Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

It's 06:00 and I am calling the Planning Commission meeting of 05/06/2026 to order. Commissioner Stewart, would you lead us in the pledge? Wait,

roll call? Should we start with roll call? Roll call. Sorry. Roll call.

Chair Murphy? Here. Vice Chair Chesley?

Here.

Commissioner Reich Smith? Here. Commissioner Stewart? Here. One vacancy. Okay.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of

The United States Of America and to the republic

for which it stands, nation under god, indivisible, liberty, and justice for all. Are there any changes to the agenda?

No changes.

Thank you. Then we will approve the agenda as submitted. The consent calendar has the minutes of the Planning Commission of April 15 on it. Could I have a motion to accept? Wait. Are there any changes?

We go into that, could we go into public communications? We jump Sure. To Yes. Thank you.

Do we have any slips?

I believe any slips submitted and I oh, I see someone I see people filling them out.

Someone is quickly filling one out. Okay. Is there anyone online? No.

Okay. Yeah. I see no one online.

Larry Stangeld, STANGLET, would you come forward?

Good evening.

All the smiling faces, hope everyone's well. I have only one comment that was actually in the paper with a cartoon with a door coming out on the arcade coming out outwardly. If that is the way things should be, should all the other doors and the rest of the arcade be changed so they're outward also because of the excuses fire code and fire code isn't grandfathered, then they should all be brought up to fire code because it's the way it should be, not the way it was ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, hundred years ago. Because quite frankly, the door folding up is dangerous to people in the arcade on bicycles and walkers and runners and anybody else wandering down the arcade and it shortens the distance between walking. And in quite honestly, it's no different than the bench dimension wise.

It opens up and it forces you to walk out. And if nobody sees it or they open it up, somebody's gonna get smacked in the face. So please how that got approved? I don't know. I hope it

Sounds like code compliance to me. What do you think, Lucas?

We can take into consideration, maybe after this. What's the address?

It's the Mountain Home it's the freezer walk In Freezer

Building. It's 240

AU. In the back. Are you talking about the door in the front? In the front.

Right. In the front. I believe the door opens outward. I may be wrong, but I believe that's the case. And I'm just

saying that

consistency or mistakes. Anyway, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Okay. Now, can we do the minutes? Is there's more? Okay. We won't close yet.

Good evening. Thank you. My name is Nate Mitchell. I own the property at the corner of East Ohio Avenue and Bryant Street, and I have an application in for the DRP, but I haven't had an opportunity to attend a meeting in person. So I just wanted to introduce myself eventually. I'll come before you and have an opportunity to discuss the project, but just kinda laying the groundwork. I really wanted to open up and say how I got introduced to OHAI and why I kinda fell in love the first time I I came up here. My wife is a hospital executive and one of her coworkers recommended that if she ever needed to get away for some, rest, relaxation, rejuvenation, come up to Ojai. And so one day we did and it was just before my son was turning two. We took him to Libbey Park.

He slid down the little grass mound on the cardboard pad and then we went and had pizza at the Ojai Pizza Company and he ordered french fries in his little less than two year old voice and I looked at the mountains on both sides and it reminded me when I got married to my wife in Kauai. And I felt at home, felt the let down, I felt the sense of calmness and then I was inspired enough to move forward and and buy a parcel of land. And so I'm really excited to be here. This is my first opportunity to participate publicly and obviously get an opportunity to meet you. I've been engaged with the planning staff for quite some time now. So again, thank you, Nate Mitchell and look forward to the hearing tonight.

Thank you, Nate. Is that the empty parcel of land that Yes. Okay. Well, we look forward to your plans. Back to the minutes of, all right, now I'm closing. I am closing the public comments. The minutes of the April 15 meeting, if there are no changes.

I move to approve the minutes of April 15.

I'll second that.

Could we have a roll call please? Murphy? Yes. Chesley?

Yes.

Bryce Schmidt?

Yes. Stuart?

Yes.

Okay. Moving on to the first discussion item of the evening which is to review and discuss the city of Ojai draft multi family and mixed use objective design standards. That's a mouthful. Is. Take it away, Lucas.

Yes. Thank you. Okay. So good evening, planning commission community, everybody online. The item before you tonight is really kind of a discussion review.

For most of you, this is kind of your first time seeing it. So I wanted to kind of unpack some pieces and there's a lot of stuff in the packet for for you to digest over the next probably couple of meetings as we work through this process. I wanted first talk about just what objective standards are and what they mean to this community. At this point, for instance, objective standards would be something like, that doesn't create any sort of, like a a a may or a could versus a shall and a must, or something that has a number assigned to it, like the height limitation is 25 feet or, the setback is 10 feet. Those are all objective standards.

It doesn't require anybody to to look at it and be like, well, I think actually it it really means 11 feet and not 10. No, no, it's 10 feet. That's the requirement. It's also important to note that this is not the first time this body has had this conversation. It is kind of the first time for most of you here tonight.

So I've reintroduced a couple of cities that we've that I've done some research on, large and medium size. There are other cities out there now that I'm looking at online, that have objective standards. We're a little bit behind the curve on this. 2024 is when we were supposed to have this, really kind of packaged up and adopted through what is gonna end up being an ordinance and not necessarily resolution. So it will be codified within our zoning code and our regulations.

In the packet itself, you'll find a couple of different cities, the city of Temecula as well as the city of Gilroy. The city of Temecula has a very robust objective standards packet in which they work from where it hits a lot of different buttons within the information I sent to you. Within that information I sent to you is also something that I thought was very interesting which is two pieces actually. The first is there is there was a Planning Commission Academy that was done by League of Cities in 2023 and it still holds true today. There hasn't been an update to it.

So these the information that was done at that time in terms of the objective design standards is a really good benchmark and it's certainly something you should be looking at as as a way in which like for instance when I'm bringing forward a draft, kind of use that as a litmus test to the draft that you're that you're reviewing. And not only that but use the city as kind of a benchmark to what makes sense for OHAI. You've got two examples, Gilroy which is basically a 13 page high level, but still objective standard way of thinking and then you have a very detailed Temecula example which is more than or close to a 100 pages and very much in-depth, but Temecula is also a growing community. Gilroy is kind of a growing community up in the Bay Area. Ojai is not necessarily either one, but I think what you should recognize is that regardless, the objective design standards should be something that when you look at it, you look at it from the standpoint of, are these the types of design standards that we as a community see fit to move forward on?

And when I say design standards, you could be as detailed as saying, oh, we're following a Spanish theme. We're following a on modern theme. Right? Having those pieces built into the objective design standards helps to inform the applicants that come forward. So they're not necessarily kind of scratching their head in terms of what makes sense from an objective design standard standpoint.

Because we don't have any, which we do not at the moment, then it's just like for instance with multi family or with mixed use, then there are no real standards that we can use and fall back on. And I will say this, in looking at some of the standards that have changed over time through state law, more and more they're turning to the objectives design standards that the city has in place. So having these in place helps us have a leg up which is what really every community is moving towards, really kind of required to move towards. Lastly, I'll say and then we're start having discussion and go back and forth. We have a program within our housing element that requires us to do this.

I know that I identified in the last meeting that we were to have this done by the 2024. When I submitted our annual progress report as I'm required to do, as every city is required to do, one of their comments was is what's the progress on so I I put that we're in progress of getting this objective design design standards codified. They said, what's the progress? And I said, we've had a couple of meetings. We're massaging it. We've had a turnover in in the commission. So I said, we're starting not necessarily overboard, we're just building on what we already have. So it was enough for now. What I don't want to do and I don't think this commission or this community wants to do is be in bad graces of HCD. They are not as gummy as they used to be.

They have quite a bit of pull versus what they used to have ten or fifteen years ago. So let's stay in the good graces. Let's follow our housing element program, program 15 which is also one of the attachments that was included in here. And let's start the conversation. Now I'll just start it with attachment a actually has our multi family and mixed use objective design standards.

It's it's kind of covered in a 19 page document that outlines definitions. It has site design standards. There's some figures that give you kind of an understanding and a a pretty good makeup of what you can expect. It's giving examples of normal lots versus corner lots, some some enhanced paving, driveway examples. And I think and then obviously, we've got some building design standards, building form, massing, articulation.

The interesting thing is is top to bottom, what we're looking what what this is looking to do is to provide not only the base the baseline for what site plan, what an elevation, what a what massing potentially looks like, but it also covers at the very end some information as it relates to, like, for instance, bicycle parking and having those standards built in. So it's trying to cover the array. It's it's not as detailed as what you have seen with Temecula, but it's not as as broadly stroked as what you saw and are seeing with Gilroy. I will say that I did today or last week look into, Solvang because I thought Solvang is I'm not gonna say it's comparable, but it certainly has some similarities. They actually have a codified, they codified theirs in 2025 and looking at it, they actually went through and each zone that it would apply to, they had specific objective design standards to that.

Big is Solvang? How big is Solvang? Think it's 13,000. It's either 13 or 15,000. Somewhere right around there. Gilroy is almost 60,000 and then Temecula is over a 100,000.

Anyway,

with that, I opened it up for questions, comments as we as we go through this. The information here is we'll admit, it's dense but in order for us to sort through this, it it needs to be dense first before we kind of and not only that but if there are communities that you want me to look into, I can certainly do that as well. If there's if we're looking for a comparable city that that you are aware of and you want me to look into it, I can certainly do that. That's the reason why I looked at Temecula and Gilroy and even Solvang at one point.

Okay. Anyone volunteering here to set forth with their questions? Okay. Go ahead.

Yeah. I mean, I kinda wanted to speak, I guess, a little bit broadly about this first maybe. Sure. I started, you know, I was going through everything and I remember this conversation conversation did did come come up up maybe maybe just just before before I I I entered the the commission last year or something. But, yeah, I think it was one that I came in and watched, and there was discussion about these other cities and how they you know, how these things apply in reference.

And I think that that's, you know, some really important research. And the thing that kind of because, you know, I started going through this with as a designer, you know, started looking through this. So what what does it mean to offer these things? What does it mean to show these types of images? What does it mean to, like, yeah, have these as, the diagrams that are standards?

What does it mean to have half an inch? There's lots of reasons to go into this stuff. And, you know, I and I have opinions on it. But what I was also wondering and made me think that would be important to talk about was, like so we're looking at other places of how they sort of approach the the problem of creating objective design standards. Here we are in Ojai.

This is Ojai. Like, what is the like because I think we're at a really interesting place here. Right? Because, like, oh, we could go for the second time in six months. We're in T Magazine, you know, like, come to OHAI, like, check it out, you know.

And so there's like a new there's gonna be a new a bit of like, a new group of people excited to think about what can happen in Ohio again. And these things that are also getting becoming important around multifamily, some projects that have already been approved, probably maybe would have been nice if these things were already in place before those things had come to the table. Right? And but those could potentially continue to come. So it's a really like this form formidable moment to me about what this document could mean, will mean for the for the future.

And it just made me think a lot about, you know, I mean, I'm a I'm an architect, I'm a designer. We have a planner, we have someone who's done design and a community member who knows the community and the development of this town for a long time. But but I still sort of feel a little bit like, well, what but what is the I don't know. What is the design language of Ojai? What does the design language of Ojai wanna be? And I quickly looking at a bunch of these things. You know, I had opinions, but I was kinda like, you know, I feel like they're like, where's the advisory board? And I know we're kind of doing that, but we're also doing that as the planning commission. Right? We're dealing with all kinds of things.

But who's who's looking at design in OHAI at, like, a larger scale? And it's interesting because it's sort of a part of the second half of tonight's meeting too. Right? Because there's all these we have once again sort of like the design standards kinda on the table. Right?

Exactly. And so I think, you know, I kind of wanted for me, something that I feel like would be really important to talk about or think about, that I'd like to talk about and think about is the potential for a design advisory board that's looking. That's like giving some of the, like, this lays out the things we need to look at. And it could, like, in a little more in a from, like, designers eyes. So our like, local architects and landscape architects who live here.

Right? I think that would be important. Mhmm. But a variety of people that are have been here for a while or haven't been here for a while. And, you know, we do some charrettes. We look at, like, well, what does it mean? I mean, there's sort of code reasons to have enhanced paving at driveways. Like, what does that mean? And what are we really Mhmm. You know, are we just saying, enhance and then the next, you know, and it's a rainbow paving.

And over here, it's like, you know, very careful, like, little pavers. And it's like, I'm not saying diversity or like, you know, a gradient of design isn't a good thing, but it's sort of like it's forcing a thing in a way that then creates the necessity for design to happen without giving any sort of parameters for what that actual design is. And so that to me was, like, I've, like, you know, I had specific feelings which I think won't surprise you about sort of, like, just the site design to start with, you know, and how car access and where parking is and, like, okay, wait. But, like, this is actually this is I don't, you know, I don't think I necessarily agree with this or something, you know. And that's fine.

We can go through those things. Right? But at the same time, that's sort of just me and I would just be really interested in us like, it's an opportunity. I just see it as, like, a real opportunity. And so I'm curious how we can expand that opportunity and take the the research and the work that you guys have already done and layer on, like, a really thoughtful design approach talking to, you know, there's people who've who've had you know, have been doing being an architect for, you know, fifty years.

And they might be super modern. And we have people who are here that have been doing, like, really a lot of mission revival stuff. I think having those voices together is also gonna be the best way to understand how to even approach, you know, this kind of layer of things. So let me just may

as we're having this conversation, turn to legal as it relates to a board or you you call it a board or or a committee? Yeah. Is this something that would be embedded into the objective design standards process? No. Or are you talking about Help help create. Helping it to be created?

I mean, that's how I was thinking about it.

Okay. Rather than that,

I'm not trying to add a layer of, like, review because my understanding and and as Katrina was, like, laying out the last time, it's like the the point is is, like and it's it's ministerial. The point is you go, here's my thing. Okay. Check the boxes. Approved, you know. Exactly. That's like

It's pretty substantial. That's huge. And what we're what we're seeing a lot more and more, I mean, one of the most recent, senate bills that, that I'm I'm working through right now has objective design standards in there and the whole process is ministerial. If they meet every Right. Single and check every

They'll never come to us. Exactly. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. No.

I mean, I'm I'm trying to figure out a way for to come to before this body. I'm just not seeing it.

So Well, and I guess that's my point. It's like maybe in some ways that's okay. But maybe we just have to, like, now in 2026, 2027, it's like, you know, a new world than when this stuff was made. OHAI is totally different. It's like on the map in a whole different way. How do we preserve what it is, like, look forward a little bit, and create

Yeah.

Sort of something that's rich that people can take into that isn't you know, it doesn't have to be like blinders on, you know. It's not like it needs to be like Santa Barbara, everything has to be stuck or whatever. But there's some clear, like, some, like, some real people who have a long experience in design and making things beautiful are, like, coming together and figuring out, okay, like, how do we you know, because the things, like, what are the things we love? Well, they were, like, kind of one person. Like, historically still.

It's, like, one person and kind of their architect and their money Mhmm. Like, took all the kind of mishmash and sort of, like, clarified it. Right? Like, that was kind of the early sort of oh hi. Like, found the thing they liked and then, like, made the rest sort

of Sure.

Replicated to a certain degree.

Right? You know, it was it happened long enough ago that it feels old and it feels authentic, you know. It was actually just still is like a pastiche on top of a bunch of stuff. But we love it and that's okay, you know. But so what is that? Like, what is the moving forward? You know, how does how does it envision how, like, the West, you know, or sort of East Side Of Ojai, where this gentleman is now gonna be thinking about things, like, does it impact what that

is the area I mean, to be fair, it's the area that has been discussed on multiple occasions. Right? Yeah. How does everybody else where is everybody else on on that? I'm kinda curious.

I completely agree. I just I feel like, we do need some architectural design, guidance. I know at one point many years ago we had a consultant come in to talk to us about form based codes.

Oh yeah.

And I actually think that form based codes would be really good right now because then we wouldn't have to say you have to build Spanish style, know, you have to build you know, craftsman or it has to be modern on this side of town. It could be really still anything as long as the form was right. And if we dictated what the form was going, you know, marching down the East End, I think that would go a long way in, you know, helping guide people as they come into the vision that the city has. So I'm a proponent of form based codes for objective objective design design standards. Standards. Yeah.

I think I

think I think it's I mean, I think it's kinda what this is sort of trying to be in a way. It's like how much glazing, how tall can the glazing be, when's an offset, how big is the offset, How does the offset relate? Is there like a fence has to happen to create a buffer zone and all those sorts

of This is standard old style zoning but it's not form based codes because form based codes is actually by parcel. I mean you're looking at every parcel and it's like these parcels are going to be two story, they're going to have balconies, they're going to you know it lays out everything by parcel. And you can have different regions, you know, but this is old school. This is, you know, I think that I mean it can work but I think there's types of standards that can be applied here that would work well in OHAI so we can guide, you know, won't be as mishmash. I think, you know, this has me a little nervous to be honest.

Yeah. I mean, I thought it was interesting what you said about the I forget which one but that they were or maybe it was Temecula. There was, like, by zone, they sort of had, like, an objective design.

Solving. They've done it by zone. Solving.

By zone. I

think that Yeah.

Which is what you're saying. It's like, okay, how do we think about but it and it goes into the whole the fabric fabric of of the the city. City. Right? Right? Like, Like, where's single story to two story to, like, you know, parking lots in the front to parking lots in the back to commercial to residential to multi use, multi family. What are the sort of forms

Yeah.

The interesting thing about the the objective design standards that they only apply to multi family, at least the way in which Yeah. Yeah. The like, we're meeting the minimum standard of it only applying to multifamily and then mixed use. So if it's commercial only, these these standards don't don't apply. But but I think but we're also talking about this in item three and

I think it sort of might relate in that sense.

Yeah. If you're looking if we're looking to go beyond that, I mean, all all we're looking for is the baseline. If we're wanting to take it a step further, that can certainly be discussed and considered as well. Like even going as far as like single family and even commercial, even in industrial to a certain degree. Darren, am I wrong in that? Help me out with the legal aspect of this. The objective standards are really meant to to provide that guiding principle and it'd be it'd be very strict and very intentional.

Right. So the majority of the housing laws that require objective standards are gonna require them as it relates to multi family and mixed use. If you want to go beyond that with your, so what that means is that you still have the ability to have discretion in your standards as relates to commercial and other developments. If you want to go beyond the kind of floor like Lucas is talking about we can discuss that in terms of what it might look like to have an objective standards that would apply to commercial and maybe even single family. There are some newer housing laws that create ministerial approaches for single family residences certain affordability context.

But generally speaking we're talking about multifamily and mixed use.

So I wonder if we can see them get a map of where those are, like are the potential the potential building sites are or what parcels could potentially be intensified.

Yep.

Because that, I think that would help us kind of visualize, you know, what any standards that we approve, you know, how that applies in real life to us here.

And I think it's applicable in the sense that like we don't zoning is also gonna continue to evolve, you know. And so we're still making let's say there was a decision at some point that, hey, like we are okay with the idea of, like, a setback, you know, multiuse sort of element to the downtown core where there's, like, living above. All of a sudden now that would, like, need to fall under these

Mhmm.

Objective standards. So and it would be impacting commercial, you know, directly. Sure.

My turn, you would like.

There's a lot here and a lot to absorb. I was thinking, and I agree with actually a lot of what was said, and I would like to know more about the comment. This is kind of the old fashioned, way because I do think the the devil's in the details in the city. I was I was thinking earlier in the day and your comment really brought it back to me that, you know, there's kind of there's kind of two identities to the town. There's this economic identity which is, you know, roughly 50% of the budget is fueled by tourism, arcade, the look and feel of what's been done with the El Roblaar.

And a lot of times people move here for the rural identity and then they try to execute on the economic identity. We just heard someone voice that. And it's interesting and I have always felt, as somebody who's lived here for a few years, the important thing is to have one foot in each of those identities. That's the key. And so then that kind of leads into the design.

We have no clarity, I think, on which one of those identities we want to serve here a little bit. Are we gonna go all mission revival? Are we gonna allow some rural American rural look to to go forward on things? And it makes me think that the work to do here is actually to be very, very narrow and be very reductionist and take one little step where we can succeed at something where we know we can, you know, write write these standards quite narrow, and then branch them out from there. You know, we know that that the mission revival piece is huge here and we know the American rural piece is huge here.

So when I look through the documents and I see this kind of there's a lot of materials we're gonna allow. I think as I looked at something like we have six or seven materials compared to two or three in Temecula. I think we can steal a lot of what Temecula's work is actually. I thought there was a lot of good in that. Those kind of things make make me nervous a little bit and it makes me think if we try to stretch too far too early that we're gonna miss both of these identities.

Gilroy is in my view not a particularly attractive town. Temecula has turned an unattractive town into kind of a destination through having the good design and having a group of people come together and say, hey, this is kind of our identity. I think those are kind of my main comments. There's a lot of vague language in here that doesn't meet that standard of what you spoke to earlier, which was, we need measurements, you know, not not statements that say, it can't be ornate or it can be ornate or things like that. We need to kind of purge the document of this sort of imprecise language a little bit.

I think I think those are kind of my main I'm just cruising my notes here for one more time. I think those are kind of my kind of my main pieces. The only other comment I had is it would kind of be interesting as a guideline to pick three or four of the existing buildings in town that we really love as we build these standards and ask ourselves, could those buildings be built today under these standards? And if so, they're kind of a real life personification of what we're seeking to do and I think that's kind of a a tangible way of looking at this and might be helpful for the community.

Yeah. I think a strong precedent study would be like a first step, you know, to understand what sort of what parse out a little bit what we believe to be the the more the, you know, more attractive, less attractive, the good from the bad, I guess, as it were, as like a starting point for the conversation, you know, because it's important to see those things. What do we like about this? What don't we like about that? Or what's advisable about this direction and what's not about this other direction? Mhmm. For sure.

I think I think we could go, you know, in in zones, not, you know, c one zone, but, you know, we do have a downtown plan, you know, for the arcade Plaza in the downtown area and that's supposed to be mission revival. But the East End doesn't have that and I don't think we want that personally I don't think that You know I think having some design licenses is healthy and good but I think it's really more about the scale you know and placement all that more than the architecture you know specifying a certain design other than the downtown.

I get a little nervous about the idea that we would start dictating too much. Somewhere in here I came across a statement that we like variety. That that's to be honored and looked for. And I would not want to see us come down and say this area is going to be all one kind of architecture. Mean, I love the downtown, that's given.

But as we extend out east and west, I'd like some flexibility there for people to come in with their own ideas about how to

handle it. I think in your statement is exactly this kind of conversation which is why do people love the downtown? Right? I think that's like a really important thing to ask ourselves because we keep it's hard to say we love something and then but we don't want that same thing to happen maybe somewhere else. And I don't think we're saying like just like I said, just spread mission revival.

I think I think the point about let's just, like, be a little bit more thoughtful and, like, concise with the number of options, you know. Not saying there's only one option, but maybe not saying there's eight options or six options, you know, just with the material, for example. I think that that's maybe like the buffer zone there. I mean, I guess I think about it it's it's a tough thing to to replicate. Right?

But you I think about some larger cities and you have these neighborhoods that feel very similar. Like, it feels like a singular thing, you know, row houses or whatever. But then when you're there, it's like, they're all different, you know. But there's a consistency. The the windows don't all align and, like, the brickwork or the woodwork isn't all the same and it might be a woodhouse in the but there's a kind of consistency that makes it feel I don't know.

Like, it makes it feel like a place, you know. And I think that's what we like about downtown. I mean, there's different forms happening, but there's some set something that's consistent that in this case, it's the opposite. It's like form and material are kind of like working to do that. So anyways, how do you think about that move moving down, you know?

I think it goes back to bulk and scale of of the place. You know? So I mean the arches could be it could be I don't know. A wooden trellis. I mean if if it was the same scale and the doors still were, you know, repetitive going down the arcade, people would still love it Mhmm. You know, even if it wasn't mission revival. Mhmm. But we have mission revival so and we wanna protect that. The meet and reco I mean, it's so beautiful. But I I can see something else going, on the east end that has that pedestrian scale.

You want to draw pedestrians out there. So I guess I really don't think it's about the architectural style itself, but the bulk and scale and having the pedestrian be the primary focus on drawing people down. So anyway, think bulk and scale is very important to this whole discussion because if I don't know. They're they can go up by right certain number of floors. You know, it's gonna be really critical that we

Yeah. I

mean get that bulk and scale, right, by the setbacks and Yeah.

If I just gave an example story. For instance, for multifamily, we have a two story maximum. However, through density bonus, through affordable housing, depending on the affordability rates by which they operate, they could go as high as five. So we wanna talk about massing and bulking like you just talked about, look no further than that. Right?

Is it legal for us to put limits there and and keep the the bulk and the size similar?

We can dictate setbacks, and we can dictate ways in which, you know, your how the bulk relates to the street.

And the height?

And the height. Yeah.

The height's probably not as much, but I think you're talking about the bulk and the mass. So it doesn't necessarily

Yeah.

It's not five stories, 10 feet from Exactly. Right. It's like Instead, it steps back or

something like 25 feet, and then you step back, you get a patio, and you get Mhmm. Yep. Which is which is, you know, yeah. Doesn't seem The

comment I would, you know, offer on the mass and and kind of the style pieces, I I agree with the comment that the citizen is concerned, number one. I also think there is a massive opportunity here to create an identity for a town through the style of the architecture. I'm not necessarily afraid of that. I don't want it to look generic but I think of places around the world, Oia, in Greece and many other cities who've gone all in on styles. And there's there's kind of two different ways of looking at that for sure.

And that's why I think it comes down to before we identify all these styles and everything, what's the identity of the town that we want to serve? Do we want to serve the identity of an American rural town with some Spanish architecture in the middle of town? Or do we want something that's slightly larger to that? And that is a larger community question. It's not one that we solve necessarily here but I do think that shepherding it toward that identity, the worst case scenario would be that we end up with a little snippet of some old stuff in the middle of the city.

And then on the boundaries, things that you could go through the design buffet and choose 10 or 12 different materials, five or 12 different styles, couple of different look and feel type things. And you kind of land nowhere near where we would want you to land or you would be serving kind of a different identity. The town organically has different identities. West Side feels different than East Side. Middle of town feels different.

People tend to go and live and play in the areas of town that meet that identity that matches why they're here. And I think back in my design career, would never put pen to paper without knowing what's the identity that we're serving here. Directionally where are we going with this a little bit?

Well, I do think we have some guidance. Well, I think we should look to our land use element. One, because there is some discussion about our town in there and what we wanted to look like and feel like. Mhmm. So I think our general plan, which is what it's supposed to do is the the map of our, you know, the guide map. Guide what is what we call it?

Blueprint.

Blueprint. The blueprint for our future. The land use element, I think we need to look at that as we, you know, do this because this is our implementation document. But that's our that's our those are our goals there. And I think what you're looking for is is somewhat in there in the land use element. So I think we need to look at this has to be consistent with the land use element anyway.

Correct.

So I think we should actually take a look at the land use element and say what are you know, with what we're doing here does it comply with does it follow the this the the guidance of the land use element?

That's a good point. Absolutely.

I mean is that our is that kind of the North Star of where all this eventually leads to again just going to that larger question of what identity does the city?

I mean it is so mean it is the planning tool. It's the tool in which the city leans on for guidance into the future. It's the reason why you see the design the way in which the city is today. And in fact, I mean, even though land use element itself hasn't been updated since '97, it's still when you read through it, it still rings true today and you look at everything around it, you're like, yeah, this makes sense. You look at the land use policies that are built into it, it makes sense even today.

Right? So it's not I'm not looking at policies. I mean we're looking at policies in the regular regarding projects that come forward and we're like, yeah, there's consistency there. Or hey, you need to do this because really we're finding through one of these policies that you're you're bending it in a certain direction. Right? It gives really good guidance for for existing and future development.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Period. But it also rings true to what you see today. So, and that's part of what I think you're of teasing towards which is there's more than one design flavor that exists. I mean Mhmm. You're kind of getting getting there in the discussion. And that kind of makes sense in terms of how this community has developed over the years, right? I mean, over the last hundred plus years, so.

Well, if you go, you mentioned the articles that have been written just after whatever twelve years of being here. I've seen the New York Times circle around a few times and pick your favorite design mag and our business has been by and large in most every one of them. And one thing you see is just kind of a constant kind of like this identity tripod, one part rich hippies, one part Old Valley, little spot and then one part kind of this revival, mission revival authentic little town. And that's why I just think a lot about those identities and I think that's a key piece to nail before anything goes down. And like you said maybe it sits in that planning or in larger I document I don't know but

mean it's a good start to look at that.

If we're looking at a foundation, I mean, and you're trying to find what what we're calling kind of the identity, I think that's where you can start and then branch out from there.

Can some of that bake into the document that you are

Well, we'll have to identify consistency with it when it goes forward as an ordinance. So absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. It'll live within the ordinance.

We have two cards that would now like to speak on this subject. So is it okay to open up public comments in

the Well, it's not really

a public

comment. It's just yeah. You can just open up for the public.

So okay. Larry, come on up.

Thank you. Mister Stewart, great. Thank you. We we came into town through, almost nine years ago, May 11, and we saw a kind of folksy, small, laid back town that gets really busy on weekends and then quiets down. We see Mission Revival.

We see older. And coming from my background in real estate, ribbon building, stainless steel, all this stuff just gets thrown out and put all over the town where people want it when there are no standards. Martha's Vineyard, gas stations made to look historic. Restaurants made to look somewhat historic, but very functional. All the commodity type of stores made to look like they fit in because that's the unity of the town. That's the image we wanna portray. That's how the residents like it. Otherwise, they wouldn't be here. I mean, that's they like it like this. Kind of old old buildings.

I know when we when I went with my wife to visit Seattle for the first time, there were doctors there were no doctors in houses. Back east, are in houses all the time. In Seattle, they are considered quacks. Here,

they're

in old little buildings and that's fine and that's because that's the type of town we are. We don't need a big medical complex. While they may like one, it doesn't work here. And it's like just it's nice. It makes it it's old. It's nice. It's conservative in the values of the people that were here. Forget their political values. That's another different issue. But the way they like it here. It's nice. It's it's brown. It's green. There's mountains. It's all unity.

It's just keep it all together. And if you start letting people do what they wanna do, it'll look like Fort Bragg or outside Fort Bragg or Wilmington, North Carolina or someplace where there's nothing but stuff. So please do your best, do what you're doing and keep it kind of simple. Thank you.

Nate, did you have some comments?

This is so much fun. I hopefully, this is an opportunity to add value. Again, this is my public participation. I'm excited about it. Another part of my background, I'm a neighborhood developer by trade.

I really cut my teeth in post Katrina New Orleans in a community development fellowship through the Rockefeller Foundation and University of Pennsylvania's Center for Urban Redevelopment Excellence. So I've been studying this and trying to do it in different ways and with community development at heart, I think one of the big gaps between what paper code translates into the visual actual build environment. I think it'd be really helpful if there was some level of a digital simulation particularly of downtown where you could just model it. You could see it, you can test different architectural themes, you could simulate, you know, particular commercial use, you could look at what two or three stories would look like, you could look at sun studies, you could do it as a planning commission or a design review council And I think that would help bridge the gap with what gets interpreted by really whoever comes along to interpret your code versus if you had a vision and you could see it, I think it would be a lot easier to really pick and choose what you do and don't like. Cause a lot of the times that's what design is.

You can if you see it, you recognize it and you say, oh, I like that. But you may not have the background or be able to articulate what particular design style matters. And I think with that as kind of a basis where we are in technology, I think you could do it in a SketchUp model and it'd be very easy. I think it'd be a really handy tool for an outside architect to come in and now render and model within your model and then you can it all together. And then when you wanna see the street views and the mountains in the background, it's there.

You can see it. You don't have to guess. You don't have to rely on somebody's effort to do that. And the transparency that happens, I think then you're really speaking at the community level of what is the future of OHAI. And I think for me, I'm new I'm new to town. I still live out of town. So there's insiders and there's outsiders. And then ultimately, there's there's the future. And the people that fall in love with OHAI like I have, I wanna be a part of the future. And the goal is is obviously to come into it a place that has a sense of place and and and and help grow it and contribute it.

A lot of the times, there's conflict between the development community coming in forcing things down people's throats and not really respecting community input. But a lot of the times, the community input doesn't have really the capacity to visualize and really articulate what their needs are. The conversations around affordable housing and who lives there and what did

they do, a lot of

the time it's the waitress that works at the Ohio pub or a stage hand at the amphitheater. That's actually the resident that you're accommodating. And so when you humanize that but you also can visualize the build environment, I think it makes these conversations a lot easier. And and I would I would think the overall, you know, interest of the body is to protect the integrity of OHAI and I think that's a great way to do it, right? And then people understand they can see it and I think that'd be a great contribution. Thank you.

Thank you, Nate. I like the idea of being able to use technology to visualize this stuff because I'm not very good at seeing it. When we remodeled our kitchen, architect put it up on a screen and I could walk around that room and see what worked and what didn't. I really like that. I have a couple of just off the wall questions for you.

Is did SB three thirty get renewed? It was supposed to sunset on 01/01/2025. Are we still functioning under that law?

Yes. It was extended. We are still functioning under SB three thirty.

Yes. Okay. So how long does I that go

don't remember the date off the

I think it's till 2030.

It's in the 2030s.

Okay. Long time. Okay. And on SB 35, since we have met our RINA numbers, does the streamlined ministerial approval process still

municipalities that are have not met their reading numbers but there are other housing laws that apply the the the streamline permitting process to housing developments. So there are other bills that have passed that apply the expedited time frames.

Okay. So we are to expect to have that in place going forward that there will be ministerial approval and we need to have our objectives in line to give the community director the ability to say yes or no to this.

Well, think I think if I yeah. If I can help, I think I know what you're trying to say there. It's to give a voice to the community and also to give, for instance, the Community Development Department a foundation by which we can operate under. Because right now, as an affordable housing project comes forward and the project comes before this body, the conversation is you can look at this but you can't look at that. Right?

And it's confusing. It's confusing to the conversation and I know I've had that a couple of times come before this body And there's things that are on that you can talk about. And there's things that you can certainly talk about but you don't get to make a determination on. And not having the objective design standards regarding some of these affordable, all the affordable housing projects that have come before this body, Really, it doesn't give much to this body or even to the community development department or even to the community as a whole. Not having those in place, we're too subjective by the way in which we look at our findings.

Having something like this, and I'm loving the conversation we're having right now, to help kind of frame that moving forward. Because that'll certainly help and give the Community Development Department as well as the community, as well as you, something to stand on. Because right now there's nothing. Our hands

So are also am interested in how you would view this Community Design Advisory Board. Where would they fit into the process and how would we use them best?

Well, I think that as we've said, this is sort of a a blueprint of what of how the objective design rules need to be implemented

Yeah. Can I can I take a stab at it? And Yeah. Maybe we can go from there. I think there's an opportunity here for members of this of this body as well as potentially bringing individuals not necessarily within this body, but our design professionals, whether they're architects or design professionals or urban planners or something along that line, where they, landscape architects, actually that's a good point as well, To to bring them into the conversation. Maybe it's a two within this body and then bringing two other design professionals that this body's aware of. There's there's not a Brown Act violation to bring individuals into the conversation that are not. Right? Okay. Just wanna make sure before I make that statement.

It's been done before. I've seen it done with the Historic Preservation Commission successfully. And I would say to a certain point efficiently. Right? Having individuals that So this this community has a wealth of information and professionals out there that are eager to be a part of the conversation. So it's definitely an opportunity. Having something like that to what was being has been discussed kind of throughout and threaded throughout makes a lot of sense.

Can we as a planning commission organize them as a committee, as an advisory committee to us or do we have to go through legal channels or the city council or something?

So that depends on how you choose to set it up. You could basically create an ad hoc committee that has two members of the planning commission and then that ad hoc committee could go to other members of the community, other design professionals to solicit advice and opinions and have the have the discussions. And and then that those two could then bring that back to the the full commission.

I like that.

You could also set it up other ways. You I mean if you wanted to create a permanent advisory Board. Board, that might need to go back to the council to set up. That's something that we can explore the we can certainly explore some of those options and work with staff to bring that back to you if that's something that you're interested in. Mhmm. But

The ad hoc seems to make a lot of sense in terms of because it's it's very focused and intentional. If there's success in it, then maybe that's the springboard to have that bigger conversation. Maybe maybe that at that point, we have that conversation with council. As you know, we have our joint meeting coming up in June. So there's there's some definitely some opportunity for conversation.

There's an immediate need in order to get enough advice and comfort level so that I think that we we need to get an ad hoc do it now and

I agree.

Move forward.

I have I have stayed h p or HPC. HCD for now. But I can't tell you what it's gonna be like next year because I because we're starting to move into another chapter of HCD, which is the methodology leading into the seventh cycle of the housing element, which is gonna start probably at the end of next year. So they're gonna be more interested in the things that we haven't done versus the things that we have done. So it started this year and I anticipate that it'll start now, even continue next year.

To set up an ad hoc committee, we decide among ourselves who wants to do that and give them blessings to go forth and find some more experts the one out functions

that this body has, yes.

Okay. How do you feel about this?

I think it's great. I mean there's so many talented people in town I love. I'm like hitting myself on the head of course model it out and you could do many many things there at a very low cost, low cost no cost basis to emulate a lot of things. And the only thing I was going to mention just hearing you talk about HCD coming our way maybe in a singing a new song next year. This I just to me it feels like the most important words in the documents here are the yesno standard to me because anywhere maybe can be said there will be an attorney and a developer sitting inside of maybe.

And maybe they do something we like, maybe they do something that's against the character of the community, we don't know. And I think that getting to that yesno standard in all of this language very quickly even if we underwrite it a little bit and we don't serve all of the pieces of the general plan or everything that we need to get right. But I think getting a basis and a foot in the door on that I think is really critical on that yesno standard.

So it sounds to me like we're going to be starting with the land use documentation and do we have some volunteers for an ad hoc committee to take this in the next step.

Sure.

I'd be interested as well.

Okay. I would also like you to send me in any information that you have on the form that you the form

Form based codes? Form based codes. There's a lot.

There oh, well, don't send a lot. A little will do it. I just want to know what it is. Okay. Okay. I think that that's probably sufficient to get unless you wanted to go through. I mean, I had particular questions about little, you know, wording things in here, but I don't know if you really wanna

Might be worthwhile to make some

Comments on what's Oh,

no. No. I was gonna say that.

I think so can I this wasn't meant to be this is it says draft, but just know that it's really kinda like, hey, this is the last thing that we left off on? I haven't touched it. I know there were comments that came before this this body as a different body. So I just left it as is and wanted to see what where the conversation went tonight. So

I get another question I have maybe is what other communities have objective design standards that are more like us? Like, I don't know, Lusilivos or San Yenes or Carmel even, that have that rural aspect but have downtowns. So

list the cities that you think are similar and I will absolutely look into those and and get you some information back. Solvang was the closest one that I that I could think of and there's really good goes into detail based on the zoning Yeah. Which I thought was interesting.

Good one.

Yeah.

Solvang.

Did keep it pretty simple which was interesting considering the way in which the community operates. So I I I was expecting a little bit more out of Solvang and I was kind of unimpressed.

Mhmm. Maybe this just to riff off the modeling idea for a second. Do we I know one meeting we asked about what, like, level of GIS information the city has of the city. Is there any? There's no

This is very basic. Yeah. Yeah. I am the only one in the department that knows how how to use GIS.

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. So there would be like

have a license, but it really functions more for public works than it does for CDD.

Mhmm. Mhmm.

We can hire a consultant to do that. Right?

Could. That would be a wonderful discussion to have with the joint meeting.

There we go.

We're just saying that the the, yeah, it makes it a little harder to do some of it.

It does. Yes. I agree.

You'll bring that up at the joint meeting? Certainly.

So. Yeah. I would say this, the ad hoc that's being created, everybody agrees it's gonna be we have two. Right? Can't go three. Right?

No.

No. We can't. That's that's considered a ceremony serial meeting. Right? Brown Act violation. So two okay.

So does that that means that after this meeting, like, we can't talk to them about it?

Correct. Well well Okay. One? I'll let

One on one, we could.

You need to be careful about serial meetings. So you should so you don't wanna be communicating what you've what you've discussed. They don't wanna be communicating what they've discussed with each other with with another

But but okay. I could come with a question Yeah. To that at how That

was, I guess, my like like, there were some ideas tonight. Like, they could give those to us as something to make sure that we're taking into account.

Yeah. So you could receive information. Uh-huh. You could receive that. Uh-huh. But I mean the safest way to do it would be to convey it at another planning commission.

At a planning commission.

Yeah. Sure. But

but you could have communicate you just you wanna be careful because it's so easy to to slip up and and relay something that was discussed and all of a sudden you've got the serial meeting going on. So you just wanna be careful about that.

Okay. Commissioner Stewart, did you wanna do it?

I'm not sure I have time right now, but let me think about it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I think

You wanna take my place?

I think you guys are highly qualified individuals in that regard. So

I plan on pulling in from highly qualified individuals.

I wanna

implement this.

Highly qualified to take out

of the game. You're gonna pull from the bench.

Yes. You probably know Exactly. Many many of the folks you are looking to pick their brains, right?

Okay.

Alright. Is there anything else that we need to discuss on this subject? Okay. Are you

No, was highly this is great. I really appreciate it. Of the things that's been waning on CDD's mind and mine in particular is trying to get this over the finish line here. I think we've got some good direction here. Good. Okay, then

we'll move on to discussion item number three. Proposing topics to discuss at the future joint meeting with City Council, which will take place on June 9. We have several items that we have discussed previously and are listed here now. Would you like to address that, Lucas?

So as you recall at the last meeting, all that there was was one little skinny little tiny piece of paper, right? And it listed all these items. So what I promised is that we'd have that high level discussion and kind of tease the focus, whether it be the design guidelines or the parking, allowed use chart, fire hardening, undergrounding noise. So I've put various code sections as well as information that we already have in place so that you are informed. And it's always something where you have to decide tonight.

But I will say this, our next we do have one more meeting before we have the joint meeting. So there'll be another opportunity to discuss this so you have an opportunity to kind of sort through this and see what items are kind of floating to the surface. I will admit, as we work through what what will end up being a work program for this body, and working with staff on it, I I can't tell you that all these are gonna be addressed in terms of how we're looking at it. So we probably should be focusing on two or three that rise to the surface, but also recognize that all of these are still equally important.

Could you tell us to what degree the city has already worked with the fire council and achieved a plan going forward? Are there holes in that? Do we, can you help us with that? May maybe the mayor would

We do have somebody in the audience that might Yes.

That's where I'm going. Yeah. Yeah. So

if you mean on the code side, what they're primarily doing besides education workshops and kind of getting communities ready to do be firewise and other kinds of communication programs, they're offering home hardening assessments for free and then giving that advice. And then what's gonna come to the city is a a few projects where the city may become involved in saying how can we help, property owners take care of things where money might be an issue. So those are what other cities are kind of doing is zero interest loans, etcetera etcetera. So those are the things we're looking at. But there was some correspondence that some people already got things in the mail from the fire department about Zone 0.

I haven't gotten mine yet, but I did look at someone else's. I'm sure it's coming. But so the Fire Safe Council is not directly involved in that particular piece. So it's not them, but I think we're all gonna be seen. And I did speak with supervisor Levere. The the county, you probably know, has tried to push back a little on the state to say there these are pretty blunt objectives. Can we become more supple around those like around tree types and things like that as we evolve

And that first five feet.

And that so what I have been what I have seen is is I wouldn't so in other words, the answer is not much yet is the answer to that question. So if you wanted to lean on the home hardening, there's just gonna be so many other players that are gonna be involved in that that would be coming. So if you have a limited amount of time, I might not do that one, but do whatever you want. But there's so many things to talk about. So I know we'll that, I'm trying to remember the next piece.

When the budget comes around again, we will see a couple of other vendors proposing things. So that's to be determined around what can be done. I know places like the crew and things like that will be we may engage with them on clearing trees and things like that that will come up. So there's a lot to be determined still.

I would also consider high school students.

Oh, of course.

Put them to work in community service.

Pupits use them a lot like the Green Coalition is really fantastic at that. So a lot of what's happened back here has been younger people too which is Volunteers. So does that I know it's not a great answer but that's kind of where it's

Well

Thank you.

Yeah. Go ahead. To if I could just add on to that, the fire chief is also he's aware that this community is highly charged and wanting to know what's going on because there's rules that are out there that apparently are required to

be

followed But it's not something where we're making individuals falling in terms of the city, it's actually fire department. And they're trying to sort through what has come down from the state in terms of how they want to roll that out. And it's not it likens it to the standards that came out in 2011 for green waste. And those standards have been in place since 2011. But now we're just starting to see those standards be required on the residential and commercial levels, right? So, it's kind of that same same breath where the standards are there, now it's just a matter of trying to figure out how to get them to the community and make it so it's palatable.

From the bottom up, what I've been seeing is that certain members of the community are getting evaluated by their insurance companies and losing insurance if they cannot meet the the the particular insurance company standards.

Fair enough. So one thing about the fire department is they don't have the staff to do the, you might say, code enforcement or enforcement on the things that Lucas just mentioned. Of course, they're not there yet. But, Randy Coggin, who's on the board of the Fire Safe Council, showed me some documentation. He basically, he's on the fair plan.

He did the before and after home hardening and saved about I think it was, just approaching 20% on his bill. So I think that's coming along that you would see how can you leverage insurance companies to renew your policy, but that is really just beginning. And I hope it's more than just for the Fair Plan, but where you would see, you know, real, let's say, projects that show more drought tolerance, you know, more moisture in the ground, more home hardening that the people would then take that as its kind of certificate. So on the I know on the Firewise community, the insurance company has to note if you're a Firewise community, but they do not have to lower your rate. But they do have to note that and the hope is that is in the in the upcoming election, you might say at the state level, we press our insurance commissioners to say if a community is working on that, let's leverage that but that's above our level of course.

Unless the entire community gets involved.

That's part of that Firewise goal though.

We won't Right.

It it doesn't help to just have your house as a little island.

Everybody has to do it basically around you more or less. That's part of that. But I think I bet that's what we're gonna see because we're not the only ones obviously facing this problem.

Right. Thank you.

Move over there if you need me.

Okay. I

We're gonna take advantage

Are there other thoughts in terms of what you would like to see as your priority, top priority conversation with city council? Well, I looked through our parking codes and we have a ton of regulations about that. It seems to me that what we're missing are parking lots to enable all of these visitors to come to town and find a place to park. Again, I think this is something the City Council has probably been looking at. Is there some way that the planning commission can influence that?

Chair, can you unpack that a little bit more? What do mean by that? Do you mean the existing parking lots that we have or the standards that exist to influence the parking lots into the I

didn't have any quarrel with the regulations as I saw them. What seems to be missing in my point from my perspective is is communal parking lots either close to downtown or on the outskirts with a means to get into town. And I would like to see that work done because we're just going to be getting more and more visitors according to Jonathan's reading. So

Okay.

So are you that's a high priority

for you. Well, I'm just trying to get conversation going here to see where we all Yeah. What we all think we'd like to discuss with the council. Mhmm. I think that's one thing that the council I mean, we can't do much about it. It's really a council thing.

I mean, I'd be interested in hearing I know that they've been working on some of these things. I would definitely be interested in hearing about that, You know? But I as you say, don't know. Is it what then then it's just like a cheer. Yeah. Keep keep going, guys. Get more. I don't know.

Do more.

Andy, any thoughts? Well,

I I I don't think we really have the resources to do too much to be honest. So I think we have to do what's critical right now which I understand is objective design standards. So that would be the first thing.

That's something we can actually contribute to.

Yeah. Yeah. We can contribute to that and I think that's high priority and

And they plan to some of these things.

Course.

You know? You

you have allowed use charts listed.

Mhmm.

I wasn't sure. I remember a discussion about this that where we had a couple of suggestions about

Yes. And there was an individual on this commission that was meeting with the community development director. It just hasn't happened at this point. So the question is, is that still a high priority? And does it fall into the top few I I mean, that's the reason why I kinda put that on again, and I just realized that there's actually another one after we talk about this one that probably needs to go on here as well as a discussion piece for the future. So I'll probably put it on for the twentieth for us to discuss as well.

You can't put it now.

I can't talk about it now. But I can talk about it during my update. So I'll do it then. Okay. So the allowed use charts just go ahead. I was I was gonna say that was discussed. There was an opportunity for maybe some unpacking of it

Yeah.

And sorting through some of the uses that are either permitted, CUP or otherwise. Right?

Right. And I think, you know, we we can look at existing businesses, you know, and how they operate to help guide us

Yeah.

Whether we like those businesses where they're at because there's a couple businesses that are either illegally there or non conforming there.

Yeah. So And that's actually a good point because okay. So the allowed use chart provides a multitude of of ways in which you can dictate future uses or say, thanks for being here in this area. We're not really a huge fan of you being here. I can think of examples of like gas stations that communities aren't necessarily thrilled about being in certain areas.

You end up doing zoning. Right? Or you end up end up identifying through land use or an allowed use chart and no longer allow them within that specific area and then they eventually move either move on or move out or close the doors or move to an area that you that the community is more agreeable to. Right? Office uses are the same way.

Retail to a certain degree as well as I mean, massage uses, I've seen that and that just that went forward, I mean recently with state law changes. Not that recently, now I feel old. It was like fifteen years ago now that I'm thinking about it. So it's those types of uses that as the community evolves, as state law changes, so does these allowed use chart standards and even, you know, how we how this community, how this body looks at them even counseled to a certain degree as well.

Yeah. My recollection was that you were going to jointly look at this and bring back the changes that you would recommend planning commission address

is That is that is my recollection as well.

Okay. So is that reasonable by June what was it? Twenty fourth?

Wait. June no. Not June 24. Well Ninth is when we're gonna have our joint meeting.

Oh, wait a minute. That was sorry. I'm I'm looking at

Last year's.

Last year's. Okay. When is it? June

June 9 is a joint meeting.

Okay. That's getting really close. That's probably not We

have one more we have one more meeting before the joint meeting. Well, we have two more meetings before the joint meeting. But to be fair, really, have one meeting before the joint meeting where we can actually discuss it and then.

Okay. Well, if we're going to include that among our list of priorities, it it really doesn't make sense unless you two feel that you have the time to discuss it and bring it back to this commission. I

What's your thoughts?

I am thinking okay, where we at? We're in May. I don't know if we have something that's completely ready to go by then. I don't I

think that's unrealistic. Too too too soon. Yeah. Okay. So let's skip that. We all want design codes as as being

Well, do you wanna skip it or do we put it more more towards?

Yeah. I'm just trying to get Okay. This list in shape

Okay.

For the city council joint meeting. Because we can still work on that.

Yes. Yeah.

Beyond the June 9.

Yes.

Right. I'm just wondering whether we prioritize it to get it to this joint meeting.

Gotcha. You will have two hours with this joint meeting just so that you're aware. You'll have two hours to discuss. It used to be an hour. There the council has agreed to an additional hour. And it's even two hours goes by very quickly when you're especially when you're allowing all bodies to kinda have that that big discussion.

Okay. I just have a thought and I'll try to just filter my personal views on government a little bit. But is there some logic that says all of this is driven by the objective design standard. That's the beachhead issue here. And what we should do is make some choices now upfront. It doesn't mean these aren't issues to solve, discuss, work through or whatever. But we have the state coming our way very soon so we have a time clock kicking around on that issue. And how long ago did you say that process started on objective design?

This started in 2023.

Okay. So it's been sitting around, call it three point five years. Is there any logic at all saying let's dedicate the meeting to finishing a perspective on that or at least getting as far down the road as we can on that? Because parking and many of these other things, it's all important. But again, I go back to that question.

What identity is all of this serving? What is our to me the intangible question at the table and the planning commission is everybody loves that great little thing about OHAI. What is that thing? Can we put a little pin at least on a few of the pieces of that and serve that? And I just think like in my consulting practice with businesses, the number one thing that kills business is having too many opportunities.

That's actually what kills most businesses. There are too many opportunities to seize on rather than picking one and saying that's the first one, getting the sequence right. And I'm just putting it out there. I'm open to discuss all of those items or just one, but I think a counterpoint could be let's get one thing right. We have a state deadline, so we have a necessity to get going on that. Two hours is not you know, especially if you guys have feedback from some real experts. You know, it's an hour of learning session and an hour of starting to make choices so.

Well to be fair I would think a conversation of this nature would probably be in the neighborhood of four hours. I think you should probably expect that. If we're going to drill down

But that tells us a lot. Okay. So we if we know that we're gonna do two hours and we're gonna skip the stone across 10 topics Yep. It's a different form, a different way of managing and it might be the right way. I'm not actually advocating one position or

the other.

It might It might be that the council needs to hear a little bit from us on a bunch of issues.

And I think hearing from those experts out there and kind of drilling down some of those pieces that have legs to them and then having that come back as a discussion piece and and with some tangible pieces that are different than what you're seeing tonight probably gets us closer to standards that are agreeable with this body and then moving forward. Right? And then doing some of that research on the back end, right, to help inform some of that conversation as well. Yeah. The focus is I agree.

The focus I agree wholeheartedly. The focus really should be the objective design standards. But I am the staff person. I am not the voting person. But I do know that I am getting I I am getting pressure from h HCD. So

I mean a good rule of thumb is always, and again, just thinking about how people formulate businesses, strategy first, structure second. That kind of thinking keeps you from building the structure in that you turn around later and realize it doesn't really serve the strategy that we had because we put the structure in. We put a bunch of parking lots in and a bunch of other stuff in but actually we missed on the strategy piece. And that would be one way of thinking about this is let's dedicate two hardcore hours to the strategy and getting that piece right, bringing in some new blood and new experts and working the pool of talent in the city completing something, finishing the job on something actually. And again, I'm open to other ways but just comment.

Noise and sound is also something that has come up periodically over the time that I've been on the commission and we have made recommendations and decisions based on the fifty, forty five, 55, 65 decibel code limitations. I still do not know what 65 decibel sounds like. How do I find that out? I'm assuming that one of those motorcycles that roars through the town is exceeding it by a lot.

Yeah. You're

the noise standards themselves are built into a couple different categories. And are you looking them up? Because there's there's different ways. There's one minute versus, I think, ten minutes versus

Fifteen minutes, five minutes.

Yeah. There's there's different variations and then those variations have a have kind of a waterfall effect Right. Which tends to be higher in decibel reading. Now you're asking the question the general question of what does 65 sound like? I mean, we could do an example or like a little case study to show you what 65 sounds like in this in this room.

I think that

would be helpful. Hold on. It wouldn't be the same I as know. 65 decibels out on Ohio Avenue.

Well, could do it on

In your neighborhood.

Could do it on Ohio Avenue.

Yeah. Because you've got you've got sound attenuation that just doesn't exist here that is different than

Right. Our famous refrigerator, this came up, you know, that it was too noisy but it was meeting the decibel code or something. Anyway So

let's stay

away from I hate to make decisions based on the code being 65 and I don't know what it sounds like. So Right. I would really think that it would be useful.

So okay. So where is everybody else to stand with the noise piece just just so that we can kind of

I well, I'm yeah. I I think the noise standards keeping them, you know, under our standards is important. But I don't think going into it right now, I don't think it bubbles up to being the most important thing that we need to work on right now. But I had some ideas for when we are approving a project. We should require the operators to have a noise meter on-site and have the managers Yeah.

I mean, they have a band, then they need to take a reading, you know, that kind of thing. So I think more enforcement of our existing codes would be great. And so things like that would be helpful. So, you know, so I think noise is important, keeping our noise standards. But I don't think we actually need to change those standards when we have other things that are bubbling up to be more pressing.

Okay. So kinda what I'm hearing is what do the standards mean is really kind of what I'm hearing versus

We need It's not

What do they mean? And then how are they enforced? Right? Fair enough. We could even bring back examples of what that looks like, right? And that doesn't require much if any because it's already been done. It's just a matter of regurgitating and just going through and maybe even giving updates to ones that already have conditions of approval on how that's

Yes. I'm thinking I

think that would be helpful. Hopefully,

one that Yes. Okay.

Yes. I mean, I tend to agree with Commissioner Stewart. I mean, you look at the general design guidelines that's gonna have huge implications on where parking is, how it is, what the material is. Also fire is letting water percolate. I mean, these kinds of questions. The allowed use chart, same thing. How do you even approach that? I mean, we can say, how do we make the decision that this thing that is nonconforming, is that a good thing? And actually, hey, they're nonconforming, but look at how the neighborhood's grown around it. We should make it conforming or even for the future or we should make sure we kinda keep it that way or, you know, those types of questions.

And I and I'm clear, obviously, there is the land use element as part of this kind of guideline, but I think taking it further, you know, is kinda great. We we we probably will inevitably kind of in some way touch upon these things through the through the focus lens. And these other ones, I mean, they seem I mean, underground utilities, I mean, that's just a matter of hearing more. They're they're we kinda heard a little bit from the mayor last time. I mean, they're looking into it.

You know, it's an idea. It's an option. It seems like there's maybe not so much work for us to do on that, potentially. And noise seems like we need a little more education.

Education is an interesting way to put that, I think. And I think it's it's so from a staff standpoint, we we work through that on probably a weekly basis, maybe a biweekly basis where things like that sometimes come up. You as a body only see it what? Every time a project comes forward that potentially has an impact from that standpoint. So

Couple times a year.

Maybe a couple times a year. Right? So you're not getting the refresher like we're seeing on the biweekly or the weekly basis. Right? So it would it probably would would help this body to have a couple examples and maybe even updates to and not necessarily say there's any decisions. It's like, hey, this is what we're doing. This is these are the conditions that go along with it. This

is

how it's being influenced. This is how it's not being influenced. Right? So and have that conversation. But just know that it's more informational than it is looking for a determination.

Oh, right.

Makes sense.

And we and we might have different views. You know, we heard the Southern California Edison said, you know, undergrounding is $5,000,000 a mile or something. I did some quick research on the Internet, so, you know, take that for what it's worth, around $9,000,000 a mile to fight a fire, not including the houses. So it's a $4,000,000 savings and then you think, Well, hang on, the fox is telling us the hen house is too expensive to bury. Okay.

You know, and it just might it actually might bolster the learning actually or give a different flavor. I would have loved to have been at that meeting on the undergrounding and see if they have numbers. Certainly they have numbers around the cost of fighting fires and so on and then add litigation. State of California payments in $5,000,000 a mile is a bargain. Maybe.

I don't know. But, but yeah, those those things would be helpful, you know, especially for me being newer. You know, a lot of these issues catching up to them and getting up to speed, you know, when you get hit with a 90 page document a couple of days before you got to step in on it. And even hearing things like, Hey, this is kind of the old way. Hearing the modeling comment, I think is super interesting because the parking piece and so the question is, what's the beachhead issue here? What's the first thing that hits the town? Is that larger plan. To me, that's worth a deep think about.

Okay. It sounds like this commission has a consensus that we would like to devote the major portion of our time with the City Council on design guidelines. Before I close out this topic, we do have a request from Mr. Steingold to add his piece. If you would like to come up now.

Thank you. Good evening. Eight years ago, I was working on a project in the VMU And there are CUPs required for bakeries, candy confection, deli, electronic equipment, and stationary stores. These businesses have moved on. There is no reason to protect anybody who has been there with a CUP when they made the VMU or any rather reason to protect anybody to keep competition out because that's what it's for.

Seems that weighted to me. That if you remove those from the CUP, you'll be able to make things easier for businesses, at least those businesses. So that's one and I've been asking that because it makes no sense to me unless somebody can justify it. Why a stationary store? It takes a year to get a CUP and that's with a favor.

Wire, sound. Having meters at this at events would be great. It would also be better if they were all paid for by the owner of the property or the tenant and they were automatic and wireless and fixed in position so they wouldn't have to call the code enforcement officer to come over and not hear anything because the sound is gone. If they're automatic, it's wireless, here's your violation, it's ministerial, here it is. After three times, it's over, we shut you down and go re figure out what you're doing because that's why you got the permit in the first place.

So make it automatic, get rid of everything, that way AI takes over. Great. Power lines. We've been in Longboat Key for the past four years. They have put power lines underground. It's sand. It's a straight line. We have power lines in our backyard running through the back of drown all the way through through houses, neighborhoods, underneath garages, pavement, I don't whatever the reason is. But it would get really expensive in some of the neighborhoods. If I mean, it would be great but not at $50.60. I can't imagine what it would cost. So thank you. But the CEP thing, that's more important on the usage.

Thank you, Larry. With that, I will close public comments and close the discussion on this item. So we will move on to training, Brown Act, Planning Commission rules and responsibilities. Sorry. Wrong place.

Okay. We go. Here we go. Director's report.

Chair, before we move on to that, it occurred to me that we might have wanted to have a motion to create the ad hoc committee during item number two. Oh, yes. So I would recommend going back to item number two and assuming you wanna create that at our committee today.

Yes. We do.

Then

Okay. Thank you.

Mhmm. So it's

I I will reopen.

Mhmm. I vote.

We are reopening the last

item. The item number two.

Number two, is. Yeah. And I would entertain a motion at this time to create the ad hoc committee.

I'll make a motion to create an ad hoc committee for the purposes.

With the members of? Pardon? With the members being?

With members, with two members of the Planning Commission serving their role. Being

mister Chesley, commissioner Chesley. Keep going kid.

That the idea we name the people who Yes.

Name the people

Name commissioner Chesley and commissioner.

I'm sorry. Can't. I'm trying to hear you.

We're naming the commissioners

in Yes, the with the commissioners on it please.

So it would be

Commissioner Chesley and Commissioner Reich Schmidt.

Oh, oh, I'm sorry. I

Okay. Is there a second?

Second.

Roll call, Murphy? Yes. Chesley?

Yes.

Reich Smith?

Yes.

Steward? Yes. Okay. I am now closing discussion item two and moving on to commission member reports.

Director report. Director reports first. Thank you. Okay. So I have a couple of items that I wanted to just mention to this body. So first is we have a tree workshop that's gonna be taking place on May 28. I'll send you details on it after this meeting, but I wanna invite you all to attend. When you and if you attend, you can either attend in person or virtually. If you do attend in person, I ask that if you come up and and ask questions and, Darren, you can correct me if I'm wrong here. But please identify that you're coming as either a a representative, not as a representative of the commission, but as a, I guess, a community member.

Okay? Because if you do that, then it's it's less about something that can action by this body where you've been basically advised to do that and more like a community member which is really what I think we're looking for with this workshop. Obviously no decision to be made but I'll just tell you this is part two of the workshop and what's interesting about this part is we're looking at the process procedures piece and diving into that. So it's gonna be a fun little mixer. Fun for me.

I hope it's gonna be fun for the community. The last meeting really kinda talked about trees and we had a lot of arborist and a lot of expert testimony and information and I I certainly learned a lot even though I've been deeply involved in in the tree provisions for the last seven years. I felt like I learned something from these arborists and these design professionals that were there for the for the for the for this conversation. We actually had somebody there from Edison as well who spoke very very eloquently in terms of what they can and can't do and kind of what how hands are tied to a certain degree as well. So that's the first piece.

When did you say that was?

May 28. So that it's May 28. We'll be doing six to eight. Right? Six to 8PM Kent Hall. So not here, Kent Hall. It holds more people.

Right. Thank you.

Just a stone's throw away. The second piece is I wanted to remind this body that on the twentieth, we are going to have the safety element here. Also gonna have Ramy and Associates as our consultant here as well speaking on the safety element. So if you do have comments, I encourage you to to provide them early or questions. I do encourage you to provide them early. That way we can start working through some of those questions. If you if you if the questions come up as the presentation come forward, that's great too. You should have and I can send it to you again if you'd like. Hold on. I'm just thinking.

Commissioner Stewart, did I send you because you're a new member. I okay. I will be sending you the information so that you're aware of it for the twentieth. It was almost a month ago that I sent it to the to this body. So you've had the opportunity to digest it. It's a lot of information off of this obviously, the safety element hasn't been updated in more than thirty years. So it is in dire need of an update. And it's a part of the requirements as a part of our housing element. When you do your housing element update, you're also required to do the house the safety element. So that's we're following suit to that as well.

I also wanted to just make this body aware because I know there was an item that came before this body that the work has commenced for the dirty dirt to be removed at 611 South Montgomery Street, which is where the permanent supportive housing project is being will be built. So that has started. So just wanna make you all aware of that. And it's ongoing. It's about a seven day process to get rid of all that contaminated soil.

Was that

Hold on. No. No. No. It's on so it's Ventura and Montgomery.

Oh, okay.

Yep. Okay. At the end of the cul de sac of of Signal, South Signal. It's Lower Public Works Yard is what it's referred to as. So there's okay. So I have two more. Just wanna make you all aware that 304 South Montgomery Street also became before this body, we had our, pre construction meeting. It's a 15 unit, 100% affordable housing project as a part of the settlement agreement. This body had seen that project probably two years ago. I want to make you aware, it's on South Montgomery on the East Side, kind of whereby where the switching station is for Edison.

So that I anticipate that they're gonna be breaking ground here in the next couple of weeks. So they're going through their conditions of approval to make sure that they're following all the reg all the regulations before they get started.

Have they finished the, the flowers property?

That is not a part of the update. I can't necessarily talk. Okay. I'm only giving you updates as I as I as I'm as I'm seeing them. Oh, and then, at one point, there was a conversation about any time that I'm seeing updates to okay. Hold on. Let me let me say this and then I'll respond to this. There was a recent determination made by city council for the Habitat for Humanity project which is on North Montgomery Street. So that one did move forward. So they have submitted for for plan check at this point.

So we we they are moving forward fairly quickly. It's five units. Yeah. It was basically it's basically five units, single story. And it will be coming before council again to talk through some of the other selling of the property or any other different options that are being considered at at this point. It's information, not necessarily something that we're to be having a conversation. Remember, a director's report. I'm just providing information as it's coming forward. Okay? And then oh, goodness.

Okay. So I need to address this. So we have a joint meeting scheduled for June 9, and I'm just seeing now that two members of this body are gonna be out of town? Oh, no. Okay. So Jonathan, you're okay. So hold on. Can we move on to commission reports? Maybe we can talk about it then? Can we or can we talk about it now? I mean, I don't wanna or do we wanna reopen item number three to have that conversation?

I think let's do that.

Okay. Let's do that. Sorry. No. We all have lives. I mean that's you're not allowed to not have a life.

Okay. Okay. We will reopen discussion item three and ask who will be available to attend a joint meeting on June 9 or not?

May I just offer? There's nothing special about that date.

Oh, good.

So it would be better to have a different date where you obviously

Love to do that. Let's change the date. Make it work. Okay.

I agree. Yeah. It's been it's been June 9, but I also understand that as things come up, it was always tentative. Right? So we're putting on the calendar. Typically with these, I'm just I'll just feed some information here. Typically, end up trying to have it towards the end of the second quarter, start of the third quarter. If it ends up being in July, I mean, I've even we've even had these joint meetings in September and it's been still a bit successful. So I think there's there's a bit of a swing of opportunity here. I think we're trying to hit it early. If we're not of if we're not all available, it's best to have everybody available. I think that's the reality.

Might I ask that the members of the commission give their known vacation schedules or work schedules to Lucas at the end of the meeting so that a new date can be arrived at?

Yeah. That would be I think that would be super helpful. It doesn't have to be at the end sometime in the next couple of days as you sort what your vacations

are gonna look

like this summer. That way we can we can pin it down. Great. Make sense?

Okay. We will all

Alright.

We will all

do When you had nodded to me earlier, like, I'm not gonna be here. I'm like, okay. That's not good. And then I just saw the second one. I'm like, that's not good either. So we we really wanna make sure that you're all there. Yeah. It's it's an informed conversation at that point.

Sounds better.

Closing item three again. Alright. We will move on to the commission member reports. Are there any

Before we go in, can I just, I was just reminded by the city attorney? We didn't go into the tentative agendas for future. I think we skipped over that one.

Number four.

Yeah. Number four.

Yeah. We haven't done that.

I was just gonna give We an over

will get okay. I have

the I was just next gonna give a quick overview for it. Okay. You're seeing like for instance, the twentieth I just mentioned that you should be, you've gotten information and certainly Commissioner Stewart you're gonna be receiving information probably tonight so that you can start diving into it for the twentieth. You'll love it. And then you also are seeing the DRP and CUP for 242 East Ohio Avenue outdoor dining area. Expect to see that in its full breath.

Have we seen it before? I don't remember the address.

Yes. This is Ojai Mountain Farms. This

is the one. Okay. Alright.

And then for June 3, you may have you may have a a bit of a lapse in in saying, oh shoot, I feel like we've seen this zone change. And the reason why it's coming back to this body is the state law changed for when you have changes to zones. If you're proposing changes to zones, requires a specific notification and we did not meet that. So before we can take this to council, we have to hear this body, this item again.

Okay.

And that change, it'll be in the staff report, but that change happened recently. So and it's within the timeline by which this came forward. So because of that we have to hear this item again. There's no changes to what's being proposed. It's just the same project but we're following the notification, the state standards for notification process.

Okay.

Alright.

That that meeting looks a little thin. Are there other things in review that might be

Yes. Possibly. It's not just gonna be that item. There's other ones that are in the hopper that potentially are ready, but Okay.

Yes. Going back to commission member reports. Do we have any? No. No. None. Okay. City Council liaison, Mayor Gilman. Thank you.

Nothing major that we already that what we already talked about except that we are forwarding a commissioner to the you may have discussed this already, but at the May 12 meeting under the consent, which could be pulled out of consent, of course, by the fifth commissioner.

Great.

Yeah. And, one little comment. This is for Brad. One thing we did talk about is if we had a limited amount of money to underground, we had Matt Levy, our our supervisor there. It would probably if we only had very limited resources, we might go on like Koenigstein and say, well, let's start there in Upper Ohio where the fire started. So that's something that I haven't let go of yet is to say, oh, if you wanna put resources in where a fire would start like in the forest or up against the interface, just so you know. It's something that still thinking about and working on but that's all.

Okay. Yeah. Thanks.

Thank you. Alright. With that, we will adjourn the meeting at 07:55. What? What do I have to reopen? Closed.