Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Muller? Here. Conda has not seen his absence. Lovato? I do not see him present. And Damney?

Here. Thank you. Do I need to declare a posting?

Yes, the chair will sit. Tonight's meeting was duly noticed and posted in accordance with government 549-542. Thank you.

Commissioner Habib, did you lead us in the proceedings? Absolutely. Public comment. Members of the public are entitled to address the planning commission concerning any item within the Morgan Hill Planning Commission subject matter jurisdiction. Public comments are to be limited to no more than three minutes. Except in certain sessions, the commission is prohibited from discussing or taking action on any item not appearing on the posted agenda. Thank you. Order of the day, gentlemen. Oh, absolutely.

Could you introduce the interns and have them come forward?

Sure. So one thing I want to mention is that we have been working with action pathways for schools perhaps for short and so that is a non-profit uh that the city assist with them to take a grant and my three thousand dollars of course three years and grants from the james carey smith king grant program and as part of that program it was a higher name morgan hill unified school district uh students high school students to lead sustainable projects within morgan hill and we have five students here they do that we're on healthy neighborhoods for all team and then from our open space element our natural resource environment element And I will ask them to introduce themselves and just share a little bit of the program, how they get involved.

If you want to go ahead and step up to be here.

Hi, everyone. I'm Khanh. And there's . So we're students in high school, mostly juniors and seniors. So the way we found out about the internship program is through Gmail. For me, how I found out is from my friend, who is the email. And then also like I found out about the program and also how I did the same thing and also invited a lot of people which successfully joined the team from the other executive. In my opinion, the interview is really full for students because they got to do hands-on work on research and also as well as learn more about their community and different ways to improve it. Also, our duty is to engage with the community and everyone else, and just, like, improve the knowledge. Which school? Havoc or something? Havoc.

And which plan are you working on?

My group is working on Oshiki, which is an open space element. My teams are Caitlin and Isabella. There is more, but they're not present today. And then they're working on healthy neighborhoods as well. Storza and Michaela.

Thank you. The next one.

Can we have them all talk a little bit? Yeah, come on. Everybody change yourselves. Tell us a little bit about the experience. Yeah.

Hi, I'm Isabella Larson. I'm a junior at Ensoado High School, and I am one of the new interns at CAPS. I'm very grateful for this opportunity because I love climate change, and I love making a difference in my community. And I think CAPS is a program that allowed me to pursue this passion and really learn more about what's going on and have a difference.

Thank you.

I'm Kaylin. I'm from Anne's Rada High School, and I'm also on the Open Space Element group. I really enjoy being an intern at CAPS because I learn so much more about what's going on in our community and what we can do to help improve it, and it's just a great experience.

Hi, I'm Dorsa, and I'm hard up to difficulty, and I just learned so much from this internship about how we can benefit more and help more, and really open our own space policies so that the community can grow and respect the environment.

Hello, my name is and I'm a part of just Healthy Neighborhoods for All. In this program, I have been able to learn about policies being implemented for neighborhoods, and I've had a way to put our topics onto what our current problems are and help improve our community. Thank you.

Great, thank you all. You may call back up when we get to the actual job. You've done great. Thank you. Absolutely.

Yeah, first of all, I was late because I over spilled the traffic from the opening of .

Did you raise any tender?

I supplement the interns. Commissioner Joe and I were at a workshop and there was a great exercise done for us by the community where we collaborated with the neighborhoods themselves and the interns did a fantastic job. So I want to thank you for being so engaged. I was in one of the poorest neighborhoods and, of course, Joe in one of the richest neighborhoods. But it taught us a lot, don't you think, Joe, about how you age and how you get policy implemented as different things happen in communities that impact the lives of politically. So I want to thank you. You guys did an amazing job. You're much better than we ever were at your age. So I want to say thank you.

The exercise that you had us go through was actually very interesting, the way it was done, because you need to think about trade-offs and how one thing affects other things in an easy way of getting candy, right? And it worked really well. So it was a fun little activity to go through to help understand how everything interacts with everything else.

Well, thank you very much. Liam, anything? Okay. For the day, any changes, comments? All right. Minutes approval. So we have the September 23rd.

I make motion to accept minutes for September 23rd and October 14th.

Second. Chair, I was, I think I was from the 14th. I'll only be from the 13th.

Okay. Jenna, can we recall September?

Thank you, Chair Wilson. Set down the, let's see, December, I can do two different votes? Yes. September, June 3rd approval. Chair Wilson?

Aye.

Commissioners Hebbie?

Aye.

Muller?

Aye.

Dami?

Aye.

And Lake?

Aye. Thank you. Okay, now October 14th, that's the key vote, by the way.

I'll make a motion, too. I approve. Senate? Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

Mr. Wilson? Aye. Commissioner Habib? Aye. Lake? Aye. Muller? Aye. And Downey?

Abstain.

Great.

Okay, public hearing. Our first item is a general plan amendment to add a healthy neighborhood for all. The next is the Morgan Hill General Plan and Compliance Senate Bill 1000.

Sorry about that. So we're going to get the present shared on the screen for Zoom. The item before you tonight is a general plan to add a Healthy Neighborhoods for All element to the text of the Morgan Hill 25 general plan in compliance with Senate Bill 1000. And so with this item, it's the Planning Commission held a workshop back last month, October 15th, to provide direction as well as feedback on proposed text and goals, policies, and actions for the draft element. As part of that work, and also went to the Morgan Hill Prosperity Steering Committee in early October, and also we had assistance from the Climate Action Pathways for School Interns. And so through this process, the Morgan Hill Prosperity Steering Committee was a community-based advisory group formed as part of the City of Morgan Hill's Help Me For All initiative, and members shared their local concerns, their priorities, and also lived experiences directly with city staff, and that was to be incorporated into the development of the element. The committee received regular updates as prepared element and we did background search and also ultimately outreach to the public and development of the policy within that document. It fostered a dialogue and diversity of colors, including other key recommendations and city representatives, and the CSU's role in shaping the equal policies that community embodies in the development of the Healthy Neighborhoods Program. I mentioned when it first started, the City of Settlement actually had ways for schools to obtain a grant. That grant, one of the projects, is reviewing draft goals, policies, and actions for the Healthy Neighborhoods for All element, providing a presentation to staff, their recommendations, and those recommendations made by the high school interns were incorporated into the Draft Housing element. I mean, Healthy Neighborhoods for All element. So with that, on the following slides, and based on input from your commission, as well as the Morehouse-Barrow Steering Committee and the CAPS, on this slide and several slides following, the changes that are being made from the October 14th meeting. Anything that is underlined within these slides are additions that are made. And on other slides, there are three tags, and those are diligence. So number one here, this is in the Inclusive Public Entity Decisions section. It's action HN-1.D for engagement. It was modified here to include social media, community boards, and clear consent language to encourage engagement participation. Action HN-1.E is for Healthy Neighborhoods Promotoras, and that was amended to include youth actors. For the pollution exposure and air quality section, we just added to policy HN 2.1 to reduce pollution, and that was to expand and reduce pollution and air quality issues as identified within the background review report. within the physical health. It was a clarifying for the first action item to make sure that it's multilingual. Multilingual wasn't included before. And so it's a clarification on action 3.B for inclusive parks. It was providing examples such as program and multi-link signage for new parks in its form and assistance to accommodate recreational needs. For 3.D park distribution, it was clarifying that it's not just distribution of parks, but also park amenities. And then action 3.E for bicycle racks, that's a review and revise our bicycle park ordinance in order to really accommodate for bus racks near building entrance and then all urgent cycling. For the affordable access to healthy food options, we have policy 4.1 being revised for affordable produce, and that's providing examples such as produce stands, mobile food vendors, and these are mobile food vendors that basically the mobile produce stand that go to the complexes and sell their fruits there. First in healthy homes, this was clarifying policy 5.2 for anti-displacement to clarify that for all neighborhoods, not just vulnerable neighborhoods. And then for action 5.a, it was revised to state review and update our mobile home rent stabilization. Action 5.b is the action 5.2 to avoid our existing city tent protection programs consistent with MTC's transient oriented community policy. And then six point A is overall health education. That was expanded to provide materials through newsletters, community boards, and other mechanisms. Six point B was revised the language to review and afford an N code to allow for mobile health and dental care clinics. And six point E for extreme heat mitigation. That was expanded to include heat vulnerable needs. And the reason to do this was to be consistent with our, with the draft action for our next item for the natural resources and environment. And then for action 7.E, safe routes to school, that was elaborate to include rail and play structure, connecting opportunity nodes to the schools. And then 7.C, within public spaces, it was to expand it to private space as well, and to clarify that it was for a community safety initiative. And 7.E is a new policy or a new action there that was at work with the more health school to utilize school playgrounds as community schoolyards outside of flowers. And so this is combined and using either existing lake structures or a field or recreation activities for the schools for the public to see for the school district to open up or to take other areas within the school such as areas or if it's paved areas and convert those to like a basketball court or something like that. With that, we also had a supplemental item for this project where we were additional action to be added to the healthy neighborhoods for all element. And this was to consider addressing public access to future private parks that towards their infuse of the Quimby Act. And that's if they're providing private open space. And so the action would be called Neighborhoods Serving Parks. And it's a review and consideration of Article 1, which is the parkland dedication within Title 17 subdivisions to encourage parks to remain open, accessible, to promote equitable access. And if the commission accepts this, we propose placing this within the Promoting Fiscal Health section of Healthy Neighborhoods for All under Goal HN-3. And so, staff recommends that I can adopt the resolution, recommend that the account be approved to add the Healthy Neighborhood Development to the Morgan Hill 2035 General Plan. And before I conclude my presentation and open up for clarifying questions, I want to thank staff, team, for the assistance. I've been pretty much the face of presenting this. I've had a lot of help. We have a couple staff that's been attending tonight. We have Joey Din, our associate planner, as well as Roshni Sinha, who's our planner. They helped a lot in the background. Also with me, Gage, and going out to the community, going to pop-up events, the numerous events that we did at upcoming complexes, and then also working on helping to draft up some of the policies that will happen, and then doing many changes. And then we had, where I also had a lot of help as translation. I had a team of probably four other people. I had Sergio, I'm gonna mess up his last name, Verobis, who are our multimedia coordinators. He works in the clerk's office. We also had our accountants. as was Michael Porta, our resources director. They helped out tremendously with translation, being able to talk to our speaker community and getting feedback from them and also helping with translations. I just want to... Give a big shout out to Amanda Kaneda. She is our communication engagement coordinator. She has helped out a lot behind the scenes. She helped with lots of flyers, pretty much all that really. She helped with their produce. She helped translate a lot of documents in Spanish as well, all the flyers, as well as other content, direct mails that we did as part of the program. and then also helped with the spanish interpretation at events as well as helping me with others um other things like another example we have uh the presentation in spanish as well if you don't that in our answer the item that you helped those documents And so I also thank Michelle Begula, who's here tonight, for allowing this collaboration between the programs. And then also, as we mentioned at the beginning of this meeting, we have a new program where we have a QR code where we scan and calculate everything that's being said to a different language, a whole language that can be selected through this QR code, both in person as well as online through Zoom. And without her help, I don't know if we would be able to have something. And so I really appreciate her getting this done and working on it during this meeting. Certainly a nice addition and we'll be having these moving forward at both plant and community council meetings.

That's fantastic. So, let's go and see if we have any questions or comments. Liam, anything?

Yeah, very quick. The presentation included great clarity. It sounds like it took a lot of coordination to pull a lot of this together. It's great to see the committee input. It's very important. And the effort you put into the language translation, which I think will make a difference. Two quick comments from me. I still don't like this additional element you want to add in. I still need to mention able to control or change property, maintain property, right? Like a privately maintained park. What's the practicality and feasibility of being able to do that? Someone has to have owned property by nature, by security. They've got insurance concerns, also got, you know, liability. And no offense to anybody, but why would we ask somebody to make a plan that will publicly denounce their property, right? Wait, I have an idea. I don't like to practice. I was talking to Kelly about it.

Yeah, so right now, based on our code, private parks, or let me back up a little bit. So all residential subdivisions have to either pay into an in-lieu fee or provide a public park for community. That's part of the Quimbley Act. So with this, the way how we currently have our code written, if they want to build a private park, they would get a portion of these waived. Now it'll be a 40% waiver of Quimby Act fees in the fees. So what this would do is allow us to go in and review that code to see if we want to update, if we want to change it. Then on how the private developer with subdivision would want to do if they want to open up multiple different ways. If they open it up to the public, maybe we can provide a different signage. I'm not sure what that percentage would be. It could be 50% to 100% where they get their Quimby Act fees waived or get a credit towards it. if they open it up to the public, but they certainly don't have to do that. They can still build a private park. So looking for a way, how can we encourage that equitable access if someone, if there's a new development coming along, if they build a public park, or build a park and open it up to the public, if there's some way we can meet halfway and try to figure out something between the two, allow everyone to use it and not just...

Okay, so I might, maybe I read it incorrectly, but making your private park accessible, considering it making more public and private.

Correct.

Okay, I understand. It's definitely in there. I love a lot of other stuff, but, you know, there's other meetings we come to where we are doing S330 developments. They have, like, zero. Like, nothing. Not a tree, not a piece of grass, not a player. It's just so contradictory sometimes. I really hope we can do some of this stuff, but I feel like a lot of times we get overruled. I'm encouraged by the additions, by the way, I like a lot of these. Include a multicultural language, reach out more to make sure that the language is, I think part of our problem is either real or more of a real inequality. I don't think we really pull in some of the key issues, but I'm sure this will help. So, thanks. Thank you.

If I can just interrupt your dialogue, I wanted to run over here to also provide a little feedback on this one. I am the UGA spread out Commissioner Downey. Good evening, classmates, teammates, members of the plate, Edith Ramirez, Assistant Team Manager for Development Services. Congratulations, Adam, and team. for making it to this state in the process and perhaps one of our very best efforts of a development of a project we have seen. So congratulations to the team. This item, I'm particularly interested in adding a little bit of context and texture to the conversation regarding the parks and how do we move forward with partly private but yes you may want to consider the access of public space and what i want to offer you not just this report but as we go forward with projects a couple things that we are um that we it would be good to um be aware of as you can imagine since the city has to get involved with management of parks as far as the policing but it could be a private park a private trail where community members are using it and there might be community members that might say you don't live here You can access this trail and the city is asked to get engaged and police trails that are part of our infrastructure but may have a private ownership. I think that from a administration of the city, it is something that is incredibly challenging and not sustainable for the city to engage the policing of the access of those spaces. The second piece of information to offer you is as we move forward in the growth of our community and our city, how we use public space is important for us to start thinking about if we want to be a more inclusive community. And especially as we're seeing projects that may be showing up in a community that may not have what we traditionally have seen as park space that we would have expected for that community. So I think that a question for us to see is to think about As we move forward, how do we want to share our spaces? How do we want to share our streets to make sure that we have affordable and inclusive communities across the board? And this issue of private park but publicly used is also an issue that we are contemplating with our developers as they are looking at different financing mechanisms and it helps them to have that accessibility with their financing as well.

Yes, I do have a comment on that. Here's the issue that I do with it. So Belloper obviously is going to do whatever they need to do to get the project built. The problem is now the park becomes part of the HOA. So are we going to do a deed restriction? Because otherwise, if there's damage to the park or they only grow something in, HOA is going to change that. So what we're proposing is to ensure that that would be used in the park.

I think that that's a good question, and I think there's different teammates in the city that have experience in looking at the mechanisms that support the HOAs. But I can assure you that many communities, including Morgan Hill, but many other communities through this, meet different constructs on how to create accessibility in private parks.

But I can tell you, as being on an HOA board, that they are not excited about others in their property. I can tell you that. That's a reality.

Understood. And I think that absolutely existing neighborhoods might not be some changes existing up. I think the question is going forward, how do we want to construct future parks and trails? Thank you for the opportunity to comment. And again, congratulations to Adam and team.

Thank you.

My question was actually already answered, and it was the one I was going to ask that Commissioner Dunning had asked before, and thank you for the response. I was just going to make a comment, and I just wanted to appreciate the changes and all that has happened since some of the feedback that you've received. And some of the ones that I've noticed popped up immediately, including First of all, the I actually tried it on my phone. It seems to be very accurate when it comes to picking up on the transcription and then translating it and all the different languages available. To our point, again, the first time, I mean, maybe if I fully recall, a fully translated presentation in a different language, as well as, you know, And finally, the other comment I was just going to make too is the first time I also recall seeing such a short, simple statement in the staff report. And I think it's the first time I've actually seen just one plain sentence on the staff report when it comes to having the ability to understand what it is that we're going to be discussing. So thank you for making all those changes and I do really appreciate it. I hope that's something we can continue to do.

I would just like to say out of tremendous work you've done a good job the team also and I regard this as something it's not for today but it's for the future and I see the interns here this is the future of Oregon Hill and the community we'd like to create so this is the first step so lots of great work thank you.

Commissioner Mueller?

Well, I agree with what Eric said in terms of thanking all of you all, especially those that you met with and talked to, gave us, and it pushed us in our last discussion about getting the installation done, which Michelle and team made happen. And I think that was a really good first step. One thing I thought out of last night that was interesting out of that was the opportunity neighborhoods really liked the idea of community gardens. close by where they could do because they felt it gave them uh direct food and food they want and know how to use and work that way and so uh i would like to see that get more incredible i think it is we talked about community a little bit but in our opportunity neighborhoods i think it turns to you

And if I add, I failed to mention, Commissioner Mueller mentioned about a meeting last night. Last night, our school interns and I co-hosted a meeting at CRC where we present on that the neighborhoods fall to the public, the community falls to the meeting, and also talk about our open space element, the natural resources environment element. And during that process, there were presentations by interns, and then they broke up into the people in attendance into different groups to provide feedback on the two subject matters.

Anything else?

So there was that question about the supplement for the neighborhood urban parks. And so I pulled up our extended. And so the question was about how do we require it to be open. So what we do now is that we require a comment against the property that the open space or the private space remain as a park. So I imagine that has been similar or the same but for maybe public.

Fantastic. Again, great report, and thank you to the interns, you, Adam, and your staff. We're going to open the public hearing. Janet, do we have any speakers? Put it on the mic.

Thank you for a chance to speak. I also want to say thank you for leadership and everyone who worked so very hard. I just want this community outreach program and that was during a stay back in April. And I know that you went to 60 plus more events, went into the communities, and I think that was so good, building trust. And it's just been such a pleasure, such a privilege. You did all the work. We were just lucky enough to read about it, comment about it. So it was also looking at all the changes that you made after all the input was given last time, and it's been done so very beautifully. I think, most of all, I do want to commend you on the implementation, and Michelle and her team, too, that for translation services, for fun, I thought I would try out the Hindi element, though I haven't spoken in over between 26 to 27 years, I still remember how to read and what it means, and it actually works beautifully. So, you know, it's delivered, not just translation in Spanish, but in many different languages, and I think that's a great way to build trust in a neighborhood, saying, especially in neighborhoods that really do need help and the, what do you call it? The opportunity neighborhoods. I'm sorry, I have the worst memory. But I think that's really good and hopefully they'll feel more welcome and will be able to come in person or if they can watch it online and feel more engaged. And this makes a ton of plays and it's time to have our youngsters be part of the process and see how offshore will indeed be brighter. Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

Do we have any other, Jenna, do we have any other speakers or anyone online?

I don't see any speakers.

Well, what I would like to do is have the interns that worked on this particular item come up and tell us about the items that they proposed that were added.

I'd like to say thank you, first, Adam, for taking consideration of the comments that we made. I appreciate that our plan. I would also like to make note of how beautiful it would be to incorporate other groups to help our community. I believe that this solution should be passed for the implementation of Morgan Hill's plan 2035, because as Mr. Mayor and Mr. Lee have witnessed, opportunity neighborhoods have a need for equitable resources so they would be more equal to those around them. Thank you.

And I think we will close the hearing.

I will make a motion to recommend to the city council that we add this comment to our general plan.

Are we including supplement? Yes. Second. Second. You know, please.

Chair Sidd.

Aye.

Vice Chair Hubby. Aye. Commissioner Flake. Aye. Muller. Aye. Demme. Aye. Motion passes 5-0-0-2. Thank you.

Next item is the general plan amendment to end the text of the net resources environmental element. I'm going to hold general plan compliance with Senate Bill 1425. I'm asking the presentation.

Every time this chair just sinks. So the item tonight is our natural resources and environment element update. And so as part of this project, I just want to start off and state that the natural resource environment element is part of the Morgan Hill 2035 general plan and guides the long-term conservation open space of natural resource preservation. areas. And the inter-research environment element was last updated in 2016 when our journal was adopted. And so here tonight, because there is a new state law, Senate Bill 1425, which is called the Basin Climate Resilience Through Open Space Update, that was passed. And there's three topic areas that we have to address. The first one is the access to open space for all residents in a manner that considers social, economic, and racial equity, and that we have to correlate that with our healthy neighborhoods for all element. The second is the climate resilience of the co-benefits of open space, and we have to correlate that with our safety, service, and infrastructure element. And the third is revitalizing off-space, and we are required to correlate that with our city and neighborhood form element. So on here I have the definition of rewilding as defined by the bill. That is to provide opportunities to preserve, enhance, and expand an integrated network of open space, support natural uses, habitat recreation, natural resources, historic and tribal resources, water management, and aesthetics, and come to the natural community and foreign navigation that impacts new development. If that makes sense. So on these next few slides, I'll try to clarify a little more on what that means. So this first slide is about equity. So Senate Bill 1425's emphasis is on equitable access to open space, and that is to align Senate Bill 1000, which is our healthy bridge for all. So it's integrated in this element to show that opportunity from parks, green infrastructure, and natural resources, and processes are inclusive and community-driven. So you'll see a lot of similar policies between both elements. So we required to copy those policies that are also in our open space . So the second part was resilience. Within California, open space is a tool for building, not only just regionally, but also locally. There's been several laws passed in the past 10 years, being last year through AB 2684, which are climate adaptation strategies with our safety element. And so, That also covers topics from urban extreme heat, flood, and drought water. And so SB 1425 reinforces those requirements from those laws by encouraging urban space for chase hazard mitigation. That will address ecosystem services and long-term adaptation planning. So this includes preserving restored landscapes that buffer communities from climate threats while enhancing public health and environmental quality. So as part of AB 684, that requires us to update our safety and services and infrastructure element. We haven't done that yet. We'll be doing that as the next steps. So what is recommended for adoption tonight, we'll come back later and make sure it correlates with our safety element. The next one is rewilding. So within SB 145, it defines rewilding as a protection and enhancement expansion of open spaces to support habitat connectivity, recreation, cultural and tribal community resources, water management, and other beneficial uses. It's a little bit more compact, more easier to understand definition. It encompasses energy as a natural community conservation plans throughout the state, and then it's also set development impacts to promote ecological integrity. Bill was passed a couple years ago, AB 1757, and so that will help or that applies to all jurisdictions, whether you're urban or rural, and can range from small-scale efforts to much larger planning initiatives. And so that can include things such as plants and native species and landscape buffers to large-scale conservation efforts through the state. And it's not just in the state. It could also expand to other neighboring states as well. These tools include organic acquisition, ecological restoration, habitat conservation plans such as our San Diego Valley Habitat Plan, and also stewardship partnerships. So as part of preparing up to this element, we took a deeper dive into the San Diego Valley Habitat Plan to see what other policies, what other research has been done that we can utilize the existing data and incorporate into our element that hasn't already been incorporated into it. So these three topics really underscore what SB 1425 is trying to achieve and the holistic approach to open space planning where we can address climate change, environmental justice, and ecological conservation. So, the revisions of the natural resources and environment element, we utilized feedback we gathered from the engagement that we collected to turn healthy neighborhoods into an all-element outreach. So, on this slide, you see this is the same slide that we had for our October 14th meeting for healthy neighborhoods with all the outreach that we did. So, with this outreach we had completed, we still utilized for the resources. Or to develop draft goals, policies, and actions to promote efforts to address the actual park access, the climate resilience, and rewilding opportunities that consist of the SB 1425 requirements. So, here we go. Through that community engagement, I just offer Related directly to our open space element for natural resources, the key themes that the community identified was concerns about tricolored pollution, a need for more green spaces, the need for affordable recreation and expanded park access, more trees and green spaces, our need to improve air quality and overall environmental health. Community members expressed the needs of closed parks, parks for all abilities and ages, public park facilities, and identified that public park facilities within opportunities are limited and that there is a need to improve trails to schools. And as I mentioned during the Healthy Names for All presentation, once again, we had the Clash in Public Schools CAS high school interns assist us through that James Carey Smith Community Grant Program. So underneath this portion of the grant, the high school interns Their work considered review in FE 1425. They did a lot of research on the city's open space element to see the ones that have already completed this. They also looked at other management practices and came up with a recommendations report and a presentation they gave to the recommendation. So their recommendations report is attached to the item for tonight. So several of those recommendations or recommendations that were made in that report were incorporated into this natural resources and environment element. One thing I feel the state, which I think was on my first slides, is that this is required to be adopted by January 1st, 26th. So we'll need that with the parents of the healthy neighbors for all of us to get all the outreach information here from the community, what's the need and what is desired within our community. So once again, going through policy centers that are operated on the healthy neighborhoods, everything that is underlined is proposed additions, and any strikethrough text are proposed deletions. So within our open space health and safety infrastructure section of the element, we are entirely advising goal NRE1, and this will be to as deserve enhance and expand open space areas and natural features in to support ecological health, climate resilience, cultural identity, and access for all residents. Policy NRE 1.1, which are natural features, that's just being advised to not only preserve, but also to restore natural features, such as ridgelines, and also integrating them into local cores and climate-reliant landscapes. And Policy 2, part of our top eight areas, we're just in the policy to, say, prioritize partnerships in areas that provide floodplain resilience, urban heat mitigation, or biodiversity co-benefits. And with a policy 1.0 for designated open space, it's not just to maintain land, but connect designated open space lands through expenditure network and pressure infrastructure to improve connections between homes, schools, parks, and public services with the attention to safety and accessibility. And then the next policy is to expand the designated open space to promote inter-jurisdictional efforts to address the crisis and rewilding opportunities in all county and spaces. And then the last one on the slide for open space preservation rules, next six in the policy to read corporate based privatization tool incentives to support open space preservation opportunity in neighborhoods identified in healthy neighborhoods for all element. Policy 1.10 for wetland delineation. That's being expanded to require wetland delineation, mitigation, and long-term enhancement, including ACVs, planting, flood storage functions, and community access. Policy 1.11, next one for wetland enhancement, was deleted. And we have several new policies and actions that are being proposed. The first one for 1.11, prioritize out-specific opportunity neighborhoods. So that's prioritizing the site of open space, new parks and recreation facilities within opportunity neighborhoods. Action 1.E is the use of parks and open space. So these are similar policies that we have in our healthy neighborhood for all element. So I'm not going to read through all of these, but we have Action 1.F, Equal Open Space Access, and it's called Distribution of Partners or Committees. This is similar language that we had in our for all element. 1.G is Equal Access to Healthy Food. 1.H is Truly Significant Landscapes, and so incorporate art, science, and programming that reflect the languages and traditions of the community. 1.A is Related Open Space, and so incorporate revaluated areas into open space networks that provide task creation, nature rotation, and educational opportunities. And then one point J is to collaborate with indigenous communities to create traditional stewardship practices and cultural interpretation. The next section is our green belts. So policy 3.1 is proposed to be expanded to also state rewilding landscapes to define our urban edges, prevent frog lament, and reduce infrastructure strain. And then action 3K is a new action for habitat connectivity and landscape resilience. And then the section is for volatile resources. So six, this is our reweld-in section as the policy 6.8 is community-led reweld-in to support community-driven restoration of native ecosystems, including un-utility parcels. So it's looking at what type of grants or ecosystems we can apply for. Action 6.b, the small kit scale rewilding. How to incorporate pocket parks or vacant lots and other corridors. And so in estate and practices, as I mentioned earlier during my presentation, it's not how to be the large expansive areas. It could be working for smaller areas. If you think of other animals or wildlife, small like butterflies, it could be like the monarch butterfly providing habitat for that. really have a lot of space for them to survive. Action 6.C, ecological rewilding, so presentation, pollinator gardens, possible green roofs. And 6.D, connected and rewilding sites, those small scale sites, much larger open space areas to create corridor. This section's about climate change. So 15.13, that section is climate response open space planning. How can we integrate urban green native lands to reduce fire risk? Policy 15.15, urban heat, how we use our green areas to help reduce the heat I'll infect. 15.B, that's green infrastructure. That's expand on those policies, implementing infrastructure at both large and small scales. And then action 15.8 is our multi-benefit ecosystems action. And that's how can we integrate wildland into green infrastructure. And then policies for climate resilience as to re-integrate ecosystems. And then education support, environmental education. And in that reach through this project in the healthy neighborhoods, it was a lot of community members identified wanting to be educated more. So we're looking at how can we build that education, not just on the healthy community side, but then also on climate education. And then last one on the slide is urban heat mitigation. How can we increase our camping areas, so we can combat that. So on this, before we go to the recommendation, similar to the healthy neighborhood for all, we also had a supplement item. It's the same proposed action, neighborhood urban parks. And so staff is to request to add the same action within our natural resources element on our open space hillside and city feature section under goal NRE1. and it would read neighborhood certain parts and that is to review and consider article one. Yes, the park land decaying within Towson East divisions to encourage probably maintain parks remain open and accessible to promote equitable access.

And that's the same, isn't it? Same mechanism, okay. Correct. Okay.

And so with that, that concludes the presentation with the recommendation that the Commission adopt the resolution recommended approval of the element to be consistent SB 425.

Great presentation again, and thank you.

Adam, great work again. Great position. Appreciate all the effort put in. I like pretty much everything that's here. As you well know, a goal is one thing, implementing it, and trying to add to it something else. So many are great, not sure how practical they are. For example... I don't want to come across . If I look at maps, opportunity neighborhoods are typically more condensed. They're usually closer to sort of the city rather than the outskirts. They're very compact, and any opportunity for open space, in my experience, this can be for years, that's typically private developed land, infill land that developers don't want to put a park there, they want to . So if we're serious about it, what do you, you know, convert space in the opportunities of want local, which I would love to see more local parks even if they're small. I don't know the particularity of that when you consider we as one thing, bigger than something else. As we, you know, make a significant investment ourselves to come back on top of that, see all the time, you get developers now coming in under state bills, free free, and other state bills, they have all the exempt saying, I'm not doing any of that. I have to do it, so I'm not doing it. And to be frank with you, we don't have the money to do it, right? We can't buy that. I struggle with balance of loving the goal. I'm really stuck practically getting this stuff done any time soon. Just be frank.

I agree. I think the goals are fantastic. The thing I don't think Sacramento realizes is all these items cost for everybody. And we worry about affordability. Well, this makes it even worse because somebody's got to pay for all this stuff.

That's coming out again. I get intent. I want more open space. I'd like more natural areas. I'd like less heat. I'd like less traffic, which asks you to do it in a fairly small capacity. You're saying, where am I supposed to do this? And who's paying for it? So I just find it very contrasting. The second one is this. I love the fact, I love the volume of what you did. Number one on your slide was to reduce the pollution traffic. Every time we had a conversation, it would go on and on. Like Jeremy was going to be trying to do the complete streets and the traffic and see when Berserk asking people to move their cars. If we're going to be serious about that stuff, then the people that gave it back in the community need to accept that if you want less pollution, He kicked the cars out, especially the cute cars. But he gets his arms. So again, goal versus practicality versus contradiction. The last one was, I don't get demand around things like heat reduction, right? What are we supposed to do for heat reduction? Is this about like plant thousand trees? Is it don't build stuff so close together? Don't use some concrete? What's heat reduction and how do you achieve that?

That's probably all those items, actually.

It's solid, but heat reduction a lot is tree and tree stuff. It really is. You just somehow block it because any time you have an impoverished concrete or anything like that, it heats up. Go to Arizona, right? We're at 23 outside and it's been above 100 for 30 days. The sidewalk, the streets are hot. You don't want to walk on them at three in the afternoon. If you're gonna be walking outside, do it at 6 a.m. or 5 a.m. and it's still 90 degrees outside. So one way to do it is to build three canopy neighborhoods and it is possible to do some stuff. Does it take time? Absolutely not, it does take time. It's not necessarily cheap, but there are things you think you can do. And I'm not one for a lot of quotes, but I'm going to try and quote it to you. It's a Nelson Mandela quote, I think, and I'll probably paraphrase it a little. Seems impossible until it's done. I think we're setting a goal. Do we have all the answers tonight? Not a chance. Do we know where the money's going? Not a chance. But it's set up there to do it. And the state said it broad enough, we just have to work some times to do it and figure it out.

Yeah, but Joe, I agree with you. I'll finish on this right here. But case in point, the state's telling us to do this. Same state is giving us the SB 330 rules of, you know, building anywhere, you know, without exception. Completely untraceable. Secondly, it's in point, we have a reason to be here, right? in a infill downtown, reasonably affordable, it's like lower end of uncast. How many is it they're putting in? One, two, one, one, again 14 and putting one. Why are they putting it in? Because they don't have to, right? That's my problem, right, is not disagreeing with everything that's possible when you've got a goal. Practically, we have so many laws now that says when one hand does it, the other hand do that, right?

I'll stop. Okay, but today's issue is adopting this. I totally agree that the state is contradictory. I totally get that, because I had the same question. I mean, we adopt this, so we're in compliance 1425, but then. Then what? Is there a report card we have to do?

We report on what we have achieved this year. And that's not specific on 425, it's all overall. And so we do report to the state. So the Office of Planning and Research, they're not called... Lucy is innovation, at least that they go by now. And so we submit a report to them based on all these policies and actions we have as part of adopting these goals, policies, and actions. For example, providing opportunity by us having it within our general plan. When we go and seek, can point to it and say that we get extra points for having these policies within our plan.

We wonder about the work you did in terms of Commissioner Leckham, yours is fantastic. It's just the state sometimes makes it very difficult to move forward.

Can I make one last one? You may. 30 seconds. Adam, I think one of the things that came as well multiple times in your presentation, which I think is probably one of our challenges in the city, even though I think we do a great job in general, I think considering the city, what we do against parks and areas, I think we do a pretty good job, actually. I think what I'd love to know, and could practice, is I have a continuity problem in one place, the biking one place to another. It's very jagged. So I don't know much, because there's not enough consistency in the biking, for example, to say I want to get there to there. It's so dangerous. I would love to see more continuity. I would love to see more segregation of cars and bikes and pedestrians. Just saying that. Anything we can do. Thank you. That's a great comment. Adam and Jennifer's team has made that one of the goals.

numbers yeah anything else yeah and just just build off that um we have the transportation master plan we talked about that we're working on a i forget what it's called a plan around schools right now that we're working on and that's included then we update in our circulation elements helps those policies and update our circulation for uh pedestrian bike facilities

I actually just want to maybe first comment on what you mentioned, Commissioner Downey, was it reminded me of that, please, when it came to, if I'm not mistaken, Adam, is that we have that one issue where, if I recall, if you remove one tree, you have to replace the other. It's like a 100-year-old, you know, a 50-foot, 100-foot tree that's been around for decades, and you can just plant that thing out and dismantle the tree and replace it. Is that something that we can add in currently what we're looking at when it comes to the city council?

Yeah, so I think it was last year we revised our ordinance regarding that. Okay. And so we still require that. Where the issue is is when there's new civilians, new housing developments, where they ask for a waiver on doing that replacement. If it's... Outside of that, if it's commercial, industrial, or if it's not a housing development that's occurring, but there's something else that's happening on a residential property, we still require one-on-one replacement ratio.

So it changed then?

No, what it is, it's real now, but due to the waivers, that the projects can grant, they say, no, we can't afford to do that. It's away.

But what the change was last year, it was the difference between native and non-native trees. And what we did now is that it's whatever tree is, it applies all tree-based size requirements. If they meet that threshold, then they would have to replace it with a native tree.

Okay, so is there anything we can add, you know, down there in comparison, like, okay, the battery is, say, I don't know, like, four inches, you have to place it until it's up to the four inches. And the reason I'm asking is because it actually touches on several components when it comes to climate resiliency, right? Whether it's heat, it can be pollution, so on and forth. And so that's where I'm coming from. And so I don't know if that's necessarily something that we can consider today, or if that's something we can take away and see if there's more that we can do rather than just, for example, or what you're talking about.

It's something we can address today, but it's something we can look at in the future.

They also want to remember, I don't remember all the details, but I remember there's a tree diameter comes in play, what they do and how they do that. New residential development, like Liam was talking about, it's the concessions and waivers. Yes. Concessions are money things that do it. Waivers are standard because they can't meet a density. That's what's happening. Is there a amount of that?

Right, but I think where he's going with that is for a project that is going to put in trees, he wants a minimum size. Like instead of 50 now, you go to a 24-inch or 48-inch box. So there's a waiver.

Yeah, if I recall, I know that the conversation actually went back and the city actually recommends smaller trees because of how it grows and develops roots and so on. I think I'm talking more about volume and the volume impact many times today. And that's the comment there. Another item I just wanted to ask about, and it was in the CAS report, so thank you for that. By the way, you all did a great job with the interactive element where you can click through and just different parts of the report. Really cool. I don't think I've actually seen that before. I don't know if it's something to be able to do, but I like that. So this is in regards to one of the recommendations today to talk about the increased part developments in underserved areas. And then also thinking about what you were talking about, Commissioner, when it comes to the goals that you were talking about when you were reporting to this state. Oftentimes when I see goals, you know, to be... when it comes to specific metrics or percentages, things that can indicate important progress, like set targets and so on. I really haven't seen that historically and now. Is that something that the city may want to do, especially if it comes to and know where we're at, how our goals are not, and so on and so forth?

I think... It's not something we put in a general plan element. It's more like a city council policy that we might want to achieve. There's a threshold we want to achieve. Other than what it is exactly, for example, within this proposed element and then also neighborhoods, it talks about distance from home. And so making sure that everything that there's, like with an opportunity neighborhood that we're within a quarter mile, the residence is within a quarter mile of a park with amenities. And so there's that threshold that we're looking at I guess it all depends on how or what we're looking at. If it's like a shade coverage or something like that, it would be possible, but then how can we achieve that percentage in general? What grants can we get in order to achieve it?

Sure. And I think that's an excellent example of it, too, is one of the ones that we're talking about when it comes to accessibility, right? That where we're coming at when it comes to accessibility and where we want to eventually go and so on. And the shade one might be another one, right? I mean, we're actively with our shade and canopy where we want to be, and especially in this opportunity neighborhood. I know that's and you're saying that might not really be something you add that one into the general plan, but I think it would be good to have it because to be able to have something tangible that would be trying to aim for that impossible. Um, that was part of the conversation.

Um, if I can interrupt, um, so they're in their bill AB 89, which requires update our natural resources and element again. Okay. We've updated by year 2028. It's been a couple of years, so it's something we can take a look at while we're working on that. With the summit, what's required now is we have to have it adopted before January 1st.

And just a comment here, so in regards to the hill equity and restoration, I know as I was looking through the CAPS report, one of the places that they specifically mentioned were specific properties, so they talked about Cochrane, Cochrane Copping Center, and so on, and I know it doesn't necessarily make it into the general plan, but it was done specifically to keep it more broad when it comes to the opportunity, but not necessarily the specific areas that were mentioned. That cash report?

Okay.

That was it, thank you.

Yes, thank you, Chair. Adam, can you go back to the slide that had community engagement, and it had parks and trails, if you can go back to that one real quick. Yeah, I think that's it. So, and I, you know, Liam, if we resonate with what you're saying, a lot of times it seems like it's, you know, like city first, but they try to push to rock the hill. But then when I did this, I think perhaps there's some, as much as goals are aspirational, when we look at a problem and put our heads together, there's probably some low-hanging fruit that we could pick off to make it for some people's lives, especially when I think of the future of Morgan Hill and the students that are here. And I went online while Adam was, I saw this slide, went online to Parks and Excite, and they have a map of 17 parks in Morgan Hill. But typical use of Morgan Hill, you stumble upon it, and you go, oh, wow, there's a park here. Morgan Hill's doing a great job. I didn't even know there was a park here. It's actually online. So there's a lot of communication and bridging and mapping we need to do for communities in their language so they can see where the parks are, where they're available in their parks. There's some learning through and also the connection between these parks and the network of parks and schools. Maybe there's an easy way to get to the school, we haven't thought about . So that's kind of what I think about, as much as these goals seem, and the work seems intractable, maybe some low-hanging fruit can make a difference. So I guess it's a great step, and I think it's really good to see what we've put down on paper, and then let's see what we can do. We're gonna fail on a lot of it, but let's fail fast, and let's fail forward, so thank you.

Anything else? Mr. Mueller?

No, actually there's not. I don't have any real questions on it other than we've laid down some great potential goals. The thing I want to remind you is on update to this element on what a specific bill was. There's other things in this element that need to be changed that I'm sure we'll get to as we go to the next one. Not the least of which is the state farmland map reference that's in this element. It references a 12, roughly 12-year-old map Well, the newest map is a lot newer, and it changes prime farmland locations, right? Right. And a constant conflict in this. If you have conservation groups and maybe LAFCO and some of these other groups, they want to hold on to a long map, an old map, as long as they can, because there's more farmland in the Morgan Hill area. but the farmland is deteriorating due to our growth, the heat that's coming from our growth. There are new orchards is a project, right? But they've been saying for years, it's been getting warmer. They didn't do it. It affects it all. And so we need to update that to what we really need to use.

Okay, well, let's focus on this tonight. We'll do it now. Okay, so we're gonna open the public hearing. Do we have any speakers?

I don't see any raised hands.

Nobody online?

There's one online.

So we will call the group that did this. Yes. Great work, all of you. So why don't we add in the group? Why don't we go through the recommendation that we incorporated?

I didn't call them when we did the presentation, but we recorded it in there. A lot of, maybe they call. I'll just turn it over to their team. Well done. Pass the ball.

So some of our recommendations included the implementation of green infrastructure, having better climate education, All right, those are the two that I specifically drawn, but I don't know if they have anything else.

So our objective three, we research how there is open space and how they use strategies to improve it. What I notice is they focus on climate change education. This doesn't mean the definition of climate change, but how it affects them as residents of our community and how they could work with the city to improve and It moves like their city and just the space in general and the environment.

There's a question about the research you did. Did any local city or areas say, oh, they did a nice job? Anywhere in particular that said it was a model or a good idea or something that worked?

So one of them was to say, and what I noticed, there is a lot of bike lanes that connect corridors and parks together, and that really helped reduce the emission rate, and introducing eco-friendly vehicles, bikes. Because I've been to San Jose, like, a lot, like, I'll see bikes every week. There's a lot of, like, meters, bikers, and there's also a lot of, like, protect bike lanes, and I think those are helpful to the environment. Good, good. One other thing that I engage and talk to a lot of people, not just people in my school, but their parents and other people that visit Morgan Hill that are not here, and what they think about is, instead of like building more parks, because that would be very pricey, we need more bike lanes that connect from one park to another. We could also have a lot more bus stops around schools and like park areas. So, by having buy-ins and more stops, another thing I forgot to mention is that bringing back MOGO, because I would say the low-income areas, they will have very small spaces as compared to the community neighborhoods, so MOGO will be a very efficient and affordable way for them to reach there, and another thing I want to add is community engagement. The thing I noticed is, referring to workshop yesterday, I visit areas that a lot of residents may go, but I didn't see a lot of flyers, but I believe those are posted online. However, not a lot of people know about it to go to a workshop. So one thing is we print out flyers to our single internships and maybe promote it at our school so our students could hand them out to their parents, especially those parents who are in community neighborhoods or know about how they can help and what they want for the community and maybe avoid it.

That's a great idea. Thank you.

Hello, to add on to Colin's notion about community engagement, I think the important portion of these future community events is through social media because a lot of people are on social media and I think it's probably the easiest and the cheapest way to do so. A separate note for recommendations that we wanted to cover in this meeting today was as well as making a more walkable community, we wanted to make sure it's also a more walkable community. Commissioner Downey mentioned that it has very un-continuous sidewalks with what I wanted to mention. We wanted to really emphasize the use of connecting sidewalks to schools in like every area in Morgan Hill because there isn't a connect pathway from a residential area in areas like Waterfield and Cochrane that connect are those neighborhoods to Sobrato High School or Lavoke, which not only, I know it was mentioned in the Healthy Neighborhood, that was one of the goals that we should implement, and we want to promote that because it doesn't make our neighborhood a very safe environment, but it will also reduce the air pollution due to traffic. It will also reduce the greenhouse effect in Morgan Hill, which is a huge problem. Thank you.

Thank you. I have a question for you. The apps I use, the apps the younger generation uses, probably differ. So what apps should we use?

Instagram. Okay. Instagram to target the young population, but Facebook or LinkedIn to target the older.

Okay. Anybody else? Anybody else? Want to add? Well, great job, you guys. Good job, guys. Okay. Net note will close later.

I will make a motion to recommend to the city council that they adopt the revisions to the general plan L using the new resolution we already have.

Okay. And a supplemental? Yes. Okay. Okay. Jenna, can we do a call, please?

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

So for directors course and the announcements our next meeting I was looking to hold up it's the 9th and that will be our last meeting of the calendar year and As long as we have a quorum we can meet that day. We have a few items that are presently scheduled for that day so it'll be We would encourage to have that meeting because we submit your items.

Okay, so that's a good point everybody make sure you check your calendar

we don't want to get a bunch of emails the 8th of december saying you're not going to be able to make it so that would be fantastic typically you should give 72 hours if you're looking what is it especially if you're not typically you should have seven to two hours as you're not going to be here or not oh three days yes yes yes okay yeah i think you'll be on time as well i'll just you know i told you it was the trim racing you know

I can get one peach again.

If you aren't able to make that name but want to participate remotely, please let us know. Ideally, we can get the correct information out for legal posts.

I'll be the person. Okay. I have one more comment. Okay. I have one more comment. Stella and Dean, you pulled it off.

Yeah, you did a fantastic job.

Thank you.

Any? Just a quick question. How about CAPS? Are they going to still be around?

We're already here. Did you say for CAPS? Yes. Yes. So for what CAPS will be, I part with peers. So this is just, this is actually first semester with the interns. So I still have them for next semester. We've been working on the project. Next year, we have a project plan for next year.

and the CAPS directly through the Unified School District, or is that?

CAPS is a non-profit, and they actually work with numerous school districts, but within your, they work with Morgan Hill School District, and I've worked with them for quite some time.

Nice. Okay, well, thank you for a great meeting. ZK is open. And everybody have a wonderful Thanksgiving. We're adjourned.