Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the June 17 meeting of the Napa County Planning Commission. I'm calling the meeting to order. Clerk, can you please do roll call?

Commissioner Brooks? Yes. Commissioner Richmond?

Present.

Commissioner Moran-Williams? Present. Chair Brunzel? Present. Let the record reflect that Commissioner Dameron is excused for today's meeting.

Will everyone please rise while Commissioner Moran Williams leads us in the Pledge of Allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all. OK, we will move on to citizen comments and recommendations. Members of the public who wish to make public comment on a matter that is not on the agenda today but is within the subject matter jurisdiction of this commission will have three minutes to speak. Anyone in the room who would like to speak on public comment may do so now. Do we have anyone online, Ms. Vega?

We do not have anyone online.

OK. So now we can move on to approval of minutes. The clerk of the commission requests approval of minutes from the regular meeting held on June 3, 2026. So moved. Do I have a second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Minutes are approved. Okay, moving on to agenda review. Is that you, Mr. Parker?

Thank you, Chair. You have two items on the agenda today. Item 7A is going to be Eternal Preserves Holding, LLC, Howe Mountain Cemetery. Use permit number P2030000380. Use permit for an exception of the conservation regulations P2500293. and exception to the road and street standards. And that will be presented by Ricky Torres to my right here. And then item 7B, which is a proposed Napa County code amendments related to urban lot splits and two unit developments. And that will be presented by myself. You have received public comments since the posting of the last content update posting from yesterday. All those comments have been provided to the commissioners and they will be posted after the meeting. So if you need a reading break to catch up on the other public comments that you've received, you can feel free to take that. And that's the agenda review. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawks. We probably need a five-minute reading break to go on. OK, so I am going to adjourn the meeting while we review the late comments that we have here. And we will reconvene at 910. we will be considering item seven a eternal Excuse me, if you need to talk among yourselves, can you please leave? We're restarting the meeting now. We are moving on to Item 7A, Eternal Preserves Holdings, LLC, Howell Mountain Cemetery, Use Permit Number P20-0030. OK. We move on to that item. I was just reminded that we need to do disclosures. Commissioner Brooks?

I contacted by phone the applicant's representative in an attempt to do a site visit, which I was not able to accomplish, mostly due to my not contacting him using the right phone number. So it's my fault, but I didn't get the site visit in that I wanted.

Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Moran-Williams?

I met with the applicant's team at the site as well as with direct neighbors adjacent to the property and also spoke with some neighbors on the phone.

Commissioner Richmond?

I have no disclosures.

I was with Commissioner Moran Williams for a meeting with the neighbors as well as the applicants on the site and then heard from some additional members of the public this week. Okay. Thank you for your patience with that. And we will return to Item 7A. The Commission is first going to hear the staff report, then we'll hear from the applicant's team, and after that will be time for public comment. Unless a different time limit is established by the chair, members of the public who wish to speak on a matter on the agenda will have three minutes to do so during that agenda time. No speaker who has already spoken on an item will be entitled to speak on that item again. The Commission welcomes comments, including criticism about the policies, procedures, programs, services, or of the acts or omissions of the Commission. Speakers shall not use threatening, profane, or abusive language which disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of a meeting. Statements or conduct that is hostile, intimidating, oppressive, or abusive is per se disruptive to a meeting and will not be tolerated. I just want to add a few more clarifications about the three-minute time limit. So each member of the public who wants to speak has their three minutes. want to, if you have representatives such as an attorney here who is speaking for you, you can give your three minutes to that individual. But then you don't also get your three minutes. So it's one three minutes per person. And members of the public can come up once. You don't get to come up again and rebut things that are said after you speak. And I just also want to mention for people that aren't familiar with a formal public meeting of this kind that we are not going to get in a back and forth with members of the public who shout out from, if you ask us a question from the audience when it's not your time to speak, We're not going to answer you, because that's not how this process works. There's a formal process, so be prepared to use your three minutes to say everything you have to say. OK. Moving on, I will open the public hearing, and we will now hear the presentation from staff. Mr. Torres?

MR. Awesome. Thank you, everyone. My name is Enrique Torres, and I will be presenting the Helmholtz Cemetery. It is a request for a use permit, permit number P20-00030. In addition, an application for an exception to the conservation regulations through permit number P25-00293. So we will go through the agenda. First, we'll start off the permit request, going to site description, project scope, project analysis, and then finishing off with recommendations for the project. Oops, sorry about that. So for the approval for the use permit, the use permit is requesting an exception to the road and street standards. It is also, through the approval, would give the allowance to establish a green burial cemetery, which would include 16.19 acres of intermittent areas. This would allow for the construction of the access driveway and welcome center. And it would encompass a limited grading for a total of 0.69 acres of impact area. And the conservation regulations exception would be minimal grading for the trails. And it would be between slopes ranging from 30% to 50%. And otherwise, these trails in intermittent areas would not be accessible otherwise. So as the site sits currently, the project spans a total of three parcels, spanning from 18-2027, 18-1-2043, and 18-1-2044. It's located on 1225 Howe Mountain Road, Angwin, California, 94508. And the project site is located within the Agriculture, Watershed, and Open Space General Plan designation. and also located within the agricultural watershed zoning district. The current site spanning the three parcels is currently 109.3 acres. There is currently two existing single storage structures proposed for demolition. And the site is typically just spanning of open space and coniferous forest. And here on the left, by utilizing our Napa County GIS geology layer, we see the Sonoma volcanic rocks at the very bottom. We have the early tertiary assemblages and the Great Valley complex. And the reason why I highlighted just this top parcel of the entire project site is because it is only in APN 1812043 where we'll be seeing the intermittent areas take place. And then to the right, just a small portion of the project site is oak woodland. And it's also oak woodland within the project site. There will be no ground disturbance. And then for project scope, once again, to establish the green cemetery, at the entrance at the end of the driveway, there will be a single story welcome center with information regarding the trails and the interment areas. the 16.19 acres of intermittent areas, the 1.5 miles of trails, the driveway construction, and once again, the .69 acres of limited grading. On the left, we see the project scope in contrast to the entire project site. And as we can see, the bottom two parcels, 18-120-44 and 18-120-27, those two are not, while they are part of the entire project site, the ground disturbance shall not occur within those two parcels. Everything will only be occurring, as we see to the right, where it focuses in on 18-120-43. And then here, within the project parcel, it's just a zoom in of what this would encompass in terms of the driveway, the parking, in addition to the welcome center. So moving on to project analysis. After environmental review, environmental determination results in an initial study with a mitigated negative declaration. In the MND, five biological mitigations were provided along with a mitigation measure provided for tribal cultural resources. These are utilized to maintain all impacts to be less than significant with mitigations incorporated. And to address noticing, noticing for the project was first sent out as a courtesy notice on March 13th, 2020. And then as of more recently, as we geared up towards the public hearing, the notice of intent was published May 14th in 2026. And just to note, CEQA typically has a requirement of a 300-foot mailing notice, but NAPA exceeds that, and we require a 1,000-foot mailing notice. So once again, to just go over the conservation regulations, the limited grading on slopes will be consisting in between 30% and 50%, not exceeding the 50%. These trails would not be accessible otherwise. And in terms of the driveway and structure, everything is to comply with the natural landform. And this is to avoid excessive grading and to integrate into the existing setting of the project site. So for the water availability analysis, Tier 1 was conducted. The original water usage was 0.5 acre feet per year. But due to the nature of the project, it would actually decrease by 0.09. Therefore, the Tier 2 was not applicable. But because they were proposing a replacement well, under the 2024 WAA guidelines. As long as the replacement well is further or is better situated from a spring or any body of water, then Tier 3 would no longer be needed as well. I apologize. Because the replacement well will be further from the spring, the Tier 2 will not be applicable. And then currently, Burnton Creek is over 1,500 away as the most significant creek, and the Tier 3 would not be applicable as well. And then the project also has Napa County roads and street standards exception. The project warranted a left turn lane, but due to the nature of the project and the characteristics and operations of existing Howe Mountain Road, there is no left turn lanes existing. And to implement a left turn lane, it would be mass grading and removal of many redwood trees within the area. In regard to the two buildings proposed for demolition, In the historical evaluation, the two things that were looked at was if any historical work had been done. And while Mr. Bade had close connection with John Muir, none of the contributions towards John Muir's work were actually done at the cabin. And same with all his previous archaeological work that he had committed in the Levant. That field work was all done in other areas. None of it was actually related to the cabin itself, as the cabin only served as a vacation home. And the design of the building was quite simple. There was no parkitecture that really stood out to the evaluator, and therefore we agreed with the findings that the historical building evaluation was insignificant. And then, so we have a change memorandum. And the change memorandum, the first two were to address the comments by CDFW. And the first one was to intensify the surveys that were needed for Northern Spotted Owls, which included a two years survey prior to any construction, as long as it fell, if it was within the, if it was within the surveying period. And then the last one, mitigation 4.11 . This mitigation was included just to change the requisites that was needed to allow for conservation easement for the rest of the property. And like I said earlier, just a couple things. The biggest things that I've seen come up through public comment was the CDFW letter, of course. We addressed that through changes to our change memo. The left turn lane and associated traffic The left turn lane, as you can tell, we had the exception to prevent any masquerading, to change any scenic aesthetics that we deemed important. And the associated traffic. I know the associated traffic was quite a big one and it was a big concern regarding the potential for five burials in one day. But to go on to proposed burials, the scheduling will be done from the off-site office. And this will be done in a manner to prevent any overlap between burials and to make sure that there is always enough parking to accommodate for visitors, people just enjoying the trails, and for those joining the burial as well. And for groundwater. Ground water concerns have arisen, and while the project is within compatible soil and geology per Napa County GIS, per the Green Cemetery Council, there have been no contamination in the U.S., Great Britain, or Australia since 2003. And once again, noticing was adequate. As mentioned prior, in March of 2020, we sent out the courtesy notice, and then in May of 2026, we sent out the notice of intent for the project. So for recommendation, as staff has continued to receive public comment, we see to properly address all comments, we would like to request a continuance to the project.

Thank you, Mr. Torres. I believe we should still hear from the applicant and do public comment, even though it seems we are moving toward continuance since there are a lot of issues that need to be addressed in the public hearing, as is clear by the number of people in the room. I'm going to ask my fellow commissioners to hold their questions for staff until after we hear From the applicant, I assume you have a presentation. Okay. So we'll hear from the applicant. And Mr. Torres, if you could keep your PowerPoint handy because we typically will ask you to go back to some of your slides if we have detailed questions. And applicant, please come to the podium and present the project.

The applicant also has a PowerPoint presentation.

Okay. Great.

All right. Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the Commission. Again, I appreciate your time. I'm Susan Lapsley. I'm the contact for the project and the applicant. Stephanie, would you mind? Yeah.

My name is Stephanie Brow, and I'm here to present from more of a green burial perspective.

So Howell Mountain, Mountain Internal Preserve, as you know, is at 1225 Howell Mountain Road. I'd like to talk a little bit about who we are as a company. Our parent company is Wildlands. We are actually an environmental mitigation and conservation company. 25 years of experience. I started when I was 10, so that made it easy to get to that 25 years. But we preserve over 80,000 acres in California. So that's conservation and protection of not just land habitat, but species as well. We have had over hundreds of conservation projects, and this project itself is a natural extension of the work that we do. Because at its foundation, we'll get to this in a little bit, this is really a conservation project, really. This is about conserving the land, conserving the wildlife, and really preserving it long term. This is also not just a concept that is in theory. It's something that we have. It's a proven model in Morgan Oaks in Placer County. I'm not sure if any of you have had an opportunity to take a look at that project, but that is in Placer County, roughly the same size, a little bit different terrain. It's more savanna, rolling hills. But we started that project, and we've been operational now for, Steph, almost six years. So Stephanie is our manager there for that project. And really, we're long-term stewards for the land and species. And as I said before, really, this is a conservation project first. 110 acres are protected. For the internment, only 16 acres will be used. That's roughly just under 15% of that land. that land, minimal disturbance as Enrique and the team have gone over, low impact use, and we'll get into that in a little bit later. 1.5 miles of natural surface trails for those that are interested in coming and enjoying the beautiful rock outcroppings and the beautiful nature that we have in that area. And again, this is permanent conservation of the property. Why is this important for Napa County? It protects open space. It aligns with the agricultural zoning and intent. It maintains the rural character and provides a needed community service for the community. Steph can talk a little bit, too, about Morgan Oaks and what that has meant for the community and what it has meant from the rural setting. Sure.

So at Morgan Oaks, like we said, we've been in business almost six years. I know for the community, we've provided a safe place for them to walk, enjoy nature, and just have a place for them. them to be at peace from a burial standpoint, burying your loved one in a place that's outdoors and actually welcoming to walk the trails. It's really been something special for our community. And I know that we've gotten a lot of great feedback that they're able to utilize the property, not just for a cemetery, but for a trail system and things like that.

And Enrique already covered this, but again, the regional context of the property within the surrounding area, there's the outline of the property. And the preserved site plan, again, the red is the internment areas. There are the trails that are indicated on there. A very small portion, percentage of the property is used for this, but also The sites are chosen for their natural lack of slope and their benefit and ability to be able to be used safely by those that are coming to visit as well as to minimize the disturbance to any ground. I think that as we talk about this, it's a hard concept for people to talk about. It's end of life. It is a topic that people, I think, have a hard time talking about. And there's a distinction, and Stephanie will get into this here more in depth, but natural green burial is very different from traditional burial, and understanding the difference from an ecological and environmental impact is important. So Steph, would you mind walking through?

So what is green burial? I think first we need to be educated. So it's basically laying the body to rest in a fashion where you're back to the earth. So no embalming, no toxins. It's very beautiful. It can be spiritual. But we are basically removing all of the toxins that go back into the earth and creating a place where people can just give back, leave a legacy. Many of the questions is why would I choose green burial? It's more affordable. What we've noticed is people feel this at peace. We're all going to end up at that spot at some point. And so it's a place where they can feel like they're not putting out a bunch of money. There's not this extra push. It's environmentally responsible. I think that most of the world is not educated on how much goes back into the earth when you lay somebody to rest. We'll talk about that on another slide here. Basically, the affordability, it's simple, it's meaningful, it creates a legacy for your family and a community unlike anything else. So these are just some of the environmental impacts. Most of the things that you'll read online, the research that's been done is not on green burial. It's traditional burial. So when we come to the point of saying things like, you know, the toxins or what's going to happen as those bodies decompose, the research that has been cited is for mostly traditional burials. So in green burials, you know, you're seeing embalming fluid going back into the land. You're seeing the lacquer coming the nails, the hardwood, the vaulting systems. Those are all the things that get put back into the earth with a traditional burial. Whereas with green burial, we have no embalming. Everything that's put into the earth is biodegradable. So we don't have a vaulting system. So it's literally back into the soil. The body can feed the soil and leave a legacy. So these are just some of the quick numbers you can see here of the impact of a traditional burial.

And just To point out the impact of the wood, too, there's a statistic up there of the amount of wood that's put back into the ground that has chemicals in it that it doesn't biodegrade. It puts long-term chemicals into the ground. It's enough to build thousands of homes across the country when you look at the statistics.

What happens to the body? Basically, no chemicals. The body goes back into the land and just helps feed the microorganisms, things like that. So no embalming. So safety, again, as we talk about, there's no chemicals. It's natural decomposition. Your water is protected. And it's very regulated. So we are regulated by the Cemetery Funeral Bureau. And so we have to follow certain standards, things like that. Um, this is just an image of what it looks like. A traditional burial, obviously the vaulting, the heavy caskets, whereas in a green burial, you're shrouded. It's simple. You're laid back to rest and you're feeding the earth. Go ahead.

So as we talk about soil and water, as Stephanie said, the body decomposes. If we go back to this one, the body has the ability to decompose quickly and provide nutrients to the soil, improve the soil. and really enhance the natural surroundings. And it happens actually fairly quickly. A body can decompose quickly within a matter of a couple months, and full decomposition happens fully, bones and everything, within a few years, versus in a traditional burial, it could be hundreds of years before that happens. the body and the tissues actually decompose again because there's not the natural biomes and micronisms, I can't speak this morning, as well as the air and the water that help the body to decompose. So we have done test sites on the property. There's been conversations and discussion about a high water table. We dug test pits of two feet wide down to five and six feet deep. There was no water table observed. There's also no evidence of fluctuating water levels. As you all know, the local standards provide safeguards. It's a 100-foot setback for water sources that have contamination, such as septic systems. As you know, septic systems have microplastics. They have other chemicals. There's cleaning products. There's diseases and other things that can contaminate the soil that go into those systems. So there's setbacks for those. And our animal burial in the county is also 100 feet as well. So when we talk about burial, again, there's been some conversations around the depth, and I'd like to note that what is in the documentation and the environmental impact really was a general look at the depth. So it's different when we're talking about earned internments versus full-body internments. Steph, maybe you can talk a little bit about that.

So like Susan said, we are doing this in Lincoln, California. And so as we've progressed through this, the standards are 4 and 1 half to 5 feet deep is the burial depth for a full body decomposition. That allows for, obviously, a barrier for smell. So there won't be that issue. And then an urn internment. is 20 to 25 inches. There's not a smell barrier issue at that point, but that one is a little bit deeper. And I think initially when that was written, you know, obviously it's more like Susan said for the urns, but we are burying four and a half to five feet deep at Morgan Oaks. And we'll do the same here. That is also a standard set by the Bureau as well.

So then we shift to fire safety and fire safety management. Enrique talked about the improvements for the turnout lane, but we've worked closely with Napa Firewise, as well as recognized local forestry and fire professionals, Peter LaCourte and Scott Butler to look at the property. It's a large property. It hasn't been maintained for 40 years. So looking at what makes the most sense to maintain it and keep it safe or make it safe. So we continue to work closely with them. We have worked on fuel load management to be able to provide a plan for what that looks like long-term, creating a plan for defensible space, working with them, but all at the same time while having minimal disturbance and keeping that beautiful environment that we love and that really drew us to this property. We also have worked with them to provide access and emergency response roadways to be able to get through there. I think that's very important in that area. And then we also have a water supply for fire protection. Traffic reality, I think we need to talk about the reality of it versus what was in the report. Again, we started this process six years ago with the county due to COVID and changeover in staff. It's taken a lot longer than a lot of us had anticipated before. What is in the staff report or in the documentation was a worst-case scenario, right? Projecting out, looking at as bad as it could become versus the reality. We now have six years of experience at Morgan Oaks, and Steph can talk about that a little bit more. But it's, again, very low visitation, small services. Maybe, Steph, you can talk about it.

So currently right now, we are doing, I think, roughly one to three services a month, typically anywhere from no one there to 30 is the highest. I'm in charge of scheduling all of those. And so we ensure that they're not right after each other. There's plenty of time for people to get in and out. On a really busy day, we might see 40 to 50 people. I mean, peak holidays, like it says up here, 5 to 10 visitors. And so we've done a really good job of controlling traffic. We're sat on a very similar type of property in Morgan Oaks, and so we have the same issues or thoughts. And so a staff on site is not a bunch of people. We have three to four on site at all times. And so, again, the traffic reality is very minimal at our site.

And like we said, the traffic improvements, the planned right turn lane, the driveway, the turnaround areas, and then the emergency access are all improvements that we are committed to making. Again, this fits within the county's plan, and I think what fits the nature of the county, it's a necessary function in every community. It's very low impact, requires minimal infrastructure, creates, as Steph had said, very little traffic or noise, and maintains the open and rural nature of the properties. So again, thank you very much. I would ask that after the public has an opportunity to provide comments, if there's anything that you have questions, if we could be allotted more time, Madam Chair, to address our questions or maybe to provide some additional information. MS.

Yes. We typically allow applicants to come up a second time. i'd appreciate it right now if if you to stay in the front row in case we have any questions from the commission yeah absolutely so um let's do that now and make sure that we have all understood the staff report and the presentation from the applicant commissioner brooks do you have any questions

Thank you for that presentation. So I guess first question, Wildlands is involved in mitigation banking, is some of your business model, I think. And I guess just the, I didn't see it mentioned, and I didn't know if this property was part of that and would be involved in that.

No. Thank you, Commissioner Brooks, for the question. No. This is a separate entity. This is Eternal Natural Passages. This is just like Morgan Oaks. It is a separate entity. Again, our parent company, we do mitigation baking, but we also have preserves and conservation.

That's just one aspect of our… And as long as you're up… When I looked at the regs, and I may not have gotten to the right one, it looks like California doesn't prohibit you to inter in a green burial body that's been embalmed, at least at this point, in terms of concerns about contaminants that might reach the soil. I guess one question, is my research right? Is that true that it's at this point not prohibited? And if so, when you're saying you're not going to do that, are we relying on you that that's your policy for your company? And then how do we assure that that policy stays in place in perpetuity?

Yeah, so I'll let Steph – again, we've had six years in Morgan Oaks, and it's part of our keeping with the land and being land stewards. But, Steph, you can – MS. Yeah, sure.

Yes. So that is not something that's regulated. That's basically us saying we won't do it. It is my license on the line. And so it is something that is regulated. The Bureau is holding us to a standard that that's not going to happen. And so we've never in six years had anything. It's something that I work with the funeral home directly and communicate with them. So yes, correct. That's my license on the line as far as whether that happens or not.

If I could jump in while you're at the mic, when you say your license on the line, could you just clarify for the room how your license, what your license, you know, who licensed you?

Absolutely. So the licenses that I hold are the cemetery broker license and the cemetery manager license. That test was taken almost four years ago for me to take over and manage the cemetery and broker the cemetery. So basically, the cemetery bureau, the state, uses my licenses. So if something happens... It's my license on the line. And so that was taken four years ago. And so I hold that license.

Thank you.

I guess in following up on that, too, in a process sense, you know, if we were to approve this now, does that then trigger you to go to apply to the state or have you already been approved by the state to have this as a burial site? And does the state come in and actually look at the site itself and decide whether it's appropriate when it's approving it?

Yeah, so great question. Yes, so I would, if this was approved, then I would then be responsible for the NAPA site as well. What will then happen is once everything is done and ready, the Cemetery Bureau sends their auditor out, and he comes and does a detailed report of if we're ready to go, move forward, and they give us a COA certificate of authenticity. And so that happens after everything is said and done. They ask lots of questions about burial depth. What are the internment sites look like? Have they been plotted and surveyed? So all of their legal requirements and then they have to sign off of it or sign off on it for final approval.

in a normal cemetery maybe 500 to a thousand bodies per acre i think usually significantly less in a green burial site maybe 300 to 500 we're kind of in a more wooded area where i think you're committing not to disturb root zones and things what is the density of burials you're thinking about and maybe it was in the report and i missed it but what would be the potentially over a 50 or 100 year span, how many people could be buried here? And what do you anticipate per year in terms of burials?

Sure. So I can speak to Morgan Oaks, obviously. So we have four areas for internment. Each one is about an acre. And so within that acreage, in a year, last year, we did 41 burials as a whole. Thus far this year, we've done 24. So you could kind of figure out the math on that, what that looks like long term. Like I said, per month, we're doing three to four burials. As far as the how many, do you know what it's allotted for?

Yeah.

Under the regulations, I believe that the full body is a much larger and higher number than we would do and that we've done it at Morgan Oaks. But I believe that they allow for $15,000 for full body and $30,000-ish for earned internments.

That's per acre? Yes.

No, no, no, no. Sorry, over the whole. Sorry, sorry. Over the whole. And Stephanie didn't talk about the ongoing reporting, too. So she talked about her licensing and the auditing that the Bureau does, but they also do ongoing. We have annual reporting and regular reporting that we have to do to them.

So there's around 16 acres and it would be 15,000 potentially? So you could be up to 1,000 bodies per acre at this facility is what you're projecting?

Yes. Okay.

That was much higher than I saw for the average for green burials kind of nationwide in terms of the density of bodies. And obviously there's concerns about the decomposition of those bodies and the density of it and

what's going into the water um so is is that kind of normal or are you at the high end of the density of burials so that density is at the high end right it's what's what's permissible under the the uh guidelines and the requirements um i would note that 15 000 the bodies decompose our bodies decompose within two years so um you become soil very quickly um but yes that is a it's a higher number We haven't seen that number and don't anticipate that number moving forward.

So I don't want to be argumentative, but again, the reading I did on this, the decomposition rate that I saw was sort of two to five years, you know, depending on the conditions of the soil and everything. Is two years sort of your best case for decomposition, and can it take up to five years? And the one I saw was five years plus for a full decomposition of a body.

Yeah, so you're absolutely right. Excellent point. Two to five years for a complete decomposition of the bones and everything in guarantee. Typically, we're not digging those back up, but that is the time frame. But given the warmer climate, so things that affect the decomposition is water, cold, and heat. This is relatively for California, even though this is a cooler area here. It's not the same as Minnesota or Montana. It is a much warmer climate, so the decomposition is quicker.

In terms of my reading of it, it looked like this is going to be open to the public and treated as sort of a small park with trails and things. Is that the correct reading of what you're proposing for how you'll use the land?

Yes, sir. That's exactly how our Morgan Oaks Preserve is. We have trails. It'll be natural material, natural surface trails that people can come and walk on, enjoy the nature, and during open hours, not any time of day. It'd be when we're open.

And was that in the material we got? What were you proposing for open hours for the park?

dawn to dusk.

So if you're having burials or a couple burials and you have your 38 parking spaces, if you have, you know, obviously it sounds like sometimes there's almost nobody there, but sometimes you do have a large contingent of mourners who are coming to the site. How do you make sure that there's also not like the Sierra Club deciding to do a hike there that day at the same time? How do we control the traffic and the flow in there?

Stephanie has a great community in Placer County that really enjoys the location, and you juggle that and plan that.

Most of our large groups, like UC Sierra Club, they are connected with us at some point. So anybody that's bringing a large group will usually call me prior to and let me know. So as far as people walking in and having a place to park, Morgan Oaks, we have a small parking lot as well. It's never been an issue. If we have a large service, I know that the traffic is an issue. And so we've also thrown around the idea of van pulling people in. If needed, but yeah, I mean most of my big communities doing walking groups or any training anything like that They're definitely calling us to inquire about is it okay to come at that point, okay?

So I mean I have a lot of other questions, but because there's a continuance I thought I might just highlight the couple areas that I'm concerned about that as you come back with an improved application I've been up Howell Mountain quite a few times, both in cars and on bicycles. It's 9% to 11%, I think, the grade the entire way. There's a really tight hairpin curve there. When you're doing the analysis, you really should have a left-hand turn. I understand that the argument is we don't want to be tearing down more trees and doing more scraping and basically damaging the local environment, but I'm extremely concerned both about the speed limit, the tightness of that, the narrowness of the road, and then this increased traffic. I don't need an answer. It's just I'd like to see a lot more detail on that and understand that.

Commissioner Brooks, sorry to interrupt, but I think let's keep this time for questions from the staff, and then after we hear public comment, we'll close the public hearing and we'll do our discussion and give our

Then I'll go to specific questions. The water availability analysis, in some places there's a well that exists and some of the analysis looks like it sort of uses that and even uses the existence of that to avoid a Tier 2 and Tier 3. Sometimes there's a new well. No well reports were in the water availability analysis, which we usually look for if there's some chance you're going to use the well that exists. it looks like you absolutely are going to drill a new well and and your project is dependent on that and if you get a you know a bunch of dry holes and you have no well then you have no project is that the way to look at this at this point i'd ask if jim can you come and address that please happy to i don't want to mess everyone up and get everyone more confused

Thank you. Jim Bushy, PPI Engineering. The existing well, there is some ambiguity in the application. We proposed to use an existing well, and at one point there is a more recent well on an adjacent parcel of ours. But the existing well that was proposed to be used is the one that is on this parcel It is a shallow hand dug well, and we want to replace it so that that's the one that is Proposed for replacement. It's down close to the south part of the property and so that came to light it's it's accurate in the later part of the Staff report because at first there was mistaken that we were going to use the adjacent parcel as well But that's not the case we The existing well on the property is the older hand dug well, and that's the one we want to replace further away from the springs.

Right. So I would assume a hand dug well doesn't have a seal that meets what we need for a non-transient water system or any of those criteria. Correct. So I guess just simply this project is dependent on drilling a new well and getting that new well. Correct. Okay. All right.

Okay. Commissioner Richmond.

I apologize. I'm going to get deep into the weeds. I'm sorry, Mr. Torres, could you please bring up the project analysis slide again, the one with the graphics on it? And you may want to defer to Mr. Bushy at some point on this. Okay. Can you specifically which color are we looking at permitting? Is it the red?

The red is just going to be the interment areas. And those are the areas where we'd be permitting for the red. And if you can see the black outline, which is the trail, those are going to be the proposed areas for the grading. And those slopes are going to be ranging from 30% to 50%. And like we said earlier, there isn't another accessible access for these trails or for the interment areas. Okay. And a lot of these trails would be done with smaller tools and by hand.

Okay. So nothing in that area is below 30%? No. Okay. I'm curious from the applicant's point of view, some of the logistics. How are the graves dug?

We use a machine.

It's a small excavator. Okay. And what's the rough dimensions of a hole?

Sure. So they're typically at Morgan Oaks, our holes are 10 feet by 3 feet. And then we dig, like I said, 4 1⁄2 feet, a little bit more for burial.

Okay. So 10 feet by 3 feet means you have 30 square feet in my mind. I defer to my PhD down at the end of the room if I'm wrong. And you're looking at 1,000 graves per site max. So you're roughly over a term of 100 years you're going to splice 30,000 square feet of material. Sure. Okay. So that's over a half an acre of material.

Two-thirds.

two-thirds thank you okay no i just want to what what i'm working my way through here is the exemption of the con rakes and and how we get through the con rakes on this and um okay that answers my questions thank you okay uh commissioner moran williams okay i guess i'm kind of building on uh

I had a lot of similar questions to Commissioner Brooks, so thank you for laying that all out and also building on what Commissioner Richmond is asking about. So the internment sites, I understand that the trail is on slopes that are between 30% and 50%. Are the internment sites also between 30% and 50% sloped?

Some portions. Some portions are under 30%. But just to kind of highlight it as a whole, Uh, we're nitpicking that certain area, but yeah, some, some are over 30% and some are under.

Okay. You know, and I just, I sort of, this is framing this as a statement, but also a question. You know, we improve entitlements, and so this has been really informative for the applicant to share some things that I think were a little bit different than maybe how the packet, you know, over the last six years kind of compiled the information. For example, you know, the number of potential burials. I think in the packet it says something like two to three Burials a day or up to five a day and we're hearing that the more likely business case scenario is one to two burials a week We've got I mean that changes the amount of potential traffic significantly We also have a difference in the depth I think the packet lists the state standards for burial and which makes sense. However, it seems like there's a higher standard of depth being applied for this type of green burial site. Also, the other question I had about the, well, I'll stop there for a second and just say, because we approve entitlements and because we're moving towards a continuance here, I'm just wondering if maybe some of those things could be reconciled as we move forward in these discussions, because I think it really changes it really to me and has an impact on this question of proper decomposition of the bodies and how that might impact the hydrology of the soil hydrology as well as you know just the safety and traffic on that hairpin turn so I wanted to kind of put a note and right now to say that But if there was an ability to reconcile the business model with the actual entitlements being requested, I would appreciate that. And I know sometimes businesses ask for a higher amount. So maybe there's then what they're doing as a business. But maybe there's something in between when we come back to this at our next meeting. The other question I have is about the parks again. I think Commissioner Brooks addressed this a little bit, but will staff always be on site during the hours when the park function is open?

Yeah, so right now at Morgan Oaks, we are 7.30 to 7 p.m. Our staff is on site typically 6.30 to 5 p.m., and so Monday through Friday. So we will be there. If there is something special on a Saturday or Sunday, we're also called in for that as well. And so as, you know, dusk changes, we close the gates so, you know, you could see us there all day.

I thought in your proposal that, in fact, you stated you wouldn't have somebody there permanently part of the water availability analysis in terms of the demand on that. So just as a clarification, there's going to be somebody on site dawn to dusk or something close to those hours every day that it's open?

Yeah, so we would have somebody at least managing the land portion of it would be on site. Whether or not myself or somebody else would be there would be unlikely, but there would at least be a groundsman there on site.

good another thing you are putting a couple acres i think into a true conservation easement but in part of your opening talk you talked about how we should think of this as you're going to protect this land and i guess when i asked at the county level could you come back in and apply to put a vineyard in here, or could a house be built on other parts of this? Have you given up any of your rights for other development opportunities? The answer was it's still wide open, and you could do other things with other parts of that land. And so just vis-a-vis your, this is a way to really preserve this land and make it like an open space, I guess, I'm surprised you didn't put the whole thing into a conservation easement after getting the cemetery itself structured.

Yeah, I appreciate that. Again, our business is conservation of property and of land and species. So looking at this and looking at the usability of the rest of the property, we really wanted to focus on making sure that this was done the right way and that we were able to conserve this area and then be able to address the conservation on the second part at a later date.

Sorry, I just had one more question.

So obviously we've gotten a lot of comments around concerns about hydrology and the soils and the connection between the burial site systems and the water systems. I saw within the packet there is a condition of approval related to the internment sites that requires a geotechnical study. And I just wanted a little more information from staff about what that entails.

Yeah, so in the condition of approval, it would just be to, you know, just what everybody, I guess, is curious about is just to make sure that the soil and geology, while we can see through the Napa County GIS layers that it is appropriate and it is allowable, we just want to double check and make sure that the areas that we are doing the full body burials are compatible with the use. And just by doing so prior to any ground disturbance, we're just making sure that this is something that they can actually do.

So and what are those geotechnical tests look at in that case?

It was, I can't remember everything, but it was soil borings, test pits, and there was one more item that will be part of the geotechnical study. And this is just to be making, once again, checking the water table, check and once again, checking the soil and geology, but just kind of making sure that, you know, there's no volcanic rocks, it's not going to be something that can would promote for contamination. And that's just kind of the gist, at least of the geotechnical study, because the first one that was provided was the geo hazard report. And this was more so just kind of laying out the groundwork for that condition of approval.

Okay. I believe that geotechnical study is going to be primarily based around structural items that are looked at building permit level.

Okay. Thank you for that clarification.

Okay. Back to Commissioner Richmond.

Just a follow-up question, Mr. Torres. Back to the slide. I had asked if the – I thought, and I think I'm mistaken, that the red areas and the black areas were the areas of internment and where the grading would occur. Is that correct?

So – So the grading would occur, as you are correct, the grading would occur on the black driveway and the welcome center along with the interment areas. And I think, yeah, and then the trails are also black as well. So this is the only area where the grading would commence. And once again, that is specifically just in the top parcel, the most northern parcel.

And those areas you said are over 30% to 50%. But then when Ms. Moran asked the question, she Some of those areas are under 30%.

Yeah, I apologize. So the highlighted areas are between 30% to 50% for the most part, but there are some sections that are under. But as a whole, it was just highlighted to show that the conservation regulation exception would be applied within those areas. Okay, thank you.

OK, so I just have a couple operational questions for the applicant in terms of fire safety. I did see comments from the public that there is worry about people smoking, people lighting candles, and other kind of burial-associated flame type activities and I also would like to hear what you do on red flag days whether you allow burials and visitation under um you know I high fire severity conditions so I would appreciate it if you could speak to that briefly

So one of the things I will hit on, candles, things such as that, we don't actually allow that on the property. So nothing artificial, no lighting candles. That's not even allowed at ours. As far as visitation on Red Flag Day, yes, we do allow visitation. We are very aware of any type of mowing. We don't do any of that. We follow those rules in Placer County as well. So we are very aware of what high fire risk looks like. and we comply with all the standards. So yes to visitors, they would still come, but most of our visitors are very aware of what's going on as well. And we do let them know what's going on. Thank you. Of course.

I thought you were going to ask this question, but there did seem to be a lot of pushback from the neighborhood and people who have hiked that area that these two historic structures that are associated at least with John Muir and architecturally have something like parkitecture elements to them. Do they need to be destroyed in order for you to do this? And in terms of sort of preserving the whole area and then you're going to get rid of these two historic buildings that almost seem to be diametrically opposed to each other in terms of your philosophy about the land. So it would be good if you could speak to why those have to be destroyed.

Yeah, I appreciate the question. They are not habitable. They haven't been maintained in many, many, many years. They're not up to code. Bringing people there for just to as a putting a restroom there to be able to use wouldn't be safe and would cause lots of problems. So that was the intent of needing to remove them and put up a smaller footprint structure that would be up to code and as well as fire safe. I think one of the things that we have talked about is there's some beautiful redwood siding on it, offering that up for salvage. I know projects that people I know would be interested in using it and reclaiming that wood and some of the unique pieces within there.

Okay, thanks.

OK, are we done with questions? I think since I believe we're going to have an extensive amount of comment, I think this would be a good time for us to take a comfort break. So we will have a recess until 1020, and then we will restart the hearing. So we are in recess. Back to your seats, kids. and we will restart the meeting and we are in public hearing so we have heard the staff report we have heard the presentation from the applicant and we have asked our questions as commissioners so now it is time for public comment each person can have three minutes, and if there's anyone in the room who would like to comment, please approach the podium. We don't have a formal order, but I would appreciate, since I assume we have a lot of comments, if people could line up and be ready. Maybe we could have three people standing in line while somebody's commenting. And yeah, OK.

Put my glasses on so I can remember what I was going to say.

Members of the Planning Commission, my name is Tim McDonald. I live at 1655 Howe Mountain Road, which is two parcels below the applicant's parcel. And I'm standing before you today to register my opposition to this development. Let's be clear, this is not a conservation development. If it were conservation, it would be left the way that it is. The sheer scale of what's being proposed, 17,340 shallow grave burials and 35,530 cremated remains, That is over 52,800 remains in shallow graves or scattered ashes. The density of shallow graves on the proposed 16 acres is nearly 1,100 bodies per acre. For perspective, that's the planting of a vineyard. A massive commercial multi-generational operation like this is entirely incompatible with our small rural community. I'm deeply concerned about the immediate and long-term threats this project proposes to our safety, our water, and our environment. I urge you to look closely at six critical issues before even considering this project. Number one, high risk and evacuation bottlenecks. First, public safety must be our absolute priority. We live in one of California's most severe wildfire zones. My family has been forced to evacuate three times. I know firsthand how precarious our situation is. Howe Mountain Road is our community's sole escape route. Funerals and heavy visitations will choke the narrow corridor currently designated as a primary wildfire escape route north of Angwin. During a fast-moving wildfire, panicked evacuees would create further danger to local residents. Furthermore, the cemetery would introduce daily ignition risk to our flammable forests. We are talking about decades and thousands of grieving families burning incense in canals with overflow crowds. parking hot vehicles over dry weeds and brush. And I know that the applicants have said they do not allow this, but how will that be monitored? All it takes is one cigarette thrown from a visitor and the rest of our homes burn down. Number two, the threat to our groundwater and aquifer. Neighborhood residents rely entirely on private wells and natural springs for drinking water.

Mr. McDonald, your time is up. I'll let you finish, but you need to wrap it up.

I moved too slowly. OK, well, the additional items are groundwater, shallow graves, and local wildlife. There are multiple bears. We had one at our house last night trying to eat our fruit. And they are notable foragers for dead animals and others. Traffic strains and quality of life, which I mentioned earlier. Conclusion and requested actions. I would ask that at the very least this body requires an EIR for this project. And in the best case, outright denies it. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Mr. McDonald.

Hello, Jeff Paradis, Pope Valley Garage. I'm going to start by reading something I found doing a little bit of research this morning, seven minutes worth. It says, there are few modern studies on the topic, particularly within the United Kingdom, so it's hard to assess the real world impact of cemeteries on groundwater. One such study was undertaken at a cemetery in the West Midlands located in the second most important drinking water aquifer in England. with graves dug to two meters below ground level and the groundwater levels generally five meters below the surface. The results of the study showed that groundwater down hydraulic gradient from the cemetery had slightly elevated concentrations of chloride and sulfate, as well as highly contaminated quote unquote levels of pathogenic bacteria. You know, that's all of our concern amongst so many others. Groundwater, you have to understand that region of the mountain there, that whole belt is precious. It's a gem of spring water. My property benefits from that for the last 100 plus years. So many of the valley residents do, Pope Valley being a groundwater deficient area relies on surface water. So all the runoff that runs right through this property and it spoils right on into the valley. My pond is the first in line to catch this runoff. I'm not interested in having COVID bacteria, whatever it might be. in my pond. That's one of so many concerns. You know, there's thousands and thousands of acres in this county that aren't in what I see as just a beautiful area. There is, you can outreach and find hundreds of thousands of acres that are worthless. that if you want to bury mass grave sites, that'd be great there, but not in the backyards of all these folks. I mean, it's horrible. The best way to preserve this is to not molest it, as is being proposed. It's disgusting. You have to excuse me. I'm a little worked up, because I can't believe this has gone this far. six years and it's down to this hearing today a project of this magnitude it's yeah I could go on and on and I'm sure these folks are gonna back up but traffic I run the heavy record in Napa County I service the entire county I service your folks as equipment in towing accident scenes Half of Sonoma County, half of Lake County. That's what I do. And that turn, as you come around that grade, I passed a dump truck loaded, I passed two transfer trucks loaded, a three-axle tractor with an end up loaded, and a box truck on my drive from Pope Valley Garage to the top of the grade right before where this place is, right? This morning on my way here. You're coming down that hill loaded. I'm here to tell you, if you want blood on your hands and you want to approve this, you're going to have blood on your hands. It needs a left turn lane at a minimum, but the water is, if you want to ruin it, approve it.

Thank you, Mr. Paradis.

Good morning. I'm Frank Borges. I live at 1435 Howell Mountain Road. Sherry and I are western flank. Completely joins this property and I wanted to talk to you guys today about the letter from Steve letter her on the negative declaration of the traffic impact and the elimination of the left turn lane There's some inconsistencies and there's flaws through this entire report through the entire submittal and I'm gonna start at the beginning as to see how far I can get A code-compliant left turn lane will require impact to a substantial number of heritage redwood trees. There are none on this property on that road. Go look for yourself. When you leave the Fisher property on the right-hand side climbing the grade, there are no redwood trees. There are no redwood trees around the turn, the hairpin turn we're referring to, and there are no redwood trees across the street. Left turn lane will require grading on relatively steep rock slopes and damage-removed related trees. There may be trees that may need to be removed, but relatively steep rocky slopes on the south side appear to be a grade height of about four feet for the length of the property, the frontage of that property. I don't think that's much to grade. We see grading operations that are huge in this county. Why would this constitute something that could fall into this? Three, the sight distance of 180 feet from around that hairpin turn, when you come down that, let's be super clear here, when you hit that hairpin turn, you are at nine degrees of slope. The grade coming off the Sierras for the runaway truck ramps is six degrees. This is extremely steep. Just as Jeff said, you cannot potentially slow down. There's no analysis for stacking. If there was somebody trying to turn into this property and it's stacked, your 180 feet gets cut in half. It gets cut by three quarters. I could see where traffic could back up around this hairpin turn. Especially if all the parking spaces are full inside this cemetery. Steve writes, for those cars that need to make a left turn into that driveway, there is adequate distance to see a turning vehicle. Well, what if they're stacked? What if there's more than one, two, three, 10, 15? How many cars in a funeral procession do you see? What about people getting lost and not quite finding this entry when they come around that hairpin turn coming down that grade? What about other traffic? So the traffic study that I'm reviewing or have reviewed was the counts were done on 6-27-2020. And it does show that there are requirements for left turn lane. What was going on in 2020? Why might there have been less traffic? COVID was going on. We were shut down.

Thank you, Mr. Borges. Your time is up. Okay.

As you can see, I'll conclude by saying there's not enough time to get the facts out by any of us here. There are just far too many. There are far too many holes in this entire application. And I wish I could stand here for 20 minutes and just lay it out, or maybe 30 minutes, or maybe two hours, because I could get them. And I could get them from the help of the people in this community.

Thank you. Your time is up. Next speaker, please.

Yeah, this is a first time for me. My name is Armin Fischer. I have some documentation I'd like to let the commissioners look through. How do I do this? No, there's one each. So yeah, I don't know where to start here, but anyway. I was going to read this, but I'm not going to read it because this is about trust, about community, and about our history. All of us on that mountain depend on springs, and we have a spring that was not marked on the actual main map of the study, of the project. That spring is our drinking water. It's drinking water for 11 people on the property. We've been living there for 60 years. My mom's 90 and my dad's 86. And everybody depends on the quality of this drinking water. You don't see that spring box. And the spring box, I sent you a couple of pictures. You'll see the pictures of the spring box from the fence line of our property. It's literally less than 70 feet from the planned A internment area. Going back to trust, two days ago they said they dug pits for analysis and this was done. This was done two days ago. Just to make things clear. You also have a picture of an excavator in the interment area there where they were digging a five-foot pit and that was done on the 15th of June. It's the 17th of June now. How are we supposed to trust these people? They say they're in charge whether a person is embalmed or not going into a grave. This shallow grave is within 70 feet of our spring. and everybody else's spring. My spring feeds Sherry and Frank's spring, feeds Tim's spring. Everything is interconnected on that mountainside. I also put into the- Mr. Fisher, your time is up.

You need to wrap it up, please.

Just one thing, one last thing. You have an aerial photograph of the of the Morgan Oaks Reserve, Howell Mountain location, and a Pollux Pines location that was rejected in 2018, also applied by the same company. And if you look at the topography and the the flora and then obviously the fauna comes after that, you will, it's night and day.

Thank you, Mr. Fisher.

Good morning, commissioners. My name is Ken Cox. I live on Sunset Drive in Angwin. I have more texts than time. I've lived on Sunset Drive forever, since the 70s. The significance is I run a water company there. I'm a water guy. Got the texts, the licenses from the state to prove it. And our original well on Sunset in 1965 had a water depth of 105 feet. Now it's 165 feet. So it's dropping about a foot a year. The significance is... I talked with Oakville Pump. Oakville Pump manages about 25 water systems anyway in the county about water depth. And they said, I asked them in a wet year, how does it affect the water depth in a well? Or after a heavy rainstorm? And they said, well, in some wells, it doesn't affect it at all. In other wells, there's a dramatic change. Wells have a sanitary seal at the top, concrete. Then they have 25 to 100 feet of concrete down around the well casing to protect the well from, from surface water infiltrating. In spite of that, some wells have a dramatic change to their water depth after one rainfall, heavy rainfall. The point is that nobody really knows what's happening down under the ground. So now here, Armin just talked, and Armin didn't really point out, but you could tell he and his father John own the adjacent property immediately downstream. They get about half their water out of a sump that's about 20 feet from the boundary with this proposed development. I've been working on their water system design part of it for the last 25 years. So this is now surface water that we're talking about that they're living off of. And their ranch, Armand didn't make this clear either, that ranch has been farmed in the 1860s for 160 years. So it really is a heritage. So half the water supply for that ranch comes from a sump that's in the creek that's 20 feet from this proposed cemetery. And there are proposed grave sites that are, say, within 100. I just find it ironic that there's a concern that was expressed here about maintaining the water quality in a well that will be protected, as I described, by 50 feet of concrete. And here, their water supply is coming out of a creek merely 20 feet from this proposed development. So I think this invites some deep thought from this. And as Jeff pointed out, let me just say one thing. So there's this spring by the road. Many of you know it as you go down. It's right across from Arman's property. And that spring has been a water source. People come from miles around to get drinking water from that spring. Been there for all these years. We don't want to contaminate it. That's the point. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Cox.

Good morning, everyone. Mike Hackett. I'm here representing Save Rural Anglin. We have about 1,000 constituents, many of whom have called me and written me asking me to come up and represent them here today. So I'm going to do that. I'M ONE THAT'S ALWAYS UP HERE COMPLAINING ABOUT THE PROCESS OF THE PLANNING BUILDING AND ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES. SO YOU KNOW WHERE I'M COMING FROM HERE. THIS IS ANOTHER GREAT EXAMPLE. THIS WAS NOT READY FOR THE PLANNING COMMISSION AT ALL. I APOLOGIZE TO YOU FOR HAVING TO EVEN LISTEN TO THIS CRAP. SORRY ABOUT THE LANGUAGE. I want to frame this by also, before I move on, I want to thank many people, all of you, Brian Bardona and Michael, all of you have been very respectful in responding to my inquiries. I think that's amazing, and it's not always the case, but it happened in this case, so thank you. I mean that sincerely. To frame it, the Napa County Policy Manual Part 1, Section 8B, Rule 17. You all know it well. applicant bears the burden of providing that a proper uh complete and applicable laws that it applies to purple laws standards ordinance and regulations county policy in this particular case we have a new water available analysis coming forward which is much more stringent than the one we have now which is the one you have to live by unfortunately But if they're going to put in a new well, they need to tell you where that new well is going to be so that you can do the water availability analysis. And you'll have to do a Tier 3 because I'm sure it's within 1,500 feet of all these streams and waterways. And that is really an imperative. The turn lane thing is a no-brainer. All of you will have or will drive at one time without a turn lane there. One person said it most bluntly, there will be blood not on your hands, but certainly there will be death on the road there. That's really a stupid idea not to have a turn lane there. Also, in regards to the definition of a significant stream, which really applies here, significant stream is determined by the state not by the county they determine what a significant stream is uh i'll leave it right there i think it's it's certainly water and and oh i'll finish with this i don't think you should continue this i think this is a great example one that should be turned down today thank you very much thank you mr hackett

Excuse me. Good morning. My name is Brian Loomis. My wife and I also live on Howe Mountain. I'm going to jump around here to some bullet points, just reacting to some of the things that I've heard today. I do have to start my remarks with Mr. Torrey's, insofar as the communication that was supposedly put out around this. I found out about this last Wednesday, one week ago, have made numerous calls to valley residents, vintners, people on the hill, in the valley proper. No one knew about this project. So there has been no communication that I was aware of, nor most of the people that I talked with were aware of. We're working under an MND right now. Basically, what that means is that we're just going to overlook most of the rules and regulations that we have in place so that we can get this project approved and have it move through the process. This is a project that I would categorize as an unmitigated disaster, 110 acres. This needs an environmental impact report, a full environmental impact report. Secondly, I'm hearing a lot of words. The green word here comes up a lot. Green, of course, is one of those ubiquitous words that we find that's used everywhere now. I would suspect pretty soon we're going to hear about coal mines that are green and steel plants that are green as well. It is green right now. It's 110 acres that is green. It has to stop being green to put in what they want to put in there. So then we're supposedly going to make it slightly green by putting trails in. Trails in a grave site is a red herring. We're going to put in one mile of trails. Let me just say three miles from this site, maybe two, is a place called Las Posadas. Everybody know about Las Posadas? If you don't, you probably should go up there and take a look. 35 miles, 800 acres of hiking and biking trails, three miles. So let's start talking about this as being green because it's going to have a mile and a half of trails, please. It's either 15,000 bodies that are decomposing or 52,000, you know, somewhere in between those numbers. Have we really, really considered what that looks like insofar as water and ecology is concerned? And lastly, excuse me, not lastly, but I'll say every day is a red flag day in Angwin. Every day. My wife and I will never forget the glass fire leaving our home on Howe Mountain at 4.30 AM Monday morning, actually headed towards the fire as it was coming up behind Vietor, because that's the only way to get down Howe Mountain, is to head for the U-turn, Devil's Elbow as it's called, behind Vietor, The fire was coming. We had to head right towards it. Scary times. Lastly, is there a need? So Tuloke is 49 acres here in Napa, 30,000 interred, 20 acres remain for future expansion. St. Helena just opened up block 14 for an extension. Napa Valley Memorial Park. Pope Valley is only an acre and a half. They have room.

Thank you, Mr. Loomis. Your time is up.

One last thing, if I may, in just recapping this. This is a commercial venture on an industrial scale that has no place in a rural mountain community. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, good morning. My name is Desiree Altmus and I live on Ponderosa Drive, which is a little bit above Inc. grade. I just wanted to read a portion of an email that I sent to Anne Crotrell about our opposition to this. I am writing to express my concerns regarding the proposal, the proposed Howe Mountain Cemetery located just one mile from our home. projection of up to five funerals per day to be excessive. Napa Valley is defined by the grape growing, wine making and hospitality and a project of this scale totaling 52,870 plots poses a significant threat to our water supply and watershed. Furthermore, the site slopes of up to 30% increase the risks of erosion and fire. While Napa County currently restricts soil disturbance on slopes over 5% from October through April, five burials a day would seemingly continue regardless of the season or environmental conditions. I also urge you to consider the substantial impact on traffic and the concerns surrounding logging in the area. This project requires exceptions to Napa County conservation regulations. Our mountain, our watershed and our wildlife deserve better. Please help to ensure this type of request gets denied.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Doug Hamilton, 1777 and 1700, Howe Mountain Road. My only comments would be, if there were no exceptions built into this application, it wouldn't be approved. So don't follow your exceptions. Make sure all guidelines are followed, and the answer will be evident.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Christine Markey, and a resident of Angwin. And I'm going to read some of my thoughts just so I get through the timing. One of the key things about Angwin is most of us are on wells, and we are not connected to a regional system for a redundant water resource. And while this project proposes green burial methods, that still does not eliminate the risk, because natural decomposition releases nitrates, pathogens, and biological materials that get into the water and to the water table. Even cremated remains are not that much better. They have high alkaline and toxic sodium levels. So a cemetery of this scale definitely poses a risk to our aquifer and our drinking water supply. Which brings me to the question of risk. Who bears the risk in this? It's not the developer. It's not the county. It's the residents of Angwin, our community. and that will impact us for generations. So if our wells are compromised, who's responsible? Will the community, the county, commit to providing a safe alternative drinking water infrastructure to every member of the Angwin community? Will there be ongoing independent water quality monitoring What's the remediation plan if water contamination is detected? And these are not hypothetical questions. I drink this water every day. And so we need to have minimum standards of accountability. And the community deserves this. Also, Angwin is a part of the Blue Zone project where people, and there's only like six in the world or maybe seven, so introducing a source of long-term groundwater contamination fundamentally is incompatible with everything that makes Angwin special and what it is. I also want to just respond to some of the comments about Lincoln. Lincoln is the size of about 60,000 residents and they do have a source of drinking water from a water district. Angwin has about 4,000 or 5,000 residents, and we don't have that additional infrastructure to protect us. And putting a cemetery that has 50,000 burials in a community of 4,000, the scale just seems completely off. So what I urge the commission to do is require a full independent hydrogeological study of this site's impact on the local aquifer and watershed before any approval moves forward. The burden of proof must rest on the project and not on our community.

Thank you Ms. Marquis. Next speaker please.

I'm Sherry Borges, 1435 Hell Mountain Road. I would just like to present an exhibit of rainfall that we have gathered from 2021 to present and for future use in groundwater information and defer the rest of my time to our attorney, Tom Carey.

I'm waiting for my clock to say three minutes. No, she's going to defer her time.

Okay.

All right. We misunderstood. I'm sorry.

Sorry about that.

Well, I get to step right up to the podium then. I'm Tom Carey.

May I just go and say I'm Flynn McDonald. I'm going to give him my three minutes. Okay.

Wow, that's quite an endorsement. Thank you. I have almost 10 minutes. I promise the chair that I will not take the full 10 minutes. I'm Tom Carey. I'm a land use attorney. I've practiced for about 30 years. I can't believe it. I've done a number of projects on Elm Mountain on the applicant side, vineyards, wineries, did a little work for PUC. What's a bit shocking to me, having been around as long as I have, is The foundational documents that would undergird a finding of no significant effects on the environment simply do not exist in the record. Other speakers have alluded to the effect on the groundwater spring system, the hydrology. There's no underlying geologic study in the record that analyzes those effects. So the very conclusions of the mitigating neck deck that there is no significant environmental impact aren't based on anything. The only thing I could find in the record that remotely addresses it, this issue is a condition in the proposed conditions of approval 616E that requires before the project development a geotechnical study be prepared. That's what we call in the law deferred mitigation. That's identifying a problem and saying mitigation will be developed after we study it. That's simply not acceptable. I'm just going to very quickly introduce some documents into the record. There's been some discussion about this leachate issue, which is the substance that is created when a body decomposes, and I have three studies that I'd like to introduce as exhibits A1, A2, and A3, not as a proposition that I'm an expert on leachate migration, but to establish that there is a scientific basis upon which this concern is based that requires further study. So I'm going to hand this to the clerk. The second thing I'd like to introduce, and this is in connection with the hydrogeology, the absence of research and studies in the record of how this system works and the impact of leachate transmission through that system, I submit a CV of the hydro geologist Chris Bremer that we're retaining and we ask, we intend in the future when you come back that to put his findings into the record. So I'm marking this as exhibit B. Back to the mitigating neck deck. I think on the basis of what I've heard about the scale of the project, again, this is a massive cemetery, almost two times the size of Tulake, located in an acknowledged environmentally sensitive location in a small community. It requires an EIR level analysis. I think there's enough information on the record or the absence of it to say that we need to study it at an EIR level. So I would urge you to consider that. In the alternative, the Commission will be asked to consider continuance. of this. And I have some thoughts about where I would like the Commission to direct staff to go with the additional time to reconsider this application. First and foremost is, and you've heard much testimony on this, is the geotechnical hydrological aspect of this. You've heard testimony that there's active springs proximate to the internment sites and indeed throughout the property. You have in front of you a geological report done by a very reputable firm that analyzes the types of soils on site but doesn't take a step further. That report acknowledges that they didn't do any borings or other studies to determine how that geology affects hydrology and other water quality impacts. Also with respect to wildlife, I submitted a letter with about 10 pages on grizzly bears and wild pigs and mountain lions. Those are admitted entirely from the scope of the biological reconnaissance level study. That was submitted in support of this initial study, which finds no significant impact when mitigated on wildlife resources. My letter goes into detail about the potential for wildlife disturbance of graves. Again, I'm not an expert, so we're also in the process of hiring a wildlife biologist to analyze those very impacts. So Ms. Borges was kind enough to give me her time. And I'm not sure if the, is that, I have two minutes left of Sherry's time or my time? All time. All time. Oh, I can take a little break. So Ms. Borges wanted me to address the parking issue. Obviously there's a lot of questions about how this site will be utilized by the cemetery employees, during burials, by visitors to graves and the general public. Typically in an application you would see a traffic management plan that details all of that. You've seen them in connection with wineries. That is completely absent from the application. And, indeed, I've heard enough at this hearing to call into question whether the project should be read the product description as it stands does not reflect the project that is being described here today by the applicant. The project description calls for one and a half feet of topsoil over burial. Now we're hearing four and a half to five feet. Again, that implicates the geology. Is there enough topsoil to make over 17,000 grave sites of that depth. We don't know the answer to that question. We don't have the information to reach conclusions about it in the initial study. So we simply can't move forward with the finding of no legal significance. I think with my remaining time, again, what do we do with this additional time after a continuance if you decide to go that route other than outright denial of this project or requirement of an EIR. What are we going to do with the additional time? I would submit that the applicant has to completely provide a completely new project description with detail on traffic, on these burial site depths, and I'll conclude, and critically addressing the hydrological issues. And a part of that, as Mr. Bushy just acknowledged, is clearing up the ambiguity about the water sources. What is the new well? What is this shallow Is that a spring? It needs all to be reevaluated. So with that, I conclude. I urge you to consider this carefully. And I think there's enough information on the record to support you requiring the preparation of an environmental impact report. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Carey. Do we have anyone else in the room who wishes to comment? Looks like we don't. Staff, is there anyone online? We have no callers. OK. So that concludes public comment. I'm going to close the public hearing and bring it back to the commission. I mean, normally for continuance, we would just continue. But I think since we have such strong feelings and so many comments, we should discuss our thoughts about the projects of the applicant to give the applicant some additional structure moving forward. Let's start on my left with Commissioner Moran-Williams.

COMMISSIONER MORAN- First, I just want to say thanks to all the sort of residents in England who drove a long way to come down here and speak. It's always good to hear from the community where a project is taking place. So I appreciate the time spent. I want to point out where I'm sitting. Cemeteries are a permitted use in all of Napa County, conditionally. And in general, as a concept, I am supportive of this idea of green burial as an ecological alternative to traditional cemeteries. I think that there's a lot of documentation that shows that it solves some of the issues around... ecological deterioration for traditional cemeteries. And I think staff prepared what was required for us. And data from the Green Burial Council, that's all very interesting. However, Howe Mountain is a very unique cemetery. geological, hydrological ecosystem. And the county report documented that it has fragmented rocky soils, which have their own characteristics and have their own relationship to any kind of development that takes place, not just green burials. And so I feel like our job today is that we're supposed to be basically showing that we could make this mitigated negative declaration. And I feel like I can't do that today. I would like to see more data on the specific geological, hydrological conditions of the internment sites. And since I'm not an expert in that, I don't know exactly what to recommend in terms of what would provide us with that data. So I would lean on county staff experts to share more about what's possible there to bring back to actually review the sites in particular that will be disturbed and not leave that for a back end of the process. So I'm glad that staff recommended the continuance because I think there's no way for me personally to make that determination today. I also, I think I mentioned earlier, just the traffic study, we didn't talk a ton about it and maybe it would be worth reviewing that either a little bit in more detail now. I also feel like I can't make that determination because it's not 100% clear to me how much traffic we're talking about here and if there's an ability to reduce the number or make more clear what the weekly cap is or reduce the number of what's anticipated daily. It seems like that would make a big difference for the traffic element of this. So I would like to understand, you know, how many understand better how many visits we're actually talking about here because I think that to me is important for understanding the safety element and whether or not the lane exception really makes sense in this rural area. So those are my two main concerns that I wanted to share. yeah i i i guess i can pass along let my other fellow commissioners speak commissioner richmond

Thank you. I appreciate everybody's time today. I'm concerned about the geology. And this is more of a business question than anything else, which is, Howe Mountain has limited soil depth. And I don't suspect you're going to get as deep as you need to get on some of these burials. But I think that's a business question, not an environmental question, quite frankly. My major hang-up is the exemption to the con rigs. This project has the potential to disturb far more ground than if a vineyard was going to go in the site. And so I cannot accept the exception of con regs as part of this process. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Richmond. Okay. Commissioner Brooks.

Yeah, I echo the comments that were made by my fellow commissioners. If this was to go forward, I mean, I can't see doing this without a left-hand turn lane. That would be a showstopper for me, having spent a good bit of time on that road. I don't think this idea of a park and the burial site together are compatible. It compounds the traffic problem. Again, if it continues to be proposed that way, I'm not going to be comfortable with that. I would like to see the whole property put into 100% conservation easement. If that is the goal of this corporation and what they're doing, the idea that a vineyard could be developed later and multiple houses could be put on here is a non-starter for me. these huge numbers around how many people could be buried here and then what the leachate's like and what's going on, I'd like to see some hard numbers on that. And personally, and I'm just pulling this out of the air, but kind of looking at some of this 10 burials per acre per year, over a five-year period. You've got 50 bodies decomposing in an area. I would like to see some limit like that. And I know we just haven't dealt with these kind of things before. So we don't have any kind of constraints like that around it. I don't think we as a commission can demand an EIR, but I agree with the comments. And for myself personally, I feel like this looks like something that needs a full EIR. And of course, double down on the hydrology. We've done a lot of, I've only been here for a year and a half or so, But springs come up occasionally, and we can't even find them sometimes. And none of the projects that I've analyzed so far in a year and a half have been dependent on springs. And yet what we're hearing here is that this whole community is relying heavily on the springs in this part of the watershed. And so this hydrology and the coupling of the surface water and potential contamination into springs is a deep, deep concern. And I feel like we need to understand that really thoroughly. Thanks.

Okay. So for myself, I will say also that I really appreciate the passion from the community and the engagement because a lot of times we don't get that and it's important for people to be involved in their community. My concerns basically echo what Commissioner Moran-Williams said. I do think you know based on comments from the community and the the specific conditions on how mountain we do need more information on hydrogeology and we need to look more carefully at the traffic i i would really appreciate if we're gonna if we see this again to have a more detailed operational plan from the applicant that had more specific maximums on visitation and perhaps consider something like requiring, I know you're talking about offering shuttles, but you could perhaps require shuttles, that could help. I agree that we don't have, it's not up to us to require an EIR. We can, you know, accept a project, we can continue it or we can deny it. I do want to speak to a few things that the community has brought up and just as kind of a listening and learning session. A lot of these issues, I understand the issues about everyone is dependent on well and spring water, and you're wanting the county to take a more active role in regulating that. And you need to think about whether that's what you want. Because as a commission, what I'm hearing from the comments here is the opposite of what we usually hear, which is that people want less regulation, they don't want too much well monitoring. They don't want the county to force them to test their springs to put in some type of domestic water filtration system. So I just want everyone to think about the fact that if we're not really capable of making policy, that's the supervisors, but if we set precedents in our work and the Board of Supervisors, this is going to apply to wineries and potentially residences as well. So that's something to consider. I do want to speak a little bit to the historic status of those cabins because, you know, I think a lot of people are aware that I work in historic preservation. And I have advocated for historic preservation in this county for 15 years because I think we have an extremely unique environment with an extraordinary number of historical resources. And I think they really work together with our landscape and our natural landscape and our farming landscape to make Napa a unique and beautiful place. And I am thrilled to hear this passion for historic preservation, which, frankly, I've never heard from the community at large in Napa County, city of Napa, there's much more muted support for preservation in general. So I hope everyone brings that to their daily life and advocates for our stone walls, our historic wineries, our houses, all our historical resources in the county. i do want to say the process has been followed in terms of these particular cabins i also and i you know i didn't say this in the meeting because i shared it with the applicant i personally feel that it would be a much better project with preservation of at least one of those cabins i would love to see that happen however this is another issue we need to think about what what our rules are as a community. How active do we want to be in taking a portion of someone's property rights to require that they preserve something? Now, there are a few sites in the county that we've all agreed are worth doing that. And there could be many more. And for this kind of thing, if someone had proactively listed this years ago then that would be done but we have a study that found it ineligible so there's no real mechanism to force that that's preserved and if everyone is as passionate about historic preservation as they they seem like they are you know i would i would just suggest that you all get out there and start, you know, hiring someone to list your house on the National Register and advocating that wineries become local county landmarks and all of that because that is really the way to preserve these things long term rather than waiting until there's a project and, you know, advocating after the fact, after someone has done a study according to the So thank you for listening to that long aside, but I wanted to kind of have that conversation with the people who have commented. Okay, I think we have all had our say here, so do we have a motion?

Could I ask, are we going to continue this to a date certain, or are we continuing it in an open sense?

We would prefer a date uncertain. We will re-notice the project when it's brought back. Are you looking for a motion?

Yes, I'm looking for a motion.

I'd make a motion that we move this to a continuance and we move it to a date uncertain.

Do I have a second? Second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Motion is continued. Okay, we are moving on to item 7B. I have a mountain of paper here, which is, I believe, an ordinance.

Thank you, Mr. Torres. Good job.

proposed Napa County Code amendments related to urban lot splits and two-unit development. I believe this is to bring us into compliance with some new state regulations. And it looks like Mr. Hawks is going to be our leader here.

Are you ready?

I'm ready.

Thank you, Chair. Everybody's leaving. This is the fun hearing item for the day. So thank you, Chair, members of the Planning Commission, Trevor Hawks. I've got just three slides here. We'll go through this pretty quickly. This is a request from staff for the Commission to review a proposed amendment to Title 17 and Title 18 of the code related to updating our regulations around urban lot splits and two-unit developments. And the request from staff is that you hold a public hearing and after the public hearing that you make an advisory recommendation to approve the draft ordinance to the Napa County Board of Supervisors. So the reason for this request is, essentially, we've had two laws passed, legislative laws passed, Assembly bills and Senate bills, that have updated SB 9 of 2021, which governs both the county's urban lot splits and two-unit development regulations, which were adopted by the county as part of the housing omnibus ordinance in 2024, ordinance number 1495, I believe. So the two bills are primarily Senate Bill 450, which was passed in 2024. This is the main one that made significant updates to SB 9. It set a shot clock on how quickly we have to review these applications. It added limits on local standards. And it narrowed the county's denial authority for these types of applications. The second bill that was passed is Assembly Bill 1061, much more narrow than the kind of overarching Senate Bill 450. This one primarily addressed historic resource exemptions within SB 9. And then finally, there are like some very minor updates that aren't really necessarily attributed to bills that have gone into effect since we adopted SB 9, but are primarily there to just kind of update understanding of the code language and to bring that code language into compliance with HCD SB 9 guidance documents. So amendments to chapter 17, 17, which is where we keep our urban lot split portion of the code. The items you'll see on the draft red line, they're going to primarily amend the time frame that we approve the ULS application. the requirements if the ULS application is denied. It narrows the historic district exemptions. It removes physical environment as one of the types of specific adverse impacts of the project, which would allow staff to deny a project under this section of the code. And then, as I mentioned, there's small additions concerning objective subdivision design standards and which ones we can apply when we review these applications. And then the second section, or additionally what this draft ordinance does, it makes amendments to Chapter 18-104-440, which is primarily where we find our two-unit development regulations in the code. And a lot of similar changes to the code. So it changes the time frame that we have to approve the two-unit developments. requirements that we have to give to the applicant if we deny one of these two unit developments. It narrows the historic district exemptions, removes physical environments from the types of specific adverse impacts, and revises language concerning applicability of environmental constraints for parcel eligibility for this type of application. So that's it. I'm happy to talk through any of this. If you have specific questions on the code, it's been reviewed by our council and outside council that helps us on housing issues. And we believe that what we're bringing to you would be compatible with state law. Staff's recommendation is to hold the public hearing, and that you would recommend to the board an advisory recommendation of approval of this draft ordinance. Thank you very much.

Okay. I have a question, I guess. Are you recommending we hold, we schedule a public hearing or is this our public hearing? This is our public hearing. Okay. So do we have any, we don't have anyone in the room. I assume we don't have anyone. No public comment. So do we have any discussion? Shocking, shocking. Okay. Commissioner Brooks.

And a little bit to you in section D, it seems like we've changed historic landmarks and the relationship to those and shared walls and things like that. And I was trying to understand what we're trying to get at in changing that language around landmarks and stuff.

Primarily, I believe this is related to the Assembly Bill 1061 and how it updated government code in terms of. So I think what was happening was that I'm going to parse what the Assembly or what the legislature was doing here is that projects were getting denied just for being in a historic district, but not for being historic themselves. And so this language was changed by the legislature to try to narrow that ability. And so I think what you're seeing with the language here is that it has to have actual structural, historic structural components in order for staff to turn around and say, OK, I'm sorry, but this project cannot be eligible for a urban lot split or a two-unit development.

I can speak to that a little bit because this is my area. So previously, CEQA or federal regulations, part of figuring out whether you can do something in a historic district isn't just are you tearing down a historic building, it's what are the indirect impacts. So let's say I own an empty lot. I own two adjacent empty lots in Fuller Park Historic District. In the past, if I had wanted to put a five-story apartment building on those two lots, the city would have said, well, that's a National Register historic district, so those qualify as historical resources under CEQA, the district and the contributors to the district. So you need to do an impact assessment that shows that your new building isn't going to have a negative impact on the district by overwhelming, looming over small historic buildings, or being really out of scale, coming right up to the front edge of the property, rather than being set back. So the compatibility issues. So a lot of these people in the preservation community think that there are state legislators that are actually targeting historic preservation because it's seen as somehow antithetical to housing and housing people. So now, if I own these two lots and I decide I'm going to put in a 20-story housing tower there, there's no ability for the city of Napa to say, you have to, that's not compatible with the historic district. You need to scale it down. You can do whatever you want as long as it's housing and it doesn't have to be market rate or low income.

Do you perceive that as a good thing? I mean, do we have to follow what the state's doing? Could we decide that we did want to pay more attention to our historic areas?

We kind of have to follow what the state's...

The minimum standards. I mean, we could apply more stringent... I mean, it depends on what the regulation is. We could apply more stringent standards, but we can't... We believe we've interpreted what's in the government code here correctly and included it, drafted it appropriately for our own code. If we don't... uh sb9 supersedes the county code so it it applies even if you know if you if you decide we're not going to recommend this to the board of supervisors it's still going to apply when the applications come in um so you know we'd have to look at those situations i mean we can usually we can sometimes um create We can't do like less stringent, but we could look at them individually. But at the end of the day, this is going to apply whether or not we adopt it.

Yeah, so there's not – we can't really fight it per se, but it doesn't really matter if we think it's a good thing or a bad thing when it comes down to it. And it's probably not – I mean it's – there's – no situation where it's gonna apply probably out in the county i don't think we have any historic districts outside city limits in in the whole although this is you know county-wide really things that are within city limits are going to be more governed by the cities and towns

Outside of the municipal spheres of influence, we have no historic districts. So I don't think this can apply. I'm not sure how you mentioned Fuller Park. There are a number of county islands within the city of Napa. And I don't know if historic districts overlap. or go outside of municipal boundaries. I'm not an expert on this, so maybe there's, if that's the case, it could be the case that some of those county islands would, but you'd have to look at it on a case-by-case basis.

And then looking at something like Bothay or Skyline, the acquisition of some of that where there's older buildings and things that are coming with that, I mean, would they be historic buildings so they'd be governed by this?

I mean, both AA doesn't have any historic buildings. And this is really about districts. It still doesn't allow, you know, I can't tear down the Presbyterian Church to build a 20-story tower. It's just if you have land that's within a district. Okay. You're still – the actual historic buildings are still protected. Is that right, Trevor?

That's my understanding, yes. The example used was great, which is that I believe people were saying – it wasn't narrow enough so that people had undeveloped lots. They were saying, well, this is in the historic district, and the local agencies were going, oh, okay, we're going to stop this here. And the state looked at it and said, no, that's not quite what we're looking for here. It needs to actually be associated with –

know structural historic structural development on the sites i told you it was a short question so and the last one ministerial just because there's been a little pushback from the community about ministerial because been that decisions we can make and it looks like for uh two uh you know uh uh uh dividing into two units that we do it can be a ministerial decision and has to happen within 60 days now or something that's what the terms are here so

Both the sections of the county code that we are proposing to revise require ministerial objective standards only and are approved at staff level based upon those objective standards. So none of these can be, in fact, the state, the government code specifically requires prevents us from being able to elevate these to discretionary applications. The two-unit development is a P application. I'm sorry, exactly the wrong one. The urban lot split, they do apply through the planning division for an urban lot split. It has specific objective requirements that are here in the code. We have an application for it. And that gets approved. It's similar to a tentative parcel map without the discretionary hearing. And then the two-unit development is, you know, somebody would simply apply for a building permit, and we would apply. We would look at it. Oh, this is... They meet the locational criteria, and they're proposing to build something. That's in Excess of what an ad you would be it's a two-unit development, and we would apply these standards to it Okay, thanks Okay, do do we have a motion I?

Will move the motion okay?

Second okay all those in favor aye recommendation passes Okay. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Where do you think you're going? We're not allowed to leave. He may have work to do. Okay. Mr. Parker, do we have a director's report or administrative item?

Could I ask maybe before Trevor escapes, the whole issue around an EIR on this last one. I mean, the trail cam footage, the bears, the mountain lions, you know, the number of springs, all that stuff. Excuse me. Sorry.

I don't think you should have that conversation now. That item is closed. If you want to talk to Trevor separately offline, that's fine.

Okay. That's why we keep you around, you keep us on track. I'll keep this short. We have the next Planning Commission meeting is planned for Wednesday, July 1st. So first, it looks like we have a special ALUC meeting planned that morning. and that is for the City of Napa's Renewable Resources project. That'll be before the ALUC. Following that, we will have our Planning Commission meeting. We will be absent our chair, so our vice chair will be holding things down. There will be one item before the commission. That is the Brimmer Continuance, and that'll be presented by Supervising Planner Sean Trippi. That'll be it for the July 1st.

Could I ask you about the ALUC has been pretty pro forma in my short tenure here, you know, but is this the first time we're going to see something? I mean, this actually has something to do with Napa recycling and buildings and changes they want to make that are not in, would technically not be in conformance with the

So I don't manage the ALUC. Our supervising planner, Dana Morrison, does. And we ensure that there is separation between the Planning Commission and the ALUC. But I can ask her to follow up with you guys accordingly. My understanding is that it would be a project that requires, that is above the staff level to decide whether or not something is consistent within the ALUC.

I mean, I feel like we never looked at a project before during my tenure in the ALUC. I'm getting used to how to do it here, but I mean, maybe a little coaching, at least for some of us, of what that's going to look like at that meeting.

Yeah, I can have Ms. Morrison reach out to the ALUC prior to the meeting.

Thanks.

for Board of Supervisors on Monday and Tuesday the board held budget hearings for the upcoming budget for the upcoming fiscal year that is heading back to the board for a formal adoption and then I have nothing to report out there's been no zoning administrator action since my last report out

OK. Thank you, Mr. Parker. Do we have any commissioner comments or committee reports?

I have one. The Napa County Wildlife Conservation Commission is about to open its annual grant funding on June 22nd. So that's for projects that support the preservation, propagation, and protection of fish and wildlife in Napa County. Applications open June 22nd and then close July 22nd. So I just want to share that with any organizations that do that kind of work in the community.

there's more information on the wildlife conservation commission website thank you ms marin williams okay uh gentlemen nothing okay um i hereby adjourn the meeting um is there anything else no we're done right