um, we have not completed any zoning code amendments or municipal code amendments yet.

Well, that makes sense. I mean, because the the update was in discussion. Um, one of the programs was for funding an associate planner, wasn't it? Did that u did that ever come about or is that a future goal? Because this seems like a just a boatload of work. Yes. So, that that position is funded. Um, I believe I'm currently filling that position and we are recruiting to backfill my current planning position. I thought I noticed two hats on your head.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Um, would you would you speak again? I know Brandon began our meeting today with this and then Marne you spoke about it again. the um many people share uh share the opinion that it's important to remove the city-owned sites from our inventory. There's just several aspects of that that doesn't align with our city character and really our our ability to fulfill our arena. But could could you just speak one more time to um to the the difference between having a city-owned site? You know, Brandon, you spoke to um perhaps how we could use those sites that if we remove those sites from the inventory, then the city and uh has um more options or greater options for how those sites are utilized. Could you just speak to that a little bit either of you?

Okay, I'll give you give you a break because that was a lot of talking. It was longer than 20 minutes. That's okay. Um, so it's a great question. Uh, short answer is yes. It gives us more flexibility. basically those especially the the Sunset Center site but Fistol Lobos also if you go back like 20 25 years in like newspaper articles and city documents we've been the city when I say we I mean the city um has been trying to figure out what to do with those sites for a long long time.

Um there's even some articles and papers with you know former mayor Ken White speaking about what to do on there. So so it's not like a it's not like a new concept to do something there. The benefit of pulling them out of the housing element is that we are completely you know in control of our own destiny in the future. Uh meaning that uh when we committed it in the first cycle the first version of the housing element which was adopted um that was sort of a way to one of the ways to get the housing element adopted and protect us from that builder's remedy because we have complete control over the sites. We could give some shity to the state that there will be housing built here. Now, what this whole effort's been done over the last year and a half is to provide that proof, that viability. I use that word a lot when we were going through the adoption process, the viability for all these other strategies to get that credit from the state to say, "Yeah, these other things that we're doing, spreading the housing throughout the city, those are actually viable because of this work that we've done in in collaboration with AHA to get all that great data and provide that proof." So now we believe after having worked with HCD that they're going to also agree and say, "Yeah, you can you actually can develop housing outside of those two city- owned sites that you don't fully control. You can you can there's a way for that to happen, but we needed those sites in the first draft that was adopted in order for the state to say, "Yeah, okay, this is viable what you've done." So the benefit of it is that like I said, we have complete control over what it what we do there. the city uh and when I say the city in this context, the city council uh when when and if they decide to release some sort of RFP for any sort of use on those sites, public private partnership or whatever, we have control over what it's crafted. When we left it in the housing element, we had to make sure that it met a certain mix of housing types, a certain number of housing units, that the space was was a certain thing. Now we have, you know, it can be very caramel. There can be an art component. There can be a parks component. There can be some commercial. There can be some residential. There can

be a better connection to the Sunset Center cultural arts performing campus. It can be more differential to the historic uh than the nationally recognized historic structure. Uh all that because it's not tied to a statemandated housing program. It's we are in control of it into the future. So it's a really long-winded answer. I'm sorry, but that's No, it's a great answer. That's really truly why I like we have a we have a term in in planning we call highest and best use.

I truly believe that the those two sites right now are not being used for their highest and best use. They are being used for parking which is great. We need that but that is even it's under it's not used as well as it could be. I think parking still needs to be a component but the highest and best use of those two properties has never really fully been discovered. And I don't think we would have discovered it if it was if it remains part of our housing element. Perfect. That's very helpful and I I think a lot of people will appreciate hearing that answer. So, thank you.

Um I do have just a few more a few more questions. Um let's see. You've answered that one. Um ah all right. So, um this is my last question. Let's say I'm a developer and I have property and I'm going to put in uh I' I'd like to renovate that property and have some uh mixed use. So, I'd like some retail on the bottom. I'm going to put in some residential and some of the residential is going to be affordable. And let's say I'm able to bring a plan to you uh Q1 2026. So, you know, given the timeline, we have a current adopted amendment. this um excuse me, our current adopted plan, the amendment may be still in process during that time. Quite a few of our our we won't have our odds yet most likely. Um so what if I'm a developer and I bring a program and a project? How's that going to be reviewed? What what can I expect just in in brief? what can I expect in terms of a timeline and review process and who will be looking at what I bring and the u likelihood of success walking out of city hall.

Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, we will we will always and we always do review projects based on the codes at the time. You know, ADU ordinance, take that for example. We use our current ADU ordinance design guidelines. Even though they're in process, we use our current design guidelines. So, the same would be true in your scenario. If someone walked in with a project, affordable or not, it would be reviewed under our existing codes. Now, our codes, our current codes do have some incentives for affordable units. There's some additional density. Our housing element that we're proposing the and it would be under our existing housing element, the adopted housing element would control. And so, there are some incentives in that already for affordable housing.

The proposed amendments just make that better. There's better better incentives, especially for that type of development you're saying. So, you know, we would we would have a conversation with the applicant and say, "Here's where we're at in the process." Hopefully, fingers crossed, you know, housing element is amendment is is in place by that point. Um, and we can say, "Look, we're, you know, 2 3 months away from taking the municipal code language that makes this a reality to the planning commission. You can either move forward under the existing housing element and the exist or the existing uh municipal code or you can wait a couple months." And so we would give them that option. If they wanted to proceed under the existing municipal code, then that's what we would do.

So the things like um waiverss and concessions, you know, I'm I'm you know, I let's assume that I have I have a staff that is very well-versed in state housing law. What do I can I apply for those waiverss and concessions? Yeah. If if there's things that don't require a municipal code amendment for us to be able to grant like state law things, then certainly we can enact those. But when there's when there's things, you know, like floor area bonuses that have to you have to have a municipal code amendment, those will have to wait. Is that right? Yeah. That's new information. Yeah. Um and a last question that I don't think you'll be able to answer, but I I will bring it up in my comments.

I should say I'm so sorry. Forgive me for interrupting. Yeah. If if a project is a certain level of affordability, yes, you know, there and I don't know them off the top of my head, so forgive me, but there are certain, you know, like 100% affordable projects when they come in, they are granted things by state, right? But I'm just saying like the the incentives that we have baked into our our housing element that are just a little bit extra than you would be able to get from the state or from us otherwise. That was my point. Oh, that's helpful. Thank you. Yeah. Um and the there's very limited parking that's associated with the housing element. Is that correct? So so many of these units in the core commercial have zero parking associated with them. Correct.

So the housing element the housing element doesn't change the current parking requirements. Right. So the the prohibition on parking in the central commercial district is a current standard and that doesn't change under the housing element. Got it. Thank you. Well done. Thank you, sir. Okay. Um I had a couple questions just clarifications. Um you were talking about the hotel keys and the allocation of water. Um, so is it my understanding at this time I think we have 948 available hotel rooms and those are those are all permitted. They're all issued.

We we're at our cap if that's what you're asking. Yeah, we can weap. That's right. So all of those hotel rooms currently have water allocated to them. Is that correct? Correct. So what is the additional allocation of water that is necessary? So when the when the hotel converts to multifamily residential, that hotel water goes to the residential project. So when those hotel keys are transferred offsite to another site, they need water to go with it. So the water the water doesn't go with the hotel keys. No.

Okay. All right. That clarifies that. Thank you. Uh the other question I had was you talked about alternatives to deed restriction and there was kind of a generalized statement about it in your staff report. Could could you just be a little more specific about that? And and also whether th this um the alternatives is that something that um can be approved by ACD or what what's what's the status of that of any alternative? Do you mean for ADUs?

No, I just mean for lowincome designated low-income housing. Mo most, it's my understanding. I asked the question our last review of the housing element if all lowincome housing needed deed restriction and staff said yes. Correct. Okay. But in this report, you may mention that there might be some alternative ways to determine low-income housing. And I think you were tying it to market conditions. Was that your intent or did I read that wrong or what what what is the what's you mentioned the alternatives? So what is it?

So for for accessory dwelling units. So all of the affordable housing units that are downtown um as part of the mixed income incentive program, the live work program, affordable units on church properties. Those are all deed restricted affordable units. um it's the ADU program where we're looking for incentives for affordable housing um or alternatives to how we can uh show the state that they're somehow affordable without a deed restriction. So ADUs are the only exception to the deed restriction right now.

Okay. So so so what so what is that alternative? So, one of one of the things the state told us because they recognize that it's it's hard to get someone to deed restrict an ADU is they said if you can come up with some sort of way to prove to them after an ADU has been built because that's when you really truly get the credit is after something's been permitted and built after it's been built. if we can come up with some sort of program to, you know, get people to voluntarily uh, you know, tell us that it's being rented or or some way to check what the rental is and we can show it to the state on some sort of list like here's the ADUs we have. We know that these ones are being rented. Uh, it's, you know, $900 a month or whatever and it falls within those categories. It's not restricted, but just to be able to show somehow to the state that it's being used as intended. Um, that's an alternative to a deed restriction. So that would be, you know, one of the ways in the implementation part that Marne was talking about setting up the program in such a way that getting people excited about building an ADU also includes them knowing that they might have to share a little bit of information with us, but that little bit of sharing of information means they're going to get some incentives versus having to do a deed restriction.

But what's the incentive to lower the rent on your your ADU? uh you get some of the the incentives that we were talking about that, you know, expedited the the um the waiver of permit fees, access to those um the the pre-approved plans, things like that. Okay, that's my question. Any other questions for staff? Okay. Um at this time, I'm going to open up to the public for their comments. So, um come forward. Please try to limit your comments to three minutes. Thank you. I have lngitis not contagious. Um Marne, thank you very much. That was a great presentation. Um I also want to thank the committee, the AHA committee. They did an amazing job and um they did the job without compromising from what I can tell our the integrity of our town. And that to me is something that we all need to be aware of and be vigilant about um at this time. Um the elephant in the room as far as I'm concerned is parking. And I just can't fathom, Marne, and maybe you can give us insight to this, that the state would mandate such a program to and think that people who have affordable housing don't have cars. People have a cell phone and they have car. I don't know how they do it, but they do. and it creates a real issue especially for towns like ours. So I have tried to reach out to our Congress

people who represent us in the state and they will not talk to me or anybody else. They will let us speak to their chief of staff but not one of them will come and speak to us. And I don't understand that because they represent us and we have a real issue with parking with this type of program. So, I want to throw that out there because maybe somebody has a contact or a manner that we can have these people come to our town to see what we're really about, to see the implications of what they're mandating us to do to deal with this type of issue. I did meet with Jimmy Panetta. He did meet with me and he told me that it was not his um his field that he could give us money but that and he directed me. He told me who to address at the state level, uh, Addis and Leard, and he told me who to ask for, and I tried for months to get them to get a meeting with me to no avail. So, I think that's very important that we try to get them to come. Um, as far as the parking, there are issues in our town. I have spoken to chief trainer because we have not had um

we've had a non-existing existent parking enforcement where I don't know what happened to our meter maids and I'm not sure what happened to us enforcing because when I moved here in 1975 I saw a meter I saw employees that did not park. I owned a business, a hotel at the time. The employees parked out of the commercial district and walked to their job. You don't see that very much anymore. So, I spoke to Chief uh Trainer and he is very aware of the pro the the problem and they are hiring uh additional meter maids. Um right now there has not been any meter made on the weekends if you can imagine that which has made the parking issue even greater. So, um, and again about the employee parking there, I I was sure that there was some kind of I don't know if it was an ordinance, but there was a rule, something that encouraged the employees to have their the owners have their employees park outside the commercial district. Um,

you about ready, it's been past your 3 minutes now. Are you okay? You kind of summarize and Yes. Thank you. I really appreciate you taking the parking lots off because we need the parking lots, whatever they decide to do with the parking lots to be done in a calm manner and not against a timeline with developers swarming around trying to do what's going to be good for them and not our town. So, I really appreciate what the AHA committee has done. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Next, speaker, please.

Thank you. Um, Fred Kern, I' I've listened to everything and and I know you've done a lot of work and obviously the staff has done this work, the AHA group work very hard, but I think what you're doing is you're kind of chewing at the edges. You have a wonderful plan that's been approved for the Sunset Center and Visal Lobos that went to the state. What you really ought to do is to bring in the private sector. Now, put it out for an RFP. You would be surprised what you would get. Just like the parking that was just mentioned, the number one problem I see in this town is parking. You could build underground parking. You could quadruple the amount of parking that you have at Sunsense Center and never even see it. We have an income problem. Three and a half years from now, we're going to be broke. The keys. Wonderful idea. Why don't we trade a hotel key? And if you trade the hotel key, then you have to build workforce housing. So, it becomes a problem that the developers would have to do. Hey, I want to have this hotel key. I got to build workforce housing and I got to have a location to do a hotel. What better place to do a hotel than over at Sunset Center? As long as it's two stories, you could accommodate all those guests whenever we have events, the Bach Festival or the symphony or whatever we're having there. They could stay at the hotel. You could incorporate the HRS. Lots of things they've done. I'm just saying one group that's been completely left out of this process is the developers. And if you put out an RFP, it doesn't mean you have to accept it, but you're going to get an awful lot of good ideas and let people submit de plans to you over the next 90 days. You say, "We want developers, put it out." You'll get a lot of good ideas. It doesn't mean you have to follow it or

anything else. the term they use the best and highest use. Being a developer, that means what makes the most money. That isn't what we want in this town. We want to make money, pay our bills, have new parking, have new housing that we're required to have, but incorporate both ideas, and have a third group, the developers, come in and present plans. If we just stick with we don't want anything at Sunset Center. I know you've talked to people and I'm not saying you're wrong, but people don't give up property and lose money on it in the rent. There's no incentive. You have no money to give to people. The town doesn't have extra money to be giving incentives. Water's not an incentive because you lose money doing the deal just because you have water. And I've talked to the church the uh people over there, they have no interest in selling that property unless it's at market rate. You even say it's at market. That's where most of the people will be. But if you were trading one hotel room, one key, and you said you've got to build a workforce housing first, then you get the workforce housing and you get the income. And every hotel group I've spoken to, if it's a fivestar hotel, they'll 15%. So you get parking, you get the hotel, you get workforce housing, and it's all done through the private sector. The city makes a huge income on the tot. And we eliminate four problems all with one show. So at least give us developers 90 days to give you plans, including the sunset center, including Vista and any other site in town. That's all. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Okay, next speaker, please. I just also like to say

you guys did a hell of a job with everything, a lot of work and appreciate all the help. Um, I would like to reiterate a couple of comments we just heard. You know, parking I think is our main problem and this is a huge component that's that's going to compound the parking problem, right? If you got 349 units, is that one and a half to two people maybe a unit? How many cars is that? If you actually try to keep them in town and have them work here, the car sits on the street all day. It's probably not the best looking car. You really degrade the village. Um, I think there's a lot of components that you need to try to take in with parking that affect a lot of different things that kind of get missed in some of this. Um, I don't know much about a lot of what you guys spoke to today. One thing that maybe is more of a lames question um is if you can do anything else with the keys. It sounds like rewarding underperforming hotels with a way out and giving them a benefit to try to incentivize us, you know, where I don't know what normally happens to the keys if they go to the city and the city gets to issue them out and make re. I don't know how all that works, but if there's another way of gaining revenue from that to the city instead of a, you know, a lackluster hotel, you know, that maybe would make sense to me, I guess. um incentivizing, you know, with the gentleman's point, you know, the incentives. I know you guys are trying to get every type of incentive you can, but it does seem like, you know, there there may need to be a little bit more to push some of these things. Um, and again, I'm playing more devil's advocate on accident. I take these as you guys want to. I'm really out of the loop. So, but yeah, parking I think is huge. And if you already have a problem, you know, having one of these structures designated for parking, somehow tying it to this hole, it seems like we were able to find a ton of places for all the units, you know, maybe designate one of those for parking or something like that. I don't know. I feel like that would, you know, be a good potential option. Um, that's really all I have. Yeah, I'll leave it at that. Hey guys.

Thank you for your comments. Uh, next speaker, please. Good evening, Chair Le Page, commissioners, Marne, great job. Um, incredible uh work put it putting this all together over the last um many months. Uh I've been uh pleased to be a part of the AHA group uh over since the beginning of this calendar year. Um, and I think that what we have uh before you is a plan that's really considered all different aspects of uh of the housing mandate from the state and really adapted adapted that um and made it right sized for for Carmel. So, I'm I'm pleased um with the work product that's come forward. I do think that there have been, as several of the speakers have pointed out, um, and I think even most people who've been working at this issue for a long time would admit to, um, a couple of blind spots. I think that water, you know, I read Commissioner Lock's comments that were submitted for tonight's meeting. Um, I think we're spot on. Um, you know, so I hope that what you put forward to the council will include some comments about the water allocation. um that I think do you know the water really needs to be allocated to all the categories including commercial um as uh Stephanie's letter pointed out and I think that applies to the live work program it applies to the hotel program uh it applies to um to the church sites you know any to the MYIPS program you know any any program that's going to include some commercial square footage is is going to need additional water um so I hope that that is taken into account um the parking you know it's the it's it is the elephant in the room. Um, I have my office in town. I park every day in town. I see it firsthand. Um, I'm not sure that anybody has come up with a silver bullet um to

fix that. But I do think that that the housing is not necessarily going to create a bigger problem for parking. Um, I do think that there is an opportunity with the housing element to maybe uh help to address it and to fix it, you know, and maybe that goes back to what happens on the city owned sites um where that is really a part of uh future planning. Um, but I I do hope that we can uh come up with some strategies for parking collectively um that will you know keep this a place that uh people want to come to visit and people want to come to work and and people will live. Um, and then my last comment is just really about about the staff resources. Um, I've spoken to this before. You know, I think there was some discussion in uh putting this amendment together to creating, you know, the position that that Marne has filled in terms of adding planning resources. But what we're really talking about if if we're committing to this plan is uh approving something close to about 50 new units a year. um we have a hard time getting 50 houses uh remodeled approved a year with the staff resources that we have. Um so I hope that that could also be addressed. Um probably that's uh for the city council to discuss in terms of the budget.

Consider how this will be. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker please. Hi everyone. Um I just wanted to uh offer actually Marty before I get started do you have that chart of the income levels um and the comparison with the live work do you have that handy? It would be in the um housing element amendment. The one that shows like what a rent is for commercial off track which you referred to. The reason I'm asking

attachment a was it the very last page of the packet.

The only reason the only reason I wanted to bring it up is because I'm taking I really like Stephanie everybody's comments but also Stephanie's and I don't want to give her short shifts since she's not here. But um first of all, I just want to offer of course that a lot of the stalwart aha nerds are here in the room and ready to answer any questions or take up any. So I'm sure we're all eager to help. Um, while Mar's pulling that out, I also thought if I were new to this and maybe I'm answering a question that you guys don't have, but a number of times Marne said um, that there was a, you know, we have the potential to do X number, but we we presented to we're going to present to HCD X divided by two. I just want to educate or remind us all that there's a good reason for doing that that's not obvious really which is that when a cycle changes from H6 to H7 and maybe you already know this all but you your response you have a higher level of responsibility to explain sites that didn't make it in the prior cycle and the restrictions are increased. So even if we might have a bunch of sites in our back pocket, it if we can meet our numbers without putting them in writing, it's smart because then the they become more freely available for what we want to do with it next time, next cycle. So it's a long range thinking just so you know that. I thought that was of interest. Um I also um wanted to just comment on the ADUs. It is puzzling. Why would anyone, you know, what are the incentives you can do to since we don't have deed restriction as a likely option? But it's worth remembering that for HCD anyway, not that this really solves the problem that we're trying to solve, but if you don't rent it at all, it's also affordable in their minds. And again,

staff will correct me if I'm mis misunderstanding anything, but in other words, they need to know either is it rented a low rent in order to be considered affordable or is it not rented? And if it's not rented, it's zero. In other words, if you have your mother in the unit or your nurse or you're in the unit or your family's in the considered affordable, too. That's a more likely Carmel scenario, I think. But anyway, for what it's worth, that's just a little tidbit. um for parking. Um as just made clear, I think people understand this here in the room that this is not a parking element. It's a housing element and there's just no aspect of it that is a study of parking. And and I applaud Andy for all those major outreach efforts in finding out that in fact maybe nobody's coming to rescue us on the parking issue. And so I just want to point out that at least in our discussions what we've come to understand is we're going to have to solve that separately. We're going to have to just do it. We're going to have to dig in and figure out what we want to do about parking because this is the lay of the land and the state housing people aren't in that business. They're just not in it. Oh. Oh, thanks Marty. So this is just

for you.

This is just for you Stephanie wherever you are. um her question I wasn't sure I quite understood it but I think it's useful to build on Mar's um point about the whole genesis for this program was a market study that revealed to us that commercial rents off of the main drag are so low that converting or permitting this other use raises the rent beyond what you can charge commercially even if it's a low affordable deed restricted. So we're talking about introducing a residential element in order to raise the rent beyond what's commercial commercially chargeable now. So just question and we don't know how this will fall out how popular the program will be. I think for me anyway and I think for many of the aha folks and the staff a lot of this when it comes to implementation we'll just have to try something and see how it works. So at least my personal opinion at the moment is from people we've talked to etc. It seems like this is exciting because of all the reasons Martney said but also because it gives people an opportunity to charge residential level rent that is higher than commercial rent. And if that is not enough, then we can go in and tweak the program later if that's not operating in such a way. So that's my thought on that. And um I think that was all that I wanted to say except that I it has been truly just just an honor to be part of this process. I have enjoyed it so much and it's just been super productive. I've really felt first this is sort of an emotional thing to say but it's just been a type of interaction that has been so productive at every level from down

talking to folks on the sidewalk all the way up to the state house and the idea that it's been you know I've used the word lovefest I feel like the state is very very invested in in they think this makes them look good and it they think that we're making caramel look good. And um it's been for me anyway sort of an emotional process of in a positive way of getting to know the state, you know, representative that we've been dealing with and seeing how proud he is of it. So, um it's just been a very positive thing. So, I want to thank everyone for for all the super constructive work. That's all.

Thank you for your comments, Victoria. Uh next speaker, please. Do we have anybody else in the chamber that wants to uh make comments? Okay. Um Shelby, the people online must be some hands up. One, if whoever has their hand up, if they can hear me, go ahead and unmute yourself. Can you hear me? We can hear you. Is it Peter? Yes. Thank you. All right, Peter, go ahead.

Good afternoon, planning commissioners. Uh, my name is Peter Prow. I'm a land use attorney here in a representative capacity. Uh, the managing partner of the San Francisco law firm, Brisco, Prrow, Cow, Ivester, and Basil. Uh, the proposal before you today has some very interesting ideas, and I commend city staff and the AHA group for thinking outside the box. U, but it's still a ways off. The public has had basically no opportunity to review this document which was posted online late last week for the first time. Um, HCD has also not seen this document and there will be at least 60 days of HCD review once it's sent to HCD. Um, I also didn't hear staff say that they have heard interest from any current hotel owners in participating and the hotel owner support will be critical to winning over HCD approval. you've got to prove to HCD that this is a feasible uh plan and that there's property owner interest. Uh but perhaps most importantly uh no SQA has been done for this document and there's no clarity on what the SQA pathway here would be. Quite possibly a full-blown EIR would be required given some of the concerns expressed from other commenters about parking and water issues. The bottom line is this proposal could be a year or more away from adoption in the best case. Uh in the meantime, Carmemell has had an approved housing element in place for more than a year that is valid and binding on Carmel. That plan calls for RFPs to be issued this December for Sunset Center and Vista Lobos. The existing housing element will still be fully enforced this December when that RFP deadline comes to pass. So, what's the plan for complying with this RFP obligation by this December for those sites? Carmemell will lose credibility with HCD and potentially expose itself to descertification of the existing housing housing element and to the

builder's remedy if it uses the development of this new plan as an excuse for not complying with the currently effective plan, especially for the sites that Carmemell currently owns and controls. I don't want to discourage Carmel from pursuing the ideas in this current proposal, but in the meantime, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. You have an approved plan that requires RFPs to go out in December. Carmemell should put those RFPs out in December and see what you get. Putting an RFP out will be how Carmel discovers what the highest and best uses of those sites really are. There is developer interest in developing those sites into housing, hotels, and parking. Maybe you'll like what you see, maybe you won't. But those proposals, if you like them, can be incorporated into this housing element revision as you work through the other required processes over the next year or so. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments. Okay. Um, any last call? Anybody here in the uh up team? You want to make some comments?

Yeah. Good afternoon, Commission. Uh Tim Tumi here. Just want to um add a couple of comments. I worked on the hotel um program with a um a local general manager of hotels here in Carmeell and we did talk to quite a few developers and um some hotel owners. And once they understood the program, they were very very interested in it. And um I believe actually um Fred might have been at one of those meetings. uh uh a while back. So there um we have done that homework and and it's in it's in chapter two. It goes in a little bit in in the appendix a little bit more detail. We didn't we didn't mention who we talked to but um if you're interested I could share that with you and they're very sophisticated um firms you know some local national and some international. So I just wanted to get that on the record. Thank you. Thank you for your comments, Tim. Uh, anyone else? Last call. Okay, no more hands up online. All right, I'm going to close the public comments, open it up to uh the commission for discussion. Looks like staff has something they would like to say. Go ahead.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. Just just a couple of um you we try to we try to respond to comments when we can. Um just had a couple things. One of one of the questions was uh how do the hotel keys get sold? Um they can be used and sold in various ways. They don't have to all be sold to one property. They can be sold individually to different properties that can use them for development. Um the implementation that Marne's talked about will hash out a lot of the the nuances of um you know, will the city be sort of like a clearing house for the keys? they'll come to the city and then the city will help with the transaction almost like an escrow. We don't have all that worked out. That's part of the implementation plan, but uh we we do have written in there in the in the draft that um you know, they don't all have to go to one place. They just have to be used at a a site that can take a hotel essentially. Um so that was one of the things I wanted to make sure I respond to. Um uh Mr. Prow had a couple of comments I just want to respond to. Um I think you made a comment that the community hasn't had a chance to review this yet. We did actually have a couple of larger scale community events during this amendment. Um but we are actually before there's a regulatory process. I think Marty talked about it a little bit. We're doing this meeting with the planning commission then a meeting with the city council. Uh you know we came to you guys in May with largely the same program. Um and then we start with an actual public release for 7 days. Then there's a 60-day HCD comment period, which is also public. And so there's there's a lot of public work left to do. I think that that was maybe a mischaracterization of the public not having had a chance to review this yet. So, I just want to clear the record on that. Um, in our meetings with uh our HCD representative, who is our the manager of this region, uh, we've talked to him several times about engaging in this amendment. Um and he's assured us that the December deadline, any of the deadlines that are in our

housing element right now, um are not going to be a death nail for this. So that there was a comment about, you know, if we pass that December deadline for getting RFP out, it may cause our housing element to be descertified. Our our counterpart at HCD has assured us that's not the case. Um, and then last but certainly not least, um, SQL, which is one of my favorite things to talk about, um, this meeting and the city council's meeting, uh, you guys are not considering approving anything. There's no approvals today. We're still in in the planning phase. Um, SQA is done when a project is approved. And so, we certainly will comply with SQA when we come back through for the adoption phase, but think about the housing element as the project. You can't actually apply SQA until you have a static project. So if you guys give us feedback today, if the city council gives us feedback, if HCB gives us feedback and we have to change what the draft housing element looks like, we're changing the project. So the project isn't even static yet at this point. So you can't actually do SQL on that. That's like basic SQL work right there. So uh we will certainly do SQA and comply with all SQA regulations when we come through for the adoption process.

Thank you. Okay, thanks for those clarifications. We appreciate that. Um, Commissioner Carov, you want to kick it off? I'll try. Um, so, um, it's a good continuation of the discussion we had last time. And we can't hear you.

I'm sorry. It is a continuation of the discussion we had last time. And, um, again, the constraints are the same. We have the same constraints. It's, uh, water, it is parking, it's construction cost. So, so really it's how do we solve that problem with creating additional housing given this given this constraints. Um I run some numbers here trying to figure out exactly how what is the return on investment if if somebody decides to build extra space for renting. Um and even with the market rate, it would take about 20 to 30 years to get a payback with a market rent. If you go to the subsidized rent from the table in in um the appendix 8, it will extend the return on investment make it maybe 50 years to to to get it back because it's so expensive to do construction, right? So may maybe you can cut corners in certain ways. You can use cheaper materials. You can you can save some money here and there. But generally the cost of construction is so high that the return on investment becomes really like decades and decades before you actually can can get the money back. Um so on the on the water issue I I always have problems with the 14 acres because I cannot imagine I don't know if anybody can imagine what 14 acres acre feet of water is. So I would prefer the other number basically divided by 0068 and say we have 205 extra bathrooms. I think that's I can imagine 5 you know 205 bathrooms. I cannot imagine 14 you know acre feet of water. Um so really the idea is what how do we allocate this 200 let's call them 200 bathrooms. Um and um uh the one issue is allocating them across the different project. The other issue is something

that uh uh commissioner um lock um also raised in the in the written statement here is I if the goal is to attract younger families not not individuals living in these facilities then we need more than one bathroom. So it's not just one bathroom for per per unit. So if we go that path and we plan a twob uh units, we're down to 102 basically units that we can build with available water. Um so I think that's this kind of numbers kind of help understand you know the the magnitude of the issue and uh the opportunity we have here. Um so the cost okay I discussed the cost the water the parking. So now the parking we have been discussing parking forever and I'm not sure if there is a solution of that problem. Obviously it is possible to underground parking. I it is quite uncomfortable in terms of parking experience and it is expensive. Uh there's another solution that I personally did but I don't think that anybody likes it is basically to have one car for two for family of two that that works very well actually it saves a parking space everywhere and all the time but the majority of people I know have multiple cars. My neighbor on the left side has there two people maybe three I'm not sure exactly they have five cars and on the other side there's a family of four they have five or six. I'm always having problem counting because he has also a contractor truck and a couple of other vehicles. So somewhere between five and six vehicles for a family of four. Now doesn't matter what we do. If people have, you know, two or three cars, there's no way to solve that problem. Absolutely not. Uh so anyway, call to action. Just reduce the number of cars that you have. Maybe that will help with the city. Um and um yeah, very good proposals. I read

the whole the whole document. I think it's a great idea to leverage our unique situation with the hotels. Uh that's unique to our city. Very few other places have such a hotel room density that that we have here. So the more we can get out of this, the better. Um I I I didn't quite understand when we say that certain rooms are not uh kind of I guess that they're not um um what what was the the term that we were using? They're not uh they don't they don't bring enough money basically and they want they can be a candidates for for like underperforming.

They're underperforming. Yeah. Is that is that a particular room? Can it be a particular room in a hotel or is it the entire facility the the entire hotel the the program right now is is the entire property. So the entire hotel gets converted to a multif family project. Yeah.

Um that that would be I think that's the biggest bang for the buck that I can see here especially if we have hotels that have been used as a as apartment complexes before. um assuming that the configuration works. I mean um you still need a kitchen, you still need to maybe reconfigure bathrooms, but it's still a a minor model as opposite to building new square footage. Uh so that that would be a good uh a good approach. Um I'm less less optimistic about the ADUs just because the cost of construction unless we allow pre-fabricated ADUs that come on a truck for like they cost like $50,000 that that changes the calculation. But I don't see a lot of appetite for doing that. So if we're if you're building from scratch with solid foundation and with solid walls and plumbing, electrical, etc., you're easily going into five, six, $700 a square foot. You can go to thousand. Uh so at that price level, renting is not even, you know, it's not even feasible in in many cases. So you're just saying, okay, how much am I going to get back, right, before I need to remodel this whole thing again? Because when you're renting, it's it's wear and tear. So you have to remodel it in a year or two. Um, that is an additional cost that you need to take. So I I'm not sure if this uh return on investment works uh in in that way. Um yeah, so I I was very interested in the proposal of life work. I wasn't aware of that. Um, so if it's true that in certain locations the commercial rent is so low that it justifies converting into residential, have have we seen any requests from property owners to reszone their properties and and and move it to residential?

Well, it wouldn't um wouldn't be a resone. It's just not an allowed it's currently not an allowed use. So, it wouldn't be a resone. It's like a new That's the program is we're creating a new use type essentially. Okay. Okay. But what if the property is in a commercial district and somebody wants to convert it to residential? Do they need to resone or do we need to resone? No. No. No. But it's the combination of live and work in the same space. Okay. If it's a combination, then it works. Okay. Yeah.

That that is a very interesting idea. I think I if if there's any way to make that work, that's wonderful and it's great that the AHA group spent so much effort on this and investigated and found this this particular opportunity. Thank you so much for your work, guys. Yeah. You good? Yeah. Okay. Thank you, uh, Commissioner Allen, your comments.

Yeah. So, special thanks to the AHA group for sure. um you're both um impressive and um I really appreciate everything that you've done. It seems like that is how community involvement should work um and how communities such as ours should pull together and um I really appreciate the fact that you stepped up to do that and show us the way of how that can be done. And I love the five-part strategy. It's um creative and realistic and I can see where the housing department is looking at our amendment very favorably and when it's all broken down it just seems like it's very doable. Um, and I would I feel like um they would see that as a true attempt to accomplish what is what the meaning of this is versus just slapping things down on a plan and submitting them without any real intent there. Um, and so, um, I can't wait to see traction. Um, I think that, uh, especially for me at least, the live work and the religious facilities, I think we're going to start to see traction immediately with those. Um, and so any, um, I I'm just I'm excited. I'm excited about this and I, um, I applaud all the work that's gone into this and I think it's fantastic. Um, in terms of parking, I believe that that is an issue that we all are going to need to tackle. So, I think that's aha 2.0.

Anyway, and then um in regards to water, I just want to say that I still stand by what we submitted to the city council um uh last month. So, um otherwise, I'm uh in complete favor for all of this and I think it's fantastic. Thank you, Commissioner. Uh, Commissioner Alburn, your comments.

Yes, thank you, Chair. Um, I am appreciative of my fellow commissioner's comments. Um, I'd like to uh bring forward a comment that Commissioner Lock sent in writing uh reminding us that for the hotel program with the water that um when those hotel keys go uh to another location, that will be a commercial use. and um the city council has not yet actually allocated any uh water for a commercial use. So, um, just note note to self there and I'm sure the implementation for the hotel program um will involve several discussions and I'm confident that part of that will include ensuring uh that there's uh there isn't a a net loss of hotel rooms in in some way that perhaps I should say that we will keep in balance our commitment to the coastal commission and for affordable uh accommodations for our visitors. Um all right, more more comments. So this housing element and we've we've heard a lot about parking and the housing element is just one part of the the general plan. The general plan's what 20 documents I think. This is just one. Um and the land use and community character element is part of the general plan. It's also part of the local coastal program that is 14 documents. And while this we're talking about a housing element, the uh here specifically the planning commission, our responsibility is to all of the documentation and all of the programs in the city. And uh I'd just like to to read um a sentence or two from the land use and community character element. It's on page 1-25 and it it reads uh the

ongoing improvement of public and private property must rely on adequate public services. When such services are constrained, think parking folks. When services are constrained, efforts must be made either to increase their capacity or to allocate their use for the greatest benefit. Parking folks have used the phrase elephant in the room. I think that parking is part of the Trojan horse of our sixth cycle. whether whether we stay with the adopted 2024 or we go with this amendment which uh and I I uh I think that the programs proposed in the amendment um are very much in keeping with the character of the city and uh more aligned with the character of the city and the true fulfillment of our arena than um our what we have in place. We do have something in place though. Must always keep that in mind. The if we look in appendix C and we look at some of the tables by my very rough estimate, we're we're looking at well over 150 bedroom units easily in the core commercial district with no on off streetet parking. And if we look at historic parking studies in town, this is not news to anyone, we know that we have severe parking uh deficiencies in that core commercial district. Um I just don't see how we can as a planning commission recommend knowing all of this how we can recommend going forward with this amendment. Actually, I hope that we do recommend going forward with this amendment, but I don't see how

we can do that while not also recommending to city council some form of strategic parking management plan and requesting that that be added to council's agenda. Um, I I find that absolutely critical. Um, I to that point I would suggest to city council that they instruct staff to immediately begin some form of uh parking management strategic plan. And I'd like to be absolutely clear. I am not suggesting we hire a consultant to do a study. Nor am I suggesting we form a new committee um or even use an existing committee. um staff knows this city well, but I do suggest that that uh strategic plan involve um communication with a very deep bench of the city stakeholders. So staff, council, our our business community, our residential community, our public safety community, and to add an accelerated performance deadline to that. Um, folks, you all know because you've been here longer than me, most of you. This has been kicked down the road for how long?

Thank you. Just right. So, so let's let's really try to make this happen. Um, a thousand thanks to the resident group, the AHA group. A thousand thanks. Uh, and a particular shout out. I know some of the members are here in in chambers and they have been dedicated and they deserve a a debt of gratitude from the city. Uh, I'd like to suggest that staff memorialize the the work of the resident group and uh and dissolve it and return all this work to staff so that they can focus on implementation strategies and preparing the reports they'll need to bring to the different commissions including forest and beach including including planning and including city council. I'd also like to recommend to city council uh that they seriously consider amending the municipal code um with a new amendment that would require all current and future affordable housing units that's in that very high fire hazard severity zone. Right? Almost half of our city is in that zone. If we can, it is in our public's safety's best interests require that those units demonstrate that tenants are going to have tenants will have permanent, reasonable, and daily access to parking during all of Carmel's seasons. Um, that they also have access to that parking that's adequate to serve their needs in an emergency situation. and also that that tenant parking is not going to negatively impact the parking needs of customers and businesses surrounding the areas in which those new units are. Um I know that staff is working on an update to the ADU ordinance. Thank you very much. Uh, one thing, I don't know if this is possible, but I would suggest city

council consider instructing staff to conduct a strategic impact report on the impact that this additional arena will bring to our city to ensure that the city is able to provide for the basic tenant needs, things like daycare, laundry, parking, and medical services. uh do a survey of availability as well as forecasted growth. Again, I'm not suggesting we hire a consultant um or form a a committee um but to do some form of strategic impact report to to make plans for the needs of our future residents and certainly to include family needs because those are real. And my last comment um hopefully for our ne November and December uh meetings for the planning commission and city council, could we if possible uh see an updated draft ADU ordinance? And I recognize these timelines may be unreasonable, but could we see an updated uh draft ADU ordinance? um if if staff feels uh necessary um could we see edited uh proposed amendment documents? If there's edits that are needed um after these comments and discussions, could we see a new set of those? Uh could we open a discussion for a parking management strategic plan with sets of goals, a schedule of meetings, public workshop dates, and assigned tasks? And lastly, could that water allocation uh be complete uh from city council should city council find it so to make that resolution? Thank you.

It's quite a wish list. Okay. I I just want to get this kind of back what's happening here. We're reviewing an amendment to the uh six cycle housing element and as one speaker pointed out, parking is not part of that. Um and and I'm not suggesting that parking is a problem isn't a problem because obviously it is but it's just not part of this amendment. And so um I think we need to keep that in mind. What this amendment is primarily about is the work of the AHA committee and they've created five alternative programs to address our reena requirement and we have to meet that number that's that's required by the city. So, so really the question is here, do we think the commission that these five strategies are going to meet that number? And uh I think staff has demonstrated that there is a very real possibility that they've taken a very conservative approach to it. And um obviously the the AHA committee has it did a lot of research and came up with some some good programs and I think a couple the big strength about the program is it's diversified and that was the weakness of our first of the the housing that we have now because the city because of time constraints uh I think primarily that's kind of what I heard was that they had to put the required numbers which the big number is the low income housing that they had to put that on the city sites. I mean the market the market rate housing that's that's going to just naturally disperse itself through the city. Uh so that that was a big challenge and that was the weakness of that and so I think with the the AHA committee they responded to that and they came up with a much broader diversified program and that gives us a better opportunity to meet this this this arena number how it's going to work

out which is going to you know if if this one's going to meet their goal or not that's that's just going to have to happen over time and we have to see what happens. Um, I think the challenges or the constraints obviously the the the deed restriction is is a challenge. Although I want to thank Victoria for pointing out to me that if you're not charging rent to a family member that's low income. I hadn't even thought of that and I you know I'm always happy to learn something like that here. So that was that was obvious and and very I'm glad you said it. But that uh that's that's something because there's been a lot of talk about how ADUs are going to be used and whether or not they're going to be rented and uh so that's a very clarion point. I think that's great. So um but so I think you know obviously I think I've heard everybody here they're in support of the this diversification and and the the the amendment is being presented. I haven't heard anything other than these other broader concerns that that would would limit, you know, or or really change this this amendment any significant way. Staff can can u can go back over and I'm sure council's going to weigh in on this. They're going to have a lot of comments, too. Um the only thing that I would say and this isn't really changing anything and I'm I'm on record before and like I said I think diversification is strength and so the city sites still add diversification and staff has made the point that they're not going to be constrained by the rules and the timelines of uh the state to uh to do anything with that and that that adds flexibility I think that's good. But I would also encourage um that we as a community do request some RFPs to see what can be

done with those. I mean, there was a there was a really interesting project that I saw that was that was presented back in 2023 where 28 uh artist live work studios on the uh a two-story parking car garage on the north Sunset Center parking lot. There is a a visitor center and also um a um an art exhibit which would focus on the work I assume of the the artisan residents that could live there. That's a very creative type of housing and parking solution. So there's a lot there's a lot of things that could be done and I think initially uh with the there was a lot of negative comments about concentrating the housing there at Sunset Center and um you know there's there's some truth in that but also because of this diversification we have now we really could do some creative things which res which address parking address housing and do it in a way which uh respects the historic character and and cultural uh elements of of our community. So, uh I'm I'm a little bit concerned and I'm getting a little off track here, I admit, but you know, it's like we're you know, we're saying, well, in Kim White's time, they were talking about parking. Well, this stuff gets kicked down the road and unless there is something that creates immediiacy, you know, then these things really don't get addressed. And I think I also think that the city has an obligation to develop the property that it has to the best use to its citizens. You know, it can't I I heard somebody said that, you know, we need to keep this stuff in reserve for the future. That's not the way to look at it. The way to look at is you develop properties to their best use and that addresses the needs of the community in the moment. You know, we just don't keep undeveloped properties like it's like it's it's money in the bank. you know,

that's not really the way that we should be thinking about these properties. We need to look at these properties as solutions to the problems or the challenges that the community has. So, um that's a little bit off topic, but um that's I think that's a good way and a proper way that we should be looking at the assets of of that the community has and developing in those a way that best serve the community. And I think that uh addresses the best, you know, the best uh uh value of the property. So, having said that, we have do we have a resolution from staff? Do we have a resolution? No, sir. We don't do Do we need to make a resolution? Are we just going to We're just going to send

No, we're just we're just getting your feedback today. Okay. So, there's no there's no resolution to send a recommendation to. Well, what we'll do is we will take and we will um synthesize everything we heard from all of you today in a staff report to the city council. So, we're essentially going to be carrying what we've heard from you today forward to the city council. Okay. But I think I think most of the commission was pretty positive about about the the amendment. So, did did you want to add something to my wish list? Add to your wish list. Did you Did you Did you want You can add it. I don't know what it is. I mean, you know, I can't read your mind.

Should should should we add um a recommendation to city council uh to uh draft an RFP for use of for best and highest use of those city- owned sites? Well, I don't know if we can really you guys you guys I mean, at this point, can we I mean, I don't know what what you know, in terms of what was agenda here. Yeah. whether or not we can be making recommendations without it being noticed to the public and so forth. So, I'm a little bit uncomfortable about, you know, sending recommendations to the council, which weren't really agendaized, but I you know, staff can weigh in on that.

I I think I think it's okay. You know, you you said it. It was in a public meeting. It's fine. It's not um you know it's just something for them to get feedback on that you know the the notion of an RFP or some sort of development on city- owned sites that I would say that fits in that's adjacent to what we're talking about tonight. The whole point of the amendment is to remove those city sites. So you as a planning commissioner saying that's great. I'm supportive. I'm going to put words in your mouth for a second so tell me if they're wrong. You're saying I'm supportive of removing the city sites from the housing element, which commits us in a certain way, but I also think that the city at some point in the not too distant future should take a look at what the highest and best use of those sites is. And that might include launching an RFP and you want the city council to be aware that that's your your position.

Yeah, I think that's I think that's appropriate. you know, what I've said I've said. So, and I think that I don't know if Commissioner Albborne is is of that same opinion or some of the other commissioners are, but I have my room I have room on my wish list. So, that's that's okay. Yeah. Okay. I'm good. Yeah. It doesn't and I just want to be totally clear if anybody listening here or online like that doesn't that doesn't mean that the city council is going to be considering launching an RFP at that meeting. If that were to happen, then there would be a properly noticed meeting that would be agendaized so people would know that that's what the conversation was going to be. This is just delivering feedback. Well, that was that was what I was concerned about. And that's a good concern to have. Thanks for having that.

I don't want, you know, I don't want to, you know, get too far out of, you know, the subject matter which we we are supposed to be talking about. And also, I want to make, you know, have an opportunity for the public to weigh in on on something like that. And I think if you know if an RFP is going to be put out for a particular project, the uh the city needs to set the parameters on that the basis of what the concerns are of the public and what's best for the community, you know, and also I think what people need to realize an RFP is not a commitment on the part of the the city to move on anything. It's just it's it's basically a tool to sort of castle onto the water and get some get some ideas and and some possible commitments. So, okay. Um, any other comments from the uh commissioners? Any other announcements or things we need from staff or on our agenda?

No, sir. Sure. I didn't leave anything off here. I have tried to adjurnn these meetings early sometimes with not doing everything. Uh, we don't the director's not on here, so we're not gonna have director support or anything. Are you gonna make Did you have some comments? No, I would never do such a thing. You're not You're not going to sleep. We talked enough tonight, sir. Thank you. Okay. I want to thank everybody for their comments. They were great. And we are adjourned.