Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. Welcome. Thank you for coming to the Wednesday, March 11 meeting of the Monterey County Planning Commission. We will begin with the pledge of allegiance. Commissioner Montsaves, would you, Liz, please?

Thank you very much Commissioner. Madam Clerk, may we have the roll call please?

Good morning. Commissioner Getzelleman?

Here.

Commissioner Mendoza?

Here.

Commissioner Gonzales? Here. Commissioner Work?

Here.

Commissioner Roberts? Here. Commissioner Shaw? Here. Commissioner Gomez?

Here.

Commissioner Monsalve? Here. Commissioner Deal? Here. Commissioner Hartzell is absent. Chair, you have a quorum.

Thank you very much. Madam secretary, would you mind reminding everyone how they can participate in these meetings electronically, I guess you'd say?

Yeah. Thank you for joining us. If you're joining us remotely today, you can access the Zoom information for joining today's meeting from the agenda. If you have joined us, there will be opportunities for public participation. If you would like to participate during public comment period, you may do so by on the Zoom platform raising your hand.

There is the reactions button at the bottom of your screen, and raising your hand by pressing that and lowering it. If you are on your telephone, you can press 9 to raise and star nine to lower your hand. You can also participate in today's hearing by sending an email to PChearingcomments@countyofmonterey.gov. This email is monitored throughout the throughout the hearing. Though there it is possible now that we've started the meeting that we may miss an email, but we do our very best.

When it is public comment and it is your opportunity to participate in public comment, the clerk will grant you permission to unmute yourself. And at that time, we ask that you unmute yourself on the Zoom platform. The mute button is at the bottom of your screen and looks like a microphone you can press that to mute and unmute and on your telephone mobile or landline press 6 to unmute yourself 6 to mute yourself again thank you we also have wordly translation for our meeting today and if you require translation services you may scan the QR code that is up on the screen or go to the web address at the bottom and if we could see the Spanish version of this slide would be hugely helpful And then when you get to the Wordly there you go, thank you. When we get to the Wordly page, you can choose your language and select to attend. And you will then receive translation in the language of your selection.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, madam secretary. It is time now to set aside on the agenda for public comment. Those would be people who would like to talk to us about an issue that they have on their mind that is not on the agenda for today. So these are items that are not on the agenda but you'd like to speak with us. Yeah. Oh, we have a gentleman. Very good. Thank you, sir.

Good morning, Sam. I think there's only two of us here today. My name is Tom Rowley, r o w l e y. I've appeared before you before during the discussions about Tarpey Flats, but I wanted to introduce myself. I'm the president of Fisherman Flats Homeowners and Residents Association.

We are the closest neighborhood to Olmsted Road and Highway 68, which is a contested highway. Our neighborhood, I have a 153 single family homes, three senior citizen legal senior citizen units, and 48 units at Monterey Woods. All of these are in the city of Monterey. We are directly adjacent to Olmsted Road, where the former Foothill School, which is temporary to close, is being used as a charter school right now. So there's lots of things going on.

There's five major developments along Garden Road that are being done, converting commercial properties to residential properties. There's a major expansion at the Monterey Peninsula Airport, which is expected to be completed, I believe, next year at some point before May when they, or early spring. So we have a lot of things going on in our area. I'm in the City Of Monterey. The City Of Monterey actually extends, for those that are new here, all the way to York Road.

And Ryan Ranch is on City Of Monterey. There's a strip along of land along Salinas Highway that is in the City Of Monterey that connects it so that we have vacant county land between existing my neighborhood, which is the last neighborhood as you go east on Salinas Highway as you head towards Salinas. So I just wanted to introduce myself, tell you why I'm here, and why developments in this area are important to our neighborhood, Salinas Highway right now. I live along what an area that Caltrans referred to as the Thread Needle. That's where traffic threads from Highway 1 to get to Olmsted Road.

This is a that was created by Caltrans years ago that now they forget it, and they don't recognize the existing problems we have on Salinas Highway, and particularly as we are facing preparing for fire evacuation. So thank you very much. Just wanted to introduce myself so I don't waste time during the later. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Raleigh. Yes, ma'am. If you'd like to adjust this, come on forward. Give us your name please for the record.

Karen Cameron, concerned Salinas resident. I'm first concerned that there was very little mention of this important environmental justice meeting. It's not listed on the county website due to a technical glitch. You see there's only three in the audience. I barely made it here on time for public comment. I'm glad I'm here. Let me use my two minutes. Common sense planning is essential.

Mister chair, I just want to make sure that we're commenting on items not on the agenda right now. You'll have an opportunity to comment on if you're commenting on something that's on our agenda.

I'm not clear on that, so perhaps you could clarify, but I had several concerns about the overall plan and environmental justice elements. Is that relevant?

It's certainly relevant, but we're just not quite there yet.

Okay. At what time will you have those public comments?

Oh, I'm thinking It's item number four?

Yeah, it's the first scheduled item.

It's the first scheduled item. It's the first scheduled item, so it won't be very long at all.

Okay, thank you. I'll patiently wait. Thank you very much.

All right. Do we have anyone online?

Yes. Linda Marin.

Can you hear me?

Yes. We can hear you.

Okay. Thanks. Well, good morning, planning commissioners and chair deal or I guess it's chair Gesslin. I'm Linda Marin, Carmel Valley homeowner for over fifty years. And at your last meeting on February 25, in public comments, I encouraged you to recognize that the vast majority of short term rentals in Monterey County are owned by individuals or trusts and LLCs, not corporations positioning to take over Monterey County housing.

This assumption about corporations and the ordinance that presently reflects it causes a world of pain through many unintended and unfortunate consequences, and here's one now. Last week, I sent you an article from Travel Off Path, an independent digital media company and travel news publication that I had never heard of, but claims to have a global readership of about 6,000,000 monthly visitors. I hope you got a chance to read the article which features Monterey County as the second vacation destination in a list of seven that should be avoided for better options nearby. It states that the Monterey County supervisors have limited short term rentals to a prohibitive extent and advises travelers to aim instead for San Luis Obispo, where families can still find beautiful coastal areas along with a home for their family vacation, or as Travel Off Path called it, a stable, easily accessible accommodation market, which I guess is travel industry talk. Anyway, stable and easily accessible sure doesn't apply to Monterey County if you're trying to house a family on a vacation.

The HCD vacation rental dashboard, which I'm sure you've seen, exemplifies this fact, but even the dashboard holds out promises that we'll never deliver. Last night, the dashboard showed in the pending category homestay applications at 38, limited vacation rentals at 25, and unhosted, or as you call them commercial, at one thirty. In the approved applications category, home stays are at 33, LVR is at zero, and so called commercial are at one. Clearly, the more numerous home stay permits are easier to apply for through a ministerial process, but those homestays, for the most part, will not host multi generational families that make up so many of the tourists who want a vacation here. And some of the applicants of the 130 pending commercial applications may not, over the nearly one years long wait to be approved, feel comfortable or safe taking reservations they will have to renege on if the application isn't approved.

And remember too, these are extremely expensive applications if a home is in the coastal zone and requires a development permit, even though nothing is being built. Some number of them will be denied. The time, the expense, the uncertainty has made for just the opposite of stable and accessible vacation rental options for visitors, and now they're hearing about it. Thank you for listening.

Thank you, ma'am. Appreciate your comments.

Fred?

Good morning, Planning Commissioners. This is Fred Faultersack. And I first want to commend the County and the Planning Commission for allowing the permitting and construction of ADUs and junior ADUs as this is one of the quickest ways to add to the inventory of affordable housing in Monterey County. It would be great if the county would take this a step further through a public relations campaign, further encouraging homeowners while at the same time streamlining the permitting process along with more affordable fees. My home has enough acreage to be able to build more than one ADU, but one would just be would be just fine.

The construction costs would be affordable provided the short term rental ordinance was not written in such a way to eliminate my ability to have an income source to afford the main residence. I also wanna thank the commissioners for voting against the proposed modifications to the short term rental ordinance at a prior planning commission meeting. And please, each and every time this issue comes before you, continue to recognize the negative cause and effects the existing ordinance is having with respect to harming local people, tourists, and tourists on so many levels. Short term rentals have been falsely blamed as causing a loss of affordable housing. All the current short term rental ordinance has accomplished is to harm the small ma and pop property owners wanting to rent their home as a short term rental, harming local business establishments and the local labor force who depend on a thriving tourism to pay their bills.

Thank you very much and have a productive meeting today.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate the encouragement also. Madam Clerk?

Yes, Margaret Thompson or Thomas.

Thank you. Ms. Thomas? Good morning.

Yes. Hi. Good morning, commissioners.

Good morning.

I'd like to echo Fred's sentiments on thanking you for not approving the full residential ban, and I'll provide some reasons as to why that's a good idea. So I'll introduce myself. My name is Margo Thomas. I'm a Carmel native and a homeowner in the Carmel Highlands where I've responsibly operated a small vacation rental for about fifteen years. I'd like to share a perspective from those of us who actually live here and the infrastructure realities of the Highlands, particularly with the septic systems.

So since I've embarked on the path of the homestay ordinance, we are now facing the possibility of spending literally hundreds of thousands of dollars to change my floor plan to accommodate the home stay and upgrade my septic system that's not had a single issue. In my case, my septic is operated for fifteen years without one specific failure or environmental problem. At the same time, the proposed requirement that hosts live on-site raises important questions about environmental logic. Vacation rental guests are typically not full time occupants. They are out hiking, sightseeing, exploring the coast during the day, and a full time resident living on-site would likely create more consistent daily septic usage than an occasional short term visitor.

Or my house is two bedrooms, so it very low impact. In other words, the policy intended to reduce environmental impact may actually increase the load on septic systems in the Highlands. I also wanna emphasize that many of us who host share the goal of maintaining the character of our neighborhoods. The county already has tools in place addressing bad actors through enforcement, and those tools should be used when necessary rather than imposing sweeping restrictions on responsible operators. I also want to respectfully remind the commission that the California Coastal Act emphasizes protecting public access to the coast.

Reasonable vacation rentals have played an important role in allowing families to experience this coastline who otherwise might not be able to afford traditional coastal hotels. Finally, many coastal jurisdictions have addressed the issue by allowing existing vacation rentals to continue through grandfathering in or nonconforming use provisions. Examples include Santa Barbara County, San Diego County, the city of, let's see, the city of San San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz County, and Ventura County. So lots of people have been grandfathered in. I don't know why that's not part of the conversation.

So, finally, for homeowners who have operated responsibly for so many years without environmental or neighborhood impacts, a similar grandfathering approach would be reasonable and a balanced path forward. Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Have a

great day.

Thank you, ma'am. No more? Okay. Alrighty. That's the end of the public comment period then. We're gonna close that up. We see no one else in the chambers and no one else online. Let's move along then to agenda additions, deletions, or corrections. Madam Clerk, are there any?

Yes. For the record, we received and distributed additional correspondence and errata memos from staff for agenda item number four, REF 22,017, general plan environmental justice element and agenda item number five REF 26,002 Monterey County general plan implementation and housing element annual progress report.

Thank you. The next thing on the agenda then is the approval of the consent calendar. The consent calendar has the appointment of Bruce Merchant to the Big Sur Land Use Advisory Committee and policy and the appointment of policy usury to the South County Land Use Advisory Committee. And, excuse me while I flip the page. Alright, that's on the consent calendar.

Is there any wish to pull any items from? Nope? Seeing none. Alright. Commissioner Gomez.

We're going to make a motion.

Oh, very good.

Does the public have the opportunity to comment on polling?

I don't remember. Do public have to comment? Yeah, they do. Okay. Thank you Commissioner Deal. I'm a little slow today. Are there any members of the public that would like to comment on the item?

We have no hands up on Zoom.

And there were no one in the chamber has come forward. Alright then, Commissioner Gomez will entertain your motion for acceptance. Is there a second?

Second.

Commissioner either Deal or Gonzales, I'm not sure. Pick one. Okay, Gonzalez. Alright. It's been, the motion was made by commissioner Gomez and seconded by commissioner Gonzalez. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? Nay? No? Alright. That wasn't me. It's a nay. I'm sorry. I confuse people with that.

Alright. Let's move along then to the next item on the agenda which is the approval of the minutes of February 11. Everyone's read the minutes? Any corrections? Nope. Seeing none. Any members of the public like to comment on the minutes or the approval of the minutes for the Planning Commission? Seeing none, Commissioner Madam Clerk anybody online wants to say?

There are no hands up on.

Okay. Thank you. Could we have a motion then if no one has any disagreements with the minutes?

So moved.

Okay. Commissioner Roberts moves and Commissioner Monsavius seconds the motion. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

All those opposed? Very I abstain. Oh, Commissioner Diehl, thank you. Commissioner Diehl abstains. Very good.

Let's move along then to the regular scheduled items. The first of which is Oh, wonderful. Commissioner Hartzell has joined us. If it'd be so noted in the record that Commissioner Hartzell has made it. First item on the agenda then, or item number four on the agenda then is reference number 22,017 which is a general plan environmental justice element report staff when you're ready

we share staff right Good morning, Chair and commissioners. My name is Edgar Sanchez, project planner for REF twenty two zero zero one seven general plan environmental justice element. Today, I'll provide a status update and overview of the draft environmental justice element, which is currently available for public review as a part of the county's general plan update. Today's staff is requesting the Planning Commission receive a status update on the draft environmental justice element and the public review process and provide any direction or feedback to staff regarding the draft elements. The presentation will cover four areas.

First, a brief introduction into the environmental justice element. Second, the planning process and community engagement efforts that inform the draft. Third, an overview of the policy framework and environmental justice topic areas. And finally, we will review next steps and opportunities for continued public engagement. So why is the count why the county must prepare an environmental justice element?

The preparation of this element is required by California Senate Bill 1,000, which requires jurisdictions with disadvantaged communities to incorporate environmental justice policies into their general plans. This requirement is triggered when either a jurisdiction updates two or more general plan elements concurrently or disadvantaged communities are identified within the jurisdiction. In Monterey County's case, both were triggered. So the environmental justice element is being prepared alongside updates to other general plan elements such as these safety element and the housing element. And this law, senate bill 1,000, requires jurisdictions to establish goals, policies, and implementation measures that reduce health risks, promote civic engagement, and prioritize improvements in disadvantaged communities.

So the first step in developing the environmental justice element was identifying disadvantaged communities within the unincorporated Monterey County. So using state screening tools and environmental indicators and vetted through the community engagement process staff identified 11 disadvantaged communities as you can see on the screen mostly focused on the north and the south area of the county. These include Baranda, Bradley, Castroville, Chular, Las Lomas, Lockwood, Moss Landing, Pajaro, Pine Canyon, San Ardo and San Lucas. The environmental justice element will become one one component of the county's general plan. So the general plan serves as a county's long term policy framework for guiding land use and community development.

This slide illustrates where the environmental justice element fits within the broader general plan framework and this element functions alongside all the other elements on the screen and are integrated and will be integrated into the planning and decision making process. So what is the environmental justice element? The the element focuses on addressing disproportionate environmental burdens and health risks experienced by disadvantaged communities. These challenges may include exposure to pollution, limited access to public services and infrastructure, increased vulnerability to climate related hazards and housing inequities. And the purpose of the element is to ensure that all communities within unincorporated county have equitable access to healthy environment and public resources.

So going into the planning process for this element, the development of this element followed several key steps and will continue to do so. The staff first conducted a data collection and analysis period which include included the preparation of an existing conditions assessment to understand the environmental justice conditions across the county. This document is part of the draft element provided today. It's one of the appendices and it is available for review. And based on this analysis and through community feedback and input, staff developed the draft environmental justice element which will today be available for public review on our County website and presented before you today.

Following this review period, the element will be refined through the community engagement process and it will be brought to you for a formal review and adoption process. Throughout this process, community engagement has been a key component and will continue to do so. So like I mentioned, community engagement has been a central part of the development of the element and to drive the community engagement the county established an environmental justice advisory committee or an ej cac. The committee includes 23 members representing disadvantaged communities across the county and community organizations representing those communities. The role of the committee is to advise staff, review draft concepts, and help ensure that the element reflects the lived experience of under resourced communities.

The committee has held three meetings since 2023 during which they were provided a general introduction into the elements, provided feedback on the community engagement strategy, and reviewed the existing conditions report and reviewed the goals and policies in the draft elements. So in addition to the advisory committee and with the help of the advisory committee, staff developed a community engagement strategy which staff conducted a wide range of outreach activities over the past three years. These include focus groups, pop up events, community meetings, neighborhood group discussions, and an online survey. Library displays were also used to share information and collect feedback from disadvantaged communities and specifically placed in disadvantaged communities. And through these efforts, County received over three three hundred survey responses to their online survey and and additional responses to the library displays, which helped identify environmental justice priorities and concerns.

So just some of the key takeaways. Several key themes emerge from the outreach and the survey responses. Community members and I'm just gonna go over a couple of them, but some of the ones that just stood out was the especially in the North in the North Side of the county, air pollution from freeways in communities like Las Lomas, Chular. In the South County, it was more of these public services of having reliable Internet, reliable utilities, the need for insurance availability, which a lot of members mentioned they were not able to get insurance through their just on the location that they lived in. So the environmental justice is structured around a policy framework consisting of baseline conditions, goals, and policies.

The existing conditions assessment identifies environmental burdens, health risks, and service gaps affecting disadvantaged communities. And in addition with the extensive community outreach staff conducted, we're able to gather input on environmental challenges and priorities these communities would like to see. Together with the findings of the existing conditions assessment and the community feedback, we're able to inform the development of the elements goals and policies which provide direction for addressing environmental justice concerns and guiding the county decision making process. So before moving forward, I briefly want to acknowledge the errata document that was circulated to the commission. The previously circuit of circulated version of the draft environmental justice inadvertently excludes policies due to document compilation issues and ADA compliance.

The updated version restores these documents to ensure the document reflects a full policy framework developed through the planning and community engagement process. One of those policies that was left out during the document compilation was it was calls for an environmental justice element implemented through the development of an implementation plan, which is currently under development and not presented here today. The implementation plan will identify specific actions needed to carry out the goals and policies of the environmental justice element, assign responsible departments, establish implementation timelines where appropriate, and identify potential funding opportunities, and include performance metrics to monitor progress. The the plan will function as a tracking system to translate some of the policies and the environment translate the policies and environmental justice into measurable actions. Staff will continue to work on the implementation plan through coordination with county departments, the Advisory Committee and other stakeholders and also through the community engagement process.

So with the overview of the structure of the environmental justice element, the following slides highlight the seven environmental justice topic areas included in the draft element today, each each of which includes a goal supported by a set of policies. So the first topic area focuses on civic engagement. This goal aims to ensure disadvantaged communities have meaningful opportunities to participate in county decision making including improving outreach, strengthening partnerships with community organizations, and expanding culturally appropriate engagement. The second topic area focuses on reducing pollution exposure. These policies support efforts to improve air and water quality, reduce environmental health risks, and coordinate with regional agencies to address pollution sources affecting disadvantaged communities.

The third topic area focuses on access to public facilities and services. The policies encourage expanding equitable access to services such as health care, transit, parks, childcare, infrastructure, and particularly in the underserved communities. The fourth topic area focuses on healthy food. These policies aim to increase access to affordable nutritious food options including supporting local markets, community gardens and other strategies to improve food security. The fifth topic focuses on physical activity and recreation.

The policies support expanding safe opportunities for walking, biking recreation, including improving access to parks, trails and active transportation infrastructure. The sixth topic area focuses on safe and sanitary housing. The policies address housing conditions and affordability by supporting efforts to improve housing quality and increase access to safe and stable housing. And the final topic area focuses on unique or compounded health risks including climate related hazards. The policies support improving community resilience and preparedness to risks such as wildfire, flooding, drought, and extreme heat.

So looking ahead, the next steps include in this process include continued community engagement during the public review period which is this spring. During this time staff will continue conducting outreach including community meetings, pop ups and disadvantaged communities and coordination with stakeholders and county departments as we refine the draft and work on the implementation plan. And this will continue into the summer where staff anticipates returning to the Planning Commission for where we'll be bringing an updated draft environmental justice element and be presenting the action implementation plan. Following and during that time also we'll also be releasing any applicable sequel documents for public review And following that process the element will return to the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors hearing later this year in the fall for a formal adoption. So the draft environmental justice element is currently available for public review.

The review period runs from March 11 through 05/11/2026. It was up on our website today and is currently available for anyone to review and provide comments. The community is invited to review and provide feedback and additionally members of the public can submit their comments to the county's provided web page or email link and we'll have instructions on how to formally submit paper or written comments as well. So, staff's recommendation today for the Planning Commission is to receive the status update of the draft environmental justice element and the public review process and provide any direction, feedback to staff regarding the draft element. And then staff welcomes any questions from the commission.

This concludes staff's presentation and we are available for questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Sanchez. Commissioners, Commissioner Shah.

Thank you. So I'm curious to know what is the criteria to be considered a stakeholder?

I guess a stakeholder, involved in development of the process? I think when I mentioned stakeholders here, was referring more to the county departments who are reviewing our action plan, other outside agencies who will be supplementing some of the assistance with carrying out some of the actions, the communities who are in the disadvantaged areas, and also just the EJIC committee members who have participated in the development of this element.

Thank you. Is there a list available of these stakeholders?

Of the advisory committee members or just the general stakeholder?

So I'm I guess I'm considering and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong. I'm assuming there'd be people who could show up to these meetings or whatever and just as a member of the public and have input. And then there are people who are getting like targeted emails and correspondence from the county and maybe their input is held in kind of a different level. And I'm curious who those people are.

Yeah. So the I guess the first all the community members, we've we've hosted our first community meeting where we invited everyone from the public, and then we've had targeted meetings towards county departments specifically. We recognize that this environmental justice is not something that HCD can just completely carry. So we've coordinated with other departments, our civil rights office, our Department of Education, the Health Department. And then there's advisory committee members who were selected through the we actually presented that to the planning commission where we went through a selection process for identifying members in in who live in the community and who could ground truth the ideas that we're bringing forward.

And through that, we our vision was to just work through them to form an outreach strategy and also kind of champion them to to go into the community and invite people to to be part participating in this process.

Thank you. You know, that would you've totally cleared up any concerns that I had about that. I just want to have the microphone. Yeah. Other than here, I survey in the neighborhood. Nobody in my neighborhood, including myself, has heard anything about this, received any surveys, have no idea what's happening other than if I'm like, hey, at the Planning Commission, this happened. So just putting that out there, haven't heard anything.

Yeah.

If I may, through the chair? Mhmm. So this is one of those so this is one of those things where we part of why, for example, we're putting this draft. We did what we could to get the word out, to get input, to get survey participants, to do pop ups. We took the existing conditions and everything the best we could.

We got to this draft point. Part of the strategy that we're doing by just having this update here is try to help us amplify and get more community involvement, get more community engagement, get more eyes on it, in particular from our community members in our disadvantaged communities. And so we also are doing a very large, very long public review, making this available for a long time to give us time to go out into the community. So I think we're very open. For example, in your community, we've done with each community, have slightly different strategies, which we try to also inform based on kind of who's on our advisory committee, what context we have working through our supervisorial districts on how can we more effectively.

So we also very much invite input on how we can continue to grow and get that word further out into individual communities beyond what we've been able to do so far. Can I?

No, certainly, go ahead.

Thank you, through the chair. So is that survey still available? Like could I find like the code for it or the link and kind of start sending it out to neighbors? Or is that survey closed for the time being?

So the survey was closed during that time. If members wish to participate in it, I'd invite them to review the draft. And I think that would be a more effective way to participate at this point.

Thank you.

Yeah. Commissioner Deal?

Yeah. I'm gonna go back to the beginning and talk about the whole justice piece because the way that we define community defines how we are gonna address issues that don't necessarily correspond with those community lines. You all know I'm going to talk about Big Sur in the South Coast. I'm going to talk about everything South Of Carmel here. If you'll notice, we're not even a place.

So there's no way for anybody to evaluate whether or not we're disadvantaged community because we're not even listed on the census as a community even though we are centered all of us around a single road and rely on shared infrastructure and services. We're talking about in the Big Sur planning area best guess is 1,500 to 1,700 residents which is a significant number compared to those other listed place names in the Highlands. I would flat out guess it probably six to 800. These communities are generally perceived from the outside as being wealthy And, we experience in and again I'm going go into this community as a way to say we're missing things. We got to go back and look at our initial assumptions and say that the state definition may not be providing an adequate description to look at some of the things that are gonna need environmental justice attention throughout the County Of Monterey.

And, I think there are other rural communities that don't make the grade that when we looked at using the census data, it steered us in a very limited direction. I also I'm gonna I'm gonna stop there and say that I understand needing to put a check-in the box for the required elements of the general plan too. I mean, I am not throwing away the fact that the state requires us to do something. It's important to do something and that perfection is never attainable. But I believe in environmental justice.

And using the example of the big sir community, which is of course the one I know best, we have extreme wealth inequality. So, I would say a majority of the persons who actually reside within the area probably don't have the kind of wealth that we're talking about. Either they're longtime residents who inherited property and may not have the income to match it, or they are in employee housing and working persons who are there in seasonal housing. Also have a fluctuating population depending on the season and road conditions. And, we have this the same kind of needs for services that we've talked about here.

When we have stresses from particularly climate change related disasters like wildfires, but we also have floods rode out. We're providing our own food supplies. We're providing volunteer fund the health supplies. Volunteers provide the fire service. And so, with that in mind, this community has these these communities have certainly done a lot towards community resilience and self support.

But, as we get more and more employees who are full time employed trying to keep body and soul together, it's harder and harder to support all of the infrastructure and support structures that have traditionally been supplied by resident residents on a volunteer basis. And, that includes things like schools. So when you ran down the list of things that we consider with environmental justice, I'm saying, this this community this community, whether or not it it looks like a community that's in a in a area that's dense, is in fact tied by these the single road access. That means we have the need and the real stress here is for internet, broadband, all those kinds of connectivity that allow for that ongoing participation in community by remote people. But, the bottom line, my comment is we're not even on the list.

We didn't even get the initial consideration because we didn't fit the state box. And so, that kind of feels like something that ought to go into the mix when we're talking about environmental justice. Even though all of the environmental justice concerns may not be relevant to a given area. But, I think that's true for any given area. So, that's my my community pitch for the people that I represent who didn't even make the cut.

Thank you, Commissioner Deal. Commissioner Gomez.

Just wanted to say that all these different elements, the six different elements that are mentioned, they're all important. Right? Pollution exposure, public facilities, access to healthy food, access to physical activity, etcetera, etcetera. I think what's key is to have these goals, but also to have tools, tools that are measurable, that are impactful, and that make a difference because having it, just these goals without any way to measure whether we're making any impact at all defeats that purpose. I also quickly looked at the letter from LandWatch.

I like the idea of bringing, like the issue of bringing affordable housing to areas where there's resource, a lot of resources, but no housing, right? I think that the tools also should consider, if you have higher density, it should consider that, especially in underprivileged communities in terms of higher investments. So those kinds of things should be looked at and should be included in whether it's an equity tool or whatever you call it, it should that takes into consideration the geography, the density, the lack of prior investment.

Very good. Okay. Thank you, commissioner Gomez. Commissioner Hartzell.

Can you help me understand the relationship between the environmental justice element and the community plans?

Yes, I can try. So overall environmental justice element will fit into the general plan element framework. Our community plans are more specific targeted plans for a community, for example, a Chular community plan, where it guides more of the land use and zoning in that area. I guess I defer to Melanie or Sarah if you'd like to add.

Sarah Weichel, Principal Planner through the Chair. I can chime in a little bit too. I mean we do have that active development underway for the Chular community plan, and so we will definitely be looking at the EJ element goals, policies, etcetera, and how that then can weave into some of the community planning process. So I almost think of the EJ element here and other general plan elements, and then we have our community plans below that. And so there's a back and forth, but almost a hierarchy of this is kind of our higher level policy framework that ties into certain areas of the community. And then we have our more focused community plan plans for Chulara and other areas of the county, where we would work to be mindful of the policy framework and these other elements and how that impacts development of the community plan and looking at those issues more specifically community by community.

Commissioner. And what I noticed in reviewing the environmental justice element, this is my first time doing that, so I might be not getting the framework right, but that there's a lot of why, but not a lot of what. That there like, the substance felt like it hadn't been developed yet. Maybe that's further down, or maybe that falls under community justice or community plans, or maybe that falls into county budget planning. I don't know. But I was looking for some information on when do we get down to brass tacks and what's going to happen in these areas.

Can you

help me understand that?

Well, and as Edgar noted too, and one of the things, this is and Secretary Baretti noted, We're kind of this is sort of our kickoff baseline of our element, our goals and our policies and have that long sixty day review period so that we can get out in the community, work through our supervisors offices, do some media briefings and really let people know, hey, this is available in here. One of the key pieces that Edgar mentioned is we will the which I would say is maybe getting closer to the brass tacks that you mentioned is the implementation action plan. So part of development of the EJ element, we are looking at kind of best practices across the state including the attorney general's office for how can we really quantify and make meaningful changes and impacts through land use planning in our disadvantaged communities and countywide. And that action implementation plan will have kind of the more focused tools, policies and ideas to get at and implement some of the seven areas that are being discussed related to housing, pollution, exposure, etcetera. As we noted, there is some additional work that needs to be done in terms of working with our stakeholders, including kind of all community members who are impacted by environmental justice in addition to our county departments to make sure there is the universal buy in so that when we come back to a workshop or we look at that implementation plan with our decision makers, we have that universal buy in and those things can be quantified and actionable.

So that's not necessarily in the element at this point, but that will be coming back this summer for a more focused workshop with the Planning Commission.

My piece of feedback then is if I'm gonna go take this to my community and have some communication around why this matters, connecting connecting this kind of high level perspective with what's gonna actually happen in the communities and getting some language around how to explain that would be incredibly helpful.

Okay.

Okay. Good. Yes. Miss Secretary?

Yeah. And I think if I may, this is one so this is one this is actually we really appreciate the conversation because this is a brand new element. We are trying to meet what the state is asking us, but also meet what the needs of our communities are. And so one of the one of the and this was a from staff's perspective one of the the kind of the decision that we made to keep the element it's the main portion of the element itself focused on goals and policies how we do typically with our other general plan elements I will say housing element set aside. It has those more general goals and policies.

And then we do have those implementing measures. We call out one of the policies under our civic engagement is that we will be developing this action plan that will be revisited by the board. And so that just structure in and of itself might, maybe there's more detail that we need in the core of the element itself, not just relying on that implementation plan. But we're open to that. We also but that was the logic that we used because then if we want to or need to adapt or refine the implementation, how we're working and focusing with our different communities because that may change over time.

Don't our thought was then we don't have to go through a general plan amendment that can actually be a more responsive process to the community. But we may have missed that balance and need more focused teeth targets in the element itself, not just that. So we're open to that input and that feedback and will help provide more context for when it's coming out. Also, was important for us. We heard from who we heard about the existing conditions and what is most important by community.

But I think that was the other piece from staff's perspective that was really important to us is to now have this push out for that context of here is what we heard. And this gets, I think, to Commissioner Shah, your point. Okay, well who hasn't heard about this element yet? And did does the voices do the voices that we heard so far represent your community? Or is there more that we can represent your community?

So we're very open to staff. This is kind of the point in the process where we're at. And really wanting to work with you all and being very thoughtful that we're gonna come back for iterations with workshops because this is a brand new thing for the county and we really want to make sure that it's it's mindful and clear for the communities that are that are intended to be impacted and benefited. The other thing I do want to note is our housing element actually goes a fair way towards trying to address affirmatively furthering fair housing and you know including policies that help implement other aspects of state law related to environmental justice. And so I think one thing that I am hearing too is that we as staff can sort of help flesh out these different layers and ways in which environmental justice is being addressed beyond just this element and how those pieces work.

Because some of the housing element implementation actually is really gonna be getting towards implementing other aspects of state law for environmental justice. So just a couple of points and notes for where we're at and where staff was coming and very open to kind of that feedback and input for us.

Thank you, appreciate context. Commissioner Monsavis.

Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to ask to see slide page 19.

Can we share stuff right? 19, right?

Yes, thank you so much. Exposure to unique or compounded health risks. In the errata memo that was distributed, that's on the third page. That's prioritize the needs of our disadvantaged communities. It's third page.

It starts background, statutory requirements in 2016, blah blah blah, and then it itemizes one through seven. And all of these match up to the slides except for this one. So I'm thinking that this is number one on that page.

Sorry. You're saying the slide doesn't match up with

Well,

The slide titles EJ seven exposure to unique or compounded health risks, but on the distributed packet for the errata memo, the environmental justice element, page one is introduction, page two starts with defining environmental justice, then page three says background, statutory requirements, and then it itemizes the seven primary objectives. And, the seven primary objectives match the presentation except for number one says prioritize the needs of our disadvantaged communities, but the slides, the only one that doesn't match anything else is this one. So is that supposed to be the equivalent?

Yeah. Yeah. So the way that the state guide there is some discrepancy in the way that they they phrase it. I'm not seeing the exact documents but

If I may, through the chair. I think the distinction here is these are the objectives, the primary objectives that SB 1,000 requires that our element meet. There is some overlap between then the topical areas that we have goals and policies in support of, so it does appear. But it's not, they're not intended to be one in the same. So for example, unique and compounded health risks is not necessarily one of the specific objectives that we're required to meet, but that is a specific criteria elsewhere in the technical guidance that we need to specifically address.

So they're not intended to be one in the same, but there is a fair amount of overlap in terms of the policy topic areas and those objectives. But for example, prioritizing the needs of our disadvantaged communities, that objective is throughout each and every one of the policy area and goals and policies that we've created if that makes sense. There happened to be seven and there happened to be a fair amount of overlap but they're not solely intended to reflect each other. Okay.

Thank you so much. Everything else matches up except Thank for you.

Wonderful. Commissioner Shah, did you have another point?

Can you go after me? Okay.

I don't I can wait. It's your choice. Oh,

okay. A couple of feedback points separate from the previous spiel. We have here a process then this report has come forward. It is very dense. If we are beginning engagement for anyone, if we're inviting new people to engage, for example, those who may have not been present in the conversation so far, this is not accessible.

This feels like a closed document talking to professionals. So, we really need a clear summary that can be transferred to people who are entering this conversation for the first time perhaps not from any background in anything except living in their community. So that would be one piece of input is that I didn't see that anywhere in the staff report and that tool to me would be essential especially if we're looking at who didn't get involved early on. Kinda like this is the train has left the station. We want you to review the route all the way up and then leap to the caboose.

We're not gonna get the engagement that we want if we don't have that tool. So, the that reinforces if we're looking for who or what is missing from the conversation, we need an invitation that would be accessible to them. And clear ways for them to engage at a low cost. I mean, you know, not for want of a better word, but you know, not as I think Commissioner Shah was talking about is the survey still. If you a simple survey, maybe that's an easy way for people to get their foot in the door.

But, so that brings me to what comes up from Commissioner Hartzell's comment which is to engage, people are not going to engage in goals and policies in the same way that they will in actions. So, if we don't know what it means when it hits the road, it's not going to get anybody to give up trying to drive their kid to soccer practice and spend five minutes answering survey. They're gonna need to have some reason to do that. So, the brass tacks has to be in my mind somewhere in there what could even if it's what could this mean. And then, with respect to the Internet interaction of general plan elements and sort of the the hierarchy that that Ms.

Weichel was talking about. If you have an element in the general plan that you approve, my understanding is everything else in the general plan needs to be consistent with that. However, as we move down through goals and policies in other sections or this section, they could, they they might not exactly be the same. And in particular with community plans and area plans, those to my mind are the how we take into account the unique areas needs within the context of the overall general plan. So in other words, if you have a community plan for say, we happen to have one for Castroville.

So the Castroville community plan has to be consistent, but it exists to say in consistency with this these elements. In our area specifically, this is how we're gonna do it differently from maybe somewhere else. Because if you don't need any specificity, don't need a community plan or an area plan. But every place you do, and a community plan I believe needs to be consistent with the area plan too. I mean, it sort of goes right down the the list there.

So but each is more how do we do that individual areas special concerns rather than waving the hands to everybody in the county. And that's my my final thing which is that as we know, environmental justice is meant to be for everybody all the time, everywhere. The state appears to be looking at it from a perspective of more urbanized areas. So like the housing element, it's a challenge to apply it to an unincorporated not necessarily densely settled community like Monterey County. So that's a place where I think we really need to look at our assumptions throughout formulating this element and say, in a city these are how we would do it.

And we would look at neighborhoods or we would look at areas that way. In the county as big as I mean, I keep saying this. I know it's a broken record. But if it were a state, I think there would be three states that are smaller than Monterey County. It's a big place.

And so, when we're talking about who's not in it, when you have a list of communities like this, it feels pretty exclusive. So incorporating some portion of your outreach which invites people who may not, who may feel many of the same concerns and challenges but who are not designated in the area with my mind be really helpful. It's like, yeah, it sounds like this is only for the designated communities. But really, you might have trouble getting broadband, or not enough of access to health care, or inability to get the kind of transportation they need, or your water may not be working right, or your schools may not be working right, or your road fell into the ocean. I can't imagine who would have had that problem.

But things like that. So we can more actively look at that question. I think we keep talking around, is who isn't in this formulation. And I'm I I want to be clear. It's not faulting staff. I think that's just the way the state was looking at it and the way that the ideas behind this originally came forward. And I don't think that it means in any way that the places that are designated don't require focused attention in the way that it's getting. I really do think that's vital and important. But, it's a question of allocating scarce resources. So, we don't want to have people not even at the table in case their particular need might be important because they weren't on the overall list.

That doesn't sound like justice to me.

Beautifully put. Commissioner Shah.

Thank you. So I'm glad I waited because commissioner Dale said what I was kind of would have bumbled my way through, that the same commissioner Hartzell. What for me, maybe just to make it even simpler, what does this look like? So it's great to say, hey. Let's give this to my community community members and review this thing that is really hard to understand.

Yeah. I don't even understand it looking at it. And I don't know what this looks like in action because the policies that I know you guys have to do this, so don't please don't take this as criticism, but, like, you guys chose to do this. I know the state's saying you have to do it, and you guys are trying to figure out, and it's really complicated. But the policies that we already have are not effectively enforced in all of these areas that are on the list. So I'm like, what would this actually look like? If it was a community plan, I could look at that and look at the zoning and have an idea of, like, what's gonna be built, how it's gonna affect the community. Is it too much? Is it not enough? Does it not sit right?

But this kind of we want to have clean air. I'm thinking about where I live specifically. How is that addressed when we live next to farms and they have a right to farm? And so that's just what's going to happen. I just don't know what this actually looks like. Like, what do I tell people this really people are going to invest their very limited time and energy resources into having input. And how is this actually going to change their life in any meaningful way is what I would like to have an example of. Even just one one element, if someone could give me a tangible example of what this might look like in the future, that would be really helpful.

Thank you. Commissioner Herzl? I'm also acutely aware that people live in different places that they work the people who do work in this county, they often live distant from where they work. And it just might be another one of those things where if we're not paying attention to the communities where they work, we're missing something about transportation or some kind of corridor. So that's my last thought.

Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Deal, did you wanna no? You didn't run out. Right?

Public might bring something up. I'm like Commissioner Hartzell. I'll never say it's my last thought because I don't wanna invite fate.

No. Never say never.

No. Though this but I I think it's a great conversation. I look forward to hearing what the public has to say and see what that brings up.

Great. Well, let's just do that then, shall we? Then we'll open the floor to public comment for this item. Ma'am, I believe it's we finally got to your item.

Good morning. Karen Cameron, concerned Salinas resident. I'm really urging you to take common sense and planning for the future because what I see is not necessarily sustainable decisions, but dollar driven, deadlines driven, and I blame the state more than I do you. I empathize with your process. I'd like to give you several examples of concern.

First of all, about 25% of this project goes to Carmel Valley, dollar driven. They raised many concerns, the residents that were here, about fire, flood, traffic concerns, overcrowding, how it's going to change and impact their community. The Del Monte Forest near Aguajito Road, destruction of habitat and wildlife in that area. You think we see mountain lions in the city now? What do you think we'll see in the future? Native Americans plan for seven generations ahead. I doubt that we're even planning for one. San Ardo, where they have major water concerns of water pollution, take a look at that. You have projects in Elkhorn Moss Landing, unless the map is just very unclear. I'm reading this.

And in that area, they're still yet investigating the impact of the battery energy storage system disaster. World's largest people have long lists of health concerns. Let me give you Salinas concern, Bolson Knolls area. Why are you putting a project in the middle of a flood zone? If you don't know it's a flood zone, Google it.

You can see many, many, many examples. I first complained that this was ag land being ruined, once again taken away. It is nonorganic, so pesticides and fumigants have been used in that area. The owner of that area came in and objected because they initially tried to pull it based on objections, mine and others. He came in very adamantly saying that he would get a deal from the county, if not the city.

And he mentioned that the land was basically already ruined by farming, by adding topsoil, and that goes into the creek runoff there. So you're placing a large plot here in a concerning flood zone, and in Salinas, we really don't know what level of pesticides there are because CDPR removed the air monitor from here. They only have four throughout the state. The closest is Watsonville. So, at one stage, throughout August and September, I was personally getting notices of a toxic restricted pesticide is being applied within one mile of my home on an average of at least one a day.

One time, there was four times within one day. So, what has been studied in this area? Do you truly know what pesticides are there? And can you say that this is not dollar driven? Because there are a lot of areas that seem like they could use this type of housing, that they are disadvantaged, but I don't see that they've addressed Gonzales, Soledad, Greenfield, King City, a lot of other places that are important. And don't forget the unhoused population, 50% right here in Salinas.

Mister Sheriff?

Thank you, ma'am. Yes.

Do you mind if I ask the speaker a question?

Absolutely not. Do you mind for a question or two?

This is refreshing. Okay.

This was just it's super important feedback. I'm wondering if you're commenting on the housing element, and I just wanna make sure I am putting it in

the right place. Yes. Okay.

The overall housing element, is this the environmental justice piece of the housing element? Yes. We have two different So if I had had more time, I was specifically concerned about e. G. Two point four, five, and six.

Two point four and five deal with the water in terms of safe, clean, affordable water adequate for human consumption and sanitary purposes, and of course, creek runoff would fall into that category as well. And then EG 2.6 where it discusses land uses that are adequately buffered from industrial and agricultural land uses and sources of pollution that may pose a threat to human threat where feasible. And I understand that's a huge challenge because you have limited, if any, insufficient data to pull from on that because there's been such resistance to creating adequate buffering zones because of CDPR and, the current laws and the ag commissioner. So any other questions that you have?

Answer your question?

No. I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Did you want to?

Yeah, I may just briefly through the chair, I did want to clarify just that this is the environmental justice element for unincorporated areas. So just noting that those cities that you mentioned are not included because they're just not within our jurisdiction. So just for clarification on this the scope of this document.

Excuse me, didn't have that on. Anyone any other anyone online perhaps? Madam Clerk.

There are no hands up on zoom and no additional emails.

Okay we have no one else in the chambers. Commissioners did you want to have any final thoughts before we move on? Yes, Commissioner Deal.

Yes. Sort of more of a general plea to HCD. Can we really concentrate on trying to communicate items to people who don't have planning expertise in the agendas, in the outreach, in everything? I think we've just heard a perfectly understandable lack of clarity around what was going to be heard when and obviously you can't do everything the way that you'd like. Maybe a concentrated attention on when you're writing an agenda item.

If you were coming off the street and you wanted to know if this was going to affect you, could you just read that agenda item and know? A lot of time we get caught up in what's legal and what's required and forget that that really clear summary statement that would help all the people that are not like us and don't have our head in the geek box about land use planning to know whether it's something that concerns them and if so, And if so, what are their chances? So, speak up for really clear summary statements. Thank you.

Write it for people like me because I'm on the other end of the spectrum from commissioner Deal. Anyone else? No? Seeing no other oh, staff?

Through the chair, just wanted to also provide another piece that we're working on, too, and we've been trying to be better about what some of our long range planning documents that are hundreds to sometimes thousands of pages. We are working on a cover memo that will be available on our web page that I think will get at some of the summary statements that commissioners were wanting a little bit of clarification on, and we can really tease out and be a little bit more and I also heard related to the staff reports, too, but trying to help direct traffic and really focus people's attention on various portions of the document and kind of clarify the policy framework in a way that's a little easier to understand.

Yeah. Thank you. Commissioner Shaw.

Thank you. On that note, the county website is not good and really hard to navigate. Even I still take it just takes a lot of effort to get to the information I'm seeking, even having done it so many times. So I can't imagine someone who's never done it trying to find information. It would require a lot of motivation to find that.

So maybe and I know social media is not the perfect route for this, but maybe if that can also be pushed out by, like you've mentioned before, the district supervisors on their channels where they're a little more active might be helpful. It's just one layer of getting it out there. One more thing, though, that was mentioned about the air quality stuff, and it it just reminded me about something. And maybe in the future, when this comes back to us, it can be addressed. So I noticed on this task list, there is the ag buffer regulations, and that's gonna come before us at some point, possibly changing them and or modifying them in certain cases.

And how are is the county going to, you know, handle the two conflicts that there are certain developments that are going to want to minimize those buffers or come up with excuses as to why we shouldn't have that minimum 200 foot buffer. And the reality is that that's the bare minimum we probably should have between those conflicting land uses and how will this interact with that change. Because that's something that affects me directly, being near farmland. So it's of concern in the future, seeing potential housing or even commercial developments that would be impacted by those pesticides or fumes even when they're organic they're not the safest thing or just even dealing with fertilizer fumes that were pretty overwhelming this last year.

Commissioner Neale?

Yes, it's like punching jello is nothing is independent. It's always one thing hits another thing and it's so hard. I just want to go back to one thing I heard from Ms. Weichel here. In the cause of simplicity and clarity, it's really hard but it's something that you have to hold in your heart that you're not directing people. You're inviting them. So, if you're saying look at this part, you're not saying don't look at this part. And, it's it's a fine line but it's something just to keep in your mind that you're inviting people to help you see all the things you didn't already see. I mean, what crowd sourcing does is it brings forward information that you didn't already have. That's the value in it.

So, just to be really careful about clarity versus directiveness in order to get the best use out of that public input.

Thank you, Commissioner Dale. Ask Mr. Gonzales.

Thank you. And as we're looking at this draft environmental plan, just kind of have a question on how was the survey that's already closed? How was that distributed out so that public would have an opportunity to have that either information or civic engagement?

So the way that we distribute the flyer is we have an online version web link for that. Through that web link, we direct it. We went into communities. We flier to communities. We sent it out to our distribution list, posted it through our social media outlets, inviting everyone to. We try to make it as accessible as possible as we could. And social media lends itself to that. We've also for some of the we work through, I forget the organization, we mailed out survey copies to specific members, but specifically in the North County area.

If I may, was that put on any type of newspapers, television, radio, etcetera or?

I would have to double check, but I believe we put a public notice and I would have to confirm that. I know we did for the housing element. So I would have to double check, but.

Yes, because my suggestion, I know that it becomes a lot more work because then you get a lot more information through the piece of the civic engagement. But and I think I mentioned this like some years back also, whether some of this information, would be connected with different school districts because the different school districts would be able to whether they have a website or say this is what the county is doing and then send that information or even just so that people don't have to navigate through the web to try to find out certain information like Commissioner Shah said sometimes when I try to gather information it just keeps going through loops and information. And so for me if it was possible, I know you'd be getting a lot more input is if somehow it was connected to the different school districts, because then the school district would be able then to send it to all their people who have emails or through via phone or whatever the systems they use to connect. And then at least people know that it's out there saying this is what it is. This is if you have input, this is a website and they would just you get it to those however many school districts are there and then the school district would disseminate it to all their connections.

It would become probably a lot more work, but at least then you have real the information out there to even connect to the locations way out there in the boonies of where because people would be getting formed and I don't know if there would be an easier way to collect or gather the information with that survey. But for my 2¢, the newspapers, television, radio, whether it's English or Spanish school districts, especially school districts because then they could send the information out and it could be sent from the county, whether it's both English and Spanish so the districts don't have to worry about translating but mostly just gathering information. Could you please send out this to your stakeholders. And so anyways, that would be my suggestion. I think it would become a lot more work because then you have a lot more people being engaged and your first piece of civic engagement.

Anyways.

Okay, thank you. Yes. I'm sorry. No,

thank you. Yeah, those are all good, really good advice. Did work through the school specifically through more of the disadvantaged communities. We recognized that the schools are the central hubs for some of these communities. So specifically like in San Arto, Chula, the schools are the main kind of union points. So we did collaborate with the schools to set up the pop ups in those areas. We distributed the flyers through there. There I guess, a bigger department. It's it's a little bit more complicated, but we try to focus more on the school districts and the disadvantaged communities. So but I yeah, we recognize that it's it's a good avenue to

reach.

Madam Secretary.

I also just want to say we we aren't shy away from doing the more work. We've we've done a lot of it in hearing this and in fact that we actually really look to you all as well to help us get into the communities where you live deeper than we've effectively been able to because we're we it's not a and we would love it. Sadly, our consultants were floored at how many responses we got to our survey because it is that difficult to get get survey responses in many communities. So but we likewise agree, is we're trying to hit it all. And and with this next iteration, we really welcome any and everyone.

We've reached We tried to be creative. What I am hearing is that maybe we can be we might it might help to maybe revisit a little bit more clearly in the just the summary outreach of what we have done just a little bit more clear in each communities where and how we have worked out when we do targeted outreach with the community. So we're getting feedback of what might be missing specific to that community. I think that was a take home that I'm hearing from this is we've done a lot of it. We will better articulate. Here's what we have done to date, but for those of you who still haven't heard or hadn't been engaged, what can we do more to further engage within your community? I think would help us.

Thank you. Commissioner Mendoza.

Yes, thank you. One thing that we community engagement is actually really really important and first of all, this this was the first I've heard of that done. You know, I'm I'm pretty pretty available there in Las Lomas community per se. And I had not heard anything about this. So so I think that just the way that we communicated to the public in reference in reference to what we were doing, these are lot to be desired.

I think that we could probably put up maybe some pop up tents and have somebody out there getting information. You know, maybe, you know, I have a business here in Las Lomas, if they were to go out there and put up a tent and get information from the customers would be really, really beneficial. Another thing, maybe the church, the assumption church, the same thing that would be beneficial. Another thing that you take into consideration is that, a lot of the areas that are on your list here are ag driven communities. So the population will completely change.

January, February, March is kind of off season. So you don't the population is not the same than when the agriculture season starts. So that's another thing to take into mind that we have to look into that. I know that you hired consultants to go out and and kinda help with the reporter that had to be done. But how well do they know our area?

You know, that's that's something we have to look into, kind of find out when they gather the information. So that and that way we can kind of get an idea for how they came up with these recommendations. On page 16 on the report here, there's actually some areas that went down on population, which is hard to believe. So that's one thing that we kind of have to look at, the Moss Landing, back in 2010, the population was two zero four. Now it shows that 2020 is 31. So so it's just some of the numbers are are little weird. That's that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Commissioner Roberts?

I just wanted to note that at least one member of the public is part of an email distribution list and did not receive access to the survey. And so I just wanna make sure that that's noted. And I don't know if it was sent through a distribution list or what that looked like, but to note that. And then if we didn't include Luax in the first round, obviously, include the Luax. Give them an opportunity. They're they're asking for these opportunities, and they also have broad reach in their communities. So those are my two comments.

Thank you, Commissioner Roberts. The Luax is especially appreciated. Madam Secretary did you want to make a comment before we move on?

Yeah I think I just did want to I want to I really appreciate Commissioner Mendoza's comment in terms of how we work with our consultants and for outreach and I really want to really want to give kudos to our team we every time we engage with our consultants we make it very clear that we are the face for the for our community we need to get to know our community we do much of that boots on the ground with them and we we try to have them augment but not super not really step in and do that. So I really appreciate that and just really wanted to take a moment to give kudos. Mean Edgar's been out in in these communities along with other colleagues really making sure that that we're trying to get get there firsthand with our staff and not just having to be the consultant driven. So thank you for that feedback. We will continue to go deeper, but that has been an important approach for us.

I have one final comment.

Okay.

No, I just wanted to say, I think what I've heard too here is that to feel free to use us as a resource when we do this kind of stuff. So feel free. Sometimes we don't I don't you know, we're not informed, we see the services online, but directly we're not contacted asking us to help us get the word out. So, feel free to use us as a resource.

Yeah. A quick call to your district planning commissioner would be probably helpful if you needed input as to where to find people in these communities. I think we all pretty much know where to find them if you need that kind of input. Staff, did you get pretty much what you were looking for in the way of feedback?

Yes, thank you. Really good feedback.

Yeah, Sarah, you're good?

Yes, thank you, Chair.

All right everyone, thank you. We're going to take a quick breakdown and we'll be back for the next item in about ten minutes. Roll call again because we lost someone. Need to. Okay.

For the record, we still have a quorum, but we have lost one commissioner. So we are going to continue then with item number five on the agenda, which is reference number 260002. It's the Monterey County General Plan Implementation Housing Element Annual Review and Report, or excuse me, Annual Progress Report. My apologies. Staff, when you're ready, please.

Could you share staff right, please? Perfect. All right. Chair Getzelman, members of the Planning Commission, Sarah Weichel here with my colleague, Dawn Yanmitsu. We will be talking to you today about the 2025 annual report looking at our general plan and housing element progress and also going over the long range planning work program accomplishments and priorities for the next year.

The action before the Planning Commission today is to find that submitting these annual reports is not a project subject to CEQA pursuant to the CEQA guidelines. Consider the 2025 annual progress report for the general plan and the housing element. Consider and provide input regarding priorities for the twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven long range planning work program, and for the rest of the presentation, I'm just going to refer to our planning work program as work program, And ultimately recommend that the Board of Supervisors authorize the Director of Housing and Community Development to submit these annual reports to state HCD. So general plan and long range or work plan implementation is primarily accomplished through HCD's advanced planning team of seven. Currently there are two vacancies, plus substantial support from the Chief of Planning, the HCD Director, the Housing Division, as well as other departments including the County Administrator's Office.

There's a little over 80 tasks on the work planning work program, a number of which are in various stages of completion. To see additional information on last year's accomplishments, please see Exhibit A as revised on March 10 and sent via sent to the Planning Commission and the public via an errata memo. There were some minor clarifications in the general plan progress report that needed to be corrected. And then Exhibit D has our detailed discussion of tasks that have been completed on the work program in addition to tasks that we've staff have made progress on. In twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six, staff completed five tasks, including the accessory dwelling unit ordinance in the coastal zone, which included code amendments, certification by the Coastal Commission, various LUP amendments, land use plan amendments, a noise ordinance update, which is anticipated to be completed by the end of this year, which is through 03/31/2026, The North County Wildfire Protection and Eucalyptus Removal Pilot Program, certification by the Coastal Commission, approval by the Board of the Vacation Rental Ordinances in the Coastal Zone.

And then we had one plan twenty ten general plan implementation task, which was a zoning ordinance and map amendment updates. This was just to correct some inconsistencies between the zoning designations for properties and make them consistent with their land use designations as noted in the general plan. Other amendments to note is we did have two to the local coastal program. Those were related to various, again, land use plan amendments for accessory dwelling unit coastal ordinance that was adopted in addition to various LCP local coastal plan amendments to regulate vacation rentals in the coastal zone. And then staff made progress on 27 other tasks as noted in Exhibit D. Mr. Chair.

Listening really well.

Just wanted to before we got too much further to understand what the memorandum, how it fits into this.

The errata memo?

Yes. Is it relevant at this point or where does Yes. It come

So in terms of I can go over both pieces. So in terms of the errata memo, let me pull it up. I have it printed out so I can walk you through it. The Planning Commission. So Exhibit A, which was the 2025 general plan and housing element progress reports, there were some minor clarifications in the document, including just change to the bottom of the PDF of the preparation date from April 1 to March 5.

On page two of the document, in total four of the PDF if you were accessing online, is some additional discussion related to other general plan element update requirements since the County is updating the housing element. And then there was some clarification for dates related to the accomplishments under the Fort Ord resource management plan. This is on page seven of the document. There was some an error noting that for the next year, we were it said 2025 instead of 2026. And then for this next slide that I'll go into, Exhibit B.

So the errata memo changes that were included there mostly were just some clarifications to tasks. So there was a separate work task added for some updates to the conservation and open space element that will be done in conjunction with our environmental justice element update. That's Page one of the PDF. Staff also made sure that all board referrals designated to HCD were included in the long range work program active list. And then there's a list here, but we tried to the board referral items are in alphabetical order and mixed in with all the other current active tasks.

And then on the third page of the PDF, there was a added work program task to the long range work program future years list for some AB eighteen eighty nine compliance, which is some state requirements related to conservation element updates and wildlife movement habitat connectivity that will be worked on in future years as the requirements related to that bill are take effect I believe in 2028.

I guess, could I just summarize by saying that where I'm supposed to be looking at the memorandum because I didn't look at it before the hearing. Just direct my attention from one to the other if there's a difference as you go through your report.

Yes. I can I can let you know? Yeah.

If I'm because I if I'm looking at the wrong thing, and I might say something that was already corrected.

Okay. That sounds good. Okay. All right. So, we look into for twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven.

Let me get my power my presentation back. So again, Exhibit B, as I just noted, and this is listed on the second page of the memorandum itself, and then Exhibit B is attached, is the full long range program for is the full long range work program. How it's oriented is there's the first two pages are current active items, and the last page is future year tasks. Staff will now go over an overview of the top 12 priority tasks, which again are listed first on Exhibit B, and I will go into them in detail in the presentation. To remind the Planning Commission, generally this is there's a specific way these tasks are oriented in an order of priority as follows.

Highest priority are typically state and federally mandated activities. Number two is board policy priority areas. Three is tasks awarded with grant funds or other funding sources. Four is general plan implementation priorities. And five are other tasks as time and resources allow.

And so I will go through the list now. So in terms of and you'll notice as I go through, there has been some slight changes from last year, what was brought forth to the Planning Commission. However, the list is largely the same given that a lot of we have a lot of items in progress and big projects moving through our team and with HCD. Item number one continues to be the housing element six cycle update and implementation. This includes adoption and certification of the housing element and then various implementation tasks that are needed to obtain certification by state HCD.

This includes rezoning opportunity sites, working on accessory dwelling unit ordinance updates for the inland areas of Monterey County, now that we have a coastal ordinance that's been certified by the Coastal Commission and approved by the Board, and various permit streamlining initiatives required as part of implementation and adoption. Item number two is some priority Board referrals, including development of a battery energy storage system ordinance, work on amended vacation rental ordinances and development of a rooster ordinance. Item number three is looking at a fire preparedness, home hardening and defensible space program. Four is continuing work on the Chular community plan. Five is development of a water out continued development of a water allocation policy with specific focus on the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District areas.

Item number six is our safety element update. Seven, as we went over in our prior item, the environmental justice element and then some open space conservation element updates as required per state law eight is the Fort Ord Habitat Resource Management Plan nine is continuing work on the Bixar Coast land use plan update 10 is a Moss Landing community plan update 11, Castroville community plan update and 12, continuing work on the CR Free project. And staff again today is requesting input from the Planning Commission regarding these priority areas. And to go over aspects of the housing element, I'm going hand it over to Dawn to give a little bit more information from our housing team on these numbers.

Hello.

So I work on the housing element progress report. Rina allocation, as you can see, is what they have provided us that we need to have developed under very low income in 2025, we did four, low income we did four, moderate income six and above income 179 for a total of 193. Of those 193, the permits that were issued in one of the attachments is 121. A lot of times a permit will be issued for like an apartment complex where it will create multiple units, but it's only one permit. So that's why those two numbers don't coincide number to number.

I'll just clarify this is Exhibit A as well as Exhibit C to the staff report is numbers related to the housing element APR.

And this one is showing what type of units were built in 2025 or permitted. Single family attachment units was 38, detached is 16. The difference between those is attached is with a garage and detached there is no garage attached to that home. Mobile home units two, accessory dwelling units 61. This was actually an increase from the previous year.

There was a large number of conversions where people converted their garages to an ADU, or they may have had a guest home and they turned that into an ADU. So those numbers have increased. Five or more units, those are usually the apartment complexes, and that we did 76.

Commissioner Gomez?

I know that we recently approved the ADU coastal permit area. I wondered out of these 61, how many of them are in the coastal area? If you know I have not.

Unfortunately I don't know them by their area. I'll make a note so that next year I'll be able to provide you of what percent, which percentage is inland and what percentage is on the coast.

And I'll respond a little bit too through the chair because that coastal ordinance was effective in December. I don't know how much would be in this reporting period, so we'll probably see more action related to those amendments next year. So we can make a note and try to have that information.

Then the full APR, we have it listed on the website, and it will be posted by the end of today. We did have a little bit of a complex because it doesn't fully reach into compliance. So we'll provide it and then once it gets posted to the state site then they'll be able to pull it from the state site and they can pull previous years as

topics here. What's the

best my last slide and then we can go back if that works for you Commissioner Deal. Yeah, no. All good. So staff's recommendation today is that again we find the Planning Commission find that submitting these annual reports is not a project subject to CEQA per the state CEQA guidelines. Consider the twenty twenty five annual progress reports for the general plan and housing elements as outlined in Appendix A that was revised via errata memo.

Consider and provide input regarding the priorities for the twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven work program, and then ultimately recommend that the Board of Supervisors authorize the Housing and Community Development Director to submit these annual reports to California Department of Housing and Community Development. That concludes staff's report. We're happy to answer any questions and provide additional detail as needed. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Commissioners, do we have questions? Commissioner Diehl perhaps?

How'd you guess?

Lucky guess.

I know. I'm so sorry to be be that predictable. Okay. Going backwards, with this annual report, I know we're we're trying to fulfill requirements for, for external reviewers. So, it's just for the state.

For my own information, in terms of understanding how well we're doing, I would also like to know things like and besides the inland coastal breakout for all of it because that tells us how how we well we're working with the coastal commission. In case that's a barrier to progress. I'd also like to have clarity around what of the multi unit housing is for farm workers or seasonal workers as opposed to what's permanent resident year round residents for people because I think we treat those differently for the state than in real life. And I would also, from my own perspective, like to see some understanding of units lost because we've often lost units to catastrophes, fires, floods, etcetera. We've lost units to conversion.

In particular, anybody who gets a commercial short term rental vacation rental permit is likely to have lost us actual residential housing. From my point of view, it would be really helpful to understand for the net gain not only what's been done but also what's been lost. So that would really really be informative.

So I can actually answer that of lost. So when I go through it I have to report which ones were actually lost lost or lost being that they were rebuilt. So when I go through the report, I have to mark that the house was demolished and then it was rebuilt. So I actually have them coded as rebuilt. So there was 13 that fall into that category, but only three of them were actually losses.

I'm if I may

I'm not exactly following there, because

So when you come in and get a permit

But but we the the loss happens before the permit. I mean, burns down 57 structures. Okay? For example, as an example.

Correct. The loss wouldn't be counted until they get a permit to rebuild it.

So we haven't actually tracked the loss of actual houses that actual people actually live in at all, in that case?

Ready? Through the chair, if I may?

Just one quick moment.

No. Darby Marshall.

Oh, okay. Very good. Thank you. Sorry.

Darby Marshall, housing program manager. I think commissioner Deal, what would be helpful is, we actually have to prepare a number of reports annually. One is for the state department of housing and finance, and that one actually does require us to report on units that are converted from other uses, units that are lost to conversion to other unit law U uses, as well as units that are demolished and replaced or destroyed by, natural disaster. We could provide that to the housing commission under a separate cover at a future meeting. What I can tell you is over the last seven years, demolition rebuilds, which are a no net increase, account for about 7% of all the new building permits that are issued.

In regards to the multifamily units that, were constructed or were permitted last year, Those are the Laguna Place units. That is the first multifamily project that market rate multifamily project that has been built in this county in fifteen years. So the the income restricted units for those are for permanent residences. They are not employer sponsored housing. I hope that answers your question, but I'm here if you have other questions.

Commissioner, does that answer your question?

To a great extent. I'm again, things happen over a number of years. So it's just trying to get a picture when we say so many homes were built. It's really good that we're tracking which ones are one for ones because that would be obvious. I don't I haven't in the past seen lost to other uses as a category in our reports, but it would be really helpful if somebody makes a house into something else, you know, make it into a shoe store or whatever, which would include in my view a commercial vacation rental.

Yes, that is very helpful. I kinda you know, I'm always trying to hone in on why that is. But the in terms of the of the multifamily housing, those project I mean, all the multifamily housing projects extend over a number of years. So, we tend to only see a part of them in any annual report. And, we have pipeline projects that have languished for decades as well in on the in the work.

So, for us to actually, I mean, fulfill the requirements for the state, obviously first. Fine. But, for us to actually see whether there's anything that the Planning Commission could advise to improve the situation, we got to know what's real. And so, it's great to know that these ones are for that the that the ones shown for last year are for people who are going to live here full time. In the past, we've had a number of the h two a houses may used in our arena allocation as housing units.

That has a different impact on a community from a from a my perspective. So, I would like to know that so that I can kind of better better gauge it. Employees employer sponsored housing in general may not be the same as that. In other words, employers sponsoring housing for full time employees who are gonna live here doesn't have the same impact as somebody who's created a unit for people who are here part of the time and that's not available for full time residents. So, that's the kind of picture that I'm looking at that would allow me to be more useful than fulfilling the state requirement, which is the first important thing we have to do?

Yeah, we can absolutely include the information that we give to the DOJ because it does account for every loss and for every conversion. It shows what's been issued building permits and what has actually been built.

That would be helpful, yes?

And Very much so. Supervise

I'm sorry. Go ahead, Tim.

Sorry. Darby Marshall again. Supervisor Deal, you know, from the Planning Commission perspective, I I'm not sure that there's a lot, especially in terms of multifamily. This is something that is a huge challenge. What we have found through our inclusionary housing ordinance update and the NEXUS study to determine whether it it's an impediment to housing.

It is definitely an impediment to housing when it comes to constructing multifamily. So we are going to be recommending that we exempt multifamily simply because the economics of multifamily don't work right now in this area. We don't have a good handle on why that is. I'm hoping that that we can put something together here in the next six to twelve months that will that will help give us some answers and help us develop some some real policy recommendations that may jump start affordable housing, multifamily housing in the unincorporated area, but we simply don't have that information at this time other than the developers telling us it doesn't make financial sense.

Commissioner Deal?

Well, that's exciting, but I'm hopeful that the Planning Commission, when those kinds of things come to us for input, can have the information necessary to make useful input. So that's what I mean about what our role would be is we don't pass ordinances obviously here, but we advise on them often, particularly in things on this nature. And sometimes can offer some some good thoughts so that that better information is going to get you better input is all I'm saying. And hopefully taken in the spirit of we want to help and it's really important if we want to help that we are doing it from a position that we actually know what we're talking about. And this is the do we know what we're talking about hearing as far as I can tell.

Thank you. Commissioner Herzog.

Starting with the annual product growth report for 2025, I remember last year the Pajaro community plan being on the list and that there was kind of a gray area between what was the community recovery plan and what was the Pajaro community plan. And I noticed that it's gone down in priority for 2026. So I'm wondering if you could help me catch up on that. I did see the part of the memo that addressed it, just fill me in.

I can take I can start, and then I might defer to Secretary Baretti to provide some additional context. So in terms of the long range work program to Exhibit B that was attached to your memo to just orient, we do have our top 12 priorities that are being request we're requesting input. The remaining items are active items listed in alphabetical order. So there's not a so all of those tax tasks for all intensive purposes are active, but there's not a the remaining tasks are not listed in a level of prioritization as far as I can tell. To speak to the Pajaro community plan, my understanding was, I know there was a discussion last year with the Planning Commission and a recommendation to the Board to include that as one of the top 12 priorities.

And that recommendation was brought forward to the board. The board did not include that as part of the the work plan program priorities for last year. I don't know, Secretary Baretti, if you want to add anything.

Yeah, no, I think I think that captures it well. I think I'll just for the so that captures it well for the Pajaro community recovery planning. It really is at this point, it's being implemented through DEM. So it remains on our list. Housing community development staff are available if we're needed, but there's not additional kind of active needs for that right now for where that is in the planning process.

So it remains active. I don't believe, and then correctly, Pajaro remains as a future item. It's a community plans are large and similar to last year when staff had not included it on the top priorities for the coming year is because not sufficient large items have moved off for us to be able to meaningfully commence and engage another community planning process, and correctly we did bring that recommendation forward for the board's consideration from the Planning Commission, and the planning the board did not add it to the priority work program.

I remain a huge advocate for community plans. I have more to say on that. But before that, I just asked council, and I wonder if you could speak to this. Doesn't Myra County already have a rooster ordinance?

Yes. Do we have them?

Sorry. I know the answer to that question is yes. And I asked council to pull it up. Will you remind us what the ordinance is?

Excuse me, I can take a stab. We do have It's currently regulated in chapter eight by Animal Services. There was a referral to the Board that went last year and some back and forth with Animal Services and staff. In terms of the ordinance development process and some of the feedback there is, this was added to the work program priority list as it was determined that the appropriate way to deal with some of the issues around a number of roosters would be through the zoning code. And so it'd be moving over and having some updates from portions of chapter eight into title 21 or and or title 20 is my understanding. So there's we do have one, but there's been some changes requested through the referral process at the board level.

I feel like I have to fight for the Big Sur community plan to move up this list, but more specifically, I'd say please list that as an update to the rooster ordinance because to me, it shouldn't take up as much space as it does. And then my last my last comment is I'm a well aware that you are understaffed and that there's more on this list than can ever be done by anybody anytime. But I'm also really aware that time and money is a requirement for doing all these things, and I would be really curious to see someday, like, how much time does this take or how much funding does this take or what would it take to fund all of the things on this gigantic list? Just to realistically get a sense of like what what am I asking you to do when I say up level the Big Sur community plan among other things. Thank you.

If I may just on that note because we a number of years ago the department made an attempt to do that. We tried to turn our long range work program into a capital improvement program style document that looked at staffing, looked at what we thought the cost would be for all of these items. It's really umburly and didn't necessarily yield the information that was very helpful and useful and was really just a lot of busy work on staff. So we have dialed that back some. What I can say generally to that is we do keep fairly good.

We do a good job on our advanced planning team for keeping very good kind of time tracking for how much of kind of an FTE collectively among stuff does it take us to move these various projects forward. So we do have that data to be able to look at which is actually what we use when we do say, for example, you know, we cannot it is typically about a third to a half of an FTE to bring forward one of these very large planning documents, depending. It can be significantly more concentrated. And so we do have some of that data that we could try to bring forward again. I would just I I guess I would request more importantly what is the outcome that you would desire rather than kind of the how we get there so that staff can do it in a way that's meaningful and not as much busy work that might not yield fruitful informative decisions.

I don't want to give you busy work, but I do see more than 12 things ranked one through 12 on here. And I just wonder how many FTEs are required to do these things that are ranked. I heard that you have five and you need seven just to fill out the department. So just some context around that would help me give feedback and under like, in an understanding way. Not that I'm asking for that right now. That's just what I was asking.

Yeah. We can put that up just to touch. Commissioner Roberts.

I feel like I need to make a similar plea for the Moss Landing community plan. That's another one like Big Sur that's been out there for at twenty years and a community of people who are really just handcuffed by the fact that they have an outdated plan. Similar to the rooster ordinance, I also do not love seeing that that we have a vacation rental order ordinance amendment higher than some of these other issues. We have a vacation rental ordinance. I understand that it's in a lawsuit, and I just hate to think that we are now spending the amount of energy that we have spent to get to that vacation rental ordinance over some of these other things that truly deserve priority at this point.

I mean, to me, that's a law lawsuit issue and that will be resolved and I hate thinking that our group will continue to spend energy on something we've already spent significant energy on.

Thank you. Commissioner Deal?

Yeah. Good points. I really appreciate all of that. I want to go looking back at that, I want to comment that we've been around through the Rooster Ordinance twice to my knowledge. And in the last round, the result was that we didn't think it was a land use issue. We felt that that was using a hammer for a scalpel problem and that we had noise and animal control to deal with it. So, we've done that twice to my knowledge already to get where we are today. So, I just throw that in there from history and I think some of the other people in this panel remember that. More impassioned testimony about roosters than you can. Didn't somebody bring one in?

I believe. So, as a priority item, I understand the distress in the neighborhood and I think there are tools in existence and having it on this priority list rubs me the wrong way because of all the energy it's taken. And, I do have to differ slightly with my colleague about the Moss Landing community plan update. We have communities that are listed as priority in General Plan 10. Chular and Pajaro were to be the first priorities for community plan.

They have nothing. We are now updating Castroville and Moss Landing before we even have anything for these other two communities. Once you have a community plan, you get more attention because you got more infrastructure, you got more community ways to to engage. So, I'm I'm really got to say that people who don't have a community plan at all in a community that desperately needs one, in my view, I would like to see those elevated to where they can get that baseline and begin to play with the big boys and talk about what's the community importance of getting x or y and having somebody advocate through their plan for better infrastructure. So, from my point of view, we said really clearly in the general plan that we adopted for the inland area.

Pajaro and Chula were were absolutely the highest priority for community plans, and yet we're updating other people's community plans before we even get there. So, gotta make that play and make it every time everybody knows that I'm gonna. And, of course, the development evaluation system, which is the foundation of our entire general plan in the inland area, is not anywhere. So clearly it's way too hard for us to have a general plan that actually works and people know what they're getting into. Again, it's a this is an ongoing common thing that everyone's heard me say before on numerous occasions.

But my biggest plan my biggest biggest concern here is that community plans do more than decide what the zoning is. They give communities a voice that they didn't have before. And, we continue to see those voices being reinforced in areas which already have them and not extended to communities that desperately need them. And, when we look at the population levels of where we're going, the only place I think we can really point to as a success is Castroville. And, as a result of the community planning process in Castroville, we've seen a lot of, in my view, very positive outcomes for that community Where they've been able to bring in additional housing without having to go through complicated processes.

Where they've been able to look at infrastructure needs and circulation needs and safe to school needs within the context of that existing document. So, I want that for everybody. And, I still want it for Pajaro and for Chular, as we said at the beginning of the whole planning process, both of which have specific and important and almost over almost overwhelming needs for for improvements in their safety infrastructure, in particular. So, that, you know, everybody ought to have a a much as I understand Moss Landing is behind, everybody ought to have that baseline.

Thank you Commissioner Deal. Commissioner Gomez?

I just wanted to concur with my colleague Commissioner Deal. I think if you don't have a plan, it makes it harder. It goes back to this earlier question that we had about environmental justice. If you don't have a plan, then you don't know what to invest on. You have no projects that are shovel ready.

Leads to less investment in the long haul. I So think we should recommend that we look at prioritizing Chularen and Pajaro. There is a commitment to do these plans and also with that commitment comes investments typically, because there's a clear outline of what's needed for that community. Secondly, I wanted to ask, I know that it would be helpful to also have a sense in terms of these different priorities is really to have a timeline. And if there is a time and attach to some of these priorities, so that we have a sense of where we're at and when we'll see something in terms of an ordinance, especially when it comes to, you know, battery storage or fire preparedness and hardening in defensible space.

In terms of the rooster issue, I'm not sure why that's a high priority. There is other ways to deal with that issue.

The rooster issue, was that a board referral? Is that why it's there?

Yeah? Correct it came back as a board referral.

Thank you. It If explains a

I may just on that it is a board referral and the board referral is very specific to say that what has been done outside of land use and zoning has not been able to achieve the desired outcomes. And so it was specific to look back at land use and zoning and how some other jurisdictions are have addressed through that.

So you might find a magic bullet this time. Is that what we're facing?

Because we're so good at enforcement and land use?

Yeah. Maybe that's it. Maybe that's the magic bullet. Commissioner Aritzel.

I heard my colleagues mention that Pajaro and Chula were identified priorities in the general plan and that the, likewise, the development what's it called? Commissioner Roberts? The development what?

Development evaluation system.

The development evaluation system was also a named priority in the general plan. And I wonder if for the update, the 2025 update, if you could identify in it that those were named priorities and that they have been deferred based on other things this year. I think that that would make the point that I'm harping on.

Go ahead.

So for clarity, your request is in the update to the board that we are very explicit that those are named priorities in the general plan that have been deferred due to other priorities.

Correct. Yes please. Anyone

else? No? Okay. Oh, okay. Commissioner Gomez.

I would say that I would go further than that and say that it should be the top 10 priorities. Those two items should be in the top 10 priorities for this year.

Very good. So commissioners, then we're gonna go to almost to public comment. Commissioner Deal?

Yeah. Just a question. So this is input that the supervisors will then review and make a make a determination about. What is the status of a recommendation that we might we might be sending forward

yeah that is correct commissioner deal so you'd be making a recommendation for the board to consider as part of the report on the work planning work program for twenty twenty six twenty twenty seven

and with respect to the housing element progress, is there is this more are we in receive mode more for that?

So in terms of yes, because there's three kind of three different items. The 2025 so Exhibit A, that's the general plan annual progress report and the housing element annual progress report. That's more of we're requesting that you've received it and then recommending that the Board authorize submittal of those two reports to state HCD. And then you have exhibit I'm trying to not confuse them all. Exhibit B, which has the work program, and that's the one where we're requesting you to provide input, and then we will carry that input forward to the Board.

Commissioner Deal?

Exhibit D is the work program, D as in dog.

That's really helpful. And, it goes back to and I something I said at the last item, which is I think the agenda is not helpful in in garnering appropriate involvement. They're different. These are different things. The discussion about potentially providing input on priorities is a is a related but large and treated differently kind of a thing. And, I would have myself expected to see it as a standalone agenda item compared to the receiving of the other reports that we also need. But, we're not actually helping create.

Okay. Yes,

Yes, for clarity on that. I hear the general concept but when you say standalone agenda items, present them two separately perhaps concurrently on the same day, but present them in kind of two separate reports or just be clearer in the action and the report that some of this is receiving and that the work program is for input.

If I may, the chair, if you read the agenda, it is not clear that we are providing input on priorities. That's the invitation that the public really needs to be informed about. If you read the, again, the summary statement, it doesn't look like we're doing anything particular about it. It's like, yeah, okay, well, it's it's a work program, but you know, what are we doing and to whom? This is big deal. This is a place where there's lots of members of the public who have thoughts. I know because I've heard them. So, when we if we don't pull it out and make it a separate item, they don't know. Yes, it's related. Yes, it could be absolutely on the same day.

It could also not be on the same day. It doesn't. It's not impossible to do it that way. I'm just Think about it. I mean, about what If you were a member of the public and you were interested in this topic about how we use our resources. You're not going to be this is the item three on a list of three. I mean, you wouldn't get there when you were skimming the agendas for the meeting, even if you were on the mail out list. Certainly, in the press would notice we're gonna help set priorities. I mean, that's it's it's a waiting problem for me. Kind of like the one we were talking about with the roosters, know. It's like some things are bigger than other things. That's a big thing.

Alright, very good then. Commissioner Gonzalez.

Thank you. And there seems to be many, many areas that we need to look at and there are some that I think that are from listening to some of the commissioners and agree with them in terms of priorities. And I would think that we're going to make any recommendations to the Board of Supervisors that we do include those for two or four areas where they might not necessarily have a particular plan. But at the same time and it probably happens at different levels of the county that normally when I was a principal or even a bilingual resource teacher, I would look at the systems in place and then try to figure out if we are able to change those systems because it seems like whatever we're doing and there's a lot to do, it would probably take years and years and years to accomplish that we look at the systems that we're using and is there a way that we can change those systems in order to be more productive. I'm not sure what that may be, but potentially looking at whatever the federal government, whatever the state government is asking the counties to do in order to be in compliance with the different areas.

But one of the pieces that I would look at in terms of staff is that, is there a way that we can do things different in order to accomplish more? And is there a way that we can create either some type of format that where people might have a dropdown menu and answer specific questions to particular areas. And so that those potentially could be used not necessarily now, but into the future to make it way easier. There's so much technology nowadays that looking at the systems in place and what's working, what's not working, what can we modify as long as it's in compliance with both federal and state laws because if we keep on doing the same over and over thinking that this is what other counties are doing, maybe there are some counties that have come up with some ideas that reduce some of the workload and get more things accomplished because if not, we're going to be in the same boat every year unless we start looking. And I'm sure that the staff looks at those.

But to me it's looking at the systems in place and either redistribute things in a certain way. So at least they get done or even starting some others. So that at least there's work in progress, not necessarily to finish them, but that we're going to say, okay, we're going to look at those pieces and but first how do you look at them? And so in terms of having more accomplished. And I know that there's a lot of understaffing and also that work the staff works hard, but at the same time it's looking at the systems in place and see how we can either change them, delete them, modify them.

Anyways, thank you.

Thank you. Very good then. We'll come back to the commission in a moment. Let's take open the floor to public comment. Sir, I believe you've waited patiently. It's your turn.

Still morning. Good morning, Chair Ketzelman. I remember you from years ago. As a insight, Tom Raleigh, I've been president of the Fishman's Flats Homeowners and Residence Association for about six years, seven years now since our last one passed away. And I was the vice president and got elevated to president.

But I worked from around 2000 to 2010 on the county general plan As a volunteer from all the different agencies of Monterey County, we had almost all the jobs were represented. We were a volunteer group that monitored everything that was proposed for ten years for the county general plan because the person that was in charge of drafting it for the county could not be trusted. And we wound up with a lawsuit over the public element, over the water issues. And there were seven of us that were involved in this. And I can tell you that the county was committed to take a look at water issues in the Salinas Valley, and they agreed to do it, and it was just recently accomplished.

Now that was when the county plan this was in 2830. That was a very excruciating, experience for me. I was represented as a realtor and as a representative of the Monterey Peninsula Taxpayers Association. Some of you were still in high school. I think Deal was on the planning commission at that time.

But, anyway, we do have a county general plan, and I'm just wondering. All you're talking about these planning documents, I don't see any mention about the county plan being updated, and I know that's gotta be on somebody's board, Melanie. Anyway, I just wanna reiterate very quickly. Site 52, Tarpee Flats. It is incompatible for what's proposed as a realtor's remedy for the appropriateness in in incompatible with the Monterey Airport and what's going on there.

There is no infrastructure for anything to be done there. There's no potable water. There's insufficient transportation. And along that regard, I remind you about fire evacuation, and what happened in Southern California, where there were not adequate fire evacuation procedures for Highway 68. The proposed development on-site fifty two is totally inappropriate. So thank you for your consideration. It needs to be deleted. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ollie. Madam Clerk, is there anyone online that would like to speak?

There are no hands up on Zoom and no additional emails.

Thank you very much. We'll bring it back to the Commission then or staff. Did you I'm not sure there was anything there you want to respond to but do you have any comments going for a couple of minutes anyway?

No additional comments at this time.

Thank you. Commissioner Roberts.

I'd like to ask that we somehow incorporate the speaker from the previous item's comments in this hearing public record because I think that was her intent to be commenting on this, and I'd like to make sure that those are included.

Yeah. Thank you, commissioner. Fellow commissioners, anything? Oh, commissioner Deal.

Yeah. Back to based on that what we might recommend. I don't think I I don't think that the details of the housing element update are really something I would feel prepared to talk about at this juncture. Right? I see it all the report and we may I made some comments about what would be more helpful to me in the future.

But otherwise, I was okay with how the reports are understanding that they fulfill the requirements that are statutory. I do think since we have an opportunity to talk about priorities, I do want to propose to the commission that pursuant to the comments of of Commissioner Hartzell that the items that are called out for priority in the general plan be flagged and that I would like to ask the commission to join me in recommending that the supervisors even at the expense of moving off some of their other priorities prioritize what we promised to do in 2010 which is community plans for Pajaro and Chular. If we had had a community plan for Pajaro in existence, we would be rebuilding according to that right now. We would have an organizational structure in Pajaro like we do in Castroville. We have Citizens Advisory Committee.

We would have all of that in place to help have helped them deal with the emergencies that they faced. And, we knew that and said that in well before 2010. So, is also subject to to flooding and other kinds of of stressors of that sort. Anyway, that we recommend that those community plans are really, especially in the context of environmental justice, overdue, required in our promised, I guess is a better word, in our general plan. Because that's our that's our statement of purpose, our constitution if you will.

And, the unpopular one that isn't going to go anywhere, but I think it's it sounds geeky, but it's not. The development evaluation system. That was supposed to give people an understanding of what kinds of developments in the unincorporated county would be allowable where. It was supposed to be able to give us a way to decide whether converting this particular property from one use to another was going to be a good idea. Right now, we do all those things on a one off.

And people who come in as a developer have to shoulder the whole responsibility for everything that has to do with that kind of development. The development evaluation system was how we were going to make the general plan that we adopted in 2010 work. It's controversial. Nobody wants to write down on paper what we want. We'd rather politic about it.

But, in terms of forwarding appropriate affordable housing, clarity is money. And so, if we can adopt, if we the arguments we have one on one cost money time and developers certainty. If we could state that upfront, it would help in my view. It would clarify and it would explain. So, I want the DES to be recommended as a high priority in context of again both of housing and justice.

I would support that. Commissioner Gomez?

Just wanted to reemphasize. I know that, in terms of the list of priorities here, would I would put the Paljaro plant, community plant as as probably five in the list, because of what was said already in terms of, you know, social justice and environmental justice and also in terms of prior commitments in terms of the 2010 general plan. And I think currently, because there is already, because of the work that's been done there, of the $20,000,000 investment from the state, I think there's also momentum for that. There's people out there ready and willing to work on this issue. There's community excitement about it. I think we should take advantage of that.

Okay. Very good. Commissioners, further input for staff? Anything else? Commissioner Aritzel.

Just a question on how we're gonna do this recommendation. What do you need from us? Do you need a motion? Do you or is this conversation enough? I

think it would be helpful for the Planning Commission to make a motion to clearly articulate what the direction is related to what we staff to bring to the board for consideration.

And that's what's articulated in E, correct?

In terms of the sorry give me one second. The, to recommend that the Board of Supervisors authorize. Are you talking about the action in the report? I apologize. I'm trying to look through all of my papers. Yeah. First page of the staff report is number Yes.

Thank you. I'm asking, are you looking for a motion around that? Are you looking for a motion around the long range planning, which is where the all the input is going?

I'd maybe defer to secretary, but what I'm thinking is it might be helpful to have a motion related to submitting, like accepting receipt of the reports, the APR, because there's been less discussion on that, and then maybe have a separate motion for subdue two and have a separate motion clearly articulating the direction for the long range work program. That would be helpful to staff, but I don't know if our Secretary or County Council have any other direction.

No, I think one thing we will do our best to represent the conversation where concerns were flagged. However, if you want to be clear to the board that what is there should look differently, then that should be what is clearly articulated through a motion and action by you all or a clear consensus. So we are clear that this is which are the planning commission recommendations to changes to the program.

Yeah, so what kind of appetite do we have for putting together a motion? Board members? I would Yes, because this is gonna take a little while to get consensus on what those items should be. So if we're gonna do that

I have a proposal. Not a motion, but a proposal. I would propose one that we do as articulated in number e on your agenda for this staff, which is recommend that the Board of Supervisor authorize HCD director to submit the 2025 annual progress report and the end, for the general plan and for the housing element with the change that I requested, which identifies the the community plans and the thing I never remember the name of Development evaluation. Development evaluation system as ident like, things that were identified in the general plan as priorities but are being deferred. And then that we do a separate motion with the recommendations to move things up the priority list on the long range plan.

That's my proposal.

Thank you. Commissioner Secretary? Okay. I'd like to take a about five minutes for you all to put that together so we can review that if you understand what what that was all about, and then we'll be back here in five minutes to, sort through that. I think this is gonna take a while.

Can I just add one thing?

Sure.

I think that we're that we can make recommendations, but that the board has their own priorities, and so it might be a little bit futile to come up with a list because they're gonna decide what their priorities are regardless. And I would like to give general recommendations and, you know, they can do what they want with those.

Okay. I I think we do need to sort through exactly that point. So in five minutes, we'll do that. And or a motion to move forward. So staff, would you like to give us what your thinking is now on this particular subject?

Upon some reflection from Commissioner Hartzell's initial start, I think some of the language related to priorities in the 2010 general plan, I don't know if Appendix A is necessarily the most appropriate place. So I think there's a way to