Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

You didn't turn on your microphone?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

Who have we got, Ida tonight or Sherry? Yeah, it's Ida. Ida, would you call the roll, please?

Chair Murphy? Here. Vice Chair Chesley? Here. Commissioner Reichmitt? Here. Commissioner Stewart?

Here. OK. Our first item of business tonight is the selection of a new planning commission chair and vice chair and some information regarding the expiration of terms. So we will first turn it over to staff for that report.

On your agenda or on your staff report here for item number one, it is talking about first to do your adoption and then yes, receive the information. In your packet, you have information. Information directly from the code I go right to Attachment B, but I also handed you a put on in front of you this evening some copyright from The website because the language is a little bit different the language is updated in the code And so that's what I gave you this evening. It's essentially the same. It's a little bit more detailed in some sections specifically subsection a just a little more defined and but I do believe there isn't anything substantially different in there. So looking through the staff report written by your director the director of Community Development again first you would be selecting your chair and vice chair and then we go on here to talk about what the chair is responsible for and the vice chair is responsible for and then additional details related to These duties are in your handbook, which were previously provided to you. And of course, additional copies can be provided at any time. And then we have the local appointments list here on attachment A. And we have terms expiring for our chair in May of 26. And the other commissioners expire in 2028 in May. Would you like more explanation about the duties of the chair and vice chair? Or would you like to start your proceeding here for voting for your vice chair and chair? Chair first.

Does anyone require more explanation of the duties of the chair or vice chair?

I understand we do have some newer commissioners, however you have been provided with the handbooks. I could just go into this if you'd like. I'm looking specifically at you, Commissioner Stewart.

No, I was just reading along here and listening to you.

Okay. So if you'd like to start the voting process, there'll be a motion and a vote for a chair, and you'll take the vote, and if there isn't a consensus, then another motion can be made. You do not need to make a second. Once you're finished with chair, then you go on to vice chair, and again, a motion is made, take a vote. If consensus, great. If not, start over again. Okay. And we'll do it until you have consensus.

Until we've beaten it down. Right.

Okay.

At this time, I will open the floor to nominations.

And you can vote for yourself.

I nominate Judy Murphy for chair.

OK, would you call the vote, please?

Ida, can you take that? Chesley?

Chesley? Yes. Rice-Schmidt?

Yes.

Stewart?

Yes. So there's consensus.

We now have a new chair, an ongoing chair. At this time, we will open the floor to nominations for a vice chair.

I nominate Commissioner Chesley.

I second that. Are you willing?

Yes, yes. Thank you.

I will call the, I will call the, your arm is still attached.

I'm calling for the vote now, please, Ida. Murphy? Yes. Reichmitt? Yes. Stewart?

Yes.

Okay, good, thank you. We have the agenda. Are there any changes to the agenda?

No changes.

Thank you. Then we will move on to the consent calendar. We have the minutes from the regular meeting of the Planning Commission on March 18th of 26. Are there any changes to the minutes? The chair will entertain a motion to adopt.

I make a motion to adopt the minutes of the meeting as written.

I'll second that motion.

The next item is to a discussion to propose topics to discuss at a future joint meeting with city council Lucas do you have any guiding words for us before we start this?

I'll go through the staff report a little bit here and then we can talk about future discussion items for the joint meeting. Essentially what we're looking at here is the items that are listed here in the discussion subsection are in bold or non-bold. The ones that are bolded are included uh... and were discussed uh... or not discussed previously but we're looking at discussing uh... with the joint commission it's just ideas that i had put forward as a discussion piece for tonight the ones that are non bolded are the ones that we had talked about last year now here's the amazing thing This is just a jumping off point. We'll have an opportunity at this meeting and at the next meeting to discuss these items. And if you're wanting to propose new items, we can certainly put those on and talk about them as well. And then we'll schedule these for the joint meeting. It's tentatively scheduled for the first meeting in June. However, it could fluctuate between either the first meeting or the second meeting in June. But that is typically when we have our set aside time.

Okay, good.

So if you'd like, I can go through each of the items.

I would like you to particularly.

We can ask questions about the items. It's kind of free flowing at this point in terms of how we can have that conversation. There's really no set way to have this conversation. If you want to ask questions about specific items or you want to go into some detail on specific items, we can absolutely do that.

I would really like you to address the objective design standards.

Yeah, so there's a couple of things with that. That one has actually come before this body not once, not twice, but four times. So in each of the times that it's come forward, we've actually had a very robust conversation about it. And it's helped to frame the objective standards that we have at this point. But I will have to admit, It is a program within the housing element, and the housing element identified that this was to be done basically at the end of 2024. I was hopeful that it would have been completed in 2025. We ended up getting sidetracked with it, unfortunately. So with a fresh start here in 2026, I'm looking forward to seeing, and hopefully with this commission, this body, that item moving forward as a recommendation to city council. Because it is... As objective standards, design standards operate, it would be by ordinance in terms of how we're looking at it. Okay.

Would that include – some cities have – They have model or templates, actual like building designs for certain ADUs or certain units.

And we actually have that for ADUs here. We have a standard ADU format that we actually have on our website right now.

Okay, so like what it looks like, everything, floor plan, everything.

The examples, exactly, yeah.

Okay, and does it have an expedited plan check? because it's already, we already know about it. Like we already know the design features and everything.

You know the interesting thing about the way in which the objective design standards are operating and I think Darren if you want to jump in here or is it Lisa? If Lisa wants to jump up here as well in terms of the government code standards. A lot of the Senate bills and Assembly bills that are coming forward are expressly referencing objective design standards in terms of how a city can review and make sure that those standards or the design that's being proposed by the developer through one of those assembly bills or senate bills are compliant with the objective design standards. We don't have that at this point, so it becomes very loosey goosey in terms of how we can really kind of impose our will on future development essentially.

Yeah, and what I'll just add is that there are some provisions of the government code that have been adopted over the last few years that attempt to take discretion out of the city's hands, especially in terms of housing projects. There's the Starter Home Revitalization Act is a big one that was SB21. 864 and 1123 if my number if I'm remembering the numbers correctly But but that's just a prime example of trying to take these approvals and turn them ministerial and when you when we're getting Ministerial processes imposed upon us. We're only allowed to apply objective design and objective design standards objective Zoning standards objective

just generally objective standards and so yeah go ahead that's what so I guess that's what I'm wondering so if we had like several designs in place already like this is our objective design standards it's a you know 500 square foot building it you know it has a front porch and you know it has two windows in the front I mean like get really specific but and codify it maybe have several different styles, but that's our objective design standard. I don't think we have that, do we? No, we don't. But some cities do have that, and I think that would be really helpful to us because we could guide in absence of having objective design standards or any authority if we don't, that's a really good way to to guide our design. It's a tool. Yeah, it's absolutely a tool.

Absolutely.

So that's what I recommend. If we really don't have discretion,

Yeah, and the discretion is really kind of at the wayside. So we cannot apply the subjective pieces. It is really just the objective pieces. And to the point, what you were asking, are there other cities that have a model by which we could apply? Absolutely. Okay, so I think the chair is the only one that I think was a part of this process from the very beginning. and has seen the several renditions that have come forward. We've looked at a number of different cities regarding the objective design standards and then whittled it down into something that felt like Ojai. So I would say we're probably like maybe 80% there. There's still more work that needs to be done I think. I was looking at them the other day and they're not quite there yet. There needs to be more discussion basically. But I do think it needs to happen sooner than later, because I'm only seeing more of these Senate bills and Assembly bills coming forward that are specifically referencing, from a ministerial standpoint, objective design standards. So I feel like if that's our play, that's potentially a play that we need to start looking at moving forward. That's where we can hold some of the cards.

I think there's some communities that were affected by the Eaton Fire that had, that have those, that have plans that are, you know, different design plans for rebuilding.

Oh, standard plans.

Yeah, standard plans. And so, you know, you can pick it and it, you know, just one of, I don't know, five designs. And, you know, one might be craftsman and one is Spanish style and one is, and it seems like that could work really well.

When an applicant comes in and has one of those plans and says, but I want to make these changes, how does that work?

Well, now it becomes subjective, right? So you're either working within the, and I'll let the attorneys chime in here, but you're either working within the objective standards or you're not, right?

Yeah, that's kind of the point, is you shouldn't have to evaluate whether or not something complies with the standards. It should be obvious from the nature of the standards. If you've got someone who's submitting an application, if you've got an applicant who's got some part of their plans that are different from the objective standards, that would mean that they're not meeting the standard.

So it gets refused? Does it have to be the same as the model?

You know, okay, so here's what we probably could do is the next meeting I can bring forward what we have at this point so that it gives you at least something when it does go to council and does come forward to discussion and say, hey, we are this close. We think this absolutely needs to be something we finish during this next work cycle, essentially. rather than because right now I'm kind of spitballing without actually having it in front of us yeah this is meant to be the kind of the discussion like the 20,000 foot level you're wanting to get into the weeds I can tell everybody kind of does it's a it's a fun it's how I understand it if I'm not in the weeds I don't yeah you got to stay in the weeds on some of this stuff absolutely the objective design standards you absolutely do because that's the control that that the city continues to have okay all right can we also ask you to discuss allowed use chart yeah so the allowed use chart was something that we brought forward here maybe two months ago I want to say maybe three and there was a subcommittee that was created I think it was of one and

Her bruises have healed also.

There hasn't been much movement with it, but I do think that there's an opportunity, as long as the council's agreeable to it, to really kind of dive into it, but also make sure that it's going in a direction that the council feels supportive of. So I think, like, for instance, if you and I were working on it and we started going down a rabbit hole on something and we're like, shoot, is this something that the city wants to see, having that conversation with council and that joint session I think helps to kind of breed some confidence in terms of what we're doing, right? So there's some value there. For sure.

So it sounds like you all need to get to work.

yeah yeah okay like before june before june well i think what it is is maybe like a kickoff in terms of of some of the things that that um that we're thinking about so that it's not like oh hey we've thought about this no this is this is what we're thinking are we moving in the right direction okay good we have in the past discussed parking fire hardening noise control

and the council in the past, the commission in the past has regarded those as important items. I don't think we can tackle all of them, or at least we need to prioritize things because the joint meeting can only really handle what?

A couple? The fun thing is the joint meetings are now two hours long. Two hours, that's right. Whereas there used to be only one, we've added that extra hour. So it gives a lot of breath for the conversation. across the board I think really kind of in all these items we would come forward with ten items before and we had an hour to do them and we get through two right it was just overwhelming here I think these are all very manageable some of them we've already been working on and started to have the conversation on tackling some of them are very far along and just need that extra nudge to get to the finish line and some of them are way out there Way out there in left field. But certainly something that the community is interested in hearing about. One in particular is undergrounding. Right?

I mean, that one for fire and also just aesthetics. Yeah, big time.

We all like that a lot, but we have come up against a cost issue.

Yeah, it's an interesting conversation. I think there are council members that have expressed interest in it in the past. It's a reason why it was on here from last year. But to be fair, it hadn't been on here in previous years. So it has gained traction from the previous year.

Yeah, I would put that high on my list.

I think we need to prioritize this list and be thinking about any other things that you might want to introduce.

Yes, thank you. I was going to say, if there's others aside from what we have here, I mean, this is the perfect opportunity. Spitballing.

Yeah, I was going to make the comment, you know, being new to the commission here and looking at some of the lists, I certainly see my personal favorite already, but I'm not here just for me, but I do see my personal favorite. But I think, which is undergrounding, actually, just to expose that. But I think it might be interesting to have an understanding of kind of two other vectors, if you will. One is that how far along are we on this issue? You mentioned 80% kind of on some of the issues. Are some of these sitting at zero and some at 80? And that might be kind of handy I see that rating, and then I also think there is a difficulty to execute piece of the puzzle to understand here. Some of this looks like relatively low-hanging stuff that there's been a lot of discussion about. We need to get the ball over the line and do our part to make sure we have the discussion and engagement and be thorough, and then some of it looks like a lot more work to it.

Yeah, I mean, if you want, I can just run that on a list. We've already talked to you about the objective design standards. That's probably 80% there. There's a lot of conversation on it over the last couple years. General design guidelines citywide. There are several design guidelines that are already in place. So it might actually be good to, and so from that conversation, we started recognizing that there are some of these design guidelines that appear to be overlapping. And so having the conversation on what that looks like and whether or not there needs to be revisions to it or if the overlap is actually a positive from that standpoint.

Along with that, the general design guidelines, I'm interested in that one specifically because I think we could go pretty far with that, including public improvements. So I think when you look around the city and the public, this is kind of my, probably my number one issue, is the public improvements around town and how Ojai is very unique. and some neighborhoods have stone curbs some have attached sidewalks there's some detached sidewalks every neighborhood seems to be a little bit different and i think that's okay for ohio and i've seen some new public improvements that have gone in that i don't think look like It looks like anywhere USA. It looks like some suburban. It could be some suburban community in Los Angeles. And I think that those kind of design standards can make a difference on what our community feels like. So I think on some of the recent work, which might be ADA accessible or whatever, they weren't thinking about the neighborhood or the historic nature of the neighborhood just the unique design of that neighborhood. So I think having design guidelines by neighborhood might be good. And we did that with that tree management plan that we have. It's by neighborhoods, and I could see it dovetailing into that because that's also public improvement. You know, in the public right-of-way, we say if you're going to

Yeah, the community forest management plan actually has by neighborhood in terms of the types of trees.

And those are great neighborhood definitions, you know, and trying to have another design guideline with another neighborhood, you know, defined differently is problematic. So I think if we can keep our the definitions that we already have for neighborhoods it'll be less controversial because that can be very controversial if if you say oh you're on the west side and somebody thinks they're in Midtown you know that that doesn't work but since we already have neighborhoods I think that's a good place to start for any new improvements in design guidelines so anyway public improvements I would say needs design guidelines

Absolutely. And just to take it a step further, one of the reasons why this even came up is there was a project on the west end of Ojai that does not have design guidelines. And this body tackled and wrestled with that design for that particular project. I'm not going to name the project, but I think probably most of the commission is aware of it. then basically grounded itself into, well, what are our design guidelines? What do we have that exists? So taking it in that direction, I think at one point we were actually looking at what could possibly be on the west end. But to your point, I think neighborhood-wise also makes a lot of sense, just tearing off what we already have from the street tree standpoint, too. I think that makes a lot of sense.

I think this is a really critical comment because doing a lap of thinking around the how we are going to do it before we consider what we're going to do, how we're going to do it is by neighborhood. How we're going to do it is by giving the local neighborhood some sort of representational space to talk about what they like because I'm thinking of an improvement that doesn't belong in a neighborhood that I saw recently and I'm wondering if it's the one you're thinking of. But yeah, I think that giving some thinking to the how we're going to do it will actually help us to get down to what it is we are going to do. And I love that neighborhood approach actually. I think that's really important.

makes a lot of sense. Parking. 30 seconds on parking. Well, maybe more, but I'll just do the lead in. There's been a lot of conversations in regards to parking ever since I started here, before I was here. There was a couple different studies. I've presented those to this body a couple different times. I could certainly do it again. And every time that we have the conversation, it seems to always lean into We don't necessarily have a parking problem. A lot of times we have a walking problem. And then it then leads into, well if we do have a problem or there is an issue, is there another mechanism that could potentially control that? And the items that have come up are paying by permit and giving certain time limits to the spaces. And the spaces that I'm talking about aren't all over the city. They're really within a node, which is in the downtown area, pretty much. Those conversations have always led down that. Now the question is with this body and what you're looking at here and what I've just presented in 30 seconds, is there more to it that we could potentially be looking at into the future? Because really the parking piece isn't driven by so much the community as it is the tourism that comes in here on the weekends, right? That's the setting of the table conversation. It's a big piece. We've done two, there have been two traffic studies that have been done in the downtown area and both of them showed that there wasn't necessarily a parking issue, that there was definitely ample parking. It was just within the outside areas and the confines of the downtown district, so.

It would be lovely if we could find a parking area lot near downtown. Have we made any progress on that?

It's very hard for me not to talk right now just to tell you guys.

It's an interesting conversation because there are lots that have popped up that are now for sale which had not been previously. One of those lots was before this body at one point. Actually, both of the lots have been before this body through concept and other methods for review.

Lucas, just to understand your comment though, what did the facts say was the problem? What was the factual problem rather than maybe anecdotally how people feel about it?

So one of the things that did come out of it was on Ojai Avenue, there's the perception that there is a traffic situation. And there really is. When you're here on the weekends, everybody knows that. But then that has, for whatever reason, translated to, well, now you have a parking situation. Because of the traffic, clearly, nobody can find a parking spot where everybody's going to the same spot. You're going as close as you can to the destination that you're trying to achieve. when the reality is that there are street parking spaces surrounding, like for instance, the downtown area that are available. But people immediately go to what is the closest spot that they know or the area that they want to go to and they want to park right in front. I feel like I'm saying the same thing over and over again because I've said this before, but it's not a parking problem, it's a people problem. It's really finding those and recognizing that those individuals that are trying to find the spaces And unfortunately, the reality is that they tend to be the tourists that are coming in and not necessarily the ones that already live here. Because the ones that live here, they can easily make that walk. We're four square miles. It's not like this is a... A huge metropolis. The other thing that's very interesting that came out of it is, and I know where to park when I come up here on the weekends. I don't go to the downtown area. I go to Lower Libby. Immediately can park there. Or I go to City Hall right over here. There's always parking. And those are the areas that are included within these parking studies. These are the areas that are the missing piece, the hidden gem that I take advantage of.

Is the empty lot across from City Hall city-owned?

Yes.

Are there plans for it?

No. Nope. No plans at this point.

Okay. I hope that we never get to the point where we put in parking meters, particularly parking meters like Ventura has.

It's come up as a discussion. I'm not saying that I'm pro or con to it But when it comes up we give the facts, you know on both ends and then you weigh the options at that point.

Yeah Okay Go ahead. So my question is also about parking Does this include this discussion include parking standards for parking lots, you know size how many by use all that How many are required by, you know, the use?

I appreciate you just brought that up because I completely forgot that that was one of the pieces that we had talked about last year, which was recognizing that are the existing parking designs or the parking standards and then the number count, are they outdated? And I think they are.

Yeah.

what I keep finding over and over again you're gonna see this with projects that come forward especially affordable housing projects what are the standards that they use they don't use our standards certainly not our standards instead they're using the state standards right so finding through the objective design standards correct me if I'm wrong here but the can the objective design standards include parking standards

So that that depends Okay, my favorite lawyer answer, right? It depends on the kind of project that you're dealing with and whether or not there are already requirements in the code for Maximum or minimum so I'm guessing if it's more restrictive it's a no right less restrictive.

It's a yes and uh... correct that generally yes well then when we look at the objective design standards we'll see if it's whether or not whether or not it's something that can fit within that box if not i think it has an independent timeline from what you're talking about i think i mean they're definitely related because you can be more lenient on your objective design or parking standards if you say have public parking

So if there's an alternative, you can say, okay, instead of a minimum number of parking spaces, we can do a maximum number on site because we have public parking elsewhere.

Right, within a certain vicinity.

Yeah, so instead of being over-parked, you know, I don't think anybody does that anymore, but...

It is the number one challenge that comes up before this body or whenever I'm reviewing applications that come forward is the parking. Because a lot of times you're looking at it and you're looking at almost a one-to-one relationship versus what is really more of a one to two and a half, almost three if you're looking at market rate. The people count is still there, and potentially the vehicle count is still there, but it's being put into a box simply because of the affordability rate. So that's the goal of the state in terms of what we're looking at here right now.

But it would be more palatable if we had public parking.

Yeah, for sure. anyway they're related yep allowed uses we talked about fire hardening fire wise communities some of that has already gotten kicked off and some of that we actually already built into the building code standards and some of that is already something that we've adopted just recently or at least council adopted just recently through the building code updates for 2025 so I'm still leaving that on there just for a conversational piece. If you feel it's not needed, take that off. If you feel like it needs to be highlighted even more, we can certainly expand on that as well. Underground we talked about, it sounds like there's a lot of interest in hearing what that looks like, either near term, mid term, long term. And then, so I'm not gonna necessarily talk about that, because I think there seems to be some interest there. Noise slash sound, right? We have a noise ordinance, like all the rest, I'm sorry, a noise element within our general plan, like a lot of our other elements, they haven't been updated in a while. So there was a conversation piece on whether or not to, one, update that, and then two, whether or not our noise standards needed to be reevaluated as an ordinance, not necessarily as an element within our general plan. So kind of tackling both of those. Neither one of them really went anywhere from last year, but it's something that has remained on this list.

And it always comes up when we have situations brought to us where sound is an element.

It's typically just like parking. It's one of the things we talk about, for sure.

Do we have any other new and...

Some emerging items is what is happening.

Well not that I personally want to go through the process but I think we should is just are all of our elements of the general plan should be up to date so I think we have some pretty old general plan elements and that's a big Herculean effort and I know it cost the city a lot of money you know because oftentimes it's it requires consultants and but it just seems like we need to make sure that all of our general plan elements are up to date.

The difference in the safety element with all of the new fire codes that were incorporated was really impressive and I think you're saying that happens all over the plan that we really need to get at it.

Right, so cat's out of the bag. I've sent you the safety element as a red line, as a clean version for you to review, giving you lots of time to review it. We're not scheduled to discuss that item until mid-May, if I remember correctly. And expect that that's not gonna be the only one through the general plan update, it's going to start with that one, the circulation element, and the land use element. Now, the noise is not included, as this was meant to be kind of just a refresher to some of the big ones. Noise and some of the other ones that we already have are gonna be updated for consistency purposes, but definitely not the overhaul that you're seeing with the safety element and with circulation and land use. You haven't seen the circulation or land use yet, but you will be seeing those soon.

Are you satisfied with the priority of the way these are listed?

Well, is the Planning Commission still involved with approving tree ordinances? Like if there's a certain number of trees, does it come to the Planning Commission?

No. Never? No, because it's a part, it's not within the Zorny ordinance. It's actually a Title IV item versus a Title X.

So Planning Commission, because we, the Planning Commission used to do, if there was a certain number of trees that were being affected, the Planning Commission would be the decision maker?

Yes.

And that's gone away?

It's still in there.

It's still in there.

Yep, so if, and that has actually happened once, where there was a number of trees that were slated for removal, And it didn't quite reach, I think the threshold is five, and it was four. And I was like, I'm bringing it to the commission. Well, the arborist was not happy, but I still did it anyway. I have that authority. It gives me that authority within the ordinance itself. And this body reviewed and tackled the four that were slated for removal. All of them were co-slavos.

OK. Well, I know Mallory Way was one. And I know the Cottages Among the Flowers was another one. So I know the city council had a workshop. And I was kind of offended that the planning commission wasn't invited, because that should have been a joint meeting. because we are the ones who approve these things. So anyway, that should be on the list for us as a joint meeting.

No offense, it wasn't necessarily meant to be offensive towards the Planning Commission or any of the other commissions. Really what it was is we were looking for the expert panel and the arborists and the tree trimmers and the botanists that are out there, biologists that are out there, to weigh in on some of these pieces. And we asked general questions. Obviously, the council was involved in that.

Yeah.

Well, I'm just saying we should have been. It wasn't meant to be offensive.

That's all I'm saying.

Understood. Well, to be fair, not to get off topic, but it still kind of fits within future items under consideration. There is going to be likely a second workshop that we're going to be doing because not all the questions and the categories were covered. I think you just got an invitation. Just be careful what you ask for. It's an opportunity, for sure. Well, and I think it's not necessarily going to have the same experts that we had from before, because we are tackling some different questions and categories.

You know, I think, Lucas, obviously all of us live here and we We have thoughts and things like trees are actually, I would argue, one of the most top three vital issue actually in the city. But what I'm struggling with a little bit is I'm asking myself what Remember when we were talking about affordable housing I said there's a difference between affordable housing for Ojai and affordable housing in Ojai And we we had kind of agreed we want this for Ojai and I'm kind of asking myself What's in Ojai and what's for Ojai in this? As I understand parking this is parking in Ojai is a little bit of the discussion because we know parking for Ojai is Here if you know where to park So that points to that there may be some intermediate solutions like signage and guiding people to the proper place to park and making people aware before we go blow a parking lot out somewhere. Because I think part of our objective design standard should be our main street is not a bunch of parking lots. But I think it would be interesting if there were a mechanism or something additional that we could see from the staff reporting of understanding What will the people of this city give us the most credit for? What is their highest level of need in what they see that these objective or these discussion items are? What's most important to them? And having a sense of that. We all have anecdotal conversations. We have neighbors, friends. We all know. But somewhere I would like for somebody to say, well, hey, we did some fact finding. And here's what we found, actually. We do feel like there's an interim step of a bunch of signs that guide people where to park. We have some sensitivity around neighborhoods because the formerly empty street in front of Bart's Books or wherever is now filled 24-7 with Obviously, we've seen changes on the where a road blur us that street used to be a Desert and now it's filled with cars, you know every day and that's okay but I would like a sense of kind of where where would the the The customer of Ojai which is I see at the resident Where would the customer give us the most credit for the work we can do here? And and how do we offer that service best to them?

Yeah Okay, so.

And maybe that lives somewhere and I'm unaware of it, but if it is, it'd be helpful to know.

It could be that we end up generating some sort of a survey that is only, that is geared only to the residents of Ojai. There have been surveys that have been done that are Ojai, the outer Ojai Valley, or business owners. But here, we're just looking for those individuals that live, that breathe here.

Yeah, maybe the ground rules could be pay a little, learn a lot. We're going to put a few signs up around parking, pay a little bit, see what we learn, take the next step from there.

So you're talking about wayfinding signs to help?

I'm just putting that out there. When you tell me you know exactly where to go, and then I hear that the tourists don't

Yeah, but it's a lore. I know where to go because I've been up here enough times. Right, right. And I've experienced the space.

Right.

For someone who's coming up here on a Saturday that's never been here and they're just using ways to get up here.

Yeah. They're going immediately. Drops you right in front of the post office. Yes.

So they're in the bottleneck that is what I avoid, and I think all of us here probably avoid as well.

Yeah, and we want to avoid, I think I'm in agreement with you, we want to avoid every two hours the entire town rotating because of the parking meters. That would be a nightmare.

Yeah, obviously there's pros and cons to that. Yeah.

So I do think the survey is good. I'm leery of the last 20% being the hardest, and so I don't want to slow us down. My experience is getting to 80% on stuff is kind of easy, and then the 20% kills you. And so I don't want to slow the process down, but I would like to have an understanding. Even as you mentioned the trees, it's like that, in objective design standards, that should be like item one, arguably.

Okay, I've added survey and I'm gonna call it a community survey or maybe even a residential survey because I think the the interest here that you're that you're thinking about and I'd be curious to hear from the rest of the Commission is Not necessarily to those that are on the outside of the community, but those that are actually in the community. Not to say that those on the outside don't, within the valley itself or even within Miner's Oaks, don't frequent this area on the regular, right? But we're looking at those individuals that live and breathe here seven days a week, right? The property owners, right? Or even, okay, so property, I'm sorry, property owners, renters, those ones that are in the community.

Yes, to me, that distinction of in Ojai or for Ojai is a big one, and I think we should deal with the people who live in Ojai and give them the say. One way of looking at it is just the simple rule of who's paying the salaries of the people doing the work? They're the people that should be considered first.

OK, so that's a good one. I'm adding that in. Here's what I think would be helpful as the step two to this. Now remember, this is 20,000 foot level. Guess what's going to happen at the next meeting? Each of these items are going to have something associated with it. The objective design standards, you're going to see what that looks like today. in terms of how far we've gone. And I'll probably even give you either minutes or the staff reports that went along with that. So there'll be a lot of information for you to go through for this one. The general design guidelines, I'll give you what we have and what we enforce today. All of the different guidelines that we enforce today. Obviously there's a conversation about taking that and adding to it and potentially looking at additional guidelines. Absolutely. Start with the baseline, though. This is what we have currently. And then go from there. Go ahead.

So it sounds like we can postpone prioritizing these and giving you a list of our priorities until after that conversation.

This was just meant to be a conversation at this point to see if there's appetite for any of these items, for all these items, for additional items. It sounds like we want to add to the list, which is great. uh... parking i'll give you the two parking studies that were done as well as probably the staff report the most recent stuff report that was put together for to kind of explaining and get some history to it they allowed you start we've already talked about that here so it'll be just a continuation of what we've already seen uh... fire hardening fire wise communities there were some pamphlets and some information that we had put together I'm sorry. We didn't put together. All we had, we just took the information that was already put together and saying, hey, is this what we want to do? And I'll even identify some of the stuff that is now in the building code that wasn't there before.

Forget the parking ordinance with parking.

Oh, yes. Okay, sorry. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to write that down. Undergrounding. I think there was only very limited information. I can't remember what I had put together last year. But I'll look what we have last year, and then we'll start with that. There wasn't a whole lot that was done. I know council had had that conversation. And I think it was on our priorities list, right?

I'm going to give a little report, and I'll just share a couple little details. Are we doing that?

sure yeah are we okay with that we're good with that i think we've we've probably come to the end of this in any case i'm rounding third here we're coming okay yeah no thanks and this will just be my general um so just a couple quick things one would be

I think on the parking ordinance, one question that came up in the past was outdoor dining. That was another question that we were gonna look at because that doesn't seem perfectly clear. My suggestion, but I wanna hear exactly what you guys want to do, of course, in this joint session. On the parking, if we said we're going to take a half of this meeting of that joint session and talk about parking I'd be completely up for it because there's many factors we could look at the we could look at the reports the chamber did a report we could say all right so what are parking lots that we're literally looking at purchasing or you know converting what are places where there isn't a parking lot right now that we're thinking about potentially being a parking lot. How does the trolley and the trolley service make sense here? Even with things that are coming like the inn and what they're doing across from Attiliha, et cetera. We could talk definitely for an hour and say, here's many aspects of parking that we can talk about that are, it's traffic slash parking. I would love that. Especially to get many kinds of ideas and then if we could say, well, like to your point, Brad, like what's the low hanging fruit here? What could we do easily that's completely in our control? What's not in our control that we're waiting for Caltrans to give us permission. Easy example, parking in front of Jim and Rob's in Westridge, which there used to be parking on the street. There's not now. We're asking them to do it. They have to give us permission to do it. We don't get to decide that ourselves. But that's kind of a low hanging fruit to give us some more spots. Anyway, I would highly recommend that as a main feature. I will tell you on the fire, I mean on the undergrounding, we did talk with SCE at length. In the urban sector, it's up to $4 million a mile. And the wait list is about eight years. And the vast majority of the neighborhoods that are doing the utility undergrounding are for aesthetic purposes paid for primarily by the neighborhood. That means a rich neighborhood putting their money together because they want it underground. So what SCE is really leaning towards, because especially in California, where we are in our fire zones, is they're replacing poles. You probably noticed that poles, when they do get replaced now, they're not the wood anymore. They're that material. And if you notice the lines that have, it looks like insulation on the line. That is what it does is it makes it basically more flexible in a big wind event, and also it automatically de-charges the line. So they're completely opting for that instead of undergrounding. So we'd have to figure out if we were going to underground, it would be, not say it can't be done, but it would be a lot of money to do it. Just throwing it out there. So yeah, everybody wants it. It's not the low-hanging fruit. It's the big, big deal fruit. Yeah.

I know in our ordinance if you do a subdivision that you're required to do undergrounding from the street to the to the zone but tell me if that's not correct but anything that's new well I think that a subdivision is what triggers undergrounding along in the street Anytime you do any new house, you have to do undergrounding from the street to the house.

Right, right, right.

But a subdivision triggers, you know, it's discretionary, at least it used to be, you know, and... We can look at that.

It is with an asterisk.

Yeah, and I believe there's something in our code that says if you do a subdivision, you have to underground along the street.

Okay, so... In my time here, I have yet to do a subdivision, either parcel map or track map, to be fair. I would have to look and see what Chapter 3 says specifically. It could be folded into it.

My point is we can be creative and create districts, or maybe neighbors want to do something, and I think you can put it on your tax bill and extend it over time. I think things like that can be done.

We can certainly I'm happy of course to talk about it just to say at least the we started to do that about a year ago and when SCE came and they met with all of us at City Hall and they brought their team and it would seem pretty daunting not to say it can't be done but just very expensive and then I love the idea of the objective design standards I think that's incredible we should definitely do that so just my report to you is going to be there are four candidates for the spot here I've forwarded them to the council person who's next to choose I will follow up tomorrow but we just filled a Parks and Rec Commission so now we're on to this so we definitely want to fill this right away so that's coming and then you may have seen that we approved the Cabin Village forwarding last night and we're looking at Habitat tomorrow and yeah I'm very excited about whatever you guys want to bring in even if it's even if a portion of this joint meeting is can we just talk about our vision for the future of Ohio I would be up for that too I mean it could be specific like parking ideas it could be undergrounding design standards or what do we see as our vision for how things go I'm up for that too whatever you guys want Great, thanks.

I have a question, Lucas. Getting a good output means making sure you have the inputs right. So for example, one input that we may be purchasing as a city, but do we currently purchase Google data for Waze and Maps?

Not that I'm aware of.

Into the city? To me, that would be a basic input, especially as a smaller city, a basic input would be to buy the Google data to understand factually where are the people going.

Okay, so...

Are you talking traffic?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's what he's getting at. May I respond, Chair? Just this. People that live on Creek Road, one of the main ways that tourists do come in is it takes them on Creek Road and it brings them up Montgomery.

Yeah, Waze is diverting.

So two points. One is one study that the chamber had done when they looked at traffic, and most of it comes right out of Montgomery, like in the very worst part, especially because they want to make a left, which is almost impossible. But imagine if you had a parking lot, hypothetically speaking, where OUSD is, that lawn part that's right there along Montgomery where there's nothing, it's just sitting there as a lawn. If there was a parking lot there that had 30 spots, that's one idea that we would talk about in this joint piece. But one idea that the county's tried to work on with Google is to get people to basically not think of Creek Road as a main way in. And so they have worked, I know Supervisor LeVere's tried, and I hope he's made some success to try it. I guess it has to do with where the center of town is thought of in ways, or in Google. You can move that. So it's kind of like City Hall gets put as the center of town, which it's not really.

anyway yeah and i have a lot of interaction with people traveling into town and google puts you out on creek road which is i would argue the most dangerous one of the more dangerous highway entrances i don't know what the numbers are but it's a dangerous little tricky little spot to come out on and then it also takes you through santa paula over the 150 which also has its own challenges. But I would think we could understand that data. I do agree moving the data point to the center of the city could be an interesting thing to look at. Move it to Vons.

Move it to Maricopa Highway.

It suddenly moves to Miners Oak. Change the context of what we're talking about. No longer Creek is the way to go. Let me see if I can come back with some information on that and see if our IT has done it. They're doing a lot of things offline right now, and I'm curious to see if they've been thinking about that.

Good. Okay, are we complete on this item? Any other comments?

So expect more information for the next one, right?

Perfect. Perfect. OK. Thank you, Mayor, for coming and sharing. The next item that we turn to is training. We are going to be learning about the Brown Act. and the Historic Preservation Commission roles and responsibilities. I don't know why we are getting that but it's on my agenda.

Yours says historic preservation?

Yes. It said that last time we had it as well and I pointed that out.

Okay, it's just the Brown Act.

It's just the Brown Act and it's for the Planning Commission, but mine...

It's the Brown Act and Planning Commission roles and responsibilities.

Because it was noticed incorrectly?

I brought that up on what came to me, but what we see on the website says, what I'm looking at right here says Planning Commission. And I brought that up, and you said it was changed.

Yeah, mine says, so yours doesn't say planning commission. Mine says planning commission. That's weird. Well, I apologize for that, that you ended up getting that instead. Either way, it is for planning commission. That is what we're talking about tonight. Ida, can you pull up the slide deck? Or do you guys have access to the slide deck?

Hello everyone, my name is Lisa Tarosian. I'm a senior associate at LHR and Winder. I'm happy to be here with you all today to review the roles and responsibilities pertaining to your membership on a commission with the city of Ojai. In the interest of time, I'm gonna skip over some of the information contained in these slides. Don't worry, you should have already received a copy of these slides in case you want to review them, any of the information in them that's contained in them in a future time. If you have any questions, please save them for the end. Your questions may be answered the further we go along. So let's get started. As you know, a city's boards, committees, and commissions are a vital support system for any city, and the better they function, the better a city can serve its residents. That is why it's important for members of these groups to be well informed of their roles, responsibilities, and applicable laws. Boards commissions and committees are established by the OMC. The current ones are the Planning Commission the Parks and Recreation Commission the Historic Preservation Commission the Arts Commission and the Buildings Appeals Board. There is also the Finance and Budget Commission. This committee is I'm sorry the Finance and Budget Committee. This committee is advisory to city council and does not possess independent decision making authority. Members are appointed by a committee composed of the mayor, a rotating city council member, and the chair or vice chair. The nominating committee must reach a unanimous decision for each nominee to be confirmed by the city council. If a majority of the full city council declines to accept nominee proposed by a unanimous vote of the nominating committee, the nominating committee begins the process again and interviews candidates from the existing applicant pool to select a new nominee. until the City Council confirms the nominees nominating committee's choice Vacancies created midterm are filled in the same manner qualifications for members are described in the respective agencies ordinance a To join a board commission or committee, you must take an oath and sometimes be required to submit a statement of economic interests. You will also be expected to participate in ethics training within a year of appointment and every two years. You may know this as the AB 1234 and AB 1825 trainings. However, recent legislation has changed the timeline for ethics training, which we will discuss later. You will also be expected to complete sexual harassment prevention training within six months of appointment and every two years thereafter. Members serve four year terms and there are no exceptions except for the youth commissioner of the Parks and Recreation Commission who is limited to one two year term. All committee members must also serve until their successor is appointed and qualified. Members serve at will and may be removed for any reason. Some examples of reasons are excessive absences, verbal or physically abusive behavior, violations of ethics policies, violation of city policies, and conflicts of interest. Committee appointments are non-political appointments. There is a process and procedure for the removal of members. That process and procedure first starts with two city council members advising the city manager of their intent to place an item on an upcoming agenda to consider the removal of the committee member. 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Once nominations are complete, a vote on the nominees in the order of nominations is taken. The nominee receiving votes from the majority of members in attendance will be appointed. If no member receives a majority, the process shall be repeated, except in the event of a tie between the two top vote getters, at which point there will be a runoff. Some boards commissions and committees function a purely advisory role while others also have decision making responsibilities functioning in a quasi judicial quasi legislative role. All committees serve in an advisory role to the city council and advisory role for example includes recommending changes to the OMC if the change is within the committee's jurisdiction. Both informal and formal means of communication may be used to fulfill this advisory role. Formally community recommendations related to city actions may be presented at city council meetings as individual agenda items or as action meetings. Other board commissions and committees may also have decision-making responsibilities and function in hearing mode from time to time, which is a quasi-judicial role. These responsibilities include the granting of permits and the hearing of appeals. The Planning Commission is a quasi-judicial committee. The other ones are the Historic Preservation Committee and the Buildings Appeals Board. Recommendations to city council are made through formal action, meaning by motion and vote, and sometimes the approval of a resolution. Committee committees may also perform additional duties that are assigned to it by city council ad hoc committees may also be formed by committee vote to accomplish a specific goal within a given time frame ad hoc committee membership must be less than the quorum of the committee ad hoc committees are also expected to give regular reports on the progress of their specific goal. Members are expected to review the agenda materials, attend meetings, participate in discussion, and vote on agenda items. If a member is unable to attend a meeting, they should notify the committee chair as soon as practical. Members of the committee shall attend in person unless arrangements are made in advance for attendance by teleconference. The chairperson presides over the meeting as well as has the other responsibilities listed on the slide under chairperson. As a chairperson appears on behalf of the committee when appearing before city council the chair may only speak on behalf of the committee on a topic where an action was approved by a vote of the committee. Each committee also has a city council liaison who facilitates the committee's work and communication and communicates information back to city council. The council liaison does not participate in committee discussions. There are two types of meetings. There are regular and special. 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Committee members are subject to FPPC investigations at the event complaints are filed regarding Brown Act violations. The combined effect of serial meetings may inappropriately be a meeting of a quorum of committee members. For example, if a member of a seven member committee speaks to more than two other members, it may constitute a serial meeting. Inadvertent use of email, like the careless use of the reply all function, can also result in serial meetings. Engaging in discussion of city business on social media can also lead to a serial meeting. A quorum is a majority of members. There can be no meeting of a committee unless a quorum is present. If less than a quorum is present, any discussion by that group is characterized as a committee of the whole, but no record is made of this occurrence and no decisions can be made. All boards, commissions, and committees are subject to the Ralph M. Brown Act, colloquially known as the Brown Act, which is found in the California Government Code. Under the act, all meetings must be open to the public. However, the Brown Act does not limit an official acting in his or her own capacity. meaning you have the right to confer with your constituents, advocates, consultants, news reporters, or to talk to your staff or colleague, but you must make sure you are not discussing official committee business to avoid a serial meeting. The use of direct communication intermediaries or technology to develop a collective concurrence outside of a meeting is considered a serial meeting and therefore prohibited. The seriousness of serial meetings cannot be stressed enough and the internet makes it very much easier for members of his legislative body to communicate with each other and their constituents in ways that make it easier to have a serial meeting. To avoid this, a good social media rule is to not react, share or comment on a post or comment by another member of the body. I know I just gave you a lot of instructions on what to do to avoid having a serial meeting, but that should not discourage you from having individual communications or contacts with other members about noncommittee matters. There is no prohibition on attending public conferences or local agency meetings or other local agency meetings, community meetings and social gatherings. Informational meetings with staff are also not a violation of the Brown Act. This slide is just some additional information about social media communication I already discussed in the previous slide that you can review for additional guidance if you're curious. The agenda constitutes the roadmap for the meeting. The format and sequence of a committee's agenda is discussed in detail in the handbook and I would refer you to that if you need additional details. 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The proper interruption would be point of privilege the chair would then ask the interrupter to state your point appropriate points of privilege relate to anything that would interfere with the normal comfort or amplification of the meeting for example if the room is too hot or too cold the second is order the proper interruption would be point of order again the chair would ask the interrupter to state your point Appropriate points of order relate to anything that would not be considered appropriate conduct for the meeting. For example, if the chair moved onto a vote on the motion, that permits debate without allowing that debate. Third is appeal. If the chair makes a ruling that a member of the body disagrees with, that member may appeal the ruling of the chair. The proper interruption is, I appeal the ruling of the chair. If the motion is seconded and after debate it passes by a simple majority vote, then the ruling of the chair is deemed for worst. The fourth is withdraw motion. 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Effective January 1st, 2026, SB 827 also expands the ethics training mandate to all department heads or other similar administrative officers, regardless of their designation and the agency's conflict of interest code. Certain members will also be required to complete fiscal and financial trainings every two years. SB 827 only exempts county auditors, treasurers, and tax collectors from fiscal and financial trainings. SB 827 also expands records disclosable under the California Public Records Act to include those trainings, the records of which must be retained for at least five years. Also starting July 1st, 2026, an agency must post on its website instructions and contact information regarding how to request those records that we just discussed. The city has a policy against using copyrighted works. The purpose of this policy is to protect the city from the legal and operational challenges that are associated with the use of copyrighted materials during public meetings. A best practice is to not use any of those materials at the meeting. If you need more information regarding this, please refer to the site. And now we're going to get into the specific roles and responsibilities pertaining to your membership in the Planning Commission. I hope I still have all your attention, I'm so sorry. The Planning Commission serves an important role in the city and is responsible for acting in an advisory capacity to city council to make sure future developments are congruous and realize the vision of the city council and ultimately the Ojai Committee. The commission is responsible for the thoughtful planning of public and private buildings, public spaces and parks, and maintaining the unique characteristics of the city of Ojai. The objective of diving more in depth regarding your specific roles on the planning commission is to familiarize you with the laws that govern your position, the procedures necessary to properly effectuate your position, and most importantly, the responsibilities specific to you and your role on the commission. All commission appointments are non-political appointments. At least two members of the commission will be persons having distinctly separate training or experience from the fields of architecture, art, building construction, civil engineering, land use planning, land use law, urban planning, or landscape design. While it is preferred that all members of the commission have primary residence and be domiciled within the city, a maximum of two members of the commission may have primary residence or be domiciled outside the city if it is determined necessary by city council. Three members of the commission constitute a quorum without regard to residency. The members of the planning commission are appointed for terms of four years, expiring at the first regular city council meeting in May. Commissioners serve at will, meaning that they may be removed for any reason. We discussed the procedure for removing a commissioner in a previous slide. The planning commission elects its chair and vice chair from among its members and appoints a secretary who does not need to be a member of the commission. Officers serve for a period of one year. The Planning Commission is prohibited from incurring any expense for the preparation of maps, plots, or any other purpose. In those circumstances, the Planning Commission files its recommendations and requests with the city council, who is then responsible for incurring that debt in the name of the city in a matter that is consistent with the law, deemed proper in the premises, and authorized in the annual budget. The Planning Commission's powers and duties are set forth in OMC Chapter 10-1.04. I'm going to provide you with a broad overview of them. If you need any further information regarding any of these points, please refer to the slides as well as the Ojai Municipal Code that is cited for you. The powers and duties of the Planning Commission are limited to acting in an advisory capacity to City Council in matters pertaining to development and modifications of the general plan, advising and recommending plans for different services to City Council, making recommendations regarding tentative plans, tentative maps of proposed subdivisions to city council to do all things necessary to carry out the planning and zoning laws and regulations contained in the municipal code. For example, conditional use permit requests, concept reviews, design review permit requests, tree permits, and also to perform any other duties that are necessary. The commission plays an important quasi-judicial role for the city that we discussed briefly previously, meaning it not only acts in an advisory capacity to city council on all planning and developmental issues, but it also makes decisions that assure that all land use decisions, including individual projects, are consistent with the policies and plans adopted by the city. In this role, the Commission has the following roles and responsibilities. To assist in developing the focus and policies in the general plan and participate in public meetings supporting the plan's content and goals. To oversee the development of specific plans or community plans and participate in public engagement events, including public hearings. To review, hold hearings, and act upon zoning ordinances, maps, conditional use permits, variances, and subdivision applications. Review individual projects for consistency with the general plan and any applicable specific plans zoning ordinance and other land use policies and regulations to annually review the capital improvements program and public risk projects for consistency with the general plan to coordinate local plans and programs with those of other local regional and state agencies. to report on the general plan consistency of proposed public land acquisitions or disposals. Oversee and facilitate special planning studies as needed. The Planning Commission has a quasi-digital role in the city's land use permits. See table 4-1 in the OMC section cited if you need a graph overview of the land use permits. It also contains a table version of the information contained in this slide. The commission has authority to review and make recommendations to city council for certain applications and is a decision making body with regards to others. The commission is a review and recommendation body to city council for amendments to the general plan, zoning map and zoning development agreements, specific plans, tentative parcel and final maps. The commission is a final decision making body for conditional use permits, design review permits, development permits, plan development permits, and variances. The Planning Commission is the appeal body, meaning it hears appeals from final determinations from other bodies for home occupation permits, interpretations, lot line adjustments, minor conditional use permits, minor variances, sign permits, temporary use permits, and zoning clearances. Activities and uses requiring a conditional use permit are so unique that their effect on the surrounding environment cannot be determined before being proposed for a particular location. The purpose of this permit is to allow certain uses that may be appropriate with conditions to ensure compatibility with surrounding uses. The land use activities listed in article two through seven of the city's zoning regulations may be allowable uses subject to prior approval of the conditional use permit. The commission is a review authority for CUPs and the community development director is a review authority for minor CUPs. The commission holds a public hearing upon receipt of a CUP application and makes a final decision that is appealable to city council. In making its decision, the commission must make certain findings before it approves an application and may even impose certain conditions on the approval of the CUP. These required findings are discussed in greater detail in OMC section 10-2.2406 and include consistency with general plan and the city's applicable zoning regulations, design location size and operating characteristic, of the proposed use are compatible with the existing and future land uses. The use would not create significant noise, traffic or other detrimental conditions or be adverse to the public interest, health, safety, convenience or welfare of the city. There would be no potential significant negative effects upon environmental quality and natural resources. Compliance with the provisions of CEQA are the city's environmental review procedures and that there are adequate provisions for public access, water, sanitation and public utilities and services. Moving on to design review permits, to continue the charm and attraction of the unique architecture of the city, the purpose of a design review permit is to ensure that developments are consistent with the city's character and community design standards. The commission acts as the final decision maker and has authority to approve conditionally approve or deny projects in reviewing applications. The commission is to consider the centers are discussed in the OMC. I'm not going to read the OMC citations for you. They're listed for you on the slides. Some of those standards are building design massing and scale site layout landscaping lighting and signage visual harmony with surroundings protection of scenic and aesthetic qualities Appropriate scale bulk and materials and the Commission should also refer to any design guidelines or policies that were adopted by City Council or the Commission itself to ensure consistency The Commission is also required to make specific findings prior to their approval or design review permit which are discussed in greater detail in the municipal code Some of those findings are compliant with zoning regular some of those so those findings are compliance with zoning regulations no adverse effect on surrounding property and compliant lighting and signage and certain supplemental findings in cases of developments with direct access to state highways. The purpose of a variance is to allow relief from zoning standards because of special or unique circumstances applicable to the property, including location, shape, size, surrounding, or topography. A variance may be granted to secure an appropriate improvement to a parcel to prevent unreasonable hardship, which doesn't include financial hardship, or to promote the uniformity of improvements. The Commission must hold a public hearing and has authority to make a final determination regarding variances, and that decision is appealable to city council as well. The commission may also impose conditions on approval. The commission may grant a variance when special physical circumstances exist. These physical circumstances are discussed in detail in the OMC and include the size, shape, and topography. After hearing, the commission is required to make the specific findings that are detailed in the OMC prior to their approval of the permit. This includes that the special circumstances are applicable to the party, that the permit is necessary for the enjoyment of a property right and no special privilege is granted, consistent with the general plan and zoning intent of the city, and not detrimental to public health, safety, welfare, or nearby properties. The city's zoning regulations are administered by the City Council, Planning Commission, Community Development Director, Historic Preservation Commission, and the Community Development Department. The Planning Commission specifically has the authority to adopt rules for the transaction of business and keep public record of its action, recommend adoption, implementation, and periodically review recommend revisions to the general plan and zoning regulations, to grant final approval of design review permits, CUPs, plan development, sign programs, variances, certificates of approval of appropriate environmental documentation in compliance with CEQA, and all of these determinations are subject to appeal with the city council. They are also required to make final determinations, recommendations to city council for development agreements, general plan amendments, specific plans, tentative track maps, zoning map amendments, zoning ordinance amendments, and other applicable ordinances or regulations which are zoning in nature. The Planning Commission makes final determinations regarding proposed development and new land use permits. I'm going to briefly touch upon the requirements. If you need more information, please consult the listed municipal code section. So the commission's approvals are to comply with the city's requirements, but the following requirements. The use is all available in the zoning district. The permit is obtained before. The use structure compliance with city zoning regulations and zoning district standards. meaning property development standards, affordable housing requirements and incentives, creek site development standards, exterior lighting standards, et cetera. The use structure compliance with any applicable conditions of approval imposed by any previously granted land use other approval. The use structure is Established on land legally created in compliance with the subdivision map act The youth structure complies with any applicable development agreement approved by the city in compliance with the OMC In reaching the its determination the Commission must be aware of these requirements and contain their oral and written discussion only to these requirements This is imperative as a decision may be appealed to City Council at which time the Commission's final decision will come under scrutiny The Planning Commission is advisory agency for divisions of real property pursuant to the city's codified subdivision regulations, as well as the Subdivision Map Act. In this capacity, the commission makes recommendations as to findings, requirements, conditions, approvals, and disapprovals, but does not possess the authority to approve, conditionally approve, or disapprove proposed subdivisions. However, for lot line adjustments that exceed a 10% increase or decrease in the area of any affected parcel, the planning commission, not the planning director, is the decision maker. Any interested person dissatisfied with the decision of the planning commission with respect to the proposed lot line adjustment may appeal their decision to city council. The commission is also responsible for reviewing all projects for compliance with CEQA and or the city's environmental review standards. The city's environmental review procedures follow CEQA guidelines unless a project is proved to be exempt. In that case, it will be subject to city environmental guidelines to determine whether, one, the proposed project is exempt from the requirements of CEQA, Two, the proposed project is not a project as defined by CEQA. Three, whether a negative declaration may be issued. Or four, whether an environmental impact report shall be required. The Commission is the appeal hearing body from the final determination of other agencies, as we discussed previously. All appeal hearings conducted by the Commission shall be open to the public. The Commission may grant a continuance of the hearing date upon a request and showing of good cause. The request must be made in writing and received by the Commission at least five business days prior to the hearing date. If the landlord is a party requesting an extension, the landlord must personally deliver a copy of the request to the affected tenant. In no event shall the continuance be longer than 15 calendar days from the from the originally scheduled hearing date. After considering all the testimony and evidence submitted at hearing, within 20 calendar days after the conclusion of the hearing, the commission must issue a written decision denying, affirming, or modifying the decision, and adopt written findings in support of that decision. If a tenant is the appealing party, or if the landlord is the appealing party, and the appeal concerned a tenant petition for noncompliance, the commission shall serve a copy of the written decision to the landlord and the tenant concurrently. Any person directly agreed by the Commission's decision pertaining to a request for appeal may seek judicial review in the Superior Court. The following few slides, including this one, I am only going to briefly touch upon. Please refer to the municipal code sections that are listed if you need, should you need more information. The Commission is also responsible for making decisions on applications for condominium conversions. They are required to make affirmative findings prior to the approval of conversion project condominium conversion projects. The Commission is required, unless it decides to waive, to subject approval of all condominium conversion projects to the conditions discussed in the Ojai Municipal Code. For example, to comply with all existing zoning and subdivision requirements, to have separately metered and built gas, electricity, and water within each dwelling unit, to have shock-mounted, isolated, permanent mechanical equipment, electrical plumbing mechanical fire and life safety systems and good repair a separate laundry facilities etc. Any applicant or aggrieved person can appeal the commission's decisions to city council. OK and we're talking about this a little bit before so when we're more than five or a combination of oak sycamore heritage trees are to be cut down removed or relocated on a single parcel of real property the application must be referred to the commission for recommendation to the director. Unusual cases where less than five trees are involved may also be referred to the commission by the director. The granting or denial of a permit is subject to the discretion of the commission. and based on but not limited to the criteria that is summarized in this slide. You can again look at them and see if you need further information about that criteria. Any decision issued by the community development director on a permit application for less than five trees including required mitigation and conditions may be appealed to the planning commission within 10 days after the decision has been rendered by submitting the appropriate administrative appeal fees and written statement describing the reasons for appeal. A landlord or affected tenant who wishes to contest the director's decision on a rent adjustment application, a tenant petition for noncompliance or any other rent stabilization decision may file a request for appeal of the director's decision within 15 calendar days. If a landlord decides, desires to increase the rent of a unit in an amount greater than 4%, then the landlord contends that the limitations on rent increases and the Ojai Municipal Code will prevent them from receiving a fair and reasonable return, the landlord may file a rent adjustment application with the community development director to request an increase in rent beyond the amount permitted. The decision of the community development director may be appealed to the commission. If a tenant contends that a proposed or actual rent increase is not in compliance with the code and that there has been a reduction in housing services a tenant may file a petition with the community development director. Tenant petitions for noncompliance will be considered and determined by the director and the director's decision may be appealed to the Planning Commission. At the hearing, the appealing party shall be given the opportunity to testify, call witnesses, and present evidence. The commission may also hear testimony and consider evidence offered by tenants in affected rental units, and if a tenant is the appealing party, to hear and consider written evidence offered by the landlord. The Planning Commission hears and decides appeals and requests for variances from the requirement of the city's flood protection regulations. The Commission hears and decides appeals when it is alleged that there is an error in any requirement, decision, or determination made by the floodplain administrator in the enforcement or administration of the city's flood protection regulations. In passing upon such applications, the Planning Commission shall consider all technical evaluations, relevant factors, and the standards summarized in this slide. Upon consideration of these factors the Planning Commission may attach conditions it deems necessary to the granting of variances. The determination of the community development director regarding the compliance or the granting or denial of an exemption with the city's regulations regarding prohibitions of natural gas infrastructure in new buildings and certain new residential units may also be appealed to the commission. An appeal should be filed in writing to the commission and processed together with possible future appeals to the city council. The commission should review the appeal based solely on whether the project meets the criteria and definition of infeasibility. Wireless communication facilities will include landscaping buffer and at least four feet wide outside the perimeter of the ground mounted equipment and be maintained in accordance with the OMC. The Commission may increase, reduce, or waive the required landscaping when it finds that a different requirement would be better to serve the public interest. The Planning Commission is required to consider the factors summarized in this slide when determining whether to issue a conditional use permit. The planning commission may waive or reduce the burden of one or more of these criteria on the applicant if the commission concludes it necessary to serve the purpose of the codified regulations. Exceptions to the wireless communication standards may be granted by the city when appropriate or necessary to comply with state and federal law. Exceptions are subject to review and approval of the planning commission and city council. The burden is on the applicant to prove significant gaps and least intrusive means as required. All right. Yay. Thank you for your attention, everyone. This concludes my presentation. If you have any questions, now is the time. I'm so sorry it took so long. You made it.

Yay. No, we all made it.

It was a group project, I feel.

I have one question.

Go ahead. Sorry. Just the natural gas, wasn't there something where regulating natural gas was against PUC regulations? What's the update on that? I thought that was considered something that the cities couldn't regulate.

It's very limited to what's in the OMC, essentially.

Okay, so that's up to date, the OMC? Yes. Okay.

Yeah, so basically it's only single-family residential. So we cannot go after commercial.

I see. Because there's so many commercial kitchens that use gas stoves and ovens?

Correct. So I think there was a restaurant association is the group that really went after it. So we tailored it back, and now it's referred to as the flux path. So it gives a menu of options by which to abide by.

Okay, any other questions Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you Okay, we are on to future agenda items Yes

Okay, so if you look at the tentative agenda for May 6th and May 20th, we actually have one item on there tentatively. It's the objective design standards or consider cancellation. It's really up to this body if you want to get into the meat and potatoes of it for me to provide that information and for us to just have that discussion kind of on a platform. We could certainly do that. We could fold it into the May 20th meeting as well. There are a number of items and obviously the safety element as a red line update discussion is on there. It doesn't have to be just one meeting, but I will just let you know that on the 20th we will have our consultant virtually. So certainly there will be a presentation on it and certainly I expect a well-versed conversation. Oh, I should also note, you may see an item that has already been before this body, which is the zone change. Oh, no, that's not the one. Yeah, okay. So it's the zone change for 1124 Maricopa Highway. So that one came before this body with a notification period that was incorrect by virtue of recent modifications that were done to state law. So state law actually requires for zone changes or changes to the zoning code to be done in a 20 day noticing format and not a 10 day noticing format and that was a recent law change. So we were preparing for City Council, but we've got to go through this body. No changes are being proposed from what you had seen previously, but we have to notice it correctly.

Okay.

And aside from that, there's a number of pending items dating back to 2023. Some of those are just sitting, to be fair.

Sit they should okay So you would like our opinion on whether we have the objective design standards for the next meeting I Leave it to the bottom week.

We could push it the 20th.

I am open to either one It sounds to me like that safety element red line update discussion could be fairly long I think you should expect that

And just to be fair, the Maricopa Highway is really just, it's not any changes to what you've seen, so it's pretty straightforward. The zone change for 107 North Ventura Street, that was brought forward as a concept review. So you'll be seeing a very similar project format from what was brought forward before. And obviously there'll be an update within the staff report as to what has either changed or modifications since the concept review.

You would like the meeting? on design the first We need to do it. Can we do it by?

I only put it on there as a discussion item as a possibility simply because unlike some of the other items, this one does have a shot clock and while HCD has accepted our annual progress report, in the annual progress report it also requires us to update all of our programs. They accepted that we are moving forward but I they did put the caveat saying, how come this was supposed to be done in 2024? And I said, yes, we're 80% there. And they're like, okay. And I listed the dates by which we've already been hearing it. So I'd like to remain in good graces with HCD, at least at this point. And I think having the objective design standards in a spot that is that can be recommended by this body and then brought before city council should be on the minds of all commission, of the commission here. Whether we do it on the sixth, the 20th, or even recognizing that the joint meeting.

It's early June, so.

Yep. Which is the reason why I put it on for the sixth. I prefer. But obviously having the conversation.

Do you have a feeling about this, Fred?

Well, I think I'm okay with it as a discussion item on the sixth. If you kind of chunked out what we talked about as inputs, could we have a report of a first input by then so that we materially have something to discuss and then you can truly say to HCD, hey, we got a few pieces to this on the glide path to getting it done. And we discussed one and we're now 85% there or something like that.

I mean the I think the hope is is to get to to the point where this body is is ready to make a recommendation so I think we will keep the sounds good program as listed Okay

We've already had the mayor's report.

May I ask one question back on the objective design standards? Do you have an example of anything from another city that you could pass along?

Yes.

That might be helpful just to say that.

There are a couple of cities that we had reviewed previously, and I will make sure to include those as well. Thank you. Absolutely. Everybody needs a baseline here.

Do you have anything further for a director's report?

Okay. Nope.

And our commission reports? No? I think the meeting got canceled, the MAC meeting.

The last couple have gotten canceled, yes.

Yeah. And we've heard from Mayor. So we are closing the meeting at 7.51. We are adjourned. All right.