Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the meeting of the Thursday, 03/26/2026 meeting of the Planning and Design Commission, City of Sacramento. The meeting is now called to order. Sorry, that was too soon on that. Will the clerk please call the roll to establish a quorum?

Yes, thank you, chair. Commissioner Lee? Here. Commissioner Tao? Absent. Commissioner Lamas? Absent. Commissioner Nybo? Absent. Vice Chair Caden?

Here.

Commissioner Hernandez?

Here.

Commissioner Mesias Reid?

Here.

Commissioner Young? Here. Commissioner Ortiz? Here. Commissioner Blunt? Commissioner Rischke?

Here.

Commissioner Thompson? Chair Chase?

Here.

Thank you. We have a quorum.

Good evening. I have a few announcements regarding, our scheduled items here tonight. Public item number two, Deer Creek Plaza, PUD amendment is being withdrawn, and public hearing item number three, an ordinance amending various provisions of title 17 of the Sacramento City Code relating to off street bicycle and vehicle parking, is being continued to April 23. So those two in case anyone's here for either those items. Regarding the remaining items, I would like to remind those in the audience who wish to speak on any items in today's agenda, please turn on a speaker slip before the item begins.

You will have three minutes to speak once you are called on. After the first speaker, we will no longer accept speaker slips. We'll now proceed with a land acknowledgment followed by the pledge of allegiance. Please rise. To the original people of this land, the Nissan Nissan people, the Southern Midu Valley and Plains Miwok, Patwin Winton peoples, and the people of the Wilton Rancheria, Sacramento's only federally recognized tribe, may we acknowledge and honor the native people who came before us and still walk beside us today on these ancestral lands by choosing to gather today in the active practice of acknowledgments and appreciation for Sacramento's indigenous people's history, contributions, and lives.

Thank you. And pledge of allegiance, please. I pledge pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic which it stands, nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. I missed the loss.

Did we expect him to be here? Before we begin our business today, it's my privilege on behalf of the Planning and Design Commission to recognize the dedication and service of commissioners Julio Lamas and Enoch Young. I noticed Julio Lamas hopefully will be here. Commissioner Young is here. I'd like to present a certificate on behalf of their award.

But before I do that, any other commissioners have anything they want to say? Commissioner Nybo. Where? Oh, how did he show up here? Commissioner Mascias Reed.

I was saddened to hear that you were leaving, but I know it's to spend time with family. So, take back that time. And I've had I've really enjoyed serving with you. You have always had really thoughtful questions, and really care about the community. And so, I really appreciate that.

Thank you. Commissioner Hernandez.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to echo the sentiments by Commissioner Messias Reid, Commissioner Young. We really appreciate your leadership on the commission when you were serving in that capacity, your thoughtfulness. You do ask very great questions, and you always try to work towards very thoughtful solutions, always keeping your community and the broader Sacramento community at mind, top of mind in your discussions and as an expert on these issues. It's been a pleasure working alongside with you. You will be missed, and we're just so happy that we had the chance to meet. And congratulations on your next endeavors. Thank you. You.

Commissioner Ortiz.

Thank you. I also want to echo my appreciation, along with others, that I was new to this body, and you were such a helpful resource. You were very gracious and took any and all questions, many of them not quite so thoughtful, but you endeavored. And I really appreciate it. And I'm going

to miss

you. So I probably have served the shortest time with you, but I really, really will miss you. Thank you.

And I would like to also kind of echo comments from my fellow commissioners. It's been great to have you on the commission. It was great to serve as vice chair under you. I learned a lot and I think you have always you have heard this from others, but always presented a very thoughtful analysis of whatever was before us. I think we going to miss that.

We really are. So thank you for your service. And with that, I'd like to present a certificate. With that timing, fortunately, he walked in just in time to get his award. As I said earlier, I also want to thank commissioner Lama for his service on the Commission. And I'd like to ask if any other Commissioners have any comments or thoughts. Commissioner Hernandez?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner Lammas, congratulations on your service here. Thank you so much for lending your voice. You're the community that you represent has very unique points of view, and so you've been a fantastic representative in showcasing that and making sure that they felt heard and seen and that their perspective was part of discussion here as we make these decisions. So, it's been a great time with you on the commission, especially your very measured and also thoughtful considerations of all the items. So, we will miss you. Congratulations again, and we hope to see you around Sacramento. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Commissioner Marcias Reed.

I did not know you were leaving, but I guess congratulations. I did maybe hear that you had new endeavors as well professionally. So, I guess congratulations as well. Also, to spend time with your guess, somewhat new new family. So I think, that'll be great to take some time back as well. But thank you so much. Your, representation for District 3 is immense and it shows at the dais. So it's been really incredible. Thank you.

I'd also like to thank you for your service here as well. You certainly bring a unique background to the commission that I don't think we've had before and that's really been appreciative and I think it's been helpful and very thoughtful and a lot of the things come before us. And again, congratulate you on your new endeavors as well. With that, I'd like to present you with a certificate, if you don't. And I guess now is the time, Commissioner Hernandez.

To approval of the consent calendar. Are there any members of the public who wish to speak on the consent calendar? Seeing none, are there any commissioners who wish to speak on this? All right. Seeing none, is there a motion and a second for approval of the consent calendar?

Commissioner Kaden?

I move the item.

Commissioner Hernandez.

Second. We

have a motion and a second. Clerk, will you take a vote?

Thank you. Commissioner Lee.

Aye.

Commissioner Tao? Commissioner Lamas? Aye. Commissioner Nybo? Vice Chair Kaden? Aye. Commissioner Hernandez? Aye. Commissioner Mesias Reid? Aye. Commissioner Young? Aye. Commissioner Ortiz? Aye. Commissioner Blunt? Aye. Commissioner Rischke? Aye. Commissioner Thompson? Thompson? And Chair Chase?

Aye.

Thank you. The motion passes.

Thank you. We will now proceed to the discussion calendar item four, workshop preliminary framework for regulating cottages on wheels. I think we are going to reverse it. Yeah. Pardon me. We discussed earlier. We are going to switch up two items, item four and item five. So, the next item we'll talk about is is item five on the calendar, the 2040 general plan and zoning consistency, missing middle housing standards and Senate Bill SB 79 work shop. Is there a staff presentation?

Go back one. That's my job actually. Alright. Perfect. Good evening chair and commissioners. My name is Jamie Mosler, associate planner in the long range planning team. We're here tonight for a workshop as part of the 2040 general plan and zoning consistency work. Tonight, focus on missing middle housing and senate bill 79. As an overview of tonight's presentation, I'll first give some background of how we got here. I'll then describe both missing middle housing and s b 79 along with recommendations, then we'll describe the next steps for the overall zoning consistency work and have time for discussion to get your feedback on our recommendations tonight.

Two key questions that we're looking for input from the commission tonight. For missing middle housing, what type of change does the 2040 general plan's vision mean across the city? And for s b 79, what should the city's approach to implementation be? Tonight, we're asking PDC to review and comment on high level concepts and policies recommended degree of change. Once we have direction from PDC and later from council, we'll come back and with drafted more specific development standards, things like height, setbacks, etcetera.

Alright. So starting with some background. The reason we're here tonight is because of the 2040 general plan that was adopted by city council in 2024. This document includes policies and implementation actions to guide more detailed decision making with regards to development, and staff is now in the process of updating the zoning code for consistency with this plan, is which a requirement of state law. As discussed with the commission last summer, there are several updates we need to make to our code for consistency, but we're just focusing on a few of them tonight.

So first, with updating development standards, this direction is from our general plan. What this means is removing maximum density across all of our zones, replacing our development standards to be based around the maximum FAR in the general plan, and increasing the intensity of development allowed near transit. This applies across all zones citywide. We're also working on codifying the missing middle housing interim ordinance. This was adopted 2024.

It's always adopted as an interim step before the complete code update, which we're in the process of doing now. We're working on refinements and improvement based on our implementation experience to allow house scale buildings with multiple dwelling units inside. This applies to single unit and duplex zones citywide. And then the last item is since our work started on the zoning code update, new state legislation has been signed. SB 79 is effective this summer.

It establishes statewide zoning standards for eligible housing near transit that sometimes exceed the allowances in the general plan. This bill applies in eligible zones within a half mile of transit stops. Throughout tonight's presentation, you're gonna hear FAR a lot, so I wanted to spend a moment just clarifying what this means. It's floor area ratio, and that is how the general plan regulates maximum building intensity across the city. It's calculated by dividing building area by lot area.

So on a 5,000 square foot lot, 5,000 square foot building is gonna give you an FAR of one, but a 2,500 square foot building on that same lot would give you an FAR of point five. The general plan establishes maximum FARs of one through 15 throughout the city, and higher FAR allowances are located near transit. Alright. So for missing middle housing, as mentioned, the key question for tonight is what type of change does the 2040 general plan's vision mean across the city? General plan defines this as house scale buildings that contain more than one home that are usually built to the same scale as surrounding single family homes.

Some examples of this include duplexes, triplexes, and cottage courts shown on the slide. As mentioned earlier, we adopted our interim ordinance to allow multi unit house scale dwellings in the single unit and duplex zones and adjusted our development standards to facilitate these. These projects are also subject to our sliding FAR scale shown there on the bottom of the slide where projects receive more floor area as more units are provided up to the maximum FAR. For most parcels in the MMH zones, they have a maximum FAR of one, but for other parcels that are near transit, they have a maximum FAR of two. Since the ordinance has been adopted, we've been tracking the number of applications that we've received.

As of last month, 19 projects were approved. The most common building types we're seeing are definitely single unit and duplex dwellings. There was only one project that had multiunit dwellings with the larger number of units on them, but most projects are consisting of single unit and duplex dwellings. The average FAR of approved project is point four, average density, 18 dwelling units per acre, and an average of three units per lot. Since we began reflecting on the applications we're receiving and wanting to work on improving our ordinance, we brought back on Opticos Design, which is an award winning firm that pioneered the concept of missing little housing.

I'm supported here by Tony Perez from Opticos tonight who can support with any questions about their work during our question and answers. But our analysis of the interim ordinance focusing on improvements really focused on three areas, aligning with the 2040 general plan, streamlining standards for house scale missing middle housing, and identifying opportunities to what's known as upper missing middle housing. There is a spectrum of, missing middle housing types there at the bottom of the slide ranging from duplexes to townhouses that could figure from house scale on the left to block scale, on the right. But generally speaking, these can be broken into two categories. House scale MMH is designed to blend into neighborhoods with one to two story homes, has a similar scale and footprint as a house.

Upper MMH was not the focus of our interim ordinance, but it's a little bit bigger, typically three to four stories. If you look at it from the street, it has the same width, but it covers more of the lot when comparing it to house scale. And so with our analysis, you know, most of the MMH zone parcels have a maximum FAR of one and two, so and we looked at what this looks like across different contexts across the city to understand what different types of change would result. These results help us determine what development standards like height and setback should be in the zoning code. To understand what type of change may occur, we needed to first understand the existing built environment, and so we use the context types that were developed as part of the 2023 missing little housing study that consider things like street and block patterns, lot configurations, transit access, and the built form.

Low scale residential consists primarily of one to two story single family homes with some multiunit or commercial on nearby arterials. Transitional refers to moderately walkable areas with primarily two to three story house scale buildings. Quarters and centers are mostly single story, commercial with parking, and some residential nearby. And then compact and connected are designed for walking, biking, and transit with one to two story house scale to taller block scale near the city core. Alright.

So this table is in the staff report, and we're gonna break it down by FAR. But, basically, what this table is showing is based on the desired degree of change, there are different MMH strategies that we would use. So as mentioned, most of the MMH zone parcels have a maximum FAR of one in the general plan. Generally speaking, a development built up to an FAR of one is going to have is gonna be house scale. There's three degrees of change that we identify.

There's minor, moderate, and transform. If minor change is desired, then we would wanna write development standards for cottage courts, duplexes, fourplexes, townhomes. If moderate change is desired, then we'd write development standards to also allow courtyard buildings, multiplexes, and live work units. And if there's a die desire for standards that transform a neighborhood, we would focus on upper missing little housing. Some types include, like, stye triplex stacked and stacked flats. Essentially, the more change is desired, we would create development standards for larger buildings. Alright. So moving up to FAR 1.5. This isn't a maximum in the general plan. There's only one and two, but we wanted to show more gradation and development outcomes.

Generally speaking, FAR is up to 1.5. We're gonna be larger than house scale and more block scale. So in this, area, if a minor degree of change is desired, then we'd be creating development standards to enable triplexes, floorplexes, townhouses, courtyard, multiplex, live work. But if moderate transformed change is desired, then it'd be development standards for upper missing middle housing, so, like, triplexes stacked and stacked flats. And then lastly, going up to FAR two point o, again, this is generally gonna result in board block scale versus house scale.

If a minor degree of change is desired here, that would be creating development standards for triplexes, fourplexes, townhouses, courtyards, multiplex, live works. For a moderate degree of change, that would be creating standards for upper upper missing middle housing. And then if transformative change is desired in neighborhoods with FAR two point o two two point o, excuse me, that's gonna result in buildings that are even larger than missing middle housing just with the amount of FAR that you're working with and give you things more like six story buildings or taller. So this slide brings all of the columns that we just went over together. Generally speaking, if we'd like to facilitate minor change, we'd be looking at creating development standards for house scale missing middle types.

For moderate change, we'd be looking at house scale to upper missing middle housing types near transit. And then for transform, we'd be looking at upper MMH to buildings that are even bigger than MMH. Really depends on how much change is desired, and then we would write development standards to allow that change. To help visualize what this would look like, we tested a site in the compact and connected context type. So as a reminder, that's a neighborhood designed for walking, biking, and transit.

Immediately surrounding buildings here are one story, and this is more narrow lot in there. It's within a half mile of transit, so it has a maximum FAR of two. The image on the left shows you two black two duplexes on this side, what that could look like, and this would be more of a minor degree of change in this area. The middle images shows you townhouses, which are part of moderate degree of change and a little bit more FAR. And the image on the right shows you what full build out of an FAR two would look like on a site of this size, which is larger than missing middle housing in scale.

We also looked at a site in the transitional context. So this is moderately walkable area where cars are needed for some trips. Existing neighbors on either side of site are single story, but there is also some two story in this neighborhood as well. It's also within a half mile of transit, but this lot is a bit larger than the one that we looked at previously. The image on the left shows what a minor to moderate degree of change would look like with duplexes and triplexes in the front and a six plex at the rear.

As you get higher in FAR, you know, even at 1.2 or 1.9, those are both buildings that would be larger than missing middle housing and report and result in more of a transformative degree of change. So all this leads back to our key question for missing middle housing of what type of change does the 2040 general plan's vision mean across the city? Minor change would mean creating development standards prioritizing the existing context. Moderate change would mean creating development standards that balance existing context and build out of the FAR, and then transform would mean creating development standards prioritizing solely full full build out of the FAR. Recommendation tonight is for a moderate change.

What this means is we would create objective development standards for both house scale, missing middle housing, and upper MMH in areas near transit to both be subject to staff level review. Folks would still be eligible to exceed those standards with a deviation at director level hearing, which is more flexible than the interim ordinance that doesn't allow for deviations unless there is an extreme circumstance. Our rationale for this is that we feel it balances both the general plan policies for increasing intensity near transit and recognizing patterns in existing neighborhoods that the general plan has the policies for both of these. Minor is not our recommendation, but what this would mean would be objective development standards for house scale missing middle housing only, everything out at staff level. Everything else would be subject to a director level hearing to deviate that from that.

Again, this is not our recommendation because we don't feel it balances both of those policies and our general plan and focuses solely on patterns in existing neighborhoods. On the other side, transform is also not a recommendation, but this would be objective development standards, full build out of the FARs at staff level review. Nothing would be exceeding standard, and so there wouldn't be a public hearing. This is not recommended because, again, it doesn't feel like it balances both of the policies and the general plan to focus it solely on intensity near transit. Going even further than transform change that we've been talking about is s b 79, and our question tonight on this is what approach or what should the city's approach to implementation be?

So this law becomes effective this summer and establishes statewide zoning standards for eligible housing near transit depending on where a site is within, you know, how close is transit. Within 200 feet, they are eligible for a height of 85 feet in FAR four, then a quarter mile 65 feet high in FAR three, and then a quarter to half mile height of 55 feet in an FAR of 2.5. This also intersects with the missing middle housing policy we've been talking about in approximately 29,000 parcels in a single unit and duplex zones are also within a half mile of a transit stop eligible for SB 79. However, to utilize the heights and FARs provided by s b 79, projects need to meet certain requirements such as providing at least five dwelling units, meeting a minimum density of 30 dwelling units per acre, or the local requirement, whichever is greater, an average unit size of seventeen fifty square feet, affordability requirements if there's 10 or more units, and then labor standards if projects are 85 feet or taller. The bill provides local jurisdictions with several options for their implementation.

The first is no local ordinance. We're not required to adopt one, but we would still need to process any applications in accordance with state law. Second would be adopting a local implementing ordinance where we wouldn't be modifying any of the standards, but clarifying the local administrative procedures of how an application would be processed. The bill also allows for temporary parcel exemptions until 2030 for some parcels that already allow some of the capacity or in low resource areas or contain a historic resource. Also provides an option for a local alternative plan where within the half mile area of the transit stop, you can shift the where the heights are and where the FARs are, but within certain parameters.

And then the last option would be just taking the heights from SP 79 itself and just putting them into the zoning code without having to meet some the state's eligibility requirements such as the affordability piece or the 30 dwelling units per acre minimum density. Staff is recommending the local implementing ordinance and codifying height standards into the zoning code. What that means is we'd have an ordinance clarifying how applications would be received and processed here at the city, and then we'd also codify the S B 79 heights into the commercial and higher intensity or essentially the non MMH residential zones near transit. What that means is unlike c two, for example, which is on a lot of corridors, those project if they're if they wanna do that height, they don't have to meet s B 70 Nine's affordability and density. But if they weren't MMH, they would zone, they would still need to meet the state's eligibility requirements to use the heights of s p 79.

The rationale here was to prioritize intensity along commercial corridors, but still allow and facilitate affordable housing to use the full development standards of s p 79. So I was not recommending a local alternative plan as it would affect the schedule of the zoning code update, which we'll talk about in a moment, and also raise questions about if we are shifting capacity, how would we you know, the requirement to firmly further for housing, how would we decide where it gets shifted? That will describe our next steps for the overall update. So right now, we're in our analysis phase through spring. We're doing a workshop here at the PDC and with council to gear input before we put together a framework of all the proposed zoning code changes and rezones.

Once we have that, we'll do community engagement, all the proposed changes, including stop here at the planning and design commission. We'll then take that along with all the inputs, prepare the ordinance, and bring it back for final public hearing and adoption by the end of the year in the winter. In the more near term future, on April 14, we'll be doing a similar workshop with the city council as well focusing on missing little housing in SB 79. And then in the summer, we'll come back to the planning and design commission with an overview of all of the proposed title 17 or zoning code changes and rezones during community engagement. That, our contact information is on screen, and I did wanna highlight that there is a website for this project, cityofsacramento.gov/zoningcodeupdate, where folks can sign up to receive updates.

We sent an email last week about this meeting as well, for example. And then I will leave this up here to help facilitate the discussion tonight. Myself, city staff are here to answer any questions and are really looking forward to receiving your feedback on these important issues. So, thank you.

Thank you, Jamie. Very good presentation. Very clear and appreciate it. I'd like to ask first are there any members of the public that wish to speak on this ordinance?

Thank you, chair. Yes, I have a handful of speakers. Can I please have Michael Turgeon come forward and then Maximilian Rocca, please?

Hey, everybody. Michael Turgeon here. I'm president of House Sacramento, your local volunteer YMB, Yes in My, backyard, organization. Just wanna say a couple things to, like, kick kick off the discussion here. First, we really appreciate the very thorough analysis and table setting offered by the staff report and recognize that this is the evolution of a much longer process and that many of the concepts in the staff report are possible tools rather than a formal red line proposal at this stage, and we know there's more community engagement and stuff going forward.

And we really appreciate this engagement step and presenting this portfolio of options rather than going right to it. I also recognize that to some extent to the bulk control or house scale policy that has been controversial in the past and we'll hear more from is you know responding to some amount of direction from the previous general plan. However, what we'd love to see is a way to make this work in all neighborhoods in the city that doesn't totally choke off the ability for us to get three story residences, which really are the workhorse of missing middle housing. They're the projects that are penciling out now that you see in areas of the city where the standard doesn't apply, and we would love a way for these types of projects to make sense in Landpark or ESAC or anywhere else touched by the missing middle code. We also love the block scale standard that we saw in the staff report.

Would love more clarity and discussion on where that's gonna be applied. We love adding s p 79 heights directly into the code, although I think we do have some questions about how those would interact with how scale standards in the event where you have an overlap between a missing middle zone and an s p 79 zone. And just wanna say, as an advocate for more abundant, sustainable, and affordable housing in Sacramento, I urge the commission to consider limiting or shaping the scope of application of the house scale standards that we can unlock these projects. And I just want to remind everyone that the commission recently gave a unanimous approval to a 300 plus unit project in ESAC right next to very expensive single family homes. And even then, it did get some opposition.

But if you look at the hearing and you look at the comment docket, the public was with the commission in that decision, including even the ESAC Community Association. So we think the fear of backlash for three story buildings is overblown. And the public of the city of Sacramento is with us in wanting to build more housing in our city, and we obviously would love to support you guys and help us guide the conversation in that direction. So thank you for your time and looking forward to hearing more.

Thank you for your comments. Maximilian Rosa. And after maximum, Michael Nirby.

Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Maximilian Rosa. I'm the director of sustainability at Sierra Service Project. We've led youth focused service learning programs for the last fifty years. For the last three years, I've been running a workforce development program called the Sacramento Sustainability Academy where we take young people and we give them career experience addressing the issues in their community.

We incentivize their leadership and participation with real jobs and employment. In our last rendition of this program, we've hired seven people to take on the opportunity sure we're sure able able to of development capacity so that we're organizations like ours who are building up the leaders and the builders of the future to address the issues in our community. We want to source these solutions locally by building up the capacity of folks like ours to build housing in their own neighborhoods. We work and employ a lot of young people who are actively unhoused, living in shelters and we prioritize them because there's so many spaces where their voice is unheard navigating these complex issues that they're subject to, but don't have much agency in. We would love your support to work with us to address these issues.

I'll have an invite for you later in my later comments about our missing middle's presentation open house that we're going be doing in May. Thank you, commissioners. Oh, and I also wanted to give a shout out to Jamie in the planning department is doing amazing work on this. Amy, you guys are doing great work. We really appreciate all your support.

Thank you for your comments. Michael Nerbe, please. And after Michael is Ben Raderstrom.

How you guys doing? This appropriate time to bring up feedback on practical application? I'm a builder in Sacramento. I don't know if this is the right time for that. Yeah? Okay. Cool. I'm one of the nine in progress. I'm building a small cottage court in Oak Park, and I just want to give some feedback. Very excited about it.

I want to do more cottage courts. I want to build more in Sacramento. It took me over a year to get approvals. And so, man, if somehow we could do something about getting approvals faster, that really helped me in my business and being able to deliver a good product. I ran into a little classification on duplex that was an issue that you guys should be aware Somehow there is a difference between a duplex that shares a wall and a duplex that is separated.

And so I don't get any benefit for building two houses on a lot detached as far as FAR goes. And so in my mind, a duplex is a duplex whether it's attached or detached. And you should get the benefits of a 0.7 FAR rather than a 0.4 FAR. I know we're getting into the weeds here, but it seems like that would be self explanatory. The point four FAR citywide, I've run into some issues as far as a single family residence, and I feel like it's maybe unnecessarily low and even like a bump to a point five would be recommended.

I find that the bulk control and tenting and like figuring this all out is still overly cumbersome and a challenge for a builder to figure out. And then costs, man, like the school fees alone, arborist reports, engineers, drainage plan, every year there is no incentive for cost to go down. And every year that I build, only the fees go up. And so as a council, if we can figure out some way to put a cap on some of this stuff or in fact remove some of the layers of fees would be really great for me as a builder. But thank you for all you are doing and I am a big fan of, the missing middle and look forward to seeing, SB 79 implemented as well.

So, you very much.

Thank you for your comments. I have Ben and after Ben I have Robert, Mench.

Thank you commission. My name is Ben Raderstorff. A member of House Sacramento. We're an all volunteer pro housing organization. We are here yet again to say, please get rid of bulk control.

But I wanna I wanna talk a little bit about sort of the reasons why I care so much about this ordinance overall, why why I really I see our missing middle strategy, you know, not not just as the key to ending our our housing and homelessness crisis in Sacramento, but, like but but something that I feel I I feel quite personal, a sense of ownership over as a sacramentan. And, you know, we in in our city, in our state, past generations of planning commissions, past generations of people who stood up and yelled at planning commissions for what to do, they decided to to to prioritize the status quo and to to protect the status quo at all costs. Right? I mean, this is this is what we still see in in basically every other planning commission in the state. You all are the only ones who hear people like me come up and go, yeah.

You're right. Let's find a way to say yes. Everywhere else, it is about how do we prevent damage to the status quo? How do we how do we keep new people? How do we keep affordable housing?

How do we keep density from negatively impacting the the the people who live in neighborhoods? And and I I understand, and I know staff is working so hard to make this ordinance work and and to actually get it the point where it builds at scale and is permitting more than, you know, fifty, sixty units in in a year and a half. And I I believe we can get there. But I do at at my core, I think the way we the only way that that we're gonna be able to actually solve the housing and homelessness crisis is when we start to not just think about the the status quo being the the framework from which we are starting. Right?

So I I understand the instinct to always think about everything and, you know, what degree of change are we willing to accept? You know, how far on that marginal to transformation are we gonna are we gonna be able to go? But I but I just I think that is prioritizing the wrong people. It is ignoring the people who don't live here. It ignoring the people who live on our streets. And instead, we need to think about, you know, what do we actually want to see built in the city of Sacramento? What do we want our city to look like? And I believe we want our city to look like simple rules that apply across the city. Right? That are not sort of building arbitrary aesthetic standards on top of it just because we we actually didn't really want the missing middle standard to apply in, you know, the pocket or North Natomas or something like that.

So we're gonna, like, find the ways to make sure that you can't build apartments that look like apartments, you know, if they're three stories outside of the core or or or sort of certain, you know, areas where we think that apartment dwellers wanna live. And we think about, you know, what are the what are the fair and and straightforward, easily applicable as Michael said, you know, the the standards that you don't actually need an architect to tell you what you're allowed to build on a lot. I don't believe that bulk control or or frankly the house scale neighborhood standards get us there. But I think without that, this ordinance is incredible. Thank you all.

Thank you for your comments. I have Robert. After Robert, I have Nolan Gray.

Just a quick comment before Robert's presentation regarding the previous builder speaker in terms of fees. There are some fees, as the city knows, that the city has absolutely no control over school fees. It's certainly one of those. Probably parks, but definitely school fees. So just want to be sure everybody does understand that limitation on behalf of the city. Thank you. Robert? Good

evening.

I am Robert Ng, founder of Missing Middles. We are a national design competition seeking on testing Sacramento's Missing Middle standards and how they perform on real sites and parcels. The core idea is both how missing middle ordinance and SB 79 are expanding housing capacity, but that success success really depends on how these standards translate onto actual parcels both at the human scale and at scale. Key points, feasibility is not just what's allowed, it's about whether these standards translate into configurations that are actually buildable. There's often a gap between policy intent and what actually pencils while fitting parcels.

To close, the opportunity is not is to ensure these standards are clear and predictable so they can be delivered in practice. We'd be happy to share what our teams come across and be a available resource. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. I have Nolan. And after Nolan, have Brian Seenhart.

Great. Thank you. Good afternoon commissioners. My name is Nolan Gray. I'm a renter, live here downtown, a member of House Sacramento and a recovering city planner. This is actually the only time I've ever spoken at a commission meeting as a member of the public. I'm here to speak on behalf today of the amazing progress that's been done on the missing middle ordinance. Sacramento has been a real leader of this in my state level housing advocacy. We often point other cities to what Sacramento is doing and say why can't you be as good as Sacramento. They don't appreciate that but we say it anyway.

But I also want to raise concerns about some of the bulk controls that are being considered them that might stymie efforts to actually realize housing with this ordinance and with these efforts. Today I'm wearing a triple decker pen. It's probably pretty small. If you've been to New England you see everywhere. These are three story, three unit stacked apartments. I don't know if they're house scale, but to many tens or hundreds of thousands of people, this is what home looks like. And this is how historically regions like New England maintained affordability. Yet my concern is that under the current standards, potentially this form of housing will be illegal to build in many parts of Sacramento. Keeping Sacramento affordable means allowing for a range of housing types for families at all income levels and of all sizes. And so I hope that we'll prioritize flexibility and feasibility in refining these standards.

Thank you again.

Thank you for your comments. The last speaker is going to be Brian.

Hello. Good evening, chair chase and commission. My name is Brian Saynard. I'm an architect and I am involved in the housing the American Institute of Architects has a local chapter. We have a housing task force. We've been working very closely with the city over the missing middle on the missing middle housing issue. And we will continue to work. And I just want to, you know, talk about massing and scale from an architectural point of view. And I think you're going to have a lot to say about that. We need greater density.

I have young architects that I talk with and they say, you know, we don't want to be kept out of these neighborhoods. We need to have higher density in these neighborhoods. But, we also need to be careful about the massing of those. I wanted to give you an example. I don't have any photographs, but if you think of where the co op is and that end up to 34th Street, you know there is a really well integrated housing project along the edge of that beautiful little neighborhood which is one and two story bungalows.

It is just a sweet area. An example is on 34th Street, which is a commercial corridor, two new three story apartment buildings. And they're like straight walls adjacent to the scale of them adjacent three stories against two and one story small bungalows, which begins to be less desirable, I will simply say. Maybe you could take a look at those. We'll certainly bring up these kinds of examples.

We are really pushing also besides density of these neighborhoods, we are really pushing development of underutilized commercial zones. And, we think there's some great opportunities for housing there. We've looked at high rise housing as well. And, there's some fantastic studies about how to integrate housing into unoccupied office buildings. Sacramento is really not on the cutting edge of that. There's we don't have the same situation as, you know, San Francisco or Philadelphia.

So, I

just I'm here to say we're going to continue to work with the staff and we look forward to the final results. Thanks.

Thank you for your comments, chair. Have no more speakers on this item.

Great. Thank you. Thank you, Brian. Regarding the former speaker, I'm from New England, lived in Boston. And I know very well the three story buildings you talking about. They are everywhere and they work very well and they fit in. So, let's see where we can go. Given that, and do we have any commissioner comments or questions? Commissioner Kaden? I am sorry.

Yeah. Thanks, Chair. And, you know thank you to staff. I mean I know just an unbelievable amount of work has gone into this and you know as was referenced this was you know not just one item this has been literally years. I mean three, four years I'm not sure at this point, of work that has gone into this.

And I'm just really appreciative of how thoughtful everyone has been in trying to kind of be receptive to hearing new ideas on this and try to balance a lot of competing priorities, very cognizant of that. So I have a few questions. I wanted to first look at this slide that shows kind of the progress so far. So I saw we were selling nine missing middle projects that are moving forward under the missing middle interim ordinance. And so I guess this is maybe a hard question to answer, but I'm just curious just from staff's perspective, is that more or less or about like what you expected?

So as of a month ago, there were 19 approved and then nine are still on progress, like they haven't been approved. Right.

So, yeah.

And then for what was expected I think Bruce Monaghan, our urban design manager would be able to speak to that.

Mr. Caton, it's less than what we expected. Actually it's been a surprise because we set this up for a wide range of building types and a wide range of geographical areas. And essentially what we have seen has been duplexes with an ADU. So three units at a time, a duplex in an ADU.

This is specifically related to the use of residential code versus commercial code. So once you go to three or more units, you've got to use a commercial code, full compliance with ADU, full compliance with fire sprinkler systems with standpipes not a residential standpipe system, much different sense of exiting. So almost everybody has opted for keeping it within the residential building code. So we don't see three and up. We see two and two plus an ADU to get to the three.

Soon as we go to a three story building that requires a design professional. Two stories not a design professional, three stories design professional, have to have an architect or an engineer. So it's the code that seems to be limiting this. We've seen multiple buildings on a single lot, but they're still duplexes or duplexes plus an ADU. This has been a bit of a surprise and it looks like the transition to more units requires a much larger scope of projects, something in the neighborhood of 20 units or more to be able to absorb those additional costs.

So that was, I won't say totally unanticipated, but we're surprised that nobody's actually broken through there based on the financial cost of moving to commercial building code.

Yes. And I mean, so just to reinforce what I saw on the slide. So it's single units, duplex units that you're seeing, duplexes with ADUs. And then you had it sounded like 120 plus unit projects. Is that right? And was that on a, I assume, much larger site?

Yeah, I mean the response has typically been larger sites for larger projects. The other thing that while we don't require parking, you can slip duplex in an ADU into a neighborhood and not have to really deal with parking. But once you go to a larger project, parking really becomes a requirement. So that also increases the size of the lot requirement. So they just haven't shown to be viable from what we're seeing. Expectation was more but we haven't gotten them.

Do you know of any projects that have made three stories work like with the dormers and the gables that are required in a bulk control?

Well, we have a lot of projects over the last two decades that have used bulk control because it's been around that long. So specifically to missing middle housing, two and a half stories with the use of dormers for that 3rd Floor? No. Matt? No. No.

All right. And so I had a couple of questions on the house scale versus block scale development standards. So can you it was I was struggling to understand. Can you help us understand where exactly the city is recommending the house scale versus the block scale development outcome?

Tony, you want to take that one or?

Thank you, Commissioner Caden for the question. Yeah, the general approach for the house scale building or the recommendation where to put that is in one point zero FAR areas. That's generally. What we have found by testing all kinds of lots in those areas is that somewhere between about zero point five and zero point nine FAR yields a pretty good range of missing middle projects. Once you get over one point zero, it starts to get bigger than what it's next to. So if that's not a concern, then you could continue going. But yes, generally in one point zero if they are areas.

Okay. So the one point zero is the house scale and then the two point zero in the general plan is Well, the block

point five, that's we introduced that middle category to try and nuance the one point zero and two point zero to say, what about projects that are somewhere in between but they aren't as big as two point zero, but they're bigger than one point zero? Maybe there's some middle ground there. And so should it be 1.5 or some other number? We just tried 1.5 in the middle. And those projects still can produce house scale components, but the overall project is bigger than house scale. So for example, you might get a couple of duplexes out in front, but the building that really takes advantage of all the available FAR is bigger than a house scale building. It tends to be in the middle or in the back of the lot.

But the house scale development standards that are being proposed, those are the ones that have dormers and gable requirement on the 3rd Floor, that's just the FAR one point zero and then the rest of the FAR two point zero areas are going to have the block scale?

That's right. Yeah. Right.

Do you have a sense of what proportion, I guess, of the area that's like governed by the missing middle ordinance that the house scale, the one point zero area is? I'm not asking for like an exact number, but just generally speaking, is

that the vast majority of? I don't know that number deferred staff.

Don't know the proportion. Most maybe?

Yes, I'd say most is one point zero and then around 20,000 is FAR two point zero of the MMH zoned sites.

Perfect. Alright. So most of the city is is in that house scale range. And then so in for the part of the city in that category, I wanna make sure I'm understanding the height and the bulk recommendation. So the the max height, we're not touching, right? That's still 35 feet as it's always been. And then for that sort of 80% of the parcels that we're talking there, there's also going to be proposed this sort of max height of 24 feet to the highest eave and then a requirement that if you want to build that third story, it needs to be an attic story completely within a pitched roof with dormers. Is that right? I just want to make sure I'm getting it right.

Yes. I'd like to explain that a little bit. So yes, you could build a two story building with a flat roof. There's no requirement to build a pitch roof. It's if you wanted to realize more space in that house scale form, then doing it underneath a pitch roof is a way to do it at the one point zero and under FAR in that

We wouldn't build a three story building with a flat roof with a I mean 24 feet is really two stories, right? You wouldn't be able to fit three stories.

That's right. That's intentional because again the idea is to try and fit those buildings into areas where it's one and two story houses exist.

So I mean that seems pretty similar an impact to sort of what we already had, right, with Bulk Control. And I'm just trying to square that I guess with the recommendation at the top of Attachment three that has an intent of trying to remove the reliance on Bulk Control. I'm wondering if you could maybe just walk through the change from bulk control to this sort of, I don't know, newer version of bulk control and sort of what the thinking was there?

Well, bulk control is an approach that's really for big buildings, not houses, not house scale buildings. And that was one of our early recommendations or findings for staff is that it's a technique that really originated with large buildings and the intent to let light hit the street because they were so large. And somehow, over the years, that approach has landed in a lot of cities and landed on buildings that go into small neighborhoods, two story neighborhoods. And what it does is a lot of cities use it to chip away at what is already a small building. And so we find that bulk control doesn't really serve any purpose in terms of mitigating the building size, if you're talking about a house scale building.

So that's why we're saying we recommend that there be a limit for the top of a two story building before the roof starts. And if you want to put a pitch roof, then the pitch roof has maximum height. And that controls it. Because the bulk control, at least how it's I'll tell you a quick anecdote. We just studied this in Denver, Colorado.

We were just hired to do the exact same thing Denver. They were getting what they call these are their words, architects in Denver they call it tugboat projects because they get a two story house, and the third story was achievable only with step backs because that's what it took to get approval from the neighbors and the neighborhoods. And so you step back the third story, and it sounds good until you drive by and look at it, and you say, that looks like a tugboat where you drive a tugboat on top of a two story building. So they said, we don't want any more of that. Nobody is happy with that.

So they're actually doing away with that for some of the same reasons that we're recommending bulk control be ended here. So I know that it's being called bulk control, but it's really letting the building be full two stories and letting the the roof be full where the current bulk control ordinance chips away and makes the result awkward.

Also wanna add process wise a difference. Under the interim ordinance, there aren't any deviations allowed to the bulk control 10 unless there is a hardship or extreme condition on that on that site. What we'd be proposing under this is you could deviate from that standard just out of hearing. So just to add that, there'd be a difference in process as well.

It sounds I mean, like, it sounds like basically it's slightly more flexible, but it's still having the generally same impact of not being able to build a three story building that has the third story look the same as the second. Is that fair to say?

Yes. Can add to that? So yes. However, that's why we introduced the other end of the spectrum of missing middle housing, which is upper missing middle, which is three and four story, and saying that has a place and that's for you all to determine and tell us. But it doesn't end at the two stories. There is a three and four story variety.

I'm going to try a different tack for the question you have. Are they the same or are they different? As I mentioned, bulk control's been with us a couple of decades. And it was established because neighborhoods were concerned that in the words being used at the time McMansions were being built. They were very big and anything was allowed. You could build it right up to the property lines. They're very, very tall. And that created a lot of uncertainty and concerns. So bulk control was established to provide predictability. It told builders what you could do in a particular spot and it told neighbors what they could expect.

By and large, it's it's been very good for infill, but we ended up essentially implementing that everywhere. You have subdivision, you're going to do bulk control, got over here, you're going to do bulk control. And when we went to missing middle housing, it was going to be a process that allowed a lot of other opportunity, less setbacks and you know different things on the front and larger dormers. The way we approached this was how much FAR can we get within our standards. We realized we couldn't get enough, so we kept expanding the standards.

So we ended up with an enhanced bulk control. And through that process, we said, okay, this is really as big as it can get. Let's not allow deviations. Let's make our process to deviate from these standards very, very difficult. When we went back and looked at it this time, we asked the question, why do we have bulk control?

And it was back to the question or the back to the answer of providing some certainty so that if you had a home in a neighborhood, you had a general idea that could be built next to you. So if you had a new development, bulk control wasn't necessary because you could see what was there. So it's like, alright. Let's begin to rethink how we wanna use this. And then as as we got into the conversation with Opkus and Tony, this idea of trying to to clarify the the problem we had before, which was how do we put something big in a in a neighborhood and call it house scale and yet still look towards a two point o.

And we realized they were two different things, which is what we had been struggling with without really realizing it. So when we said bulk or when we said that that house scale was match essentially what's in that neighborhood, and if we do that, then things will be compatible. However, this process expects to say, if you want to build more and you have a neighborhood context that is not disruptive, bring it through. We'll look at a deviation. And there's no reason why we couldn't approve a three story.

So what we're trying to do is set a standard of neighborhood scale and the expectation, but the opportunity to do something else. So in some neighborhoods, it's not like you can't do it anywhere. But there are many, many places where three stories just flat works. I saw some really good stuff in Natomas where three story was next. Two story. It's fine. It's not disruptive. But again, a three story building in River Park could be considered disruptive. So while we don't want to pick and choose what areas these can go in, it neighborhoods are different. They are do have different context.

And what I like about this is it's not a standard bulk control trying to fit everything everywhere. It's things trying to be appropriate to a neighborhood and then allowing things that are more than that as long as the context will support support it. It. And I think that's the key difference. It's not a mandate, it's a desire and if you want to go different to that let's look at what the environment is.

Understood. Yeah, thanks Bruce. And so also last question on the scale standards. Can you just help us understand kind of this idea of like moving to regulating the width and the depth of the building with the different standards for rear and side wings instead of just using setbacks? Is there a particular advantage to doing that as opposed to just using setbacks?

Yeah, there is. Thank you for the question. So, in order to figure out if those things should apply or should be considered, what we do is we ask the question, are backyards expected where you're looking to apply these standards? Or are backyards nonexistent? So for example, if you have a neighborhood of buildings, however deep they are, and you have the neighborhood that has backyards where people expect to be having 20 foot backyard, whatever it is, 15 foot backyard or bigger.

And they have side yards that you can see. The buildings are clearly detached from each other. You know the kind of neighborhood I'm talking about. Where that exists, then there's an expectation when a new building comes in that it not take up the area that people are used to seeing across as open. Because as soon as you do that I can't show a visual.

I'm not connected to your screens here. But as soon as buildings get deeper than the one next door, there's a perception that's real that, hey, the backyards are gone, and now there's, in some cases, if there are enough units, there's a balcony looking into the backyard of the adjacent unit. So I'm not saying you would let that happen, I'm saying that has happened, and that's why there is such concern about buildings getting too deep in those kinds of areas. If, however, you're talking about an area that doesn't have backyards and lot coverage is higher, well then it's a different question. But what we're talking about, that idea of a main body and wings expressing a building size as opposed to just setbacks, it's because of that.

It's because there's an expectation that buildings be seen as attached from each other and have backyards.

Okay. So it's about trying to preserve backyards, it sounds like.

It's about trying to fit in. Backyards are a key determinant, but it's about trying to fit in. Again, the question is, what are you trying to make? And if you're trying to make more of what's there, that tends to be how it's done. If you're trying to change the pattern, then you just you can change it by instituting a new pattern.

Understood. I have a lot of comments, I'll wait for after questions. I'll yield my time. Thanks.

I just wanted to jump in and comment on Bruce's answer to the Vice Chair's question earlier. And it comes down to the difference in the residential building code and the commercial building code, the actual building code. There are task force and methods for requesting changes of the building code through the California Building Standards Commission. Since Sacramento has been really on the forefront and we are hearing it, just pioneer of increased density and moving this. Have this has the city thought about, you know, approaching and dealing with the Building Standards Commission to look at requesting changes in the residential code that might allow more than it does right now.

So, ICBO took this up this year. There was a meeting in Tampa that Mike Malinowski was out where there was a suggestion that you move to a residential building code for units. Think it was up to 10. That was rejected or sent back and then there was a follow-up meeting in Cleveland that Mike was at and it got a little bit more traction but it still it was put off. There is currently a bill in the legislature going through that mandates that HCD start a study by 2027 and report back by 2028 with implementation by 2029 with a code cycle implementation maybe in 2031.

Short of that happening local jurisdictions can't adopt a more liberal use of the code than what the state mandates. I think our quickest path is going to be ICBO next year taking a look at the use of residential code because it's a problem across the country. So I think we need to put our eggs in that basket before we get an HCD response. One of the problems have been relatively is what 's the determination of safety when you change the code. There was a time back in the 60s when we built four plexes with the residential code, but the code changed and we don't do that anymore.

But I think there's plenty of precedent to show that at least four units are historically not a problem. But I think it'll be several years before we see anything.

And I think you're right.

I'm sure

Sure. Bill

Chase, may I add to that please?

Yes, absolutely.

Yes. So we did some work in the city of Memphis, Tennessee a few years ago and that led to some changes by that city. And that city has been successful in actually changing it. It's one of the few in the country. I think there's another one in Michigan or Minnesota. But Memphis has changed it, and they're working with the state so that it's statewide in Tennessee. And what they've done has allowed four plexes to actually be built just like what Bruce was saying. So it's the one that we can point to, although there are others that are trying to do it.

Yeah, thank you. I mean, since we have a state building code, any changes would apply statewide that are made here. But I am just glad to hear that there is some attention given to that and following up on that. Without that, think we going to hit the roadblock that Vice Chair was concerned about. So, thank you for your attention. With that, I would to move on to Commissioner Young.

Yeah. I am just sort of curious just on the interaction of missing middle with SB 79, specifically on the affordability requirements that SB 79 is imposing. Is so I just want to clarify and confirm. So there's these various affordability requirements. I think it's on page 34 of your slide.

So any project that is 10 units or more can satisfy SB79 requirements by producing more than 7% of the units as extremely low income and set aside 10% for very low income or greater than 13% of the units at the lower income band. Is is that correct? I'm just trying to understand the requirements. Is it greater than seven for extremely low income or greater than 10 at very low income?

So it's any of those options. They pick one. 7% for extremely low, 10% for very low, or 13% for lower income. But the recorded restriction applies to any of the options they select.

Got it. Got it. And then for is the city contemplating any type of in lieu fee program or whatnot to satisfy those requirements at the state level? It didn't sound seem like that was being contemplated. Contemplated.

No, we're not. Long range planning manager. Remi, I'll speak to that.

Good evening, Commissioner Remi Mendoza, a long range planning manager. I'm not aware at this time of the city contemplating the annual fee program for that, but that's certainly something we can look into.

I guess because I think that when we were looking at missing middle kind of at the early stages, we were thinking about putting some affordability requirements in the program, which I applauded. I guess my concern this is my last day. I would just say that I would absolutely try to avoid any kind of in Luthi program, because I have just found that over time the effort is to kind of whittle down that in lieu fee program to some form of nominal payment that ultimately does not really go into really producing units. And I think that the I agree with the impetus of how this has been set up. And I just want to make sure that, as a city, that we are doing everything we can to maintain the standard.

Obviously, I would love to see greater subsidies available so that units like this can be produced. I'm a little concerned, though, however, that will we actually see units of 10 plus or more in those transit areas being built with these affordability requirements? I think it raises other kinds of questions of whether or not something like this is even feasible. But I'm just sort of curious if maybe has anyone kind of brought this requirement up as a concern as far as like building projects in Sacramento?

We certainly hope so that we see those projects and the incentive, right, would be the additional bonus height or FAR that's the idea that that's a huge incentive in order to do that.

Evening everyone. Greg Salmon, Planning Director. Just clarify, the state law doesn't have any provision for in lieu fee payments to take advantage of these increased FARs and heights. And generally, the affordability requirements that come with these state allowances like SB 35 or other things are are just not taken advantage of in our city. In part, I think, because our our regulations are are often just as generous anyways.

So in this case, you you know, if you wanted to to utilize the greater floor to area ratios or or build in an area where we don't have the height matching s b 79, you could go ahead and provide the units and it's incentivizing providing affordable units in that way.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Commissioner Ortiz. Thank you. I just have a kind of a simple, probably general assumption understanding or interpretation of the discussion around bulk, I think the statement was made generally that we need to allow greater density in areas outside the grid. And that perhaps the bulk criteria is limited to the grid, and that we need to look at using, allowing greater density and perhaps I don't know if it's the 1.5 or the two point zero bulk scale. So what is the impediment?

I mean other than why is there incentivizing primarily that we have greater bulk and density in the grid and not outside? Community response, but what is the policy limitation there? If any, maybe I'm misunderstanding.

So citywide there's no maximum density. Density. That's a move that the 2040 general plan made. And then general plan generally regulates intensity of development through FAR. So the higher FAR allowances are on the grid or near transit. So that's generally, you know, the trends that were how we're informing our development standards is looking through the FARs, if that answers

your question.

Where is the flexibility between the FAR adjacent to transit versus and perhaps because transit is more centralized in the grid, is that just an end result because of proximity to transit?

That's the largest driver, yeah, for the general plan FARs. I'll pull up the map again.

So I guess I'm trying to understand, is the 1.5 recommendation or scale or sort of as an accommodation outside of the grid to get greater density? And is that I guess how do we other than I think the examples that were given about backyards, larger structures, taller structures, being able to look into neighbors' backyards, what are limitations? For example, East Sac. Someone mentioned River Park, and I get there's often, you know, deeper, wider lots and lower homes. But other than neighborhood opposition, I think there are many ways to mitigate not looking in someone's backyard, not allowing windows on that side, requiring structures that give privacy.

Why can't we do more of it in the neighborhoods that were mentioned, East Sac, River Park? What are the policy and regulatory impediments?

I don't know what the impediments are, but I'll just explain to you the intent of what 1.5, the recommendation that we had proposed to staff, Commissioner Ortiz. The idea is that we tested two point zero FAR in those areas, and it was, as the slide showed, way too much well, I shouldn't say way too much, that's my opinion, right?

It was

way out of scale beyond seven stories, eight stories, depending on the parcel size, compared to houses. If that's not a concern, then you could do that. We thought it might be a concern because we hadn't talked to you yet and we hadn't talked to the neighbors. So we just assumed it would be a concern having done this in other cities. So we thought, well, what could work in between one point zero and two point zero FAR? How close could we get to two point zero FAR and take advantage of that amount of FAR in those areas? And that's how we came up with 1.5.

And is that the two stories plus attic? No, no, So how tall would that 1.5 be?

It could be four or five stories, three stories, it just depends on the parcel size.

Okay. That I appreciate that clarification because I didn't quite so we are not precluded you are proposing an interim option. Of course, there's all the things that would come with neighborhood opposition, etcetera. But it looks like we could move the needle a bit.

That's correct. Yeah. In fact, that's precisely why we set up the three columns of strategies. Depending on the desire for change, the appetite for change, whatever, however you want to say it, you could go with the recommendation for the minor or the moderate or the transform in each of those columns. That's what that was intended to provide.

Thank you. And I and I I sounds like Steph wants to add to that, so I'd welcome further clarification.

Thank you. Amy Yang, senior planner. Just wanted to add a small point of clarification. So as Jamie put out, this is our maximum FAR from the 2040 general plan. We are not proposing any changes to that.

Therefore, we're not proposing changes to maximum allowed capacity in these areas. That's not what we're proposing or talking about today. I think what we are talking about today is what is what our objective design standards should be, what should be, reviewed at staff level versus what should come, forward as a discretionary decision. And so that's where the 1.5 comes in as part of our analysis. It's, okay, if we have an area that can go up to two point o, but we have a project that comes in at maybe 1.5 FAR, do we approve that at staff level, look at that at staff level, or do we bring it for discretionary hearing?

So that's what that 1.5 is trying to illustrate is giving us a sense of this is the type of building that would be proposed. Do we want it to be reviewed at staff level, or do we want it to go through a discretionary process? So, it's therefore, like, to illustrate what we would be looking at when proposals come in.

I appreciate that, and I think that's obviously the and at the staff level, would that be a director's here? No, I think the it would be a director's.

Yeah, I wanted to note, at staff level there is no hearing and there is no appeal. It's people are really like ministerial processes, administrative checkbox. Staff level is pretty close. But we have a little bit more discretion and we could add conditions of approval. So that's one thing to take into account.

These objective standards we're recommending or proposed looking at, they would be approved without any public hearing. And in in in rolling out the interim ordinance, staff that's had to hear from the community saying, what? There's no appeal. It's just reconsideration. And reconsideration is essentially them paying a fee to outline information that we might have missed.

And most reconsiderations, we don't yeah. So we'd certainly look at it again. But that's that's the thing with allowing a deviation. So you can build within the allowable FAR of the general plan. You have a director hearing on it online in the afternoon that Bruce would oversee. And then at that director level hearing, there is one appeal to Planning and Design Commission, and that's it. You don't they don't keep on going to council. Right. So just to understand the levels of review. Just wanted to clarify that.

And and I think I was a little bit concerned on the I think there was a comment with one of the builders, developers that director level review, you know, if they had to go to that level, I mean, are costs associated with that, that are pretty significant, adds to the whole discussion of further cost impediments. But I appreciate the clarification on the distinction there. And it sounds like you're looking for guidance from us on that 1.5 as whether that should be at a staff level as well.

Yeah, clearly what are the objective standards that people can, if they meet that, we go two months review, maybe less.

I appreciate that and I appreciate the explanation that the two point zero was really quite high, eight, seven to eight stories versus potentially going up to three stories without the dormer limitations that have been discussed earlier. Thank you.

Commissioner Reschke.

Thank you. Okay so I just had a few clarifying questions. One was on the slide where you showed the applications you've gotten so far. And I think you said that most of them were single family, duplex, and not very many multiunit. Why are single unit dwellings going through the missing middle path? Usually, it's because they're on a smaller lot size. Oh, okay.

Yeah. Got

it. Or there could be multiple single unit buildings on the same lot, but the building itself has one unit in it.

Got it. Okay. So have you had many where it's multiple buildings on one lot, multiple single family, like, that wouldn't normally be?

I think most of them tend to be subdivisions, but there's a couple that we'll put.

Okay. So these are, like, cottage courts?

Not always oriented around a shared open space. Okay. But, yeah, it's usually just on smaller lots.

Okay. And then so in the we we talked a little bit about the maximum heights in the floor or the the floor area ratio areas with of AR of one. What what is the maximum height, like, outside of the missing middle ordinance? Is that the 35? Yes. So if you're just building a single family home there, you could make it 35 feet tall?

Well, currently, now it's subject to the full control.

Oh, okay.

Got

it. The 35 is, like, to the what what is the 35 for then? If It's the overall height. Okay. And the 24 oh, the 24 is the proposed. So 35 is overall, but you have full control. Okay. Thank you. You have my time.

Yeah. But just for clarity, citywide, all single family residential has a limit of 35 feet.

I don't know

when that number was picked or how it was picked, but it's always been 35 feet. Within that total maximum height, which is typically you're looking at pitched roof on top of a building that's under the 35 feet. Accessory structures are 18 feet. So there's limits. Now within that, you have multiple floors. You can have a single level. You can have two levels. Depends on how you want to develop, whether it's an eight foot ceiling or one foot of framing or you wanna go to a big 10 foot ceiling or 12 foot ceiling and you stack something about. So it's it's cumulative. So that the 24 foot sidewall, was what was being proposed, takes into account that you can have two levels of ten, eleven feet and still the framing in between it, and that becomes the top plate, which is where the roof lands.

So we have a roof or we have a wall plate, which is the top of the wall, which starts the roof, and then we have the maximum height up to the top the roof which is a

third The proposed 24 feet is the top of plate.

It's the top of the plate where the roof lands.

Got it.

Okay. Commissioner, Lasius Reid.

Thank you, chair. Well, I'll be honest. A lot of my questions have already been answered. And, chair Chase, thank you for talking about the building code from commercial to residential because that was definitely something that I had recently heard about that's going through at the state level. And I'm really glad to hear that there's potentially something that could help us move forward.

I didn't realize that that was having an impact on our numbers but obviously it's pretty obvious that it would. So hopefully that'll create some change in the future. One of the things I mean, did answer the deviation question that I had, so thank you for that. One of the questions I had was, have any of the approved applications been finaled with building? I know there are there's a builder here, but there's nine in progress and 19 approved. So just curious if there have been any final to date.

Yeah. So the 19 approved is the planning approval number, nine in progress like an in progress planning application. I wasn't able to go through all of the files before today to see which ones were approved. Don't know if anyone

No, that's fine. Have been filed, but yeah. That's okay. Thank you. I did you know, I was doing some research. There's not a lot of cities in The United States right now that are working, know, that have implemented missing middle housing ordinances. We always seem to be at the forefront of this progressive work. And I know the city of Minneapolis, I did some research there. They definitely have an ordinance going. They were also one of the first cities in The U.

S. To adopt or rather to get rid of R1 zoning along with Sacramento. So they are also a very progressive city when it comes to planning policy. And one of the things I realized, when I was researching their missing middle housing ordinance is that it's it's really complicated. They have about 14 tiers and 14 areas of the city that have different, I guess, terms, you know, different structures, different requirements.

And but they do have some areas where they do allow two and a half stories. And the Pew Research Center did put out an article, I thought it was worth noting, that they talked about some of the results that the city of Minneapolis had seen. And I think they're also seeing, right, that they're not getting the results that they had hoped for. And they specifically said that, you know, the results indicate that their duplex and triplex policies so far had a modest impact on their housing stock. In part, limited success may be linked to aspects of their zoning code that make buildings such structures challenging, including low maximum floor area ratio and 2.5 story height limits in the lowest density zones.

So, I think, again, kind of going back to what Commissioner Ortiz was discussing, I know the greater density outside of the grid, we've kind of discussed that. I think that's something really important that we should be considering. I know that there was a speaker earlier that had mentioned that you're really focusing on our commercial corridors and getting some more housing built on the corridors. I work for one of our corridors, and we definitely want more housing out there, definitely some affordable housing density, higher density for sure. But historically our corridors and our aging commercial corridors are very low income communities.

And so I just want to ask the city to continue, you know, as we go through this process to, you know, engage our policy through an equity lens because that's really, really important as well. So that was all. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Young.

I'm trying to follow the discussion with the FAR in the single family residential areas. I'm like looking at Vice Chair Dobbs' facial expressions, and I'm like trying to look at the housing folks out there and their smiles. There's this higher level discussion that's going on that I kind of want to get down a little bit more to the base narrative, if I may. So if I could just maybe hear is there a narrative out there from the housing folks where they would like to see that FAR limitation of 1.5 gone from those single family? Like I hear some could you guys maybe kind of clarify your position?

Anyone from the housing group? I'm just

We'd definitely be of the position that where the general plan says two point zero, we can do what we can to achieve that two point zero. Where it says one point zero, we can do what we can to achieve that one point zero. I'm struggling to follow it a little bit, too. It sounds like the 1.5 isn't like an FAR standard of saying this is a 1.5 zone. It's saying like if you tack on these design standards on top of things, you can effectively limit it, like kind of de facto limit it to 1.5. And I would say that's what we're trying to avoid. If a missing middle zone is two point o, we wanna see you get two point o, you know.

So so what would be the ask for, like, areas like East Sac and Natomas? Like, that that's kind of what I'm trying to to kinda understand. Is there any kind of disagreement as far as what's

I proposed versus would guess the disagreement is I mean, we haven't talked like you know, I think Bruce mentioned that the height limit is 35 feet. It's been like that for a long No one's saying we should raise that to, you know, some ungodly number even though, you know, maybe we support that. But, anyway, 35 is 35. But within that 35, there's these design standards, right, that'll de facto limit what you can build within that 35. And specifically, stuff that when you get to that 3rd Floor, that means you have to put in crazy angles that don't make the math pencil out. That means what you're gonna get is a 24 foot building, a two foot building. You're not gonna get that 35 feet. It's kind of the economics are impractical.

So so you would just advocate for abolishing those those types of other suggestions that would, like, limit de facto limit the height to to 24.

Yeah. Get to 35. I mean, you know, I know it's that's a that's our political position, and there's other compromise things I think you could do to negotiate that.

And And I'm just anticipating that the planning staff is saying, well, there's a certain neighborhood character that they're also trying to preserve. Right? And so my question the comeback question is, are there ways to still preserve the neighborhood character architecturally in such a way and still not have those limitations, but kinda still build a little bit higher without those restrictions. I I think that's kinda what I'm trying to

And I think the answer is is yes. I mean, yeah. Like, probably the max would be 35 foot. You can do the full rectangle. You know, the the minimum would be, like, where the, you know, the house scale standard where you're going up to 24 feet and then you have to do the triangle. And then there could be some ways you could split it between that. Like, could raise the height where the triangle starts to, like, 28 feet or something, which may be able to get the minimum compliant three story buildings. You could kinda slice and dice more, like, where you get the full 35 versus not. You could say it's relative to whether the building is next to an existing two story building because many single family homes are already two stories, right? So three story is less scary.

I get River Park is like basically universally very low buildings. So there's other ways you could slice it, I think, that are in between, like, this strict basically, it has to be two floor anywhere you're in, you know, one point o versus, you know, building the box, which is what we'd wanna see ultimately. But

Okay. So I'm I'm I'm not the design expert. So I'm gonna ask commissioner Oreschke. Like, does that does that, like, make sense to you? Like, what what what he's saying?

Yeah. I mean, like, to so I think I think, especially, you know, you're offering some compromises, which I think are good. And I think the, you know, it's sort of been mentioned that like, oh, boat control is sort of like an aesthetic control. And I think there are some functional aspects to it that aren't just aesthetic. Mentioned, like, maybe a compromise can be where it's not next to a single story house versus a two story house.

You know, there's two story houses that are as tall as three story because they have such a steep roof. And so I think some of those compromises compromises would would definitely definitely help help protect people who who might have a a home that they, you know, especially, like, how deep does it go on the lot? You know, is it just the same depth as the house house next to it? Is it, like, you know, someone was talking about covering over their you're looking over their backyard with your balcony. So I think definitely there are some of those compromises are a nice option. And where you're not next to a single story house or a larger lot, there should absolutely be able to use the full height, I would think.

Yeah. Homes in East Sac are pretty tall, right? Even if it's a single family home, like, there's a lot of height there. Same with Land Park and a lot of the neighborhoods.

Yeah. You know? Yeah.

I think a three storey building would not be out of place.

Exactly. Yeah. It's certainly like like someone else was saying, you know, respecting the context of the neighborhood, like River Park versus Land Park and just what what's next door to?

Yeah. I think my priority is of course, I would love to see more housing built. But I understand that there's this element of neighborhood character preservation, right, which is also important, which I think the planning staff is also being sensitive to. And so I'm all about those two. I think, technically, I'd love to see us be able to push the envelope as far as we can.

But at a certain I I don't know who to listen to. Right? Like, I'm just I'm not the technical expert. So I'm just doing my best to just hear from, you know, from you and and, you know, community members to just say, well, how how much further can we push the envelope without just ruining the character of the neighborhood? Yet, at the same time, we want to be able to empower our planning staff to be able to make those decisions and feel comfortable that they are not.

So I think part of that discussion here is also just trying to convince the planning staff like, hey, are there other ways for us to continue to push this envelope that you also feel comfortable with, right? Because you're also dealing with you know, your own internal standards of just like what makes sense. And so, love to hear from planning staff in light of this discussion. But before we jump into that, I will say that, you know, I'm the whole question of, like, using missing middle as a way to address our homeless problem, like, I'm having a hard time seeing that as something that's really genuine because I see it affecting working class households and whatnot. I'm having a hard time visualizing how this could really address homelessness.

And the reason why I'm bringing that up is because I know you've got to advocate and you've got to push what you need to. But I'm not sure if hitching your argument to addressing the homeless problem is really I know if that's really real. So I would appreciate you think it is real, I'm open to hearing it.

So So just two points, then I'll sit down. Let the experts in the room get back to it. But on your last point, I think it absolutely is relevant in the homelessness conversation.

I

think it's something 98% of people live in market units that aren't subsidized. The number one correlation with rising homelessness rates in cities across The US is the market rent. You see simple projects going in today like twelve twenty one c in Mansion Flats where the market rate for a studio or one bed is 1,400 a month. That's not enough to get someone off the streets, but it's enough to keep someone from losing their housing. Right?

Because what we see is when people lose their housing, that's when it gets so tough to get them back into housing later. And a big reason why our unsheltered homelessness problem blew up so much in the mid twenty tens is because market rents in Sacramento skyrocketed and we weren't ready to meet that moment. And so now we're in this deep hole where we're trying to get people back into homes and off the street. Right? But in the meantime, while we're working on that and putting resources to that, the one thing we can really do is to try to keep market rents from going up, and any artificial restrictions that we put on that help serve that cause.

So it absolutely is a, you know, homelessness concern for the broader region. And to your prior point, we trust your guidance. We're looking to your guidance. And as advocates, we're really happy to compile a kind of a list of our ideas if that would be helpful, and we could send that around. You know, again, defer to the experts in the room. But we're really happy to throw our best creativity at this issue and try to get you some workable ideas. You know? Okay. Great.

And I and I respect that narrative because vice chair Caden has has mentioned that, you know, with the production of units into the marketplace, rents have maybe even dipped a little bit. And so I think from that vantage point, yes, I can understand where it's preventing other households that are kind of on the verge or on the cusp from exiting, you know, the the housing market. So I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

Go ahead.

I wanted

I wanted to do two things. One was put context one point zero, two point zero on the line. A central city grid lot is 12,400 square feet. Two point zero allows a 25,000 square foot building on that site. 25,000 square feet is a lot.

A standard residential audit, 6,000 square feet allows a 12,000 square foot building. So part of the problem is not just allowing what actually fits and how do you get there. So with that, I'll direct you to the slide that's up above which studied a six point o, a 1.2, and a 1.9. And you can see all on the same lot what happens to the structure. So in the first one, there's enough open space, you get some courty ards.

It's it's a although it's it's two and a half stories on the back, it's two stories on the front, there's two and a half on the on the side there. As you move towards just past one point o, you're stacking up to five floors in this, four on the back in order to generate that kind of square footage. Now part of the question earlier to Tony was how far back do you want to build? If you have a two or three story building that goes all the way back, you get to see that side wall and it feels like an apartment building. If and to your question about are there techniques that we can use, yes.

It's x amount of square feet. It's a big block of clay. You can model it tall and short, so you can change it. But it's really important when you're working with a deep building to be able to model the height of that sidewall because going down the street, you do see all the way to the back. And then this last one is not even to two point o. And you can see that the height of this building on the back, which is a very large building of four stories and two on the front with a little bit of courtyard. So just from a context standpoint, the buildings get really, really big when you go to two o. So

Yeah. And and I I'm aware of that. I I think that there's a generational narrative that's going on. I think the younger folks are probably like, let's go, I think older generation who's been living there is like, the hell are you doing, right? And so I think I kind of want to just see that narrative play out just being a little bit more open and direct. It sounds like the younger generation is more like, I don't care, you know, about that. But with some caveats, though. And I think they do. So I do want to just give them that. So, okay.

You. Yeah. There is a path relative to how you design something and how you model the actual standards. But it was really important to understand how big something gets once you go up in the numbers and it sounds relatively benign to go from one point zero to two point zero, but really impactful.

Thank you. I yield my time.

And just a quick reminder, all of these would be allowed as just what level review are we setting and what objective standards are we writing? So, just to clarify. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Musgrave.

Yeah. In my comments, I actually forgot because we have to get we've been doing comment and review, but we actually have to get to the recommendations. So, on the SB79, I just wanted to mention that I think staff is moving in the right direction, so I do support staff recommendations on that. And then for yeah. Thank you. Okay. So I know on the missing middle housing actually, if you could go back to the last slide that you had on.

I know So that which slide?

It was the last slide that you had up where it has the house The field, typologies. Yeah, exactly, the typologies.

Oh, site testing one? Yes,

the housing. Think it was yep. This one? Actually, is it slide 43? I think it is.

Slide 43.

I don't know if you have numbers.

Yeah. Item numbers. This is 25, so we'll back the other way. Sorry to make everybody a little dizzy.

There Oh, no.

There is no 40 No 40.

3. I'm sorry.

I didn't do that. On the slide? I can't find it.

Oh, no. It's just, it's the one that has the house housing scale, and it has all three options. Oh, yeah. The table. Yes.

Because I think what we need to do really is just sort of And give you our sort of recommendations, so I just want to this was, know, I'll be honest, a little confusing looking at this. Try I was really trying to decipher, like, what are you asking me to do with all of this. This is very complex and complicated. So I've seen, obviously, what you're wanting us to do and you're recommending in the moderate approach, obviously. And to be clear, it is the moderate approach at staff level review, and there could still be an option for an applicant to submit for a deviation at director level.

Is that

Correct. Yes.

Correct. Okay. So that's kind of what's on the table here. Okay. So I just wanted to clarify that because I think maybe that's helpful clarification for all of us as we're sort of talking about all of this.

And I think that's the big ask right now. Okay. And then, of course, just talking through because the thing is the standards that you will be reviewing at whatever level, those objective standards are sort of also what we're discussing here, which is really a big part of this. So I think I want to continue having more discussion. Just kind of wanted to break that down for everyone so that we are kind of on the same page of where we're at and then just say that on the SB79 I think we're I support staff's recommendation.

Vice Chair Kadin.

Yeah, thank you, Chair. I mean, I think you're hearing a lot of folks muddling through really challenging, I think, item to interpret. I think my first just general reaction that I would just say is that I think we're I think we're overcomplicating this a little bit. You know, I'll I'll just speak for myself. Like, I I feel like I'm pretty in the weeds on this, and I I struggled this week to actually, like, understand what was being proposed and all of the different variables that are at play.

You know, it it's obviously a tremendous amount of analysis that went into this. I don't mean to discount that, but, you know, we're talking about categorizing every neighborhood in the city into four different context types. There's three different categories of missing middle typologies. We have two different development outcomes with house scale and block scale, and then that's all mapped onto these different, you know, for context. I think we're just gonna lose people frankly when we're especially you're going out to the public with these workshops.

I think you're gonna lose people trying to explain to the public what this all means. And I think it's adding to me a lot of unnecessary friction for the actual users of this ultimate product which is going be probably small scale developers. Right? These are the folks that are it's the Michaels of the room that are have to interpret this. Right? I don't want to speak for you, Michael. But I would say that generally speaking, small scale developers, these are not super highly capitalized folks with entitlement handlers. Right? And a law firm that they've hired to actually shepherd them through entitlements, you know, we need to be creating a regulatory environment that normal people can understand. And I'm I'm struggling to understand it, and I'm not normal.

So the the the goal here is to consolidate, simplify, streamline. Right? I I think one of the big ideas that we had with the general plan was that we're trying to take, you know, these these dozens of different general plan designations and zones and consolidate them a handful. I think we did that with the general plan. Right? Most of the city's missing middle zones are like neighborhood designation. I think with the missing middle ordinance, we're taking we're taking four zones basically. Right? There's r one, r one a, one b, and r two. And by my look, we're creating at least 12 new ones.

Right? There's four place based context with three different combinations of missing middle typologies at different combinations of house scale and block scale. It just feels, I guess, just counter to the original goal of simplicity. So aside from just simplifying, I think, how many unique zones we're creating, I think completely recognize the ask that's at play here, right? We're trying to get feedback from the commission on this sort of degree of change idea, the minor moderate transform conversation.

But I think just like more importantly, I think what's not really being asked, but I think it's the really like critical question here is where are we talking about peeling back bulk control, right? And that decision is a lot more important to me because I think that's what's sort of going to be dictating where we're allowing these simple three story buildings and by extension these four to 10 unit housing projects. And just for the record I don't I recognize it's a factor. I don't buy the idea that this is all just building code problems that's precluding this stuff. I mean there's plenty of four to 10 unit stuff that's being built in C2 and in R4.

I just toured one recently, right? The difference is that those places are not regulated under missing middle and don't have full control standards. I think that's like an important thing that we should always acknowledge. And I don't want to completely rehash this whole full control debate from a couple years ago. Know a lot of the folks on the commission there for that.

I know some weren't. But I think just to it's worth repeating a little bit, right? We had a pretty universal, I think, feedback at that point from the housing community, from the environmental community, from the business community asking us to remove boat control completely because they felt that it was increasing costs, right? We heard repeatedly from people who actually build this stuff that it increased costs. I don't think anyone is even really disputing that it increased costs, right?

It's more complicated to build a third floor that way. They reduced affordability, right? The whole point of eliminating unit caps in the general plan was to build more affordable multiplexes. That was a key tenet of why we did that. One of the early I remember there was a bunch of great analysis documents that the city developed in the early part of that conversation. And I was looking back at actually one of them before this meeting, the zoning design and policy recommendations document,

I think it was called.

And that showed in that analysis that the most affordable projects and 75% of the 8,400 market feasible missing middle units that they modeled in the city were six plexes and eight plexes. And that in that report they actually said, quote, A significant limiting factor to missing middle housing is bulk control standards. So, you know, and as we got further along, right, the bulk control requirements they stayed in, right. We optimistically maybe thought, oh, maybe bulk control doesn't preclude these products, maybe we will see this stuff. We're a year and a half in, we haven't seen a single project in the three to 20 range.

And I think that's because nobody can actually make three stories work on a small lot. The other things worth mentioning, bulk control increases utility bills, right? This was something that I think Commissioner Reschke has talked about because it can make it less efficient, right, to heat and cool the building. And I think it also works counter to our fair housing goals because and Commissioner Martiz you're referencing this, right? Like we're selectively talking about applying bulk control to certain neighborhoods and they happen to be very high opportunity, high demand neighborhoods, right?

So I guess I'll be clear about my recommendation. I'd like to see the city allow for at least a three story rectangular building across all the neighborhoods in the city. And I'd like to see that regardless of whether the neighborhood successfully banned missing middle in the past. To me that existing context, and this is referenced in comments, it's a lot less relevant than what do we want in the future, right? Which is a more affordable and a more diverse housing stock. And I'll take it a step further, right? The only reason that Oak Park, the neighborhood I live in, is compact and connected in context and then ESAC is categorized as transitional? That's because Oak Park was redlined. Right? Oak Park was redlined and ESAC successfully banned multi family a hundred years ago.

That's that is not to me a good reason to sort of perpetuate the context. That's just protecting the status quo. Right? And it's doing that at the expense of renters that wanna live in ESAC but can't. They can't afford it.

Before so before we updated the general plan, the height limit, we talked about this before. It was in r one was 35 feet. And we see single family housing pretty much use that height. Most of the new small lot single family that I'm used to, like, in the Delta Shores area, Northlake, Natomas. It seems like a lot of that is is in the kinda 30 plus foot range.

We updated the the general plan to remove density based restrictions to, you know, allow for, you know, more affordable housing types everywhere. And now we're updating the zoning code and talking about what feels like really complicated ways of rating in that really good decision to kind of simplify the regulatory environment and allow for people to just build more affordable, cost buildings, stuff like three story townhomes, stuff like three story multiplexes. And again, it's been over two years now. It's been a year and a half since the interim ordinance. And just haven't part of what we were explicitly trying to do with that was build the three to 10 unit stuff, and we just haven't seen a single one come through.

And I just think we have to take that pretty seriously. I think we have to be thinking about what are we going to do to sort of make bold changes that make it easier to actually build that product that we were trying to build. And based on the conversations that I've had with the small developers and I was at the small developer incubator, I went to the showcase and I talked with the folks that are trying to build this stuff and they're interested in building this the biggest constraint in the interim ordinance that they identified were rules like bolt control that make three story construction more expensive. I love Victorian buildings. Used to live in like a Victorian triplex in Midtown.

I think the priority here has to be flexibility. It has to be trying to create feasibility. I think these sort of three stories with dormers and gables, no one can afford to build this stuff right now. And I think we just need to sometimes make it legal to build a box to be honest. And there's a reason we've had a lot of apartment buildings that have come through this commission in the last year or so. Every one of them looks like a box. There's a reason for that, right? Because it's a very it's much cheaper to build rectangles than pitched roofs that look like a Victorian house. So again, I would like us to kind of allow for these kind of three story simple buildings across most of the city. To me that's pretty in line with what's meant by house scale.

Don't think at the end of the day we're not talking about bulldozing neighborhoods. We just had the big scary Alhambra project come through this commission. That's not what we're talking about here. That's not going in any of these neighborhoods. This is an extremely incremental approach to me. You might see one of these projects on a block over the course of decades if we're lucky. Right? So you're not gonna fundamentally change the the livability, the compatibility of the neighborhood. You know, neighborhood character, we're we're talking about neighborhood character a lot. That's about more than just the building.

It's about the people. And being ambitious in our housing policy ensures that the people can actually afford to stay in our city. So I'll move now a little bit to the preferences. Again, we've tried, I think, this full control idea hasn't yielded results. Doing it again to me that's a commitment to mostly just limiting these areas to single family homes and duplexes. That's what we've got. I think that's what we'll continue to get if we do that. And frankly that was already kind of allowed by state law. You can do that with ADU law. You can do that with SB nine.

So in terms of specific preferences I do prefer the transform approach of the three options. I think more importantly than that I'm less interested in the big scary like five story rectangle that was shown there. I'm a lot more interested in just facilitating simple three story buildings without dormers and gables everywhere. So I recommend that we're kind of allowing for that MMH high category at the staff level across the city. I think that's consistent with the building sizes that are currently allowed for in the general plan and kind of the policy direction that we've gotten from counsel on that.

I think that means I'm also recommending that we maintain the total height limit. So I'm not recommending changing that, but removing the eave height limit and the requirement for pitch roof with dormers on the 3rd Floor with the house scale development outcome. I think I'd also prefer that we maintain the setbacks just the way that they are and not regulate buildings by width and depth and wings. I think setbacks seem to work just fine. I think it's what most folks are used to dealing with.

I think it could actually potentially reduce the size of the building on these larger lots if you regulate the width of the building instead of just using stepbacks. So I think it's a little bit too prescriptive for my taste. I'm really glad to see I think the block scale stuff that's proposed is great with noble control applied in the FAR two point zero areas. I think that was the intention of the general plan going to two point zero. In fact, I think that was effectively what this commission made a recommendation to counsel to do back in 2024 when we took that action to remove bulk control in those areas and then it was added back in.

So I'm glad to see that's now staff's recommendation. And then I didn't even really get into the SB79 recommendations but I would just echo Commissioner Mesias Reid's comments. And I would just completely agree that I think staff's recommendation to approach it that way is great. I certainly don't think we should pursue a local alternative plan. I don't think we need to create extra work for staff.

You guys are working hard enough. I think it's also a great approach to codify some of the height limits into the zoning code. I think that's a very good idea. I think my only ask on the 79 piece would be that we make it very, very clear and transparent in the zoning code and the maps that we put out that for the places that we are not actually codifying the heights into the zoning code, so the missing middle areas, that there's some sort of disclaimer or it's just very, very clear that there are additional allowances under SB79. Because I think there's again, back to the simplicity idea, these folks are not necessarily going to like know that SB79 exists.

They might not know that they have additional entitlements through state law. So I think that would go a long way to just be really, really transparent that that's a possibility even if they're not

codified. Okay.

Those are all my comments. Thank you.

Remy? Commissioner Kennan, thank you for your feedback on the table. I just want underscore that this table does not represent what an ordinance or the regulations will ultimately look like. Planners by nature are wonky. We like tables, colorful, helps us break apart information and bring it together in a way that's manageable to us and that we can share it.

But the intent is to whittle down our options, a range of options from, you know, three significant different options to one that where we can get short input, we can get confirmation from the city council, and then we can develop materials that are more graphic friendly, we can unify our message, we can undertake our public engagement process in a much more simplified manner over the summer, and then as well as when we develop an ordinance. With respect to some of the discussion about preservation of the existing neighborhoods, would just say that, you know, that ship has sailed. I think with the adoption of the new 2040 general plan across all the neighborhoods we created a maximum FAR of one point zero. To give you a sense of scale, the average neighborhood had eight units per acre maximum density. A one point zero FAR represents about a 26 units per acre density.

So, as a city, we've agreed that we're going to undertake a smart growth strategy. I think the community conversation was aligned in that we're going to accommodate 69,000 housing units within our footprint, and we're going to welcome a lot of those homes within the existing neighborhoods. And so, that is certainly happening. And as we had the conversations with the community about missing middle housing and allowing duplex, triplex, and fourplexes, the graphics that we showed, the discussions that we had didn't necessarily show the maximum degree of change that's shown in some of these graphics. Jamie, if you could please go to the photo that shows the three housing options.

And so I think that's part of the discussion that we're trying to have here is the maximum can always can always be built out currently. But the question is, I think, at staff level with objective standards, what level is it that we're comfortable with moving forward for us kind of a fast track review and approval? So, don't completely surprise, blindside the existing community who maybe wasn't aware that option three was coming within the neighborhood next door. And so, that's part of the input that we're trying to get from the commission. The transformative changes, that's something that folks think the community is ready for, then that's an input we're certainly welcome.

We feel it's a bit extreme. The moderate approach seems to achieve the intended goals of the general plan, to accommodate all of our growth, to allow the missing middle housing types and more. And so that's kind of the basis for staff recommendation.

Can I ask Rami just on this slide, I mean these buildings on the right look, I mean it's hard to totally tell, but those look way taller than 35 feet? Is that right? I mean it looks like there's

Maybe I'll ask for

20 more than

three floors

there. Yeah.

They're not they're not conforming in 35 feet. They're showing what two point zero would result in, which is way higher. So, yeah, five stories before the roof is about 55 feet.

But we're not proposing is there anything in here that's proposing changing the 35 foot high? I thought we were keeping that flat except for the 79 areas, which is required by state law.

We would potentially be looking at increasing potentially, we could increase the high within the two point zero FAR areas in order to allow more intensity that would kind of fulfill the intent of the higher FAR within proximity of transit.

That's what we were trying to illustrate, that 35 feet is the max. But the FAR that's allowed would result in more than that.

I want to be clear, right, that when we're talking about the vast majority, like the 80% of the city, we're not talking the 80% of the missing middle parcels. We're not talking about something that looks like this. We're talking about something three stories. Right?

I would say that it's of 29,000 parcels approximately.

Asking what the FAR breakdown of

Two that are two point o?

Yeah. Like, 20,000 have FAR two in the MH zones. The rest are FAR one.

I'm just worried that this is sort of like scaring people a little bit, but it's, you know, I think for the vast majority of the city what we're talking about is something smaller than what's on the screen here.

Right. It's just for the areas with two point o is where you would see the most change, which is why they were highlighted for this discussion tonight.

Understood. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Ortiz?

Yeah. I kind of I appreciate Commissioner opening up the conversation about where we I think we all would love to see density. And I really appreciate understanding better now that the far right is for illustration of what not quite even two point zero would look like and that it would indeed exceed the 35 foot. It's by way of illustration to say if we indeed went that direction, the two point o or 1.9, it would exceed the 35 foot and it would be essentially four stories or five stories. We're not saying we're gonna do that, but we need to understand what how what the height would be if we went to a nearly two point o.

If we went with the transformative approach.

Correct. So I don't think it's scare tactic. It's just saying this is how if we indeed went that tall, it would exceed

three Exactly. FAR is not many jurisdictions use it as a maximum. It's new to our community. It's new to our residents, commission, council. And so, I think a visual is important to help convey sort of what can be achieved with MS.

And I think I generally would like to see greater density in areas that are traditionally considered anti density. But I also think it's important to put it in context. And I and I appreciate a little bit of historic information about Oak Park. It was actually a high end community. It was the first suburb.

North Central Oak Park indeed was had a restrictive covenants, just historically. I had a restrictive covenant in my first home I bought as an adult on the North End. The downfall of Oak Park was when, sadly, my grandparents had moved from the West End into Donner Way, and the freeways were built, and communities were divided. But most of Oak Park, Central and North, indeed had restrictive covenants, and I had one in my own home. South Oak Park, not so much, where I grew up, my family grew up, lived there for, I ran at my mom's home for nearly.

So I lived in Oak Park for nearly thirty years. But it was not legally redlined. It became segregated as a result of the freeway and other things. And I also think it's important to, and I now live in East Sac. I think it's important to clarify, not everybody that lives in East Sac lives in the Fab Forty's or around McKinley Park. There are many one story, two story, lovely bungalows. In fact, there's a wonderful series of brownstones right across the street, one story bungalows on Granada Way just off of Alhambra. And they're wonderful. Those are three story townhouses. They're selling for $900,000 It doesn't make the case for missing middle.

But there are many height variations in parts of ESAC, you know, around the I live in the Thrifty Thirty's, but I have a tutor. But, so all I'm saying is I think we could and should have greater density. I think even those striking height differences are not offensive. There's ways to mitigate it. And, there's generally far more people in ESAC who support increasing density.

And I

think that's a healthy conversation to have. Even as I understand, there are some people who arms go up in distress, like we saw at the the Demos project. So, I think our city in general, and even people who are fortunate to have bought like when I did and couldn't afford to move to my house in ESAC now, there's a willingness to see greater density. I do think that this two point zero for illustration purposes is important. I wouldn't preclude it in ESAC, but they're in the right place.

But I do think it's important for us to understand this notion of some neighborhoods will reject this. I think there's a lot more unanimity and universal respect and desire for the average person in most of these neighborhoods to see increased density with some sensitivity. And this body has shown the courage to push back even when some people come out opposing density. So I have confidence in us, and I have confidence in the communities. And I think it's really important to understand that one time, you know, Oak Park was in fact littered with restrictive covenants in their homes, beautiful homes.

And but for other decisions, white flight, the freeway. It was horrible what happened and when Oak Park went through the worst and I visited my grandma's house when they had the uprisings in the park. So I remember this well, but I think our city is is is far more evolved and I think the desire here to do something more simple and understandable that achieves the outcome of allowing density as needed to address the middle the MMH is where we should go. And I don't know how we get there, but I just think that this body in our city is far more progressive and looking towards the future to do the right thing.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Just a quick comment. I had not heard the fifty-30s before. Is that the equivalent to That

is where I live.

The fifty-30s. That the same as prefabs?

Thrifty is relative term these days.

Is that like prefabs?

Not nearly.

Anyway, thank you. Commissioner Mascis Reid.

Yeah. No, I would agree with commissioner Kaden that I think, you know, as you go out to the public, there could be a case made, you know, to to push this to sort of the it's was it low, medium, high? What does that age stand for? I'm sorry. I'm not my staff report is not pulled up.

High. Okay. The high level, MMH high. I think there could be a case made for that. I guess my question when you're going the next step for you for the staff is to go out to public, how are you planning to do your public outreach? And from this feedback, like, are you going to be going out with this, or are you going to be condensing it based on the workshop that you have with commission and counsel condensing that down from the comments and then going out for public comment?

Good question, Commissioner. Our goal is to obtain input from this commission and direction from counsel as well on the preferred approach between the minor, moderate, and transformational, and hopefully have the one selected that we can move forward with to do public engagement and get into the weeds of the thousand page ordinance and start rewriting that ordinance so that they align.

Okay. So, I'll end my comments with, you know, I think there could be a case made for us, again, pushing it to MMH High. I think there's been a lot of really great comments, here tonight, so thank you commissioners. I do think that the, review, staff level review with, deviation called up to director level I

think

is fine. I definitely, want to agree with Commissioner Kaden's comments around bulk control. I have personally experienced difficulty with bulk control and it's really difficult and adds a ton of cost. And it is really unfortunate to build and have to have those additional costs because sometimes it makes projects as completely unfeasible. So, very unfortunate, and I would like to, you know, just echo your comments on that.

I just think that our job as a city really needs to be to make things easier. You know, again, as a small contractor, as a small builder, you know, like like commissioner Cadence said, oftentimes, you know, I've I've actually been very fortunate as a commissioner who also has been on the other side. I deal with the building department. I submit entitlement applications. And so I've kind of seen you know, we build ADUs as well.

So I've kind of been on the other side of what some of the things that we discuss here. And, you know, I've experienced, you know, not that things have all been horrible, it's just experiencing sort of the process, the city process, and finding out ways that we can improve. Helpful, right? And so, really, really want to stress that adding things that could be cost prohibitive is really not the direction that I want to support us going in. Thank you.

You, Commissioner. Commissioner Reschke.

Thank you. Can we look at the slide again showing where you put your recommendations, the city's recommendations? So for the for both of these, I think I want to echo what some of the other commissioners have shared, is just, like, simplifying it as much as possible. I work with a lot of developers and builders, and I I always hear, you know, just simplify it as much as possible. And I think some of the tables we've looked at today have been a little bit kind of scary in that regard.

And then so for this moderate recommendation that's in the middle here, are you guys recommending that in the FAR one, it meets the moderate standards on those tables, but then you could get a discretionary review to do something in excess of that that goes up to the height limit with no bulk control?

And up to the one point zero FAR.

Up to the one

point zero. Even under the moderate recommendation, in FAR of two point zero, you could develop at a higher scale and three story flats. So the intensity is much higher. That would be lot.

So with the FAR two point zero, can always do the block scale options?

Correct. Yes. And my consultant, yeah.

I really like that in the FAR one point zero you can always get a discretionary view because I think that kind of strikes a balance between respecting the neighborhood context and then allowing the more affordable option to be built. So thank you. I end my time.

Thank you, commissioner. A couple of comments. Actually, I'd like to get a clarification from staff if I could regarding s p 79. Defines a transit stop? I'm seeing reference in there to an eligible transit transit stop such as light rail stations. Obviously, I think we all know a light rail station is a is there anything something like a bus stop is just too temporary that would not necessarily qualify? A BRT stop, would that qualify?

I would actually ask Vice Chair Kaden to answer that question in his SACOG hat.

Vice Chair? Sure. So you it's they created an extremely complicated definition called the Transit Oriented Development Stomp that's specific to SB79 and it went through the whole sausage making process in the state legislature. So you can qualify several ways. You can be commuter rail. We don't have any commuter rail that meets the trains per day definition. You can be light rail. You can be heavy rail. We don't have any of that. Or you can be bus rapid transit.

So bus rapid transit counts and what defines bus rapid transit was the topic of a lot of conversation. But basically where they landed is it needs to have fifteen minute frequencies and a dedicated lane. So we don't have any bus rapid transit currently. There is provisions in the bill that allow you to get in as planned transit. I know the city is exploring bus rapid transit on the 51 line on Stockton Boulevard. So there's the potential that once that project moves forward that that line would then turn on SB79 for the stops along that route.

And I think we know that extension to the airport likely if anything would be BRT eventually. Yeah.

That's currently in the map right now. So the Green Line extension all the way to the airport is in the map because it's planned.

Yeah. Okay. Thanks for the clarification.

Commissioner Lamas? Thank you, Chair. And thank you, staff. Thank you to those who came to provide comments from the audience and to the commissioners for this very robust discussion. I appreciate a lot of the comments and particularly Commissioner Kaden and Commissioner Masees Reed and other folks who have been talking through the importance of trying to ultimately build more housing, trying to bring down the cost of housing and ultimately increasing the supply, right?

And I know there was comments about how that impacts even folks who are at risk of homelessness and on that cusp, but also other folks who are struggling with trying housing that's affordable. I had a question about the interim ordinance right now. So from what I understand, there's an interim ordinance. When does that expire?

Does it have a set expiration date? It's just until we replace it with the permanent standards, which is what we're working to develop now.

Thank you for that. And I I was curious because it sounds like there's still a lot of interest in trying to explore other options. Right? And we're still trying to figure out as a city, like, how effective is the interim ordinance? How effective is this proposed ordinance proposed permanent ordinance gonna be.

And there's interest in possibly going, allowing for build more within the one point zero FAR in terms of the 35 feet as opposed to the 24 foot limit and these increase increase

to

build more housing within one point zero FAR. And also this question about whether or not we're going to implement a 1.5 FAR staff approval versus allowing that up to two point zero, right? I guess that's part of a question too, right? Where is that line? So I'm curious and maybe this is a comment the city in terms of considering and allowing some more flexibility to be responsive to what can be built, if part of the recommendation is considering another interim proposal that might go with a moderate approach but convert to maybe a more transformative approach after a certain amount of time, acknowledging that there is a need to build more housing.

And so just want to throw that out there, if there's an appetite for that to try to find a middle ground here. I also appreciate the comments about the SB-two I mean SB-seventy nine and some of the comments about trying to support more affordable housing development and try alternative options that may not ultimately result in additional affordable housing being built. And so I'm supportive of those city recommendations in terms of SB79. But with that, I will yield my time.

Thank you. Just a couple of things I would like to add. I wanted to go back to a comment Brian Seenart made earlier about 34th Street, I guess, which is essentially one story houses through there and then a three story building, solid wall that was built. Obviously, quite a visual shock in the neighborhood until people get used to it. I would probably be somewhat shocked if a three story building five feet off my property line in my one story neighborhood of Woodlake was built.

That said, I also lived in Midtown for some time in a one story building surrounded by several three story apartment buildings. It didn't bother me at all. I mean, it was there. So, I think if the context is there, you know going in what you have. If it's not there, I think and particularly going out to the community, think a way of perhaps expressing what the three storey option could look like to people who are going to be very concerned about that.

To find good examples around the city that would help alleviate concerns that may come up. When you live with something that has been there for a while, it tends to be okay. I think we go through I have gone through this with several affordable housing projects over in the Woodlake area. Tremendous neighborhood just opposition to it initially and trying to continue convince I have been designing affordable housing for thirty years plus, it will be okay. There won't be raping and pillaging the neighborhood.

And once the project is built as several of them are, people go, oh yes, that's a nice project. I look at Commissioner Rescue, her firm did one of them and it's just highly successful over there. But anyway, I think the difference between what's here right now and what would be proposed under these things will probably come up as a major question of the community as you go out there. Find ways to I think address that as much as you can. With that, any other questions from commission?

I think this being a review and comment, have we given you enough comments or should we keep going? I want to thank all my fellow commissioners too for all of the input on this one. Been very, very good. Thank you, Jamie, and everyone else on the staff. We will now go back to item four, which is a workshop on the preliminary framework for regulating cottages on wheels.

Alright. Well, good evening, commissioners. My name is Angel Anguiano, I'm an associate planner with your community development department. Today, I'm here to walk through, some of our thought process and our preliminarily preliminary framework regulating colleges on wheels. As we go through this, please keep in mind that we're looking for your feedback and comments to help us shape this ordinance and this program.

Alright. So just some policy context here. This effort comes from the city's housing element, which calls for exploring how movable tiny homes might be incorporated into our housing strategies. Because tiny home can mean different things in state and local codes, we use the term cottages on wheels to clearly define the type of home we are discussing. So what are Cottages on Wheels?

A Cottage on Wheels is a small dwelling unit built on a wheeled chassis. These units include complete living facilities, spaces for sleeping, eating, cooking, sanitation, so they function independently as a home. They're typically between one hundred and fifty and four hundred square feet and are towable, though not designed to move under their own power. They must be built to nationally recognize safety standards, including standards for the American National Standards Institute and the National Fire Protection Association. And they must be inspected by a qualified third party inspector.

They also require registration with the California Department of Motor Vehicles and HCD, Housing Community Development. So why is a local framework needed? A local framework is necessary because these units are not defined as a housing type under state law. State laws for accessory dwelling units also apply to only permanent buildings, and cottages on wheels are not considered permanent structures. Because of this, we need a local zoning and permitting rules to ensure clarity, consistency, and safety.

This framework will define where these units can be placed and what standards must be met. So, we reviewed ordinances from several jurisdictions, including Placer County, Nevada County, West Sacramento, City Of San Jose and San Diego. These jurisdictions were selected as examples based on their proximity to Sacramento, their comparable size and to provide a variety of approaches from a city and county context. In total, more than 20 jurisdictions statewide have adopted similar programs. But just keep in mind, when we are comparing these standards to ours, it's important to consider the differences between the city and the county conditions, particularly with respect to land availability and utility access.

Across these communities, we saw some common themes that being clear definitions for movable dwellings, requirements for construction safety certifications, design standards that ensure that the units resemble traditional homes, and utility connection requirements for long term residential uses. So, here's an overview of what we're proposing. So, we're obviously calling them colleges on wheels, allowed in areas zoned for single unit and duplex dwelling zones, including r one, r one a, r one b, and r two. The units must be between one hundred and fifty and four hundred square feet. They must register with the DMV and HCD.

They must meet nationally recognized safety standards. And the appearance of them, they must resemble a house and used materials commonly found in the neighborhood with wheels and mechanical equipment screened from view. In terms of setbacks, they must follow the underlying zoning requirements. And utilities, they must connect to water, sewer and electrical services with connections designed for safe disconnection. And in terms of foundation and parking, they must be placed on stable surfaces such as pavers, asphalt, concrete or similar materials.

So our proposal, once again, is to reiterate that we're proposing that they be permitted in the R1, R1A, R1B and R2 zones allow a maximum of one cal on all lots developed with one or more dwellings and that they be approved at a staff level if application conforms with our applicable standards. If deviations are reviewed by if deviations are required, then it would be reviewed by a design director. And, of course, it would still go through the building permit process for utility connection and inspections. So in terms of next steps, so this spring, we'll be connecting our outreach, reaching out to the housing policy and working group, which is made up of various nonprofit and profit stakeholders related to housing that support housing causes and rather ambitious, but we're also trying to hope to roll this out by the summer. But more likely, we're looking into the fall and winter.

So just to summarize it all, we're seeking feedback from the commission on the draft ordinance, details related to permitted zones, number of CALS permitted per lot, and the review process and the review level and type. That concludes my presentation. I will be able to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you, Angel. Are there any members of the public that wish to speak on this item?

Thank you, Chair. I have three speakers. Can I have Max Melrose come up, and then Robin? And after Robin, Ben, please.

Hey, y'all. I didn't mention before that I also serve on the housing policy working group, and I'm a member of the Measure U Commission as well. We are, at Sierra Service Project, run our youth workforce development program. We are building cottages on wheels as a effort to expand a transitional housing program that already exists. I wanna tell you a little story about the Safe Harbor community.

It was built by a woman named Robin Moore. Her program is highlighted on the city's web site about addressing homelessness, and she had the dream and the vision to help students who were sleeping in their cars and living on the streets have better educational outcomes. And what she figured she could do was make her house and her property available for people to transition out of homelessness. At the time, she pitched an idea to have four tiny cottages put into her backyard. They did not conform with building standards because it was too many ADUs.

So she managed to find a workaround by putting them on trailers. They're no longer buildings, and she was able to create this program that over the last two and a half years has helped 57 families transition out of homelessness. That's over a 160 people who now are no longer living on the street because someone had the idea to share the space that they had on their own personal private property. She started out with three residential units and a shared kitchen and bath, combo unit, and since then has expanded. We're in the process of building additional units to expand this program so that we can actually address that question about how missing middles can address homelessness.

We're employing young people to build these houses and training them on the design, site planning, how to go through the permitting process. We're building them to building code standards so that as this regulation does occur, we can prove that our structures are built to the safe working conditions. I think that the recommendation for one cow per unit is far too low and I base that on my own personal experience having seen someone take a 50 by 150 lot, put a bunch of units there and have meaningful impact in the neighborhood that I grew up in, in Del Paso Heights in North Sacramento. And those are the kinds of solutions that I want to be a part of and I want to see in my neighborhood. Thank you for taking the time to hear us out on this.

I have more to share with you later.

Thank you for your comments. Robin, please, and then Ben.

Good evening. My name's Robin, and I'm a primary cow or Tiny Home on Wheels dweller. I started this process of trying to legalize my tiny home on wheels in the city of West Sacramento in 2020. So I've lived the reality of what you're discussing tonight. I'm still going through the legal process even though the ordinance went into effect May. But it's so exciting to see the conversation starting over here on the other side of the river. But I did wanna say I strongly support what you're doing here. Creating this legal pathway is not just innovative, but it's necessary. From experience, the biggest barriers weren't safety. They have been process, time, cost.

When requirements become too complex, too slow, or too expensive, people don't stop living in and building tiny homes. They just do it without permits. So if the goal is safe, legal housing, the pathway has to clear and achievable. And we need to be super clear to the public that these are different from what is often used by government and media to describe things like sheds or pallet shelters. Those are meant to be temporary housing and are not tiny homes.

So those are very different from what we're discussing here, which are permanent, code compliant housing units. Clear language helps lead to clear policy and gaining community support. I also would challenge you to consider allowing these as primary residences. Limiting them to only accessory units reduces their potential impact. So when allowed as primary housing, these homes create a true entry point into homeownership for people who are otherwise completely priced out of the market.

We are diverse people who need diverse options. These are one of the few housing types that can expand access to homeownership without requiring subsidies, large scale development, or public funding. In that sense, they provide a housing solution at essentially no cost to the taxpayer while still increasing housing supply and local economic activity. So much of our conversations are around how to incentivize wealthy developers to build our housing for us, and this empowers the average person to build their own affordable housing. So I encourage you to keep the permitting process simple and predictable, avoid unnecessary duplication between state, DMV, and local requirements, be mindful of total cost especially for utility hookups, and allow enough flexibility for these homes to function as real long term housing.

Ultimately, you have an opportunity here to do more than just allow a new housing type, but to expand who gets to participate in home ownership in Sacramento. For many people, this isn't about downsizing. It's about finally having a way to build stability, equity, and a place of their own in a housing market that has otherwise shut them out. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. The last speaker is going to be Ben. Hey,

everyone. Back again. Ben Radestroff with House Sacramento. We are extremely excited about this ordinance. And I wanna tell you why. What I find most exciting about Tiny Homes on Wheels so there's for any of you who who follow or participate in housing policy discourse at the state level or just sort of in general, you know that the thing that everybody talks about right now is manufactured or or or how do we get how do we get modular housing to work? Right? Like, how do we build housing in factories and apartment buildings that are built in factories? They do it in Europe. We're throwing tons of money at this problem.

There's like if if the across from Immortal Cafe just a couple blocks over, there's a very cool modular building. This is a thing that everybody's paying attention to, and the reality is we're really struggling. Right? Like, nobody can seem to make modular housing, factory built housing work at scale, but but this is it. Right? Like, this this ordinance is that. Right? And I think the wheels the fact that they they they come on wheels can actually really distract us to what we're talking about here. All we are talking about is allowing people to purchase factory built housing, plop it down in the city of Sacramento, connect utilities, and call it a house because it's a house. That's all it is.

It just happened to be built in a factory. It may not be big units stacked on top of each other like what we usually are talking about when we talk about factory built housing, modular housing, but but that's what this is. So with that in mind, our recommendations would basically be, let's design this ordinance to treat this like any other housing because, again, that's what this is. It's just it happens to have wheels, so people have stereotypes around trailers or that sort of things. But this is built to the same standards as an ADU or anything else. So one, we do agree they should be allowed to be primary units.

If you think

about it, the if if you can buy a tiny home for a $100,000 and with our new missing middle lot split, you know, tiny lot sizes, you really could be talking about a starter home in Sacramento for less than $200,000, which is absolutely insane. Right? I know some people maybe purchased their houses back when that was reasonable. That is not reasonable anymore. If we could do that through this ordinance, that'd be incredible. Two, we should regulate them just like ADUs. So that means the same number of ADUs we allow in a lot. We should allow the same thing with tiny homes on wheels. Three, we should use so so Greta, and I know others of the city have done an incredible job making it so that people can can basically do preapproved ADUs. We think we should do the same thing for this.

Right? So you should have a library of ones that the city has already, you know, approved, and the city should even put it on the website. Right? Like, all of these are preapproved. And every time we approve one, we should put another one on that list. And then finally oh, I think that's it. But basically, we just treat these just like any other type of housing. That's what they are. We're very excited about this. Thank you, staff, for delivering this excellent ordinance.

Thank you for your comments, chair. That's the last speaker on this item.

Thank you, Clerk. Just a comment. Being a former building official, I just can't get building codes out of my brain. This brings up some interesting just issues of who approves one of these units. It really once it's on wheels, it would need to be housing community development, HCD.

And I'm assuming that would then get a certification stamp or applied to the building. It would not then the building department in Sacramento would just say that's preapproved. That's fine. We're just doing the utility connections. Since it is on wheels, so I think also we need to take into account moving forward, given potential seismic issues that may come up, the connections for all of the utilities, I think, need to have a degree of flexibility to them. So, anything moves, they don't break, crack, and put doo doo all over the place. But, I would like to ask the woman from West Sacramento to come back up. I'd be curious to see how that has gone and how how your that unit was built. Was it built at a factory? Or

Yes. Technically. Yeah. Just on Richards Boulevard. This was back in 2016, I believe, when I started the process. So I've lived in the tiny home illegally for quite some time, and then I bought the property in West Sacramento and asked for permission. And then it was kinda like, what's going on? What are you doing? And then I asked for forgiveness. I moved there and then got other advocates on board, neighbors on board.

Then we started just getting with council, getting with planning, community development, and that's kinda how where we now. So it was approved. The ordinance was approved in 2025, so it's been almost a year. And now we're working on proportional impact fees because I'm a primary resident residence, so there's no other home So this is my, you know, entry to housing. So now we're working on impact fees because if the impact fees are more than your house, there's no incentive.

So we're trying to create incentives for the average person, not just wealthy developers. That's kind of where I was looking at policy. I'm like, wow. Look at all these discounts and all these programs for all these developers to build all this housing. There's nothing for the average person. There's no there was no options to impact fees. There was no payment plans. There's no ordinances. You know, there's nothing like that. So this was an affordable option for me and, hopefully, for others.

And right now, we have four people who have submitted permits, and there's one other primary that is also waiting for the impact fees that should be going to council April 15. So we're waiting on that. And then there's two ADUs that have submitted. And I don't know what the holdup is for them. I I'm I'm not sure. But as primaries, we're waiting on the impact fees, the proportional impact fees to come down.

Has your unit been submitted to the building department in Westside?

Yes. We submitted site plans. Yep.

Did the issue of flexibility in the utility connections come in?

No. No, that hasn't

come Talk

to Roxanne about that. No. And so, also, I assume, is your unit either to be registered with the DMV? Yes. And that would require what an annual renewal? Would it be like No.

It's a permanent it's a permanent trailer. It doesn't require an

annual Really? Because RVs and boats typically, if the you have options with a boat, can either pay annually a fee of the DMV and renew it like a license or you could document it with the coast guard. But, I don't think there is any mode like that with these units. Would assume they would be annual renewal, but I could be wrong. Okay, interesting. All right. Well, for clarifying that. Right. Speakers, Commissioner Young.

I was wondering, Steph, do you guys know how much it costs to build these units? Or maybe you can answer how much did it cost for you to acquire the unit?

That can range. The tiny home itself?

Yeah. Yeah.

That can range. And I bought mine years ago, 2016. So it's definitely been inflated just like everything else in terms of labor and materials. But, I mean, my unit was $40,000, and the impact fees in West Sacramento are $50,000. So and my land was $60,000. So I'm like, okay. How do we make this make sense? You know? So that's that's kind of what we've been doing, and and that's why we created the ordinance because it's not exactly a manufactured home. It's not a traditional home.

So we had to create the ordinance to so that I didn't have to build a whole other home because that's not affordable.

So And so are all these homes being really just contemplated as homeownership

currently?

Just for the people watching from home, if we could make sure we use a microphone. Thank you.

He builds them. Coming up.

Yeah, sorry.

We're building them for an average cost of about 30 ks each. We're running a model of transitional housing, so it's not considered emergency housing or rentals, but there's like a long term lease that's held with participating, like case management agencies who place people into the housing and do all the screening and those things too. So one of our program staff actually has a life dream to use tiny homes as a way to help people bridge the gap of cost of homeownership by having them build their houses as more of a housing cooperative, being able to learn from each other and helping people access the starter home for cheaper and also sharing in land. So things like the land use fees and development fees and those things can also be shared by a group of people.

So it could be used as a rental housing strategy possibly as well. So I mean what would that look like with the proposed ordinance? Because right now I think these units would only be allowed in R1, R2, R3. I mean if some nonprofit developer wanted to do some sort rental housing strategy or homeless housing strategy, would that be allowed under the proposed?

Well, they would have to have a primary dwelling of sorts, whether it's a single unit or duplex, right, because those are the zones that proposed to be allowed in and they're proposed to be an accessory, right? In a in on lots that have existing primary dwellings. So, you know, technically someone could own the unit but they wouldn't own the land, right? Maybe someone could own like Robin could own her unit and live, but the unit on the back of another property. And technically she would own the tiny house, but she wouldn't own the land. So does that make sense?

Yeah. I think I'm just thinking about the yeah, Greg.

Greg, can share how we kind of navigate around this too. So as we're having our program fellows developing site plans, and they're evaluating different sites based on their criteria of not only how many can they fit, what the infrastructure cost would be in terms of mechanical, electrical, plumbing, but also like is there an existing structure that we can tap into because it's a limiting factor as well as like looking at other sites like, for example, churches that have certain exemptions that would allow us to build these not on trailers. So there's a couple of strategies that we teach around that help our program fellows understand how to assess which sites are actually feasible or scalable because a lot of the times permitting development infrastructure costs would be prohibitive and break the business model of being able to build these and use them for housing whether it be rental or homeownership. Thanks, Al.

To clarify everybody again, Greg Salmon, Planning believe Robin Morris set up with tiny homes on wheels that was permitted through an emergency ordinance which is permitted during a declared housing crisis and those are temporary structures. And those are permitted through an administrative process. Miss Moore is taken advantage of as intended. It hasn't occurred very often in the city. But, yes, we that same ordinance allows safe parking lots in churches, camping cabins, other things that private entities could do during this housing crisis.

Now, the question of can we do this for a, let's say, nonprofit wants to set up a situation where they're bringing in tiny homes on wheels for a permanent land use. Correct. That is something that we'd have to look into and we have right now regulations for homeless shelters

Correct.

That require CUPs and have standards under state law. So doing something like that is that it's going a little bit beyond the scope of what we're doing here in terms of allowing homes on wheels in backyards in most cases or maybe as a primary unit, intriguing concept. But we're yeah, that would be expansion of our scope.

I mean, I think I mean, obviously, like the I believe the transitional housing or the homeless housing that's being proposed by the city I forgot the name of the director, but I mean he I spoke with Pedro. Pedro, yeah. I mean he's talking about building like $100,000 per bed or whatever, just like that was just like the approximate cost. If you're right. But if we're talking about something here like with scale of economies or whatnot, this could possibly be a rental piece.

But then I think I would just love to hear from the dais as far as kind of their thoughts on it being a rental housing strategy. Like, I appreciate the homeownership. I just think that we've been talking for years about finding a low cost way of building affordable housing, transitional housing. And it sounds like there's something here. But I'm not sure why we're not contemplating possibly having this be a possibility in a commercial zone or church zone or multifamily zone.

I mean, I know that there are some other implications here, but I just feel like the discussion, given all that we've been talking about for years, at least deserves to have that entering the conversation. For that I'll just rest for now and I might have some other comments later. Thank you Commissioner. Vice Chair Caden.

Yeah, I mean I think it's really exciting. You know everything that's in completely support the city pursuing this. I think I would support, I think, a lot of the comments that have been expressed from the public. I think the letter from House Sacramento is pretty thoughtful, and I think a lot of those suggestions should be considered and maybe worth reaching out to them to kind of talk about them more. I would lift up a couple of those that stood out to me.

I mean I think that permitting them as primary dwellings I think is absolutely worth exploring from an affordable homeownership opportunity perspective. Particularly as it as we talk about our ministerial lot split rules with six eighty four and eleven twenty three. I mean like I that's you very conceivably could see like a eight unit subdivision on a lot. And you know, mean that's that would be unbelievable to see a homeownership opportunity without subsidy, you know, sub 300, you know, maybe pushing the boundaries even below that. I think that be unbelievable to do.

So it's definitely worth exploring. I think allowing more than one per lot. I agree with the comment that you know why are we treating these that differently. I mean I think the Placer County example of going up to 12, I get that that's you know maybe a stretch stretch too far. I would support that personally, but I understand why that's a concern, I guess. And so, maybe there's a middle ground there. Maybe you treat them like ADUs. I mean we don't allow 12 ADUs, right? But you do allow more than one. So I think maybe there's a way to kind of allow for a couple and just kind of have the same sort of rules that the city has with ADUs.

And then I think the streamlined permitting through ministerial approval recommendation I think is really worth exploring. I still don't totally understand like how if this is a factory built product, what does design review really mean in that case? I mean, you're not going to go back to the factory and change the design. And I understand the desire to kind of have a minimum standard for what it looks like. I think that makes a lot of sense.

But it seems like you can achieve that through objective design standards that sort of set that minimum and then you can still approve that at the staff level without sort of requiring a design process that seems like it wouldn't yield anything anyway because there's not really a whole lot of opportunity to make changes at that point anyway. And then, you know, I mean I think the other aspect there is, I mean it was referenced, This is the whole factory built conversation at the state level. This is like obviously a very hot topic. There's a whole 10 bill package that's going to the legislature right now that actually does restrict some of the ability of local government, at least on the building code side, to sort of require alterations beyond what is allowable via the HCD approval process. So I think it's possible if we have these kind of more discretionary site plan design review processes that can kind of add layers of complexity to what's already kind of approved at the state level that we could run into some trouble if some of these bills are passed.

So I just wanted to make sure that the city was kind of tracking some of those as well. But generally I think it's a fantastic idea and just would love maybe this is one of these things like we did this with the Missy Middle Interim Hornets, right, where it's like we had some ideas that we were, you know, exploring that were new and different and it was uncomfortable. And so maybe we can, you know, try some of these things and then, you know, have a look back in a year where we come next year and see how it is working and then maybe add some of these other ideas as well. Thank

you. In terms of design review, I suppose it is a possibility that the manufacturers of these could, you know, work with Bruce a bit, you know, in the same way we have preapproved ADU designs, try to develop approved, you know, cartridges on wheels. Bruce?

So, Monaghan, your urban design manager. And twelve years ago, just about this month, one of the questions I was asked about taking this position is what did I think the city should do? And I said, we need tiny homes on wheels. And that was twelve years ago. And for the last two years, Robin is I'm a West Sacramento resident.

Two years, Robin has been my muse on this particular topic. Appreciate the effort that they have put into this. I would also just review the report by the Turner Center out of Berkeley on their the modular home industry obstacles. And one of the things mentioned in that obstacle was design review. And that they are like a car manufacturer. They build x number of cars with certain standards and paint it a certain color and you buy one that you like. And that's it. There's no changes. You don't get to go to the factory and modify what you want. In the past, we have looked at modulars as something we wanted to comment on from a design standpoint.

After reviewing this Turner Turner Center report, I've advanced the idea that we need to be able to preapprove certain designs and let people say these are okay. Go ahead and bring them and that's it. We'll be fine. I I I have found that it's harder to set set a set of standards of what it should look like because we've got a good list for objective standards and then we'll find one that's like, my god, that fits the checklist, but look at it. So in my mind, there's more work that needs to go on that.

But this needs to be a very simple review because you can't ask a person to go back and change it after the fact if it's already built. This is the fastest, least expensive way to build housing. When you look, this is going to be half the cost of an EDU, maybe even less than that. It has the ability to be taken with you to another lot or another location. It is a very simple thing to do and it's housing.

And we did have a major discussion with the building department and they clarified this is not a building. We're not gonna inspect this. We're not dealing with it. It's not a building. It's, you know, it's a it's a DMV licensed building and and inspected by HCD. So we know that the connections are the key. We know that a foundation that works the same as a modular would work would be sufficient. So the goal is to keep this really simple. There are people in this country, other states, that are creating subdivisions out of these. I think that that's an opportunity.

We're not necessarily ready to go there. I like, you know, the fact that West Sacramento has said these could be primary residence is a big step forward. Not all of them say that. But when we do this, if we do this, if we get, you know, support for this, it needs to be a very simple process and design review will be a very secondary. And I won't say ministerial is the word, but it needs to be along that line of ministerial and not let's go tweak this thing. We'll set some standards, see if we get people complying with those standards. I'm very excited about it and I don't think it's a problem from a design standpoint.

Bruce, you mentioned that you think that these could be half the price of ADUs, but yet they've got to be built at the same building code standards even if they're HCD buildings. How could we account for that much?

Well, we we actually have an appendix in the in the uniform building code for tiny homes because things like stairs and lofts and exits don't fit the standard building code. So, there is appendix nine, I think it is, for in international building code, and we've adopted that. So these will have their own standards that they're built to, and they're built to those standards. They will be inspected at construction and not on-site. Much like the module industry is having problems where there's too many jurisdictions want to inspect them on-site rather than accepting the HCD stamp. So, not a building, but a house.

Thank you.

I just want to quickly mention also that I know we're talking about site plan and design review, but I don't want us to forget also that as part of that planning stage, we're also taking into account utilities, overhead easements, all these other connections and utility connections that are that need to be captured at an early stage. Otherwise, if a potential account owner gets too far down the line, so the building department, they've invested quite a bit of money and now they're caught in they're unaware of certain development standards that they're going to have to do. So it's important that we also capture it through the planning stage, certain requirements that other departments may require when we route projects out to them. So that would include utilities, fire, public works if that becomes an issue, electrical, those things to keep in mind. But design review, site plan design review, those are two of the same thing that we take into consideration.

Thank you, Angel. I can't help but see an irony here as we've, over the last decades, plural, eliminated mobile home parks throughout the area. What are we coming back to here? Anyway, yeah, which I've always thought was a great concept. With that, did you we had to Commissioner Reschke.

Thank you. Yeah. So I have a quick question about impact fees. For the for the person who lives in West Sacramento, are the impact fees that you're being charged basically the same as if you had built a single family house with one bedroom, one bathroom? Yes. Yeah. Okay. And if you were to, like, move out of state tomorrow, would you be able to, like, take your house with you? Yes. And and then you would be able to sell your lot, and someone could come and build a single family home on it, then they would pay the impact fees again?

I I don't know exactly what they're gonna going to do with that. I don't know.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I see. I just I think it seems like that the impact piece should definitely be considered to be lower because you can leave and someone can come and pay them again. Okay. Thanks. Yeah. I really appreciate all the work on this ordinance. It's really it's really creative and wonderful, and I would echo the things that have been said earlier that it should definitely be it'd be great if it could be a primary unit. It's a really great way to start, you know, a low entry low cost entry point to housing.

The the letter that we got from Sacramento House is really helpful where they talk about movable ADUs. I think that would be a really great way to classify them, and then that way they could be the same number as ADUs. Or even more, I think it's a really good opportunity for communities. I hear a lot of people wanna live in cohousing or, you know, live live with friends or or something. And so, like, having that opportunity to to do something like that would be really nice. Thank you.

Thank you, commissioner. Commissioner Ortega?

If I may just add or maybe make a comment related to that. So when we first started working on this ordinance, we reached out to HCD to gather their input related to how we should classify these these cows and whether state ADU standards would apply to them, and also naming convention, because we've seen so many different varieties of how they've classified how other jurisdictions call them. And they did discourage us to utilize ADUs in its name because it does pose a lot of confusion related to state mandates that would not necessarily apply to a movable non permanent structure because it's not they're not seen that way.

I see. Yeah.

And and it also poses a question, you know, like, there are very specific building requirements that an ADU must meet that do not meet are not required.

Yeah. I see how that's tricky.

And so

Plus the cow name is really cute.

Yeah.

Is that it, Commissioner? Yeah. Oh, I am sorry. Commissioner Ortiz,

I just

have a

Can you reactivate your mic? I turned it off accidentally.

Okay. Thank you. I think it is all wonderful and I am really excited about this. I just have a practical some practical questions about the utility hookups and the ability of a property owner, the landowner, at some time if indeed they wanted to no longer have a tiny home on their property with their primary residence, and perhaps even build an ADU. I mean, the cost of the hookups, I'm trying to imagine how the hookups would be, the sewer, the water, the storm drain, all of that is very, very expensive when you are going to alter your primary residence property property to accommodate a cottage on wheels.

What if somewhere down the line they were to abandon that? Are there challenges in terms of that infrastructure staying in place and not being utilized for the purposes of a cottage on a wheel? Do you just abandon them? Or what if they eventually wanted to do, alter the land in some other way, build a pool or build an ADU? That how how would one move from existing infrastructure sewer, etcetera, for a tiny home to something different?

Yeah. So if you've ever had a travel trailer and taken it to a travel trailer park and you pull into the travel trailer, you hook up your water to a hose to a hose bigot and you take your flexible hose and you stick it in the connection of the ground and you take your electrics and you plug it into a pedestal. I did that at my house in the county and add a part of a trailer park there with full service. I don't know if that was allowed. The discussion that we've been having is how permanent.

It can still be a and note that these don't even require a permanent slab to park them on. Just let's call it a surface that's not grass. The idea that there should be a a a connection that doesn't fall out like a sewer connection. Right. So there's a screw in connection of some type.

That that there might be a pedestal that instead of plugging it in, it's a hardwired pedestal and you need an electrician to make that plug in. And there might be PVC piping that connects the water with a water spigot valve. It's still very, very, very low tech. If you took the cow out of there and you had these three elements there, you could simply cap them off and then use them for your ADU because the services are already pulled into that point. And I think we've yet to land on how permanent a connection that is rather than a full residential typical kind of hidden connection could it have some exposure relative, but it should be secured connection.

I would think the sewer line is probably the more complicated and expensive infrastructure need and that the electrical and and even the water input line would be relatively manageable, but that sewer line has got essentially be permanent and could in fact impact That's correct. Anything subsequent.

And and and if you're working with an existing residence, then you're tapping into that facility that you already have. So you wouldn't be running everything new. It would be connecting to the water you have, collecting the power you have, coming off the the the power panel, and then hooking to the sewer that's already on your property.

Yeah. As someone who lives in a an area where I've contemplated that at a detached garage or there are challenges getting a Yes. Sewer line around the back and into yeah. So I appreciate that, that you're you know that that may be something that obviously needs to be built into our final adoption. I think it's fabulous, and I'm excited about it because, you know, when the tiny homes came on the scene fifteen fifteen years ago or so, I I don't have a driveway that couldn't even get a trailer through the gate because it's like seven feet wide.

But I just think it's a fascinating idea and that we're gonna incorporate it, we plan to incorporate it as part of our housing spectrum of options is really fabulous. So, thank you for answering my question.

Bruce, a quick follow-up and maybe you are Angel. My understanding from the report is that these are not intended to be permanently attached to the ground, simply sit on wheels. And that is what leads to needing a flexible connection. They are not going to be sitting there anchored. There are no air screws holding the thing down in. So, in that sense, I think there has to be the actual infrastructure itself, sewer, water, electrical needs to be permanent to a certain point, as you mentioned. And then from that point, there are some degree of flexibility from the unit itself to that utility. But still, no reason why it can't be done.

Yeah, that's correct. And each of these, you know, cows would have their own manufacturing hookup or anchoring, I should say, anchoring that's required that would be required as part of our standards.

So there would be a degree of anchoring to the ground you're saying required? Okay. I wasn't clear about that in the Yes.

There are standard details for anchoring modular homes. Sure. Unlike a risk You're supporting them at various areas. And then there's a screw that goes down into the ground and they're secured to that screw. And that keeps them from wind overturning or seismic overturn. So they're anchored to the ground but they're not supported on a continuous foundation because of So

that's the requires intent

continuous foundation. There would be no continuous foundation just seismic attachment.

Yeah, which is the way school, a lot of the school modular units are anchored to the ground too.

All

right, thank you. Sorry to jump in there. So, Commissioner Lums, did we get you yet?

I think something happened. Yeah, you should I see

your head. I'm here. Sorry.

No worries. Thank you.

I'm new to this.