Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

of San Diego's Public Hearing YouTube channel. Members of the public using the hybrid format may be able to provide comments using the Zoom webinar platform. Members of the public who wish to provide testimony remotely must enter the virtual queue by clicking on the raised hand icon before the queue closes. The virtual queue will close five minutes after in-person testimony ends. Also per Section 2.6.2 of the Rules of Counsel, speakers participating virtually may not allocate their time to other speakers. Time can only be ceded by speakers who are present in the hearing room.

michael prince will now go over the specifics of how the public can participate and give their public testimony thank you chair modane is that good back there okay if you are in person please complete a speaker slip if you wish to speak okay If you are in person, please complete a speaker slip if you wish to speak. In-person testimony will conclude before virtual testimony begins. Members of the public can join the webinar by computer, tablet, or smartphone by accessing the link which is listed online in the preamble language of the agenda on the Planning Commission's webpage, or you may dial 1669-254-5252. The webinar ID is 160-944-0367. Please note that if you are watching online, there may be a 30 second delay. Please participate via the audio on your phone and mute your TV or computer when it is your turn to speak. Thank you.

I would now like to take roll call. As I call your name, please indicate if you are present. Commissioner Mazzari?

Present.

Commissioner Marlborough?

Present.

Commissioner Miyahara? Present. Commissioner Reeves?

Present.

Commissioner Renger? Present. Vice Chair Boomhauer?

Present.

And Chair Modane is present. The staff members present with us today are Michael Prince, Assistant Deputy Director from Development Services. Marlon Pangolinan, Program Coordinator, City Planning Department. Corinne Newfer, Senior Chief Deputy City Attorney. And Eric Misalgo, Senior Civil Engineer, Civil Engineer Engineering Division and our legislative staff. We will now start our agenda with public comment for non agenda items this portion of the agenda is an opportunity for the public to make comments on planning related items that are not on today's agenda. Any person wishing to speak will have three minutes maximum to provide testimony, if you would like to speak, please click on the raised hand icon on your screen. David modi.

So my name is David Modi. And I heard just before the meeting that my comment about needing a drinking fountain or water cooler has been listened to and that something is coming in the next few weeks. I look forward to it at the next meeting that I attend. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, that concludes our non agenda, public comment. I'm assuming there's no items to be continued or withdrawn. Is there a request to place any items on consent? Okay. And are there any directors reports?

Yes, thank you chair, the last planning Commission hearing was held on October 30 at the hearing the Commission heard for items. The Commission heard an item to recommend the City Council approve a public right of way vacation tentative map and neighborhood development permit. To vacate portions of 40th street the street C street and an unnamed alley consolidating and subdividing 16 existing lots into 10 lots and to construct 11 new single dwelling units and 18 new accessory dwelling units. at 40th and C Street in the southeastern community plan area. The commission heard a community plan amendment, rezone, coastal development permit, and public sewer easement vacation to construct an additional 183 units, including seven affordable units, a surface parking lot, and two new parking structures within an existing multiple dwelling unit development at 3823 Ingram Street in the Pacific Beach community planning area. The Commission also heard a request to initiate a Community Plan Amendment to redesignate 0.25 acres from public right-of-way to parks, open space, and 0.18 acres from public right-of-way to schools in the La Jolla Community Plan area. All three items were approved by the Commission by a vote of 6-0-1 with Commissioner Boomhauer absent. Finally, at the hearing, the Commission heard an informational workshop item from the City Planning Department on the 2025 Annual Report on Homes. The report provides an overview of home permitting data from calendar year 2024. Thank you.

Good morning, commissioners. Just to piggyback on Mr. Prince's report, the city planning department did conclude its public hearings on the annual report on homes with an informational presentation to the city council this past Tuesday. That concludes my report. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there any non agenda commission comment? Okay, and we can start with item number one staff whenever you are ready.

Kelly Stonka, Thank you. Pause before zoom kicks in. Thank you, everyone. I'm Kelly Stonka. I'm the Deputy Director of the Climate Preservation and Public Spaces Division in the City Planning Department. And I am pleased today to present to you preservation and progress package A. Preservation in Progress is a comprehensive update to the city's heritage preservation program. There are six primary goals of Preservation in Progress to advance equity in historic preservation, evaluate our Mills Act program to ensure fiscally responsible and equitable implementation of the program, identify and protect historical properties and districts that are important to the city's history and culture with the focus on historic districts reform permit processes to better encourage adaptive reuse of historical buildings on their original site adopt design standards for historical properties that provide clear by right approval for additions and new development on historic properties and districts and to remove regulations that unnecessarily impact properties that lack historical or cultural importance We have divided preservation and progress into two packages of amendments, package A and package B. Package A includes amendments that are not significantly complex and that do not require amendments to the city's historical resources regulations or require significant environmental review, while package B are the more complex items, items that will involve an update to the historical resources regulations and guidelines and that do require more environmental review. So within package A, which is what is before the commission today, we have amendments to the general plan, including amendments to the historic preservation element and appendix F of the general plan, which provides a historical overview of San Diego. We also have amendments to the land development code or the municipal code, including amendments to the appeal process for historic designations. clarifying amendments to the applicability of complete communities housing solutions within our emerging and thematic historic districts, and other minor cleanup items. And then lastly, we have an amendment to our historic preservation fund to repurpose the fund to focus on advancing equity and historic preservation. looking first at the general plan and our historic preservation element, an overview of the narrative changes in the document. We have updated our discussion regarding Native American resources and consultation processes to make sure they incorporate new laws that have been adopted since the general plan was first adopted in 2008. We have also updated discussion of the San Diego Municipal Code to remove detailed discussion of regulatory requirements and repeating our regulations within the historic preservation element. As the higher level policy document, regulations don't belong in the general plan itself. So instead of repeating those regulations here, we simply reference to where they can be found in the historical resources regulations. and guidelines consistent with other elements of the general plan. We removed references to conservation areas, which were a concept put forward in the 2008 general plan for areas that didn't meet criteria for historic district designation, but nevertheless had a history and quality that the community wanted to preserve in some form or another. We explored this concept in 2016-2017 after the adoption of the Uptown North Park and Golden Hill Community Plans and really couldn't kind of get any consensus around what conservation areas should do or what they should look like. So we're kind of shifting from the conservation area idea to including language regarding identification, interpretation, and celebration of buildings and areas that are not eligible for designation but are important to the community. And in package B, we'll be looking at ways to implement that through a type of commemorative designation program that would honor that history without necessarily having regulations attached to it. And then lastly, we have minor updates to outdated language terminology and the number of designated resources on the city's register, which has increased since 2008. In terms of the policies in the general plan, we have updated our policies to be consistent with all of the recent community plan updates that we have brought forward in regards to tribal cultural resources and consultation with the Kumeyaay Nation. Again, removal of conservation areas and shifting that policy language generally to celebration of properties that don't meet the criteria for designation. policies ensuring preservation efforts recognize and celebrate the history of all communities including those that have been traditionally underrepresented in historic preservation encouraging the use of objective design standards for historic resources which again will be something we'll be looking at in package b and adding new policies regarding promoting the use of sustainable materials and practices and restoring historic resources and developing mitigation strategies to address climate change impacts and improving resilience of our historic resources to those impacts Appendix F provides a summary of San Diego history. We are currently in the first year of a multi-year effort to develop a citywide historic context that looks at the development of the city since the beginning and the themes that are important to that development and the property types that are important to that development. So we expect that Appendix F will likely be comprehensively updated once that effort is complete. So with Preservation Progress Package A, we just are looking at interim updates. to better address tribal cultural history and pre-history and the impact of past zoning and lending practices on segregation and lack of infrastructure investment and we include a link and a reference to the housing element Appendix A which provides a much more detailed history of this. Shifting to the municipal code amendments, we have some updates to board appointments and terms for the historical resources board. A really minor change regarding the deadline for the mayor to appoint a chair from April 15th to April 30th just to better align with our docketing timelines. We're also providing some flexibility in the appointment of our qualified professionals. The Historical Resources Board is an 11-member volunteer board. Within that, we have five seats that are required to be filled by technical experts in the field of historic preservation, an architectural historian, an architect, a historian, a landscape architect, and an archaeologist. And in the past, we have had challenges finding qualified volunteers to serve in some of those seats, which has kept some of our sitting volunteers on the board far beyond their initial eight years. And so in order to not take advantage of the generosity of our volunteers who agree to serve on the board, we want to provide some flexibility that if we cannot find a qualified volunteer, we can fill it with a volunteer from a second volunteer from one of the other seats so if we can't find an architectural historian we can fill it with a second historian or a second landscape architect just to give us a little bit of flexibility but we've also stated that no more than two professional seats in the same historic preservation related field should be used to fill those five it will always be our goal to have all five represented but as i said sometime it just is not feasible and it's also not fair to our volunteers to keep them locked within their volunteer commitment beyond their original anticipated eight years we have some amendments to noticing and time limits for historical resources board review of a property the cleanup to noticing language is consistent with other city noticing requirements code language referring to record owner rather than property owner which is record owner being a defined term noting that it has to be mailed 10 business days before the hearing and specifying the content of the notice and a clarifying amendment regarding the length of the board's purview over an item before their jurisdiction over it expires and that that's tied to the first hearing in which the item is considered. We also have amendments to our historic designation appeal process. The amendment adds a finding that would allow the City Council to reconsider the designation itself. So currently, the City Council, when considering an appeal of a historic designation by the Historical Resources Board, are limited to three findings which i'll get to in another slide here and this would add a fourth to allow them to reconsider the merits of the designation it aligns the appeal finding filing requirements with other city appeal appeals and requires appeals to be docketed within 180 days after filing because currently there is no time frame for that and we have appeals that have been sitting on file literally for decades and that's because the appellant has not wanted to proceed. The appellant slash property owner has not wanted to proceed. Just to note a change following historical resources board review and recommendation we had originally when we presented to the board also included an amendment that would provide for the ability to appeal board decisions to not designate a property that is currently not allowed under our code. We were originally proposing to add that. through the the public hearing process and discussions with the board's policy subcommittee and the board couldn't really find any consensus around that issue some felt that the ability should be added some felt it shouldn't some felt it should be added but limited to the property owner and so we have decided to to remove that proposed addition to the code and are no longer proposing the ability to appeal board decisions to not designate I noted earlier that the council is currently limited to three findings to appeal a designation by the HRB and to grant that appeal. And those are factual errors in materials or information presented to the board, violations of bylaws or hearing procedures by the board or individual member, or the presentation of new information. Our proposed amendments would add a fourth findings not supported finding. This finding and the language around it was developed after looking at the appeal processes for process two and process three development permits because we're always looking to align language with past precedent in the code and other existing language. So this is a slide with very tiny font on it, but the intention of this was to kind of illustrate on the left, the existing process two and three appeal findings and on the right, the appeal findings for historic designations. So we are adding a findings not supported, which would state that the board stated findings to designate in accordance with the historical resources regulations and criteria and criteria guidelines are not supported by the information presented to the board. The council would still be considering the merits of the designation itself and not other factors, but would allow them to reconsider the facts of the designation as opposed to simply factual errors, new information, or violations of bylaws and hearing procedures. In terms of appeal filing requirements, we are aligning that with other city appeal processes requiring basic appellant and property information and grounds for appeal. And as I noted, adding a docketing deadline to appeal within 180 days of the appeal filing may on the surface sound like a lot of time, but typically in our experience, it typically takes the appellant, which as I said, in most instances is the property owner, several months to pull together information in support of the appeal. And then we have a docketing process for that. Certainly if we can do it in less than 180 days as staff, we certainly will, but that would be a new deadline added to the code to keep these moving and get resolution on these properties. Also within the code, we are clarifying board role and reviewing national register nominations and clarifying the roles consistent with the National Historic Preservation Act and our obligations as a certified local government. And then lastly within the municipal code amendments are clarifications to the complete communities housing solutions regulations. The amendments would clarify that complete communities housing solutions is allowed in thematic and emerging historic districts if the property is not a contributing resource to the district. This does not change how thematic and emerging historic districts have always been regulated by the city and is consistent with our district procedures that state only contributing resources are regulated. again a lot of slide on this text but i'll call your attention to the critical elements this is from our board procedures on establishing historic districts thematic and emerging historic districts have a boundary identified of where properties that could be eligible for designation as part of the district can be found because certainly if you're looking at early beach cottages in Ocean Beach, you're not going to be finding those in Mira Mesa or Rancho Bernardo. So we have to draw a boundary of where those are going to be located. But within that only properties that contribute to the district are designated and in the case of Ocean Beach, only those that have been volunteered by their property owner can even be designated as contributing resources. So our district procedures are clear that only those properties that have been designated as contributors are currently regulated and they have to fall within the context and period of significance, which is 1887 to 1937. I believe Beach Cottages in Ocean Beach and that that district is voluntary in nature. Just for some context, the Ocean Beach Cottage emerging historic district boundary includes the original Ocean Beach subdivision. Again, we have to kind of identify where these resources are located and where they can be found and within what area properties could be nominated and designated. But then within that boundary, which includes 3000 parcels, 72 have been designated as contributing resources to the district. Those 72 properties are regulated as contributors to the district. But all of the remaining parcels are not and have never been regulated as part of the ocean beach cottage emerging historic district. And so this is a clarifying amendment that. When you're talking about emerging and thematic districts, there are no non-contributing resources and only the contributing resources are regulated and therefore complete communities is only prohibited on those contributing resources. And then lastly, within Package A, we are repurposing our historic preservation fund to advance equity and preservation. This fund was established around 2008. Its primary source of revenue is through code enforcement actions and civil penalties on historic properties, although it can receive revenue from other sources, grants, and so forth. And we really want to focus in the purpose of this fund to support efforts to identify and preserve resources significant for their association with cultural groups and communities that are underrepresented in historic preservation. And to also provide direct financial assistance through a grant program to low income and very low income owners of historic properties. to assist them with maintenance and restoration since the Mills Act does not always provide a property tax reduction and when it does, does not always provide a significant one. So this would be another tool in the toolbox to help those property owners and communities maintain and restore their historic properties. In terms of public outreach, we went to the Policy Subcommittee of the Historical Resources Board in July, August, and October of this year. There was robust discussion on a lot of the items, in particular the items around the appeal processes. At those hearings, the policy subcommittee recommended the ability to appeal actions to not designate, which was proposed at that time, be limited to the property owner, and we're supportive of all other aspects of package A. We also hosted a public workshop via Zoom on October 8th of this year. Advisory Board recommendations, the Historical Resources Board considered the item on October 23rd. There was a lot of public testimony, a lot of discussion amongst the board. The board made two separate motions, one to move staff recommendation to adopt Preservation in Progress Package A as proposed, and another to adopt it with some modifications. Both motions failed to get a majority of board votes, and that concluded the item, and so it is proceeding without a recommendation from the Historical Resources Board. And then on on October 28th the community planners committee reviewed the item and voted to oppose preservation and progress package a with some recommendations which are included in the report to the planning commission. As a certified local government through the California State Office of Historic Preservation, we are required to provide proposed amendments to our program, to our ordinance, to the state office for review and comment. And on October 23rd, the state office confirmed that they have no objection to the proposed changes and support the city's efforts with preservation and progress. Our next hearings following the planning commission recommendation would be land use and housing committee on December 11th and council hearing and hopefully adoption at the end of January beginning of February of next year. So, in conclusion, staff is recommending that the planning commission recommend to the city council adoption of preservation and package a, including the amendments to the land development code amendments to historic preservation element and appendix F of the general plan. and amendments to the purpose and intended use of the city's historic preservation fund and this concludes staff's report thank you are there any commission clarifying questions is sheriff boomhauer uh thank you for that report kelly um a couple of questions

who currently I just want to make sure we're clarifying this for the record and also for me who has the right to request that HRB designated property is historic uh currently the the code allows anyone to nominate a property for historic designation it does not need to be the property owner but that doesn't apply in the thematic or emerging districts like that has to be the property owner

The only district we have where it has to be the property owner who's requesting designation is the Ocean Beach Cottage Emerging Historic District. And that is because at the time that district was established in the late 90s, early 2000s, the Ocean Beach Historical Society was working with the city planning department leading that effort, and they didn't want to support a district that was not voluntary in nature.

Okay, perfect. And then last clarifying question. I understand that the full Historic Resource Board was unable to make a recommendation, but HRB has a policy subcommittee. Can you tell us what that policy subcommittee's recommendation to the full HRB was?

So the policy subcommittee of the board doesn't vote or provide a recommendation in that sense. It's kind of general feedback to staff and kind of a consensus that staff gains from the comments that are provided. And what we heard from the policy subcommittee was general support for all aspects of preservation and progress package A as presented with the exception of As I said, then we were proposing the ability to add appeal when the board does not designate, and they wanted that limited to the property owner, the ability to appeal that.

Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Reeves. Thank you, Chair Modane. Thank you, Kelly, for the presentation. Quick clarification from you. Building on the OB historic or emerging historic district, Can you just outline briefly the process for a property owner to volunteer their property and then what the costs involved might be, if any?

Sure. So for the OB Cottage Emerging Historic District, we already know what the significance of that district is and kind of what a property would have to embody or exhibit in order to be eligible. So the level of documentation that a property owner has to provide is much more limited than if they were individually designating their property. So they typically We'll provide kind of a survey form that documents the house, provides an architectural description, some information of when it was constructed, alterations, so forth, how it meets the criteria for the district, and then would bring that forward to staff. And then we take that forward to the Historical Resources Board to amend the district to include that new contributing resource. It's been quite a while since we've had property owners bring that forward. We used to have pretty regular updates after the district was first designated in 2000, but it's been a while since we've had someone volunteer.

And is there a cost associated? Do they have to hire an architect or do something to establish their historic significance?

They shouldn't have to hire an architect. I mean, they can certainly hire a consultant if they choose to, but it's not a ton of documentation. So staff could help coach them through that. It's not an individual property designation. So I don't believe it would be subject to our nomination fee. But I don't know that we've processed any since we have the nomination fee in effect.

Commissioner Renger.

I was just curious as to in the ocean beach cottage emerging historic district once the property has been designated as contributing resource by the current owner of the property, what if the property changes hands does that designation. Transfer over and does that new property owner have the ability to remove such a designation.

The way, yes, the designation runs with the property. So any new property owner would inherit the property as a designated historic resource. There is a process in the code to rescind a designation, but that would require specific findings. It's not even though the initial designation of the property was voluntary that doesn't mean that if the new property owner simply wants it removed that is sufficient to rescind similar to our individual designations now right if if a property owner wants to bring forward and nominate their property and have it designated that designation is recorded against the property so a future buyer you know it's it's on the deed they know it's designated they can't simply change their mind and say i don't want it designated anymore they understand and recognize they're buying a designated resource

Okay, that concludes clarifying questions from the Commission. We can move forward to public comment. Before we begin public comment, I just want to take a moment to remind the public to refrain from clapping, cheering, or reacting audibly to any speaker. This helps us maintain a neutral environment where all voices can be heard equally without intimidation. Due to the number of speakers, I'm going to be reducing time to one minute. And I will start with Christy Byers. Looks like you have a few people ceding time to you. Valentina Giraldo, are you here? Can you please just raise your hand? Thank you. Melanie Wood. Is Melanie Woods here? Okay, thank you. And Rami Cortes. Okay, you'll have four minutes.

Thank you. Good morning, everybody. My name is Christy Byers. I am the chair of the Historic Resources Board and the Policy Subcommittee. I am here today to represent the board and to answer any questions you may have. I also want to make a couple of points. Oh, there's the timer. One, I want to commend the staff. There is a lot of quality thought and effort that has gone into the package before you. So kudos to the staff. Secondly, as Ms. Stonko noted, we were indecisive when we heard this at the board in October. And I want to give some background about that. So, at Policy Subcommittee, as Ms. Stanko noted, we had three meetings. We made at least one of those meetings longer to hear public comment. There was robust public input from a variety of perspectives. We discussed it. We asked questions. We had a couple of very minor recommendations and moved that forward to the board. When it got to the board, unfortunately, it was the last item to be heard in a meeting that had become quite long. And what was interesting about the two motions that were made, the first one was to support the package as presented. there was pretty clear division in those who supported versus those who opposed between those members supporting who are part of the policy subcommittee and had the benefit of workshopping the package over those three meetings versus generally the members of the board who were opposed who didn't have the benefit of those several months of discussion and so there was a second motion also to support that removed the item about the ability to appeal a non-designated property So we ran up against the end of the meeting. Unfortunately, we extended it once. And what we were hearing from those folks who were opposing the motions to support was that there were more questions. So it wasn't strong opposition to the package as a whole. There was questions. They wanted more information, perhaps more time to make the decision. And so We are taking this all into consideration as we move package B forward, which is going to be a heck of a lot more complicated. So we're going to make some adjustments between policy, subcommittee and the board. But I just wanted you all to have that background. And I'll be sitting right over here if you have any questions. Thanks.

Thank you. Tyler Martin.

Morning, commissioners. Thank you, staff. You've done a great job. I entirely agree with what staff is saying here in regards to the Ocean Beach Emerging Cottage Historic District. I am a planning board member. In preparation for this item, I did an exhaustive look through our public record, and I found five contributing resources that have received community support to be demolished. five, and I'm going up to 14. But the data was not in the record to say what the year was. So I don't know if even they knew when they supported those motions what, if it was a cottage or not. Today, they're trying to say that everything that's not a cottage also has Mills Act protections. One more thing with my 20 seconds left. On September 16th, 2017, SoHo supported the demolition of a historic cottage at 4921 Voltaire Street. Amy Hayes made a presentation saying that it was tried to be designated as a historic building, but that request was denied, so it should be demolished. SoHo went on to say that whatever comes in its place should be within the general thematic nature of that district. Thank you very much. Approve this.

Thank you, Jennifer Ayala. You have one person seating time to you, Renee Mezzo.

okay thank you thank you you'll have two minutes thank you uh thank you commissioners my name is jennifer ayala and i am a california registered architect with 28 years of san diego land use experience i co-lead nexus planning and research a firm focused on fact-based policy research including historical resources and climate policy i had our historical resources work and i dedicate my full time to this subject i submitted a detailed letter so i've tried to be brief Package A is a targeted administrative update. We really thank staff for all their hard work on this project. It does not change how the city regulates or permits projects involving historical resources, and it does not streamline permits. It does clarify the grounds for appeals by adding findings not supported, which keeps an appeals consideration fact-based and criteria bound. This is consistent with peer practice throughout California and provides a transparent evidence-based check. You will hear claims that this politicizes designation. It does not. Council must still hear the adopted criteria and rely on the administrative record. You may also hear calls to lower the voting threshold. Please do not. Matters before planning commission can pass by a simple majority vote, yes, and applicants before planning commission do so voluntarily. HRB designations are not always voluntary. In fact, HRB designations run with the land in perpetuity, placing restrictions on all future development and alterations. Sharon Gill. From fences and windows to larger projects all work must be found consistent with the Secretary of the Interior standards by heritage preservation staff with if you're not processing a site development permit. Sharon Gill. A six vote quorum majority remains the appropriate standard for this permanent set of restrictions, please recommend approval of package a as noticed and keep the specific policy work and regulatory updates in package B, thank you.

Thank you Sharon go.

You've been told that the experts should be in charge of this, not elected officials. Here's the problem. Our city preservation program prevents much needed housing from being built. And the overwhelming majority of people in San Diego are not interested in historic preservation. The proof is, while millions of people went to the beach and zoo last year, hardly anyone bothered to visit the Marston House or any of the city's other museums. If you add the people who are estimated to have visited San Diego to those who are estimated to live in San Diego in 2024, You'll find there were 35,800,000 people could have visited the Marston House, yet so few people were interested that the museum was only open two days a week. So don't listen to preservationists and say they're the experts. They don't know what people want. Listen to the city council. Thank you. Thank you.

Leslie Morgan. I'm going to start calling the names of the people next up so you can get prepared and maybe come to the front. We have some open chairs. So Benjamin Nichols will be up next. Wesley, you'll have one minute.

Dear Commissioners, I'm Wesley Morgan, board member for UMB Dems and a San Diego resident in support of Package A. I strongly agree with the proposed changes. Package A removes ambiguity that has caused conflict between preservation and progress. It protects what is truly historic while enabling homes where appropriate. This clarity limits the ability to use preservation processes simply to block change. and help san diego preserve its past while enabling its future the clarification about the ocean beach cottage district does not change its protections the 70-something cottages and make up the district remain fully protected this has always been a non-contiguous thematic district a collection of individual sites not a mapped boundary the historic cottages make up about two percent of ocean beach properties neighboring sites were never surveyed never noticed or designated no inventory owner polling or formal adoption ever occurred the neighboring areas also lack sufficient integrity to qualify as a district clarity creates trust these changes make preservation and progress work together and coexist thank you thank you benjamin nichols and then stephanie benvenuto you'll be up next

Hello, my name is Benjamin Nichols and I'm the Executive Director of the Hillcrest Business Association and I'm here today representing our 1,800 small business and property owners. The Hillcrest Business Association supports Preservation in Progress proposal because it strikes the right balance between Protecting the character that makes Hillcrest unique while allowing thoughtful growth that keeps our community thriving. Hillcrest has always been a place where diverse groups of people are welcome and we continue to want people to see Hillcrest as a place they can live. The reason Hillcrest is a place that is welcoming is because over the years, a wide range of people have had the opportunity to move to the neighborhood and live there. This proposal dovetails with the recent establishment of the Hillcrest Cultural District by city council while preserving the few buildings in Hillcrest that are actually historic. With preservation and progress proposal, we can honor our past and embrace the future while ensuring Hillcrest remains welcoming, inclusive neighborhood for everyone. Thank you.

Thank you, Stephanie Benvenuto. And then Bruce Coons, you'll be up next.

Good morning. My name is Stephanie Benvenuto. I'm here on behalf of the Building Industry Association of San Diego. We want to start by thanking staff and members of the HRB for the significant amount of time that they put in to get us here today. We did submit a letter in support, but I wanted to take time today to point out that the progress made in this city to create a landscape that allows for homes to be built is jeopardized by unfounded attempts at historic designation. The delays and uncertainty from threats of inappropriate designation attempts are well documented and do nothing to serve our community. Please ensure that appeals of non-designation remain the right of only the property owner to minimize those potential challenges. You all have done an extraordinary job in support of homes for San Diego's families. Please support this package that provides common sense and clarifying guidance for our historic process. Thank you.

Thank you, Bruce Coons. I see you have a few people seating time. Due to the limitation of one minute per person, Alana Coons, do you want to create your own speaker slip to add?

In the organized presentation and then seated.

OK. I would recommend you fill out your own speaker slip so you can add a minute to that.

We had requested 15 minutes as an opposition presentation.

we only give one minute to each speaker, so you would need to have 15 total speakers to get the 15 minute time. So if she fills out her own speaker slip, I can give you six minutes.

Our attorney is online too.

You can only see time in person. I apologize.

No, no, no. She's not going to see time. She's going to speak. She's one of our speakers.

Okay.

Part of our...

Sorry, it's a little more complicated, but... Sorry, just to clarify, the process for public comment is that all in-person testimony has to occur first, and then we go to online speakers.

Okay. She'll be, uh, on we, even though she's part of our presentation, I've seen it before where you've had online speakers as part of a presentation.

Uh, not, not since I've been chair. So I'm sorry. I don't recall that. Maybe, maybe not. Um, okay. So let me read off the people that you have seating time to you to make sure they're here in, in, uh, in the hearing room, William Adair. Can you raise your hand please? If you're okay. David Raw, Jessica McKee, George Frank, and then Alana Coons. Okay, you'll have six minutes.

Okay, thank you very much for I mean, entertaining us today. Anyhow, I wanna give a little background. The historic designation process is only a baseline determination. It's simply whether a project is historic or not. It's like other environmental determinations. Is it a vernal pool? Is it not a vernal pool? It's not the land use decision. The land use decision has always remained in the council's purview. That's whether the resource is preserved, moved, or even demolished. Like the current process is that you can make all those determinations and take out all the other aspects of what's going to happen to the property. Like the smooth process was like happened with the sports arena just recently. They acknowledged that it was historic. They brought it in for designation. It was designated, and they made the case to remove it. The HRB voted unanimously to allow it to be removed, and the process was very smooth. Today, we're talking about adding a de novo hearing, which does politicalize the process. It also complicates it. It will certainly lead to more litigation and lengthy processing of projects. Designation doesn't dictate what the property can be used for or whether it's being modified or moved or demolished. It's a separate decision. It just simply ensures that its fate is fairly considered in the process of deciding the trade-offs of a new project. We get into real problems when the city tries to deny it's historic. That's when we argue, well, it's historic, it's not historic, and that delays projects much more than now. If we make this change, anybody can appeal a historic designation and take a real-life example of 101 Ash Street. If anybody has an axe to grind with the new proposal, the de novo hearing, then they can appeal the designation, which will set the project back at least six months, if not longer, and may jeopardize tax credits that are needed for the program because of the competitiveness of those programs. And that's anybody. We support the designation of 101 Ash Street, but that just shows you what could happen with this new grounds. It just makes a free-for-all and adds much more uncertainty to the process than there is now. Today, when it's designated, it's designated. Then you decide the fate of that property in the project and balance the merits of the project against the resource. These sites are, we should not make it easier to remove these sites. These sites are what makes San Diego beautiful, economically processed, health preserved, naturally occurring, affordable housing. They are what makes our city unique. The city, the places that set San Diego apart and make it one of the most desirable places to live on earth, Once they're gone, they're gone forever, and our city and our quality of life will be irreparably diminished. Also, this proposal will reduce current protections and The city has not done the legal work that's required. An EIR is definitely required for this because you're reducing current protections and mitigation. Without that work, you cannot legally act on this proposal. Please do not perform this proposal, including the de novo item.

I'll be taking the rest of the two minutes of our presentation and the one minute that you allowed me to add. For the record under CEQA environmental review applies to all discretionary projects approved by the city that may result in adverse impacts. The CEQA guidelines define a project broadly to include any activity undertaken by a public agency that may cause a physical change in the environment. Ordinances adopted by a city clearly fall within this scope. The courts have repeatedly affirmed this interpretation in that ordinances are potential projects under CEQA. The staff report itself supports the argument that it... I'm sorry, I skipped. Similarly, the California Supreme Court found revisions to a historic preservation ordinance required environmental review because they could indirectly lead to physical impacts. In 2015, the court ruled again that a court code revision that might reduce protections for historic or natural resources is not exempt from CEQA review. Staff report itself supports the argument that this is improper segmentation as it acknowledges that the proposed action is part of a comprehensive update, not a standalone change segmenting. The complexities of Part A and B violate CEQA, which requires that a lead agency consider the whole of the action together. Furthermore, the prior EIRs require revision, additional CEQA review, as the impacts have not been adequately studied. The Court of Appeal recently ruled against the City and Save Our Access versus City of San Diego for failing to conduct sufficient CEQA, underscoring the legal risk of proceeding without proper analysis. SOHO has said repeatedly The proposed changes would weaken and reduce existing historic protections and increase impacts and that more historic properties and cultural resources would be lost or degraded as a direct result. These are precisely the types of impacts CEQA's design to analyze and mitigate an environmental impact report is needed to evaluate full range range of effects identify feasible mitigations and ensure that the city's preservation goals and environmental obligations are met today we urge this vote or not to vote your time is up thank you so now i have my one minute no your one minute was already added it was yes Okay.

Thank you.

Okay. For the record, we sent in a formal request to you for time for a presentation. You provide the city with 20 minutes. It's not too much to ask for the organization of note to make a presentation.

I appreciate that. We have to have time limits on people and we have to reduce it so everybody has a chance to speak within a reasonable amount of time.

through the chair could I ask a question to the city attorney yes if uh under under California's anti-slap regulations if members of the public during public testimony are making threats that could uh in be intended to influence a decision by an appointed board or body um is that something that they should be cautioned against or are you talking about threats of litigation yeah potentially or just I don't know designating a project um that a member of a board might have in process um

As you know, we're fairly liberal in our approach to the public commenting and public speaking. I don't know that it would kind of qualify under anti-SLAPP law. However, I think that we lean more towards letting commenters speak and freedom of speech under our public hearing process. Okay, fair enough. Thank you.

Lynn Miller. You have people sitting. Time to you. Meredith Holton, you could raise your hand. Janet Griffin. Albert Baca. Maureen Rober. Tim Holton.

Can I ask you to, I'm sorry, I don't need any more people. And there's another speaker who's kind of, we're a team. And could you give, don't give me any more. I won't need that much more time.

Okay.

And then give Craig Klein the rest of them.

How many minutes would you like?

I was going to use seven minutes, but because your technology doesn't work and I can't show the video I wanted to show, I'm only going to need about five. five minutes max okay then i will save the other speakers for craig thank you okay you'll have five minutes thank you hello i am lynn miller i'm a native obese and i've been here a long time my grandparents lived in ob my parents lived in ob my children my grandchildren and um it's a community that if you know anything about it and you've ever been there, you just kind of love OB. And we as a community ask that you oppose the new modified municipal code, which really does discriminate against Ocean Beach by removing protection from the complete community's building. We are an identified historic community and deserve the protection that other San Diego historic communities receive the city in the state acknowledge us as an approved historic district. The code change was applied to ocean beach and one other district. There is no rationale for that. I kind of feel like we're the Cinderella community. We had less than seven days to read the modified municipal code and put a presentation together. We have no staff. We're all volunteers. And we pay out of pocket for lawyers or bound documents. I think you all have a bound document in front of you or was handed to you. and we put that together because we've do you have that you have it okay thank you so it does feel like war is being waged against Ocean Beach and the residents are paying for their own demise but we won't give up we won't go away we have heard your justification for adding affordable housing all over the city with a special focus on Ocean Beach You use words like equity and inclusion, but you are selective about who is included. Ocean Beach was historically an affordable beach town, and our small cottages and bungalows were the original affordable housing. Please understand that this is not just about the number of cottages. It is everything. in the approved definition of the district. When the question came up about how much it cost to apply to be a historic building, nobody answered it. I don't have the answer, but I do know that I've heard that the application fee, if a person wants to apply, is $2,700. And then I've heard from board members at the Ocean Beach Planning Board that In fact, all of the regulations and paperwork and uh structural requirements can jump from 2700 to six to fifty thousand dollars you know it's it's there's a lot of work that has to be done so i think that you need to understand that some of the older folks who live in those cottages they're not going to pay 2700 let alone 50 000 to identify so i'm suggesting there's a lot more cottages that would have been identified were it not for financial issues um things have already started happening in ocean beach as all over the city ocean beach will never be the same um the quaint cottages now are hidden among new three story buildings intersections are dangerous because bumper to bumper cars interfere with visibility um While we were not watching, the city went to work to create land use laws that benefit builders and developers. Locals cannot purchase houses here in Ocean Beach or around the city because the city is inviting companies from out of state to buy and build quickly. San Diego residents cannot compete with BlackRock. What should we do instead? Commissioners should hear the voices of residents who would immediately and could immediately place a moratorium on complete communities and study the complete communities and see what the percentage, what percentages of those buildings that have gone up are rented, what the rental costs are and what the percentage of actual affordable units are. I was going to show you a video, and now all I can say about it is watch the video if you can, and notice that it was designed to convince buyers to come to Ocean Beach, pay attention to the statement. Thank you. Your time is up. Can I say one more sentence, please? San Diego is the number one target for building for profit. because of complete communities. And you'll see that if you see the video. Thank you.

Thank you. Jeff Huter, you'll have one minute. And then next up will be Craig Klein. Okay. Craig Klein. We have a few people ceding time to you. Chris Baca. Okay. Evelyn Viora. Corey Miller. Jim Miller. Frank Gormley, Virginia Wilson, Nicholas Kine Wilson, Brian Sepinola, Tim Holton, and Barbara Holton. OK, you'll have 11 minutes.

Thank you. Appreciate that. My name is Craig Klein. I've been a property owner, homeowner and commercial property owner in Ocean Beach for over 40 years. I have served a cumulative total of 15 years on the ocean beach planning board i am currently emeritus i am no longer on the board actively right now but i continue to be actively involved regarding development issues in ocean beach um last august i believe it was august 24th the planning commission heard an appeal of which i was one of the people behind it regarding 4705 point loam avenue which was a former grocery store and there was a proposal to build a 21 unit project with three affordable units. The board at that time, granted the appeal and denied the project moving forward um and i remember at the hearing one of the things that was raised i think may have been you commissioner moden there was a concern or if i don't have it right please identify yourself one of the commissioners very presciently identified that litigation would likely result if the appeal was denied and the project went forward, given the fact that the project location was located within the boundaries of the Ocean Beach Historical Cottage Emerging District. And I think that was a very wise decision. So I wanted to devote my time to discussing the impact of Complete Communities on Ocean Beach and a big picture of why things are different now than they were last August. so things have changed since last august um we all understand that complete communities allows a maximum far of 2.5 which is two and a half times the square footage of the lot while the zoning in most of ocean beach has a 0.70 far so this is a massive increase in density without any parking requirements being allowed or required, and parking is already nearly impossible in Ocean Beach. So what I want you to do is to imagine a quiet residential street, Long Branch, Saratoga, Brighton, in Ocean Beach, and Commissioner Modin, you happen to be the designated property because you are a designated historical cottage. However, the two seats on either side of you, although they may potentially have been available for designation, are not designated. So that means that on either side of your designated cottage, a 2.5 far box with no parking on a street that already has next to no off off street parking get built and that changes the entire character of that street and you take that given the fact that in ocean beach these uh historical cottages are scattered sometimes one to a block, sometimes two or three to a block, you create a situation where you're gonna have a little historic cottage, that's you, and then these monstrosities on either side. And that is going to destroy the character and the nature of the entire neighborhood because what makes Ocean Beach special is there is a combination of eclectic and different development which has created a community where artists and creatives and musicians and interesting people live. And so Ocean Beach is more than just the sum of its parts. And that's why it's important to consider it as a district. Now let's talk about the big picture and the changes that have occurred since August 24th. Number one, there has been a groundswell of opposition to the densification of San Diego. Community groups have grown up. I'm currently associated with Protect Point Loma, which is fighting the 1004 Rosecrans, 54 unit with, excuse me, 56 unit with eight affordable dungeons of 400 square feet on the bottom floor. and the rest are going to be market rate, and we've raised money, and we've got a lawyer. We'll talk about that a little bit later. Litigation will be following there. I would also like to point out to you the other changes. Last year, it was speculative how this opposition to complete communities was going to pan out. But recently, within the last two weeks, The community of Golden Hill, who challenged, I believe it's 500, I can't even remember how many, 280 units was it? Judge Wohlfell, Joel Wohlfell, who was one of the most highly respected jurists on the San Diego Superior Court bench, recently ruled that a TRO should be issued because the opponents of that project were able to show that the transit element, which is the underlying for complete communities, was speculative in nature because the only thing that has transit there is there's a 2035 SANDAG report that says there's gonna be high-frequency transit or qualifying transit. And Judge Wolfell found that it wasn't funded in the current funding cycle, and that it was speculative, even based on the developer's own testimony at the hearing. And so what the other part of Judge Woolfolk's ruling, which is very important, is he found that irreparable harm would occur to the community if the development was allowed to go forward, because once you build it, the densification, the parking impacts, all the other impacts on the community are there and they're permanent. If the transit, which is speculative, never gets built, then you've created a real mess. And so Ocean Beach is considered to be in a TPA SDA because there's going to be a dedicated high-speed rapid transit bus line going down Cable Street supposedly in 2035. That ain't gonna happen. San Diego MTDB is broke. They don't have money to even service their existing routes. and it's a pipe dream by in the sky by and by and once again commissioner i want you to just think about you're the little cottage and those are the two things that are going to go in the plots next to you allowing that to happen on something that's speculative this is bad and the concern that the board had last august regarding litigation it's still there What you will do if you adopt these changes in municipal code allowing the Ocean Beach Historical District to be limited to currently identified and qualifying properties is you're gonna open the flood gates for developers coming into Ocean Beach, trying to build densified properties and projects under the auspices of complete communities. And there's gonna be a whole bunch more litigation And I'm going to give you my perspective of being a licensed attorney in the state of California for over 40 years, and especially based on Judge Wohlfeld's ruling in the Golden Hill case, I think that litigation is going to be successful. Because I don't think the transit element is going to be upheld because unless the transit is built, excuse me, is fully funded in the current four-year funding cycle, it's speculative. So what you're going to do by changing the municipal code language here is you're going to allow developers to come in and start building or trying to build projects based on the speculative transit element And it's just going to be a whole lot more litigation. So rather than invite the developers to come in and try, please just leave the existing language the way it is so that projects attempting to come into Ocean Beach using complete communities can't do it because it's excluded. And by that, inaction, I guess you would say, or by failing to adopt that portion of the municipal code changes, you're gonna forestall a whole bunch of litigation, you're gonna prevent a whole lot of damage to one of the most unique communities in all of San Diego, and you're gonna be doing the right thing, just like you did last August 24th. So please, vote to deny the portion of this package that makes those municipal code changes that strip Ocean Beach of its protections as a shore district. Thank you.

Thank you, Eric Duvall. And then Janet Carruthers will be up next. Eric, you have a few people ceding time to you. Kitty McDaniel. Lorna Thiel. William Riley, you'll have four minutes.

Okay, thank you. Good morning. Appreciate your time. Eric Duvall from Ocean Beach Historical Society speaking in opposition to package A. Priscilla McCoy, who did most of the work spearheading the Ocean Beach Historical District, was a member of our group. Ocean Beach is a very unique community. You don't pass through Ocean Beach on your way to anywhere else. And as such, it is effectively a small town within the boundaries of a major metropolitan area. And it's actually a classic California beach town, something that is very rare anymore and something that we think is desirable and worth preserving. As you probably know, in reality, the Ocean Beach Historic District portion of the town is already very densely populated. It was maxed out about 10 years ago. There's basically one way in and one way out. In the event of a disaster, we're in trouble. It's gridlock over there about 10 hours a day, every day. A person was unfortunately run over and killed two evenings ago in front of the post office. As a historical district, Ocean Beach is legally exempt from so-called complete communities program. And as our friend Virginia commented the other day, raise your hand, Virginia. Ocean Beach is already a complete community. We have schools, churches. Church Row in Ocean Beach is a very unique cultural and historical area. We also have our historic library, schools, two viable business districts. is a town the nature of is worth preserving. Then I would like to call your attention to some comments by John Nolan. Does that name ring a bell to anybody? It's one of your predecessors. This is in 1926. Mr. Nolan proposed a comprehensive plan for San Diego's future, which would take full advantage of the wonderful sight lines and vistas that our topography here affords. However, this is 99 years ago. He said, and I quote, that we shall certainly find individuals coming forward in the future to seek special privileges and modifications in their own interest. And then speaking in support of Mr. Nolan, Hugh Pomeroy, who was at the time L.A. County regional planner, said, We have learned to our sorrow in L.A. County that the opportunities which you fail to take advantage of today are a perpetual mortgage on the future. And I would strongly urge that the complete historic survey be completed and that you vote against Package A. Thank you.

Thank you. Janet Carruthers, you have a few people ceding time to you. OK, so Jennifer Mashian, David Carruthers. Correct. Thank you. You'll have three minutes.

uh good morning uh jennifer mason speaking for mission hills heritage i'd like to start by saying that we support the goals of preservation and progress and a majority of the amendments but package a in its present form is contrary to the initiative's goals and will result in a setback for historic preservation in san diego first i'd like to echo soho's concerns regarding sequa the proposed changes will result in the loss of more historical resources going forward But the city has not analyzed the proposal's environmental impact, and by splitting the reforms into two packages, the city has arguably unlawfully segmented the project, violating CEQA's requirement that the whole action be evaluated. Second, the new grounds for a de novo appeal should be rejected. This new ground would potentially allow city council to overturn designation decisions based on Political preferences and would replace the objective process, making it a political 1, which is a result that the historic resources board itself has never affirmatively recommended moving on to the super majority voting requirement, mandating the vote of 6 members of the board. This should be eliminated during the comment comment period. We, and other preservation groups sought reform of this requirement, but city staff has mostly not substantively engaged with this request beyond referrals to its benchmarking study. But that study has never been released after 9 months, despite repeated requests. So, the reasons for abandoning the requirement are multifold 1st, retention of the requirement makes San Diego and outlier. amongst major California cities. Second, there is no justification to treat designations as exceptional decisions requiring the protection of a supermajority vote because adequate safeguards are built into the designation system. This includes things like staff reports, the requirement that the HRB include various experts on its board, public noticing, appeal rights, and so on and so forth. Third, the requirement undermines procedural fairness because it creates a minority veto problem where a small block of members can block the designations despite a majority and staff agreeing that the resource is significant. This often occurs when there are board member absences, and we cited 6 examples of this in our letter, which occurred over the course of just a few years, which indicates that this is a pervasive problem. And our research was not exhaustive. Finally, the super majority requirement is contrary to principles of equity embodied by both the land development code and preservation and progress. Instead of ensuring fairness, the requirement disfavors designation, not on the merits, but due to the procedural happenstance of absent board members. So removal of the requirement is even more important given that staff has hastily removed any ability to appeal non-designations. Thank you.

Thank you. David Goldberg. Next up will be Ron Buckley. David, you have one person ceding time to you. Laura Ducharme-Conboy?

I may not need it, but I'm glad to have it.

You'll have two minutes.

Okay. The goal of the preservation of progress comprehensive update is not about making meaningful improvements to the city's heritage preservation program. And for the record, improvements do need to be made. It's about weakening established procedures and protections for historic resources in order to streamline processes for new homes and other uses. The underlying concern, well, I'm going to cut that part out. Per the report issued by the IBA on July 18, 2023, potential and designated historical resource review is one of the many discipline reviews as part of the city's construction permitting process. Though it does require work of staff and applicants, we did not find historical resource permit review holding up development projects. And that is a very important point. Other aspects of package aid are troubling. In particular, proposals that would make it easier to challenge and overturn historic designations. Not only would this significantly weaken the protections for historic resources, it would transform a professional and fact-based process into one that's subjective and open to political pressure. Important historic resources could be lost. Poor decisions based on emotion could easily result in increased and costly litigation for the city. Ron Buckley, If an outside price succeeded and getting a designation overturned on a project that needs historic tax credit credit depends a lot. Ron Buckley, The unintended consequence could be the derailing of the project there's good reason that no HR be or city council has ever endorsed such an ordinance changes prop package aid is problematic, please do not for this proposal as it currently stands, thank you.

Karen Grove- Thank you ron buckley and then Laura henson will be up next. Ron, you have one person ceding time to you, Paul Kruger. You'll have two minutes.

Unfortunately, I have to read it. I drafted the ordinance that everybody's belaboring you about when I was a staff to the Historical Site Board, the predecessor to DHRB. Then I worked with my colleague Kathy Winterwood when she sliced and diced it for the new land development code format. I labored under the original code that the city had for 20 years. The appeals of the board designations were de novo hearings in front of the council. These hearings overturned the board's decisions, showcased the whims, patronage, and ignorance of the council. They made their decisions absent any expertise or understanding of historic preservation and little regard or acknowledgement of the professionalism and educated backgrounds on which the board's determinations were based. No expertise, no credentials, no problem with the city council. The de novo hearing decision had more to do with patronage, political donations, whims and skullduggery of elected officials with no interest in or understanding of preservation. We don't have much of a change today, apparently. I am somewhat heartened that staff has still left in a requirement for the council to have to make findings in support of their denial of a designation. However, city councils notoriously make horrible findings, and this council is probably not terribly good at it either. This, of course, will just lead to more litigation, which I would guess Soho would have a better than even chance of prevailing on. Two examples of rather egregious de novo hearings outcomes in my era were the failure to uphold the board's designation of the Crystal Pier and the Mission San Diego. Very long and interesting stories, if you would like to hear them. Determining historical significance is an empirical exercise. And the city appoints a board with credentials, education, and an interest. I purposely crafted the oral, I'm sorry, the ordinance to limit the council's ability to arbitrarily overturn the board's education and unbiased determinations. I'm pleased it has actually stood the test of time. 20 plus years is what I thought I read in Kelly's report. Now is not the time to screw with it. A couple of other issues, if I can get them in here. This sentence from the proposed amendments of the general plan would be eliminated with approval of package A. I fear the loss of the paragraph shows an intent not really discussed at all in the staff report. Paragraph reads in the general plan amendments, the historical resource regulations require the designated historical resources, important archeological sites and traditional cultural properties be preserved.

Your time is up. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Laura Henson. You have one person seating time to you, Leslie Bruce. You'll have two minutes.

good morning commissioners my name is laura henson and i'm a member of the preservation community we are meeting here today because the atlantis group and other building industry advocates approached the mayor and the planning department over a year ago about how they wanted the historic preservation program to be modified in order to benefit the building industry In November of last year, the Preservation Coalition asked to meet with city staff to discuss this developer-driven preservation and progress program. Even though the deputy director, Ms. Stanko, said the meeting would occur, it never occurred. Sadly, ever since the modern preservation movement was formed in 1965 due to the destruction of the magnificent Penn Station in Manhattan, which then was replaced with the not-so-magnificent Madison Square Garden complex, the building industry and preservationists have been in conflict. There are grounds for compromise that would benefit both developers and preservationists, but this rushed, one-sided package A document is not that compromise. How can you have a preservation and progress program and never speak directly to the preservation community? When the city would not hire an internationally well-respected economic development firm to do an assessment of its historic preservation program, the preservation community stepped up and hired Place Economics to perform an assessment, and their results will be out later this year. Later this year. So why the rush to push through a one-sided program without ever assessing the benefits of historic preservation or its assumed negative impact on the building industry? Well, I will leave you with this. San Diego can meet its RHNA numbers many times over and never encounter historic resource or district. Please oppose package eight until San Diego staff has spoken to the preservation community directly and has the results from place economics. Let's put this conflict to an end and find respectful compromise within the preservation and progress program. Thank you.

Thank you, Victoria Labruzzo. Janet Odea.

Good morning, Commissioners. San Diego's rental vacancy rate is just over 3%, one of the tightest in years. We can't afford to lose affordable housing without clear public input, analysis, or mitigation. Progress means addressing the urgent need for affordability, yet current strategies aren't delivering. When older housing is demolished and not replaced with affordable units, we lose twice. We lose the natural occurring affordability and the sense of place historic buildings provide. That's not progress. It moves us backwards. Package A threatens historic resources and adds complexity without ensuring affordability or protection of our heritage. With community voices diminished, neighborhoods rely on your fairness and long term vision to predict to enhance and protect our quality of life. I respectfully ask you to reject package as presented and hit which has been with the testimony that's been provided to you here. Thank you. David Modi.

David Modi, chair of the Kensington Talmadge Planning Group. And I was the person at CPC who made the motion that you'll be hearing from Victoria Labrusso from in just a few minutes. And that motion received a 23 to zero unanimous vote. So that belies the contention that historic resources are not valued in San Diego. Many communities, even those who are not historic, value our historic resources and see them as an essential good in San Diego. And they're not a minor side issue either. For those of us who are truly historic communities, historic preservation is essential to who we are as communities. Without our historic resources, we will be nothing. It is vital to us. Thank you.

Thank you, David Soarens.

Hello, David Smyrons. I'm the owner of two designated historic properties, both in historic districts. The goals in PNP are generally laudable, but the program proposals themselves do not always serve these goals. One of the flaws in this process is the manner in which the parts of the program have been segmented. Even more important to me is that it's being considered independently of changes to the general plan itself. A number of the elements of the general plan, including urban design, explicitly reference and rely on the historic preservation element, which is now changing. It seems that would invalidate all the previous discussions about the general plan. And it's really an integrated program. That's how it's designed, how it's required to be. This approach makes it impossible to analyze or understand potential adverse impacts of suggested changes. Project splitting under CEQA is important, but even more important is making the challenge it makes to evaluate in any legitimate manner. This program would not serve those goals and result in the loss of cultural and historic resources.

Victoria Labruso.

hi good morning uh commissioners and uh chair moden victoria labruz on behalf of community planners committee as david said we respectfully urge you to recommend adoption of package a only if three key amendments are included first remove or revise the de novo review provision to preserve the historic resources board's expert authority and avoid overloading the city council's docket second restore equal appeal rights for all interested persons in non-designation cases This ensures procedural fairness and encourages meaningful public participation. Third, replace the supermajority voting requirement with a majority of members present standard. This aligns with democratic norms and removes structural barriers that prevent the designation of valuable historic resources. Thank you for your continued leadership and supporting San Diego's historic assets and upholding integrity in the designation process. Thank you.

Thank you. That concludes the in-person public testimony. We'll go to the virtual speakers now.

We currently have six hands raised in the virtual queue. We will begin with Sassaba Petre. Please unmute yourself. You have one minute to speak.

Hi, yes, thank you. As a long time 12 year Ocean Beach resident and renter, I'm opposed to the amendment for the OB for I'm opposed to the amendment one. OB is a vibrant community with a deep past. It's not just individual cottages that make this community. It's the entire 130 plus year old town. Obesians care about this. It's hard to build community and all too easy to destroy it. It's not about opposing new residents or about my own dwelling. I'm a renter and I still oppose this amendment. The community would be in danger of losing its connection to its deep history and its unique feel, which, while making it an amazing place to live, it also draws multitudes of visitors and keeps many locally owned businesses in operation. This area, I believe, should actually be converted to a traditional historic district, or at the least, the city should complete a professional historic survey before taking any action. So once again, I oppose this amendment. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving next to Kristin Harms. Please unmute yourself. You will have one minute.

Good morning. My name is Kristen Harms and I'm president of the University Heights Historical Society. We oppose package A and are deeply concerned that the proposed changes will weaken San Diego's historic preservation program and further facilitate the demolition of naturally occurring affordable housing and replace it with predominantly market rate rental units. The City has adopted a number of building incentive programs over the last several years, including Complete Communities, which have failed to produce enough total housing units or affordable housing units to meet state-mandated regional housing needs assessment goals. At the same time, these incentive programs are causing an increasing number of impacts in our older neighborhoods, including the loss of potentially historic resources in NOAA, displacement of current residents, environmental impacts, added stress to an adequate aging infrastructure, and reduced quality of life. We therefore applaud the decisions of the Historic Resources Board and the Community Planners Committee to reject package A, and we support the recommendations. Thank you.

Your time is up. Andrea Schlatter, you have one minute.

Hi, this is Andrea Schlager, chair of the Ocean Beach Planning Board. On Tuesday, the Ocean Beach Planning Board did vote to oppose the change to the language. in regards to complete communities. The only lots where complete communities would apply in Ocean Beach would be lots west of Sunset Cliffs. Ocean Beach is one of the smallest community planning groups, yet the city just adopted two coastal resiliency plans in our neighborhood because we are currently being impacted by flooding. It doesn't make sense to allow increased density in neighborhoods that are already seeing severe impacts from climate change that the city itself acknowledges. One of the other reasons we voted to oppose this code language as well is because we do not know the extent of all of the cottages that could be included. And until the city does a full evaluation of all the cottages, it should not think about changing the code. Thank you for allowing me those last few seconds.

Thank you. Craig Benedetto, you have one minute.

Good morning. My name is Craig Benedetto, and I'm here today speaking on behalf of NAOP San Diego. NAOP joined a coalition submitting comments to the commission regarding the item before you today. I'd like to start by thanking planning staff for their efforts on this proposal. Our coalition supports reasonable regulations that balance the appropriate protection of historic resources with the need to provide for housing production and other forms of economic development in the commercial and jobs creation space. unfortunately the city's current regulations do not meet this balance of interest and that's why we support this effort at reform with regard to the package before you today we support the staff proposal specifically we support retaining the six vote requirement for historic designations as well as the strengthening of property rights under the changes proposed for the appeals process both of these changes help provide certainty predictability and help protect property owners from indiscriminate and inappropriate decision making This package is not a substantial policy shift and poses no threat to historic resources. It is a procedural framework that lays the foundation for the broader reforms anticipated under Package B. Taken together, the goal here is to streamline and we support it. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Joan Gand, you have one minute.

Hello. In La Jolla, on my street, in the past six years, Six charming ranch houses have been replaced one by one with huge box houses that are empty most of the year. Nobody's living in them. People come one time a year to a 15,000 square foot house to spend a couple weeks. My own historically designated house, which is pictured on your website, is a highly unique mid-century modern house cantilevered over a canyon on orange steel beams. Mid-century modern architecture is of great interest to the public right now. We had to limit our La Jolla Modernism tour this year to 400 people, and it sold out within a few weeks. My husband and I are so dedicated to this that we bought the house next door to us to protect it from developers. There were eight offers on the house one week after it was put on the market. Since it's also a significant mid-century modern house and it wasn't landmarked, everyone on our street knew it would be replaced with another huge box if we didn't protect it.

Thank you. Your time is up. Saad Assad, you have one minute. You will be our final speaker.

Good morning, Commissioners. I support Package A because it balances preservation with housing our community desperately needs. The current system creates real harm. The Times of San Diego reported that the San Diego American Indian Health Center has been frozen for over a year trying to expand health care for the Indigenous populations because the weaponization of the historic preservation process No. 1 Fifth Avenue, a gay bar where organizers created our first AIDS Foundation in 1983, lost a housing partnership because designation takes 18 months minimum. Package A provides clarity. The new appeal process adds accountability when preservation conflicts with housing near transit. Finalizing non-designation decisions prevents uncertainty that stalls homes and drives up costs. And also in Ocean Beach, 72 genuinely historic colleges deserve protection, but the other 3,000 can accommodate housing for working families priced out of coastal neighborhoods. Thousands of San Diegans lack stable housing. Package A protects architecturally significant resources while clearing the path to build homes. I urge your support.

Okay, that concludes public comment period. We're going to take a 10 minute break and we'll come back at 1055. Guess she needs to raise her. What is her name?

She has not raised her hand.

Yeah, unfortunately, she's not online for us to see if she can speak. We'll take our 10-minute break, and we'll come back. And if she's online with her hand raised, we'll allow her to speak. Kate? We'll come back now at 11 or 1057. Have the last online speaker speak.

Susan Brandt-Hawley, please unmute yourself. You will have one minute.

Hello. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Oh, great. Well, hi, this is Susan Brand-Hawley, and I'm an attorney who's been working with CEQA and historic preservation for over 30 years, including with SOHO. And as you know, the historic environment is protected just like water and trees and air to equal measured in California. And in this case, The problem you have here, I think this commission is at a great disadvantage because it doesn't, just like the Historic Resources Board, doesn't have the advantage of a CEQA evaluation. The de novo appeal, as well as other things, they were not addressed ever in the earlier EIRs. And so the consistency analysis that you've been provided with is not accurate. the this matter will have or these changes will have reduced protections to historic resources so you need to do a supplemental eir in order to inform decision of the entire preservation and progress all packages thank you your time is up okay that concludes our public comment period we are moving on to commission comment vice chair boomhauer

That button. Thank you. And Ms. Danko, you and your team did a put together great documentation. And that was a good presentation. Thank you. Question for the city attorney, which I just amended based on that last public speaker as well. So an earlier public speaker made the comment that breaking the package, the what's before us into two packages for these historical forms violates CEQA. Is the city attorney's office comfortable that Taking this as two separate actions conforms with SQL.

Yes, we are. It is our understanding that while there has been discussion of two separate packages, that package B has not been formulated at this time. So any analysis of that package would be speculative at this time. In addition, the package before you is independent and has independent utility as a separate project and is not contingent upon further action under package B.

So this would almost be like the public comment person that said, hey, if it's a speculative transit thing, it might never happen. So like package B could never happen and therefore we can treat this separately. That is possible. Great. And then follow up question on that. Do these changes actually require a supplemental EIR under CEQA?

So I would defer to city staff on the specifics with respect to the sequel analysis. However, you know, there is a consistency memo that goes through everything that's in front of you and looks at what impacts would be potential with respect to this action. And I'll defer to staff on more of the specifics with respect to that.

Yeah, so in terms of this package and said, we've done a consistency determination with a number of other prior environmental impact reports staff. Part of the reason we have looked at what would be reasonable to look at in package A versus package B is that the package A amendments don't reduce protections for historic resources. So in introducing the findings not supported finding to the appeal process, that decision still needs to be based on whether or not the property meets the city's criteria for designation and no other consideration. So it's still merit based on whether or not the resource meets the criteria for designation. And just for some context, when you look at what other jurisdictions across the state and across the country who are certified local governments, how their programs are structured, it's a variety. And there are some jurisdictions that don't rest any designation authority with their preservation border commission. That preservation border commission provides a recommendation to the city council who has the final decision and designation. Here we do rest the designation decision with our historical resources board with appeal oversight by the city council. And again, our expanded findings would focus on the significance of the resource and the state office of historic preservation does not have any issues with that proposed amendment.

Okay, yeah, and that was all clear in the consistency memo. I just wanted to make sure that we discussed it on the record. Okay, thank you. So I actually agree that it isn't, not having the right of appeal for a decision to not designate a resource kind of makes sense to me. So I'm glad that's been removed from the package. I think if it does come back, it would make sense for that to have some more thought and findings behind that. Regarding the addition of the findings not supported appeal criteria, And I know that I, I heard what the public was saying about this. I'm hearing the concerns, but the reality is like, in the, in the current city, San Diego process, hearing officers, this planning commission, um, we're land development code and land use planning, subject matter experts, and we can be overturned by council using that same criteria. That was clear in the slide that you presented. That was a really good side by side comparison. um and and i think having the ability to have uh findings not supported appeal criteria for council to consider is critical and fundamental uh as a due process protection um i i hope that as Strongly, as people in the historic preservation community feel about saying that that's going to politicize the process by letting it go to council, I think it also protects against a historic resource board that perhaps gets stacked with people that are pro-development. and don't think anything should be designated and would then allow for city council to overrule that if in fact they feel that a resource should have been protected. So I think this cuts both ways. I think it's a reasonable protection and lines up with other municipal code sections. As regarding the emerging and thematic districts and complete communities housing solutions, I'm just... not going to be popular here i get that um so i i think that in thematic and emerging districts contributing resources should be regulated that's what that's what the current regulations do um i would actually support one of the public speakers who said um that the area should be fully surveyed i think that does make sense i get that there are budget limitations on that Um, you know, but we have other parts of the area uptown that that have a list of potential resources that staff can then refer to. Um, that that makes sense to me. And frankly, if you guys want to create a actual historic preservation district nob um i don't know how you do it but i mean that's certainly an option um but i don't think we should be limiting development on sites that don't have contributing resources um or or or have non-contributing resources to use the technical term of art And I don't think that that should be stymied because of scattered historical properties. I actually raised the concern, some of you may remember, back when we were first adopting Complete Communities Housing Solutions, that I didn't think we should exclude historic districts from Complete Communities Housing Solutions. So I personally would actually be in support of removing all historic districts from being exempt from complete community housing solutions. That's not before us today, but I certainly think it makes sense to to deal with these emerging and thematic districts the way that we're doing it. I also feel like maintaining the six person requirement for a designation vote makes a lot of sense. Again, this is a permanent restriction on a property and we allow anybody to petition to designate something. So I live in, I always say it's an Art Deco house. It's actually streamlined modern. It was built in 1937. My wife and I have done a very nice job of restoring it. I think we could actually go through the process of trying to get this resource designated. We're not gonna. um but as a property owner i i really feel like if somebody in the community were to sit there and say gosh commissioner boomhauer we didn't like your vote on this and we're gonna file to put your property on the historic list I think it should require a six person super majority. If the only person that could petition to have a property designated was the property owner, then a simple majority would make sense to me. But I think it does need to have that higher level of review and scrutiny. And I think the six vote majority makes sense. So with that, I am going to I'm sure other commissioners are going to have some other thoughts on this probably smarter than mine. But I am going to get the ball rolling by making a motion to support staff's recommendations.

Okay, thank you. We have a motion. Commissioner Reeves.

Thank you, Chair Modane. Kelly, thank you very much for all your work and that of your team that went into this. I know these things take a long time and take a lot of work. So thank you, and thank you especially to the public. I always want to say that. You don't have to come out and engage, and you do. I actually, believe it or not, I love this. I think this is awesome. This is the type of engagement we want. You may not agree with what I say. I might not agree with what you say. Hopefully, we agree with some of it. But the process is the important part. And so I just want to put that out there. One, just clarification, I guess, first to staff. I think you said this, but when the OB Emerging District was created, it wasn't fully surveyed because that was not what the community wanted. Is that correct? Or did I misunderstand?

So my understanding that the nomination, getting very loud, the nomination originated with the Ocean Beach Historical Society. They approached staff at the time with the idea of bringing forward this historic district. There was talk of how the district would be processed. There was interest in, because we didn't have a full survey, looking at properties that owners had wanted to bring forward. um and ensuring that it was voluntary in nature and so the emerging historic district type was actually added to the district policy in order to be able to to capture the unique circumstances around this district not having a full survey being thematic in nature and being voluntary in nature and so Yeah, it is a unique district. It is our only emerging district, and we no longer have emerging districts in our policy. So it's a unique situation. Got it.

Thank you. Okay, so I needed that clarification. I'll get back to the OB thing in a minute. I just want to touch on a couple of other items. We keep hearing there's a ton of this in the written public comment. calling the six of 11 votes, that's the threshold, a super majority. That's a majority. That's a simple majority in an 11-seated board. Now, that requires, if there's not a, you know, not all those people attend, or if not all of those seats are filled, of course, there creates a an opportunity for that to be a required super majority. But of the 11 seats allocated to the board, six is not a super majority. I think we want to make sure that that's clear. Of course, it's agreed that it's with this slight change, it's now even more essential that the city keep HR be fully seated and assure that most of the people are constantly attending and attending in regular, you know, regular capacity now I Just thank you for that clarification I just it keeps kind of digging at me that we're calling there There's a lot of people calling this a super majority a change to super majority and that is not the case. This is still a simple majority requirement Assuming all the seats are filled on the board and assuming that everybody attends which is the expectation when you're volunteering to serve on a board Um I also want to get back to some statements that were made by the public earlier regarding the designation process. sort of comparing it to just an up or down black or white um process at that you know once a property is designated then there's a process to overturn that site development permit going to city council right i i just want to point out this is not really an accurate representation it's not a black or white decision to designate a property there's a lot more that goes into it um hrb is not invaluable and despite their best efforts um you know they can make mistakes and either designate or not designate based on um you know in you know improper decision making or not having enough information so um the i guess the point i'm getting to here is that when adding this findings not made appeal option, we're looking at creating a better process, not creating a more difficult process. And it's important to note that historic designation has a demonstrable chilling effect. Yes, there is a process to undo a designation once it's made. But the reality is unless it's a significant property that somebody really wants to redevelop, the sports arena being the example that was provided, it's not going to happen. We see this happen over and over again where properties are designated in order to prevent them from becoming something else, prevent new housing coming into the community, whatever it is. So I think it's just important to... recognize that we're not looking at just a simple decision-making process. This is one where mistakes can be made and it's important that we can appeal those and the community can appeal those, property owners can appeal those to the decision-making body at the top, the elected officials. I'm just reviewing my notes here. It looks like overall, This is a relatively minor change. We've got some minor changes, some clarifications to the current regulations. We'll see what package B brings us. I have a feeling that's going to be an even bigger deal. We'll see a bigger crowd, but that's not where we are today. So this one seems pretty straightforward to me. also the the vast majority of of you who have spoken out are from one community and while uh you know i i'm glad we're hearing from that community this is a policy package that affects the whole city and we need to think of it as a city-wide policy and and um you know vote on it based on its city-wide implications not the implications it has on one one community only Also, regarding the Emerging District and OB, this is not removing the protections from complete communities. This is something I continue to hear. This is clarifying what is already existing law and procedure. So complete communities is policy that was decided on by our city council, our elected leaders, and it's implementation in OB. This is not changing the rules. This is just clarifying what the rules have always been, and we saw that in the staff report. Now, this is where I'm probably gonna get less popular amongst this crowd, but that's okay. The bigger issue here that I see is that the minor changes and clarifications brought to us here are presumably being forwarded because there is an ongoing issue of the use by some. the current rules gray areas that exist to gum up the process for pursuing what is envisioned in the community plans and the density laws that have been adopted by our elected officials who represent the whole of san diego it's not this body who's you know making these changes to your community it's it's our city council and it's our leaders who have been elected to do that I think it's unfortunate that we see the preservation community, which on the surface has intentions that I completely agree with, preserving resources that improve our communities and our city. It has gained a reputation for using these gray areas in the code to stop progress, stop development in San Diego. you know, rather than protecting the actual authentically historic resources, it's stopping development just that they simply don't want to see happen. So, you know, I do believe in the importance of our historic resources and the preservation of those truly historic resources. This policy package, I believe, is minor in nature and makes important clarifications, and I support it and will support the motion. Actually, I'll second the motion.

City Council Chambers, Okay, we have a motion and a second Commissioner ranger.

City Council Chambers, Great points Commissioner reeves I appreciate all the comments that you've made. City Council Chambers, I actually, and thank you Kelly, I mean it's you know it's always a lot of work to bring these. City Council Chambers, These packages and and amendments. uh, for consideration and it has to be thoughtful. Um, the thing that I found kind of interesting or, or questionable or not questionable, uh, curious is, um, that the HRB was not able to come to a consensus and, and given that, um, we do have someone representing the HRB, I, I just wanted to see if it's okay for, um, for Ms. Byers to come up and and clarify or maybe expound on some of the, is that allowed? Yes. Expound on what some of the discussions were that were happening and what some of the points of contention were. And just because this is about historic preservation and the board having more interaction with those types of projects, I wanted to hear what they had to say.

Thank you, Commissioner Ringer. So when we were discussing it at the board level, It was coming down to, from my recollection, although, Ms. Stanko, feel free to add, to three items of contention. And it was generally what you were hearing from the public today, those highlights. So one was the... the ability to appeal board decisions to not designate a property. And so that had a few variations, but when the package came before the board, that was included and only for the record owner and not others. And so there was discussion around that, and that has been removed from the package in front of you today. The other item was about the voting. Like Commissioner Reeves mentioned, there's been some discussion about it being a super majority and a lot of language around that. It is not part of package A. So this is something that was getting brought up by the public around this, but what we've asked staff to do is to bring that forward to policy subcommittee so we can have a more robust discussion about it. And then the third thing, the third item of concern was the findings not supported addition for the city council. And there was a fair amount of discussion around that to allow the city council, in addition to their other considerations, go back and look at the findings regarding historic designation. So those findings not supported are only about the historic resource criteria. So unfortunately, like I said, it was at the end of the meeting and these, you know, I think everything else was generally supported, but we needed more discussion and there was just more questions on, frankly, from those board members who weren't part of the policy subcommittee. They just weren't able to get comfortable without more discussion.

Thank you.

Yeah.

um so what i'm hearing um from miss byers is that at least two of the three points of contention have

removed is that accurate the ability to appeal a non-designation has been removed there were never any proposed amendments to the number of votes required for designation so that was a topic or an item introduced through public testimony but hasn't been a part of our package and it's something the policy subcommittee has asked us to discuss as part of package b thanks for that clarification

Commissioner Mazzari.

Thank you. Yeah, I also wanted to thank Kelly and her team for the wonderful job and I understand everything the public is saying and I I do feel your concerns, but I think thoughtful progress strengthens our communities. And this package was very well put together. It answers a lot of questions. Public testimony helped all the comments from other commissioners. So I think I would be supporting the motion and moving this to city council for further discussion. Thank you.

Mr. Melbro.

Thank you, Chair. Kelly, thank you for your hard work. I guess you'll be doing Part B as well, right? I'm sorry. And also, I want to thank the public out there for all your comments. They're very important. I do listen to them, and I'm impressed on the Ocean Beach folks who showed up. That says a whole lot. I had a lot of questions in the beginning, but because of some of the things that you put out here today to answer, like the de novo, I had to look that up. And because it was only mentioned twice. But what's interesting is I found in 2009, staff did a report to the Planning Commission about extending that process. And they actually did approve that. But I guess city council didn't didn't do anything on that.

It has come up occasionally over the years. I've been working with the city and with historic preservation for over 20 years. And every now and again, the issue will come up, we'll have a discussion. And to date, there hasn't been interest in ultimately in changing or adding that finding. But we've heard renewed interest from this council in expanding that ability. And so we've included that in package A.

Yeah, including in that report from the city attorney at that time, it was several pages and it actually did say that council has the right to do that. And so I was much more comfortable with that. And then I realized they could do it to us on the planning commission. So I get that. The only other thing, the super majority vote, I realize it's not a part of this, but because of public comment, it came up. And since I'm retired, I probably have a little bit more time to do some things. And so one of the things I did for this whole year for the HRB, I looked at all of their minutes and they made 98 actions. And out of that 98, only four of them didn't meet the six. number so that's only one that's not even part of the full year but i would suggest that you might want to look at that to support the facts on whether you should keep that or not even you know because you're going to hear it again but uh and i would suggest public you do the same because those numbers don't support a change in my opinion so far what i've seen so um Other than that, I am in support of it. And again, I appreciate everything, especially the public comment. Thank you.

Thank you. I do want to ask a clarifying question to our city attorney about the supermajority vote. How does that relate to planning commission? We have a member, a body member of seven. So if we had five of us show up for a hearing, what is our vote requirement to pass something?

That's a that's a great question. You're still required to have four affirmative votes regardless of the number of commissioners that attend.

Okay so it it's the same alignment of super majority of the board?

It's based upon the the board membership of seven or eleven um depending on what board or commission that you're on.

Okay so the number that are part of the quorum does not have an influence on the number of votes that needs to pass no if you have um a quorum of four right for this commission you still need four okay to pass or take an action okay so this um modification to the HRB board would be aligning with that same thought process

There is no modification to the number of votes required for Historical Resources Board. It has been brought up by the public. However, what is in front of you is not a change to any of that.

Okay, okay. okay got it um I don't have any further comments I I too had a lot of questions in my head before this but you know through all the discussion the presentation thank you for that um and all the comments you know I've gotten a lot uh clarified um I'm also supportive of the um measure before us so I think we can go to a vote we have a motion and a second to support staff's recommendation And that passes unanimously. We can move on to item number two when staff is ready. Thank you very much.

Bye.

All right. Good morning, members of the Planning Commission. I'm Matthew Nasrallah, Associate Planner, and this is Grant Rorodi, Senior Planner with the City Planning Department. Item number two before you is a request to initiate an amendment to both the Scource Miramar Ranch Community Plan and the General Plan. The requested amendment initiation to the Scripps Miramar Ranch Community Plan and the General Plan seeks to redesignate the six acre site from a community plan land use designation of industrial park to high medium residential density and from a general plan land use designation of industrial employment to residential. The proposed amendment would also remove the general plan prime industrial designation. If initiated, subsequent approval of the proposed community plan amendment and corresponding rezone could allow for the development with a range between 91 and 176 multifamily homes based on the proposed high-medium residential density, which is 15 to 29 dwelling units per net acre community plan land use designation. The 2025 California Tax Credit Allocation Committee opportunity area map shows that the subject site is within the highest resource area. A little bit and we're good. The location of the proposed community plan amendment initiation for the 6 acre subject site is outlined in red. subject site is at meanley drive within the scripps miramar ranch community planning area the subject site is currently a graded undeveloped lot as for adjacent use the scripps miramar ranch branch library and open space are north of the subject site commercial office use is west of the site and light industrial use is east and south of the site the applicants for the initiation are the atlantis group scripps ranch technology park llc Staff recommends that the planning... Apologies. On October 2nd of this year, the Scripps Planning Group voted 16 to 1 to approve the initiation. Should the initiation be approved, Issues that would be addressed include evaluating the appropriate land use and zoning for the site, analyzing the economic impact of removing the prime industrial designation, conducting a collocation study to demonstrate no impacts on surrounding industrial land and evaluating parks and public spaces for new residents at the site. Other issues to be addressed include a demonstration of efforts towards affirmatively furthering fair housing, connectivity of pedestrian and bicycle facilities, a review of pedestrian and vehicular circulation, and design consideration for the proposed land use designation. Staff recommends that the Planning Commission initiate the plan amendment process to the Scripps Miramar Ranch Community Plan. The initiation request, if approved by the Planning Commission, would not constitute an endorsement of the plan amendment or project proposal. This concludes staff's presentation and we are available for questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any clarifying questions from the Commission? No? Okay. We can go on to public comment. Victoria Labruzzo, you'll have three minutes.

Thank you. Good to see you again, Victoria Labruso. I am the Scripps Financial Planning Group Chair. And I wanted to basically come up, I know my slip I filled out, I couldn't decide, oppose or I'm neutral is what I'm trying to express to you on this. And I'll give you the reasons why. As the Scripps Ranch Planning Group Chair and by Matthew's report, you're aware that the planning group voted in favor of the initiation process, which includes the evaluation of an amendment to the community plan. I want to emphasize that the members of the board understand that this is an approval for evaluation and not an approval for the community plan amendment rezone nor the projects. I didn't mention that when I was on the phone last time with Shea Homes when they came for this same industrial area. Now I want to kind of switch hats and put on my residential hat. I am a resident for 28 years in Scripps Ranch. And I wanna speak on behalf of a few people. I think you might've seen a comment from John Lyons in there. Keeping in mind that Scripps Ranch is commercially anemic, I wanna urge the board to carefully evaluate if rezoning into strictly residential is in the best interest of the community of Scripps Ranch, which is overwhelmingly residential. I believe Scripps Ranch residents are for being balanced. By changing these parcels with residential only zoning from prime industrial would be a permanent loss of economic potential and a missed opportunity to attract the next generation of employment opportunities. Again, I'm not speaking against the potential projects, just emphasizing that you prioritize what the loss of prime industrial would mean for our community. Removing prime industrial from our community is not just a land use change, it's the permanent loss of opportunity. So thank you for your time today.

Thank you. Mike Arduino, you'll have three minutes.

Well, thank you, Chair and members of commission. My name is Mike Arduino. I'm a partner at Murphy Development Company, and we are the managing member of Scripps Ranch Technology Park LLC, which owns lot three at the end of Meanly Drive. Thank you for having us here, and we appreciate your consideration. We also want to say a quick thank you to our planners, Matthew and Grant, for their nice presentation and report. And I believe staff had all the main points, so we'll keep this very brief. A little background on our company. Murphy Development Company was founded in 1984 by our chairman, Mike Murphy, and has master planned and developed over 10 million feet of corporate business and industrial parks. My background is in institutional residential development. And I joined Murphy Development Company in 2022. Our company has over a 10-year history in Scripps Ranch, having acquired the 31 acres within Scripps Ranch Business Park in 2014 from Intel. Our company spent a great deal of time and money marketing these properties to research and development industrial type users. And the market demand and response has been less than what we've expected. So in 2022, eight years after acquiring the park, Our company sold 90% of the land to Alexandria Real Estate, a life science developer, who in turn, after evaluating the market, sold the land to Shea Homes, who came before you all here recently. Throughout this process, our company retained lot three as we believe it's the crown jewel of the park. So I just want to say thank you for your time and consideration here today. And we respectfully request that you vote to approve the Scripps Ranch lot three general plan amendment and community plan amendment initiation. Thank you.

Thank you. And we do not have any online speakers. So that concludes our public comment period. Moving on to commission comment. Vice chair Boomhower.

I don't have any additional comments. I think that reflecting the comments from the community planning group and one of the neighborhood citizens. I do think we should always carefully consider when we're moving property away from industrial uses or economic uses to purely residential. It probably makes sense to study this both for a rezone to residential, but also to one of the mixed use zones to see if that would um work more favorably in these areas but i you know i that's what the initiation process is for so i'm going to make the motion that we approve the initiation thank you thank you we have a motion commissioner Mazzari i'll second the motion but i have a question um when a pro generally not specific maybe to this project but when a property is rezoned

or initiated to be rezoned from prime industrial land, we typically see it go to residential. Is that because the code doesn't allow other uses to be considered or is it because now residential development is more popular?

Commissioner Mazzari, we see kind of a range there. Sometimes it's mixed use, you may know that in our general plan, we have a prime industrial flex designation that does allow for mixed use within kind of our industrial areas, because a lot of the industry there likes to see their employees live closer to where they work. It doesn't necessarily always go to residential. So as part of the initiation process, we do look at that those other possibilities.

Okay.

so it's it's kind of open to be studied for yes if that is also um the direction from the this commission to also as a issue to analyze as part of the planned amendment staff can certainly look at that and work with the applicant um to address that okay thank you commissioner reeves

Thank you, Chairman O'Day. Generally, yeah, I'll just say I'm willing to support this motion. I just have a couple questions that won't affect my position on this. Recognizing it's an initiation. IS IMPORTANT TO, YOU KNOW, I MORE OR LESS WILL SUPPORT THESE BECAUSE IT'S THE OPENING UP THE PROCESS TO TAKE A CLOSER LOOK, RIGHT? SO IN TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT THIS, I WANT TO JUST MAKE SURE, STAFF, THAT YOU'LL BE EXAMINING A FEW THINGS AND YOU STATED THIS. I JUST WANT TO GET A LITTLE DEEPER. impacts to the adjacent light industrial properties that are operating as light industrial right so is there going to be a creep effect here that um either drives away business or makes it less desirable to be um you know a light industrial business in this area if residents are close by you'll be taking a look at that i know you said you would i just is there anything additional comment you have on that And if you don't have any additional comment, don't feel like you need to.

Yes, we would be taking that into account.

Yeah, okay. As well as all the other things you look at when you initiate a plan amendment, like... the livability of the area for residents who move in there. You're not putting them in the middle of a light industrial park where there's nothing for them to do. I know there's a library there and a pond and a park facility. So obviously it seems like an appropriate location for residential. I would just second Vice Chair Pumar's comment regarding looking at all the available land uses that might give this some flexibility, obviously, to achieve the needs of the project, but also keep the land flexible for any future uses if it's not fully developed in one phase. That's all I have. Thanks.

Thank you. I'm also in support of the initiation. I'm also I agree with Commissioner or Vice Chair boom, how are about looking at mixed use and incorporating some commercial uses, I think, with the amount of residential you can do on six acres and the surrounding businesses, I think you might have an opportunity for some retail or other supportive, you know, uses for the neighborhood. Not that it's a requirement, but just think you might want to explore that. We have a vote and our emotion in a second. So we can go to a vote. And that passes unanimously. We can move on to our third item, which is training. But I think we can take maybe, yeah, a five minute break. Why don't we come back at 1150 and we can start then. Thank you.

And thank you just.

We've been told to get started. Well, thanks for including us in your busy schedule. I'm Bryn Curvin, the Executive Director of the Ethics Commission, and I'm here with Megan Currin and Ryan O'Connor. I'll introduce them a little bit in a moment. Today's training helps you all comply with the City Council Policy 04 for your ethics training requirement. And I'm new to the Ethics Commission. I came from the District Attorney's Office where I served as our training director for some time, our ethics coordinator, and was a trial attorney for 28 years. Ryan came to the Ethics Commission from FPPC and was also a civil litigator. So he has a lot of expertise to offer. I'm sure some of you have already talked to him on the phone for technical advice. And Megan was at Foley and Lardner law firm in civil litigation for over a decade before she came to the Ethics Commission. So both bring a lot of knowledge and expertise. Megan serves as our legislative program manager. So she does a a lot of work in that area. You're a pretty sophisticated group, I must say, considering what you do when you're not working as planning commissioners. And so this is really a primer. So many of you probably have a greater understanding of the ethics rules. but we hope that uh you can still get some nuggets from this and maybe some of you haven't sit on sat on this before and so it'll be new uh but so we're hoping it'll be hopeful to everyone here despite uh whatever level or tenure you have on the commission um can you Oh, no, no, no, that's okay. That's all right. So the Ethics Commission, for those of you who don't know, we enforce the government ethics laws. And we really like to emphasize that our function of training and education before enforcement. for city officials. And we, as you know, but just to reinforce the idea, we don't have an attorney-client relationship with the people we give technical advice. That's the city attorney's office. But the government ethics laws are our bailiwick. They're our expertise. And so that's why we're here to provide technical advice in that area. So we do cover... advice in the area of campaign or local campaign laws and lobbying, but today we're just talking about the ethics ordinance and the provisions that are applicable to you and your work as planning commissioners. There may be other laws and regulations that govern your work as planning commissioners, like due process concepts, like the Brown Act, things of that nature. And we're not here to talk about those things today, just simply the ethics ordinance. Thank you. So our city's ethics ordinance really is based on the state laws, specifically the Political Reform Act. It incorporates the PRA by reference, but it also has some of its own unique clauses and laws and rules that apply to you. that we're here to talk about. So the ethics ordinance applies to both paid and unpaid people. So of course, you volunteer your valuable time and expertise to be planning commissioners. So it applies to you just like it would an employee of the city. And in fact, the state law says that planning commissioners have the same rules and expectations of ethical conduct as it does of actual elected officials. So the law recognizes that what you do is so significant that it's going to apply the same laws to you as it would to an elected official. The point of our ethics ordinance is to provide transparency to the public and to give them assurance that everything that we do at the city and what you do at the commission is done in the most ethical behavior and also in a way that never poses an appearance of impropriety. And so the rules are not always intuitive. They can be very, very tricky. And so that is why it's so important for you to reach out to us early and often. Because of not just the technical rules, because it may be that there is no technical violation, but maybe there's an optics issue you need to work out. And we're here to help with that. Last, I did want to point out on this slide that recently our fines were increased. It used to be a maximum fine of $5,000 per violation. Now it's $15,000 per violation. So that is relatively new. um all right and moving on uh just to talk about what we're gonna do today this is a list of topics we're going to cover um if you don't take anything away today uh but just one thing it would be this slide it's something that you can keep handy to help you issue spot because we don't expect you to have expertise in ethics um as it relates to the ethics ordinance which again it really clear this has nothing to do with morality or your morals and values. The ethics ordinance really does focus on how your personal financial interests intersect with your work as planning commissioners and your obligation to identify those and disclose those and make sure that they don't interfere with your work inappropriately with the city's ethics laws. So I'm gonna cover, Megan's gonna cover the economic interest disclosures. Ryan's going to cover the sticky topics of disqualification and financial interest in a contract. I'll cover misuse of position and political influence and contributions. Ryan will cover gifts and Megan will cover future employment and I will wrap it up quickly because this is gonna be a long day for you guys. We can't cover all the rules, but again, this slide and this training is just meant to help you identify the danger zones. And we've worked to make this training tailored to the planning commission. There may be some hypotheticals that we use in some of our other trainings, but we do try to tailor it to your group and your unique needs. And that is it. I will hand it off to Megan to cover disclosure of economic interests. Oh, I did want to note, again, the hypotheticals, we're not going to put you on the spot. We're going to just walk through the hypotheticals. So you don't have to worry about that. All right.

Thanks, Bryn. Hello, everyone. Megan Curran, I know I've been introduced. So I'm talking about disclosure of economic interest in this first section. And when we think about disclosing economic interest, we're talking about what to put on your Form 700. And I know you've all filed a Form 700 because I checked. So this will be familiar to you. Some of it may be expanding upon what you already know, but most of you have gone through this analysis already. um so one thing that we're going to talk about is what to put on the schedules because that can be one of the trickier issues in filling out probably the trickiest issue in filling out your form 700 and if you look at the slide those schedules are highlighted in the red box there so we'll we'll get into all of that um so the policy rationale for form 700s so the general rule is that you can't participate in city decisions in which you have a financial interest And so the form 700 helps the public know where each of your financial interests lie. So if you're considering an issue and the public says, I think that that person works on something at their other job about this issue, they can check your form 700 and see whether they think you have a financial interest. So it provides the public with information about what each of you do outside of the planning commission. And an important thing to note is that in filling out your Form 700, you have to think not only about your own financial interests, but also those of your immediate family. In terms of filing for the Form 700, so you must file an assuming office and a leaving office within 30 days of assuming office or leaving office. And then you also must file annually by April 1st. in terms of where to file your form 700. So generally the city clerk is the filing official for most people, but following AB 1170 last year, 87, 200 filers, which include the planning commission filed directly with FPPC. And I think most of you this year had to file directly with FPPC. So you've probably been through this already and know a lot about this, but to the extent anyone has questions about that in terms of the logistics, feel free to reach out to the city clerk about that. But like I said, most of you have already done that. And we do have helpful fact sheets on our website about, you know, if it's the middle of the night and you have a burning question about your SEI, maybe it's the night before it's due or something like that, feel free to start by checking our frequently asked questions documents on our website. The FPPC also has a lot of helpful materials on that as well. So moving on to the next slide. Yes, so planning commissioners are considered high-level filers, and that is in contrast to code filers. I'm a code filer, so I have a code that says what I have to disclose, but you are all high-level filers. And so planning commissioners have to disclose ownership interests under four categories, and they're on this slide. The first is any person or entity that is located in the city. Second, doing business in the city. Third, planning to do business in the city. Or fourth, has done business in the city within the previous two years. And interestingly, investments in real estate, the question is whether it's located in the city, but also within two miles of the city or property owned by the city. And I've always thought when I heard this role, like that's strange. How do I know what property the city owns? How could I possibly know that? But there is a map on the economic development page that shows city owned property. And I was just perusing it the other day. And I noticed that Mount Woodson open space, apparently the city owns some property over by Mount Woodson, which is way outside of the city boundaries. So if you owned, theoretically, a house in Poway or something like that, that could theoretically be within two miles of a city-owned property. So that's just something to check when you're filling out your Form 700. What else is a city-owned that you might not be thinking about to make sure that you don't own something within two miles of that? And another note, that two miles is as the crow flies, not as Google Maps would tell you to go. So that's just something to think about with real property. OK, so I said that we would talk about the schedules. So in terms of the schedule, so schedule A1 is for disclosing investments, stocks, bonds, other interests. These are generally, these are where your ownership interest is less than 10%. That's A1. A2 is where your ownership interest is 10% or greater. That's an ownership interest in a company, like a management position in a company, for instance. Schedule B is real property. Schedule C is income, loans, and business positions. Schedule D is gifts over $50. And Schedule E is travel payments. And an important note, as I will explain in greater detail near the end of the presentation, there is a new law that will require planning commissioners, as well as other people, to disclose a, quote, arrangement for prospective employment on Form 700s going forward. So that's a new rule. And the FPPC intends to finalize how exactly that's going to get reported on your Form 700 at their next meeting, which is November 20th. They're usually at 10 a.m. So, you know, we'll know more about that, you know, in November. But just keep in mind that you're going to have to disclose a new category of information, which is, are you getting a new job, basically. So analysis of all of these issues, what to put where on your schedules can get complicated. So as I mentioned, we have FAQs, the FPPC has a lot of helpful information as well. And of course, you can always call Ryan, I'm sure many people already have Ryan's phone number. So feel free to call Ryan or any of us if you ever have questions about these issues. OK, so I'm going to continue with these schedules. So you will use Schedule A, as I said, if you have less than 10% ownership interest in a company valued and that ownership is valued at $2,000 or more. So this is usually stocks and bonds. You'll use A2 if you have 10% ownership or more. And this is usually a management position in a business. And if you have 10% ownership interest or more, you have to disclose anything, any income to the business if your pro rata share from that other business is $10,000 or more. And this, I know we're getting into the nitty gritty quickly in this presentation, but we'll see in a hypothetical what that looks like. And quick caveat, you don't have to report a loan if it's made from a bank in the regular course of business on terms available to the public. So that is Schedule A. So moving on to Schedule B.

So Schedule B is about real property.

And the general rule is that you do not have to report your personal residence, which is nice because none of us really want to put our personal residence on a publicly filed form. But there are a few caveats to that. So you do have to report your personal residence in two circumstances. The first is if you rent a bedroom in your personal residence or if you use it as a short-term vacation rental. And if you do either of those things, you will report the fair market value of the portion of your home that you rent out, the total amount of rent received, and the names of any renters who pay you $10,000 or more over the year. Again, we'll see this in a hypothetical. That's the first instance. The second instance is if you claim a business deduction for your house. I am not an expert in tax law. There was some discussion of whether you can even do that anymore. I don't know. But if you do, you have to disclose the fair market value of the portion claimed as a deduction. So that's what to think about in Schedule B. And Bryn mentioned that we would have some hypotheticals. This is our first one coming up on the next slide. So what we'll do with these hypotheticals, the point is to sort of drive home the rules. I know it can all be a little dry and boring, but if you look at it in the context of something that could actually happen, it hopefully will drive home these concepts a little bit better. And if you do this online, we make people vote and say their answers or weigh in in the chat so you guys have it easy. We'll just read them to you and tell you what the answers are. So this first case vignette. So you have a 25% partnership interest in an engineering firm. Last year, the firm received a total of $200,000 in income, including the following income from these clients. Earthmovers paid the company $46,000, ABC Construction paid the firm $12,000, and Carlsbad Builders paid the firm $52,000. And the question is, do you have to disclose the income from each of these clients? And just to reiterate the rule again, you must report these clients on A2 if number one, your pro rata share is $10,000 or more, and number two, the client is a reportable source. So let's look at each of them in turn. So first, Earthmovers. They pay the company $46,000. Luckily, I did the math before I came here because one quarter of $46,000 is $11,500. Obviously, that is over $10,000. So that meets the first criteria of the test, over $10,000. So then you have to look at if... earth movers is a reportable source so you look at is earth movers located in san diego doing business in san diego planning to do business in san diego or has done business in san diego within the previous two years if any of those are met then you have to disclose earth movers on a1 a2 sorry so earth movers let's just say they're in san diego you have to disclose them Okay, ABC Construction. So ABC Construction paid $12,000, one quarter of $12,000. And again, in case I didn't say it, I'm taking a quarter because you own 25% of the business. Okay, so one quarter of $12,000 is only $3,000. So you don't meet the first part of the test, which is the $10,000 threshold. Don't worry about ABC Construction. Okay, so then the third one, Carlsbad Builders, they paid the company $52,000. So one quarter of $52,000 is $13,000, which is over $10,000. So then again, you have to look at the same factors. Is Carlsbad Builders located in San Diego? Probably not. They're called Carlsbad Builders. Doing business in San Diego? Maybe. Planning to do business in San Diego or has done business in San Diego within the previous two years? you know for earth movers and carlsbad builders we'd need more facts to say for sure one way or another but that's the analysis that you'd walk through for that for that vignette okay moving on to the next vignette So you decide to invest in the tech industry. Specifically, you think Microsoft is a safe bet to continue its growth. So you buy six shares for $2,300 at the beginning of the year. However, by the end of the year, the total value falls to below $1,500. Since the city contracts with Microsoft, do you have to report these shares on your annual SEI? So you report on A1 if you have less than 10% ownership interest in the company, which is valued at $2,000 or more. I think it's fair to say that $2,300 is less than 10% of Microsoft. I think we can all agree on that. So we're talking about A1. So we said you have to report it if the value you hold is over $2,000. And this is sort of a trick question because by the time we're talking about this, the value had fallen to $1,500. But you still have to report this because at some period during the year, it was worth over $2,000. So you don't look at it at the moment you're filling out your SEI. You just say, during the past year, was it ever worth $2,000 or more? Then you report it. The next question is, what if you were not personally involved in picking your investment portfolio and used a fund manager instead? Same answer. Even if you have a fund manager, if this stock is reportable, doesn't matter that there's someone else pushing the buttons to make things happen, you still have to report it. Because it could still impact decision making theoretically. Last question, what if the shares were held in your IRA account? Same answer. Unless an exception applies, things held in your IRA account will also be reportable. And if you want to talk through exceptions, you can always give us a call. I think last hypothetical here. Okay, you are the sole owner of a rental property in the city. Rocket Mortgage has a mortgage on your property, but the investment is starting to turn a profit and it brought in $42,000 in income last year from a tenant. Are you required to disclose your ownership of the property? So we talked about the rule, which is you don't generally report your personal residence unless, for example, you use it as a short-term rental. Here, this is not even your personal residence. This is just a straight-up rental. So yes, you do report this because it's not your personal residence. So yes, you are required to disclose your ownership of the property. The second question is, what about the mortgage? You do not have to disclose your mortgage because we assume Rocket Mortgage is a bank and that they're making this loan on regular terms available to the public. So you do not have to disclose your mortgage. The third question, what about the income from the tenant? And you do have to report the income from the tenant because the tenant paid you more than $10,000 during the year. And obviously, they live in the city because your rental is in the city. And then the fourth question is, what if your family trust owns the property?

and you still report it even if your family trust owns the property so that is disclosure of economic interest and now i'll turn it over to ryan to talk about disqualification thank you good afternoon um so i'm going to talk about disqualification but before i get into that i just want to thank everybody for providing this service to the city it's appreciated by a lot and it's appreciated by me So now I'm going to hit you over the head, unfortunately, with some conflict of interest rules, but they won't be too painful. So the general rule is that you may not influence the governmental decision if there's a realistic possibility that the decision will have a financial impact on you. And that also includes your immediate family, your dependents and your spouse, or one of your personal finances. So, influencing a decision includes providing information analysis studies, et cetera to another city official. So, as you can see from this language, it's, it's broadly applied and gets broadly, I guess. Distributed out to the city officials. Now, the public generally is the one exception to when you have conflict of interest, and it allows you to participate even if you have a conflict of interest, if the decision involves your personal finances. So basically, it's kind of like a reprieve from this regulation, but it applies in very limited situations. And the takeaway is just to contact us if you have any questions about that, whether it applies. So, if you have a conflict concerning an item on the meeting docket, then what you have to do is you have to disclose the nature of your conflict and then you also have to leave the room while it's discussed and you wouldn't be able to talk to staff or anyone about that. Basically, anyone in city staff could not be informed of the conflict at a time. Now, in terms of disqualification, these are your specific interests that would kind of give rise to a conflict of interest that you would have. So you're not permitted to participate in decisions that affect your financial interests and how that gets defined or those for your immediate family. How that gets defined is these six different buckets you can think of. And the first being investments in business entities. So you won't be able to, you'd have to recuse if a business entity came before the planning commission. And then 2nd would be management positions that you have in for profit businesses and that's even if it's unpaid. So, if you're on the board of directors, say of a company, you would have to recuse in that situation. And then also any investments that you have, or leaseholds and real property. If it involves that refusal is going to be the conservative approach. Any source of income of $500 or more within the past 12 months. And you'll see how this plays out in a hypothetical. And this also includes income received through a business entity. If you have 10% or more ownership interest in that business entity. So it gets a little difficult in the fact that it could be a spouse's client that's coming before you, and we'll see how that gets applied. But in that case, you might have to recuse because of disqualifying financial interests that you have. You would also have to recuse from the donor of any gifts if the aggregate value of what the donor is given is $630 or more leading up to the vote that you're taking part in. So it's a rolling standard. It's 12 months before the vote that you take part in. And then lastly, kind of as a catch-all, you have to recuse if the decision itself, if the effect of the decision could impact your personal expenses, your income, your assets, or liabilities, et cetera. So like I said, I mean, that's kind of a catch-all. That brings in a wide scope, I would say. Now you're prohibited from influencing a planning commission matter if there's real possibility the decision will have a financial effect on any source of income, including your client's income of $500. So that's the threshold is at $500. And this is over the previous 12 months before you make a decision. So I'll get into a little specifics as far as like what influencing a decision actually means. So all these things actually qualify as influencing a decision. The first being voting on your client's matter, clearly. I mean, if you're voting on the matter, then you'd be influencing a decision. But also it reaches discussing your client's matter with other commissioners before, after, during a meeting. It also reaches making an appearance before the commission on behalf of your client. And this is including a presentation and answering any sort of questions about your client's matter. So likewise, this is pretty broad language in scope. And then it also includes preparing documents that are submitted to the commission on behalf of your client, so you can't do that. And then you also, you should recuse if you have a question about assisting others who submit documents to or appear before the commission. So again, it's very broad language. You can't work behind the scenes on behalf of your client. And again, this is all just because you're in very high-profile positions sitting on the Planning Commission itself. Now, prohibited contacts with staff and other entities, this just kind of defines, again, what's prohibited, would include contacting city staff on behalf of a client if the project could come before the jurisdiction of the Planning Commission. If the client's project will be processed by another city board or commission before it's considered by the planning commission, then you also have to follow yourself off from it and you can't have any involvement, personal involvement with that. And lastly, if a client's project is being considered by a community planning group, you may now discuss the project with the group or the staff. And then if the project, and this is only if the project has the potential to come before you in your official capacity. So that's the big kind of kicker of all this. Now, permissible contacts, I'm gonna get into with a little detail, and this is obviously what you can do. So any other member of your firm may contact city staff or may make that presentation in front of the Planning Commission or to other city boards on behalf of clients whose projects could come before the Planning Commission as long as you don't have personal involvement. So that's the big turning point is your personal involvement. As long as you recuse fully, then someone else in your staff could handle the issue, as long as you're not providing input as far as how to navigate, say, the planning commission process, etc. You may contact city staff or make presentations to other boards on behalf of a client if the client's project will never come before the planning commission. And this is as long as you do not suggest you're acting on behalf of the commission. So if we're talking about something outside of the scope of the planning commission, basically you can present, you can carry out your duties in the private sector on behalf of your client. Once planning commission makes final decision, you may also contact city staff on behalf of the client, as long as it's completely final and there's no possibility that the client's project will come before the planning commission again. So if there's no sort of like discretionary step after the planning commission has officially weighed in, then basically you can make contact with city staff regarding that project. This is all leading up to it, and the rationale behind all this is that the public wants to ensure that city, I guess, city carryings on, city proceedings are carried out in the best interest of the public. And they wouldn't be swayed, at least here, they'd be swayed if you had a personal financial interest that could be affected at the same time. So they want to, it's basically clear separation of personal financial interests and city decision making. Now, a limited exception applies for submitting technical documents. This is very narrow in scope. Or you could represent your personal interests. Again, this is another exception that's narrow in scope. But if it involves your personal interests and they're not tied to, say, a source of income, et cetera, then you're allowed to go ahead and make contact at that point in time. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. You know, when it's really hard to basically give advice on the fly, but if we present with the facts, et cetera, then we could look through them and see what the issue turns on, et cetera. Now, I'm just going to go through a couple of hypotheticals. Actually, there's four hypotheticals. I'll go through them fairly quickly about what you can do and what you can't do when you have conflict of interest. So which of the following activities may you lawfully engage in on behalf of a client who has a matter pending before the commission? Can you edit a report that will be distributed to the commission without your signature or any mention of your name? Could you answer questions from other commissioners outside of commission meetings? Could you give the client some helpful hints on talking points in front of the commission and help the client navigate the process, et cetera? Or could you prepare architectural reports that'll be submitted with the client's report? And the answer is you can't do the first three. I mean, the first three will be prohibited because you can't have any sort of like outside influence with something that's coming before the commission in its official capacity. The last one you possibly could do, because there is an exception for technical reports that get submitted. However, it's narrow, as I said, narrow in scope. And then also we ask, is another member of your firm prohibited from engaging in any of these activities? And the answer to that would be no. No member of your firm, as I said, could do any of the four, as long as you're just completely walled off. You don't have any sort of input. All right, next hypothetical. You're a planning commissioner and also a partner in an architectural firm. One of the firm's clients has a project scheduled for a process three hearing in front of you. You're aware that you're not permitted to make a presentation on behalf of your client at the hearing. However, because you have the most knowledge concerning the project, you offer to review the presentation prepared by your associate. Is this permitted under the ethics ordinance? And as you can assume, we say no to pretty much all these hypotheticals. No, this is not permitted. And it harkens back to what I was saying about having any sort of like outside involvement beyond the scenes. So no, you can't have any sort of involvement if it's coming before you in your official capacity. Now next, and this one's a pretty good hypothetical. It's a little bit nuanced, but it really kind of gets into like how widespread this prohibition can be. So Mr. Smith is seeking a conditional use permit for a property he recently purchased. And your spouse's law firm received $50,000 in income from Mr. Smith during the past year. And this is for work unrelated to the property and unrelated to this application before you. And also Mr. Smith does not plan on bringing any sort of work in the future. Your spouse is one of 10 equity partners in the law firm. So owns a 10% share in the law firm, but did not participate in the previous work for Mr. Smith. Does the ethics ordinance permit you to participate in this decision concerning Mr. Smith's permit? And the answer here is that no, it would not. And it kind of ties into what Megan was saying earlier. At $10,000, and I shouldn't say kind, it definitely ties into what Megan was saying earlier. At $10,000, you have to look at all the clients to the business entity that your spouse owns. so here he has an ownership interest that could possibly be disqualified to you so you would ask yourself what is the analysis what do i have to do to get to my pro rata share and remember at five hundred dollars you're disqualified um from taking part in a vote so in front of mr smith because mr smith this is possible financial interest So it takes a little bit of math. So first, you have to find your spouse's, I guess, pro-rata share of your spouse's income from Mr. Smith. So you divide the $50,000 by 10. And then from there, so you got $5,000. From there, you want to find what your pro-rata share of that amount of income is. And that is half of the income of your spouse because we're in California. And California is a community property state. So what the law says is that you're entitled to 50% of your spouse's income acquired during the marriage. And here, this is during the marriage. So you would take half that $5,000 and you have 2,500, and that's above what is disqualified to you. So at 500, you're disqualified. At 2,500, you're definitely disqualified. Let's put it that way. All right. Let's see what else we get. All right, last hypothetical. And this one's also pretty relevant, I believe, to the Planning Commission. So after thoroughly reviewing an environmental impact report, and I'm not sure if you actually take part in that, but that's part of the hypo we have here, you're presenting your findings to a city board regarding the proposed development of the latest high-rise apartment complex overlooking the bay. You own a condo several blocks away from the proposed project site. Since you do not believe that this proposed development will impact you any differently from other San Diego residents, you go forward with the presentation. So essentially what you see here is you think the public generally exception applies to you. So even if you have a conflict, do you think you're okay because you're exempt under the public generally exception? Does the ethics ordinance require your recusal in this situation? And this is, you have to ask two questions. First, if you own the condo, and then second, if you rented the condo, would you still have to possibly recuse? And the analysis is separated. It's a bifurcated analysis, depending on whether you own the property or whether you rent it. And we refer to this as basically the donut rule. It's kind of like our term for it. And you would think of like, say the project site as being in the center of the donut. And then you'd want to know where your property lies in relation to that center, to the project. So it gets broken down into three different buckets. depending on like how far away your property is to the project. And the general rule for ownership of a condo would be that a city official may not participate in municipal decision if it will have material financial effect on property owned by the city official. The first bucket that I was talking about being zero to 500 feet. So say your property is within that range, zero to 500 feet away. What the law does, it presumes that you have material financial effect. So that's kind of like overly verbose language for basically saying that it presumes that you have to recuse yourself. If your property is 500 to 1000 feet, and technically it's 501 to 999 feet away from the project site. Then we have to look at these different factors and determination turns on. One, the development potential of your property, whether it would get affected. The income producing potential of your property, whether the project would impact that. Three, the highest and best use of your property. Four, the character of your property itself, whether that would be impacted by your vote. And then five, the market value of your property, which is a bit of a catch-all. But basically, if there's any foreseeable effect to any of these five different factors, then you would have to recuse. So basically, you would have a disqualifying financial interest. And then lastly, if your property is a thousand feet or more from the project site, then the law does not presume that you have conflict. It actually presumes that you don't, and you can take part in the vote. But again, it all turns on kind of the facts and circumstances of the issue that we're talking about. So if we were talking about like a big development, it might have bigger impact, like the traffic congestion per se might be greater, might have greater distance depending on what the project is, et cetera. And then also if you rented your property, then what the analysis turns on is whether the project's decision would impact the lease termination date, or the rental value or your legally allowable use of the property. And then lastly, your use and enjoyment of the property. And again, I mean, that language is kind of a catch-all. It's so broad in nature, like the use and enjoyment of your property. But if that's the case, we always err on the side of being conservative. We say just recuse if you think you're in a gray area, et cetera. But with that, I'll go on to the next concept and it's kind of related. This is called financial interest in a contract. So essentially it's the same thing. It's like having a conflict of interest, but one that involves a city contract. Conflicts of interest involving city contracts, contracts have additional restrictions. So there's even more that attaches, more regulation that attaches if a contract's involved. Now, this is a general rule. You may not participate in a contract in which you have a financial interest. So essentially, it's the same rule as what I just went over with conflicts of interest. If you participate in creating or approving a city contract, then you may not obtain a financial interest in the future. And we'll see how that plays out in a hypothetical that's hopefully on point to what you deal with. And if a member of the legislative body, which is everyone here, so if one member has a conflict of interest involving a contract, then recusal, disqualification by that member would not be sufficient. The entire legislative body would not be able to vote on that contract. So this is kind of the point where it differs from what I was talking about, like conflict of interest in a municipal decision. This is like the harsh ramification of this law. So if there's a financial interest kind of at issue, then no one's allowed to vote on the contract itself. So that's why this law is pretty strict and the ramifications are harsh. but the rationale behind it and it's the same as is with all with everything all the concepts we're going to go over is that city contracting should be carried out in the public's best interest and all this all this regulation these different concepts we're going over they basically remove any sort of like outside financial interests So it's it's in theory, it's so that public contracting and public proceedings occur with unbiased and impartially so that there is no, like, at least a perception of a sway, you know, and this is so, like, the public knows, like, there is, there's nothing that gets way these decision makers that are carrying out contracting on my behalf on the public's behalf. Now you're involved in making a contract if you're involved in any stage of contract preparation. So as you can, as with the other concepts, this one's pretty broad, it's broad language, any stage of contract preparation. The fact that a contract might be fair advantageous to the city if it's in the city's best interest is not necessarily relevant here. It's not a factor that gets weighed. So it's not really part of the analysis. And as we'll see in a hypothetical, this prohibition extends beyond the time you're employed at the city. So it really, it follows you around as public official. So you want to make sure, like, say, if there were a contract that you worked on in your official capacity, you want to take note of that if that became relevant, say, like, you know, 10 years down the road, et cetera. So just be on the lookout when it involves a contract, if you're contracting on behalf of the public. Now, the legislature has created these exceptions for less significant financial interests, and the exceptions do get applied. There's at least 30 of them, but they're nuanced. I won't bore you with them right now. But just know the takeaway should be just to call if you think one could be applicable. If you think like, you know, contracting, if you're recusal you think would be necessarily unfair, then perhaps there is an exception that applies. In that case, it wouldn't be prohibited. So then the planning commission go ahead and contract. Now, with these 2 different bullet points, the whole point behind all of it is to show that, like. What a minor little difference is can have a big effect down the road can have a big can turn the conclusion pretty much. So an official involved in setting rates that will affect the official is not violating the ethics ordinance if the financial impact on the official is the same as it is on a significant segment of the public or a significant segment of all city employees. So what that's saying is basically like if you're taking part in a vote, say on like water or sewer services or general employment benefits that would also impact you, there's a good chance that that exception would apply and you could go ahead and vote. However, a city official may not participate in the making of a contract that will create a government salary, provide unique benefits to the official or a member of his or her immediate family, or a limited group of city employees or a single city department. So the difference here obviously is unique. If there's unique effect to the decision, then there's a high likelihood that the prohibition that is discussed would attach at that point in time. Now, lastly, the Planning Commission recommends that the City Council hire an environmental expert to advise the City on specific issues associated with amendments to the City's General Plan. The City Council decides to accept the recommendation and hire an expert. One of the members of the Planning Commission decides to offer his services on pro bono basis since he is qualified and familiar with the Planning Commission's concerns. Now, is this described action lawful under the ethics ordinance? And the answer here is that no, it would not be. And this is because of that prior participation. It was in like the official capacity of the member of the planning commission. So because there was prior participation, that person cannot reap the benefits later down the road. And even though it's on a pro bono basis, it doesn't matter. Even if finances are not necessarily at play here, it would still be prohibited under Section 1090. I just want to pass it off to go over the next couple concepts.

So I think we're going to take a break so you guys can grab your food. I don't know how long, Michael. Okay, five minutes, and then you guys can eat while we talk.

Thank you.

All right, we're going to move on to misuse of position. We as city officials may not induce people to give us things based on what we do for the city. So as a planning commissioner, you and your family cannot ask for discounts, let's say at a gym, based on what you do for the city. you may not support or oppose candidates for elective office using any you know city facility equipment someone and so forth it certainly doesn't prohibit you from participating in elections and supporting candidates you just have to be very careful and Well, not utilizing equipment and supplies and resources related to your work as planning Commissioners. You as a legislative body handle a lot of confidential information, and so we all we do the same in our organization. A lot comes across your desk that you're asked to review and weigh in on. So we always have to be mindful to protect the city's confidential information and not disclose anything learned in closed session or anything else for that matter that's not available or should be available to the public. So we as city officials must always protect the city's confidential information. let's see okay so we have a hypothetical unrelated to confidential information but uh moving on a political committee formed to support a ballot measure in an upcoming city election asks the fire chief if he would agree to support the ballot measure The committee also offers to pay him $5,000 for writing a statement in his role as fire chief to be used in the committee's campaign literature because the ballot measure will provide increased funding to the city and to the fire rescue department The fire chief believes he can agree to the request. Has the fire chief violated the ethics ordinance? This is somewhat different here because we're talking about a city employee. However, the rule applies to volunteers here. The fire chief does violate the ethics ordinance by writing the statement and being paid five thousand dollars by virtue of his position as the fire chief. Under the ethics ordinance, he may write a statement in support of the ballot measure, but it would be a violation for him to accept money for the writing of the statement. All right, we have another hypothetical. A planning commissioner contacts the office of her city council member. She talks to a council staffer and tells the staffer that as a volunteer commissioner, she's been spending a lot of time lately at lengthy and contentious commission meetings. She asks the staffer to tell the council member that she would like her residential street prioritized for the undergrounding of overhead utilities in the upcoming year. Has the commissioner violated the ethics ordinance? And here, yes, the board member did violate the ethics ordinance by asking for the residential street to be prioritized. You may not ask for that kind of treatment. That one should be fairly obvious. But yes, that would be considered a misuse of position. And moving on to political influence and contributions. We as city officials may not use our influence and power to appoint others to city positions. I don't know that anybody here has the power to do that. That applies probably more to elected officials. But what does apply very directly is that We may not solicit contributions from city employees to campaign to campaigns for elective office, and so that includes any kind of direct or indirect solicitation, so you have to be really careful if you are involved in working on a friend's campaign that you're not soliciting a campaign contribution from city employees. So we have a vignette for this one your childhood friend decided to run for city council and seeks your support in her candidacy. You agree to help and canvas the neighborhood over the weekend knocking on doors and speaking with constituents to your surprise, a co worker in dsd and here it would be. Let's say someone on the commission staff opens the door and you ask this person to contribute to your friend. Have you violated the ethics ordinance? So you may ask someone to volunteer, for instance, to put a sign in their yard or to also volunteer for a candidate. But the line is very clearly drawn with soliciting campaign contributions. You can ask friends and city employees to be involved with their time putting a sign up so on and so forth, but just it really comes down to financial contributions is a no no for asking city employees, so that is it we're going to move on to gifts.

Right. brim. Now, in terms of gifts, a gift is anything that personally benefits you to the extent that you don't pay for it in exchange. So it has common sense definition. In terms of reporting, GIFs from a reportable source that aggregate in value of $50, they have to be disclosed, as you know, in your Form 700 if it's coming from a reportable source. But here, everyone, if you're an 87-200 filer, if you're sitting on the Planning Commission, everyone is a reportable source. GIFs are limited to a value of $630 in the aggregate over a calendar year, and this is from any one source within that calendar year. In terms of disqualification, gifts valued at $630 or more. So it's the same threshold at 630. If they're received over a 12 month period leading into a decision, they will trigger your disqualification from that decision. So this is like a little bit of a conflict of interest recusal situation. So the source of a gift could cause your recusal. Now an exception that's built into like the definition of what a gift is, is that it doesn't include rebates or discounts that get offered to the general public. And it also doesn't include those discounts that are offered to all city employees. Now a gift is reportable even if you discard it, unless it's a ticket for a one-time event. We'll see how that plays out. Or if you give it to someone else, it's still reportable. A gift is not reportable, however, if within 30 days you return it unused or you pay for it or you also deliver it to a 501c3 charity. You could do that or to another government agency such as the city. Some gifts have their own unique rules such as wedding gifts and they're not reportable but they are subject to the annual limit. And there are many exceptions to gifts. As I was saying, there's at least 30 of them. And a few of the common ones that we see include gifts that come from family members, free or discount admission to local seminars, hospitality in a friend's home, and then also gifts received in a bona fide dating relationship. And again, that's not our term. That's in state law, the bona fide dating relationship. So if you think you're in a relationship, that's good enough for us. These two different gift exceptions do not apply if your friend is a lobbyist in these different hypotheticals. So if a city official is in an ongoing social relationship in which both parties are only paying for each other's lunches, movie tickets, screen fees, etc., then there's no gift that the official is receiving as long as that official has substantially paid for what he or she received. So, I mean, that's pretty easy. It basically offset the value that you're receiving and the value that you're giving out. The second one is called long-term personal friendships, and this is a gift exception. Items received from a long-term personal friend are not gifts if the friend is not engaged in any type of city business involving you, the official, during the past 12 months. And then also, it's not foreseeable the friend will engage in any sort of city business involving you, the official, next 12th. So there's just a backward and forward-looking component to that. But like I said, I mean, those are just some of the common gift exceptions that we see, but there are a lot that apply. So feel free to ask us, reach out if you have a question about accepting a gift. Now, another exception applies for a ceremonial role, and this would be like throwing out the first pitch, say at like a Padres game or cutting the ribbons at an award ceremony, et cetera. So your admission to that event, if you're providing the ceremonial role, would not be considered a gift. However, lunch at the event is not covered under the exception. So, if you're accepting lunch, I mean, it possibly could be reportable. It depends on the value of lunch. It also depends on who's giving it who the source is. The same would apply to a staffer in this situation. So, if a staffer is assisting an official, then their admission to this event, which the performance ceremonial role is on a gift. But the same with them as far as lunch goes. If they receive lunch, then it possibly could be a gift. Now, there's also further documentation depending on whether the event is ticketed or invitation only. If it's ticketed, then what the city has to do, the city is under this obligation, which means their volunteers are under this obligation to fill out this form 802 and get it posted with the city clerk, just essentially describing what the transaction is, just the details of the ceremonial role that you're playing, et cetera. Now in terms of home hospitality, if hospitality is provided by someone in their home, which gets defined broadly, then it's not a gift to you if you accept the hospitality. As long as the host is present and as long as relationship with the host is unrelated to your same position. So not a work front, hopefully a friend from some pre-existing context. And next, I just want to get into the reportable value of what a gift is. Now, the reportable value of gift is face value. So it's going to be right there on the ticket. It's pretty easy to ascertain. But the reportable value of a gift that's not a ticket is generally going to be the fair market value as opposed to, or excuse me, as of the date of receipt that you got the gift. So that's a little bit harder to figure out because you have to like either Google what comparable items sell for, say on Amazon or some other free market service. You want to see what it goes for and make this reasonable approximation on your form 700. And this is because the onus is on you as the official to make this reasonable approximation in declaring what the gift's value is. You have to, a gift that's accepted, if it's, as I said, if it's used, then once you have a receipt of the gift, that's when it becomes reportable. And we'll see how that plays out in a hypothetical that I've got coming up. Now gifts include tickets, invitations, and events. So if you receive a ticket to an event and tickets are available for purchase by the general public, then the value of the gift, as I was saying, is simple. It's just the face value on the ticket. However, if you attend an invitation-only event, such as a banquet, a party, or a gala, then the value of the gift is gonna be your pro rata share of what you've received. So that would usually break down along the lines like the catering services that you received, any entertainment at the event itself, any tangible items that were given out to all attendees. And we have a form on our website to send to the host of these events to get that information. Basically, the host will break down what your pro rata share is, and then you take that number, assuming you think that's reasonable, and you put it on your Form 700. Now tickets to fundraisers for political campaigns and also for 501 organizations for nonprofits, they get exempt for you. So there's a gift exception for that. And also it's exempt for a friend. So, or a plus one, it could be your spouse in this situation. If you bring your spouse and you don't have to report your spouse's value as well, as long as fundraising is occurring, and also as long as say like that political committee or the organization directly gave you the tickets the event now this stuff is detailed but we have a fact sheet on our website if you're interested um figure out basically that how to navigate tickets invitations but like i said please just feel free to call if you think you're in a gray area now there's also gift exception for gifts to family members So generally a gift given to a family member is not a gift to you if there is an established working or social relationship between the donor and the family member. That's gonna be the first element. And the second being that there's no evidence suggesting an intent to influence your actions as an official. And that would be the second element. So basically, like evidence of intent to influence you is if a lobbyist were actually giving the gift, that would be intent to actually influence you. So that would be prohibited. If you and any other family member of your immediate family receive a gift jointly, say a TV or a timeshare or something, a weekend at a timeshare, then the reportable value of the gift is the gift's full value. So you wouldn't take a percentage of what you receive. Even though you're splitting the value of what it is with your family who received it, you would report the full value. And then a little bit getting into the weeds here for this gifts for family members exception. Your family includes children between 18 and 23 who are full or part-time students and do not provide over one half of their own support. So that's just how it gets defined at the state level. So the next going on with gifts, next slide talks about honoraria and travel expenses. And basically they're two subsets of what a gift is. So honoraria are payment for speeches or for authoring articles or attending events. And as section 87, 200 filers in the government code, you guys are statutory filers. So you can't accept honoraria point blank from anybody. So honoraria is not something that can be accepted. And travel expenses are also a form of a gift. They're defined as transportation, lodging, or meals. And if they're paid by a federal, state, or local government entity such as the city, then they're not a gift if the travel is related to your city job. Now, travel expenses paid by 501 organization for legislative or governmental purpose are not subject to the gift limits, but they are reportable and they may trigger your recusal in who offered the travel, et cetera. And again, none of this is supposed to like, none of this implicates that there's any wrongdoing by any member on the planning commission. It's all basically just to remove the appearance of what would be improper. So travel rules, as you can see, can be complicated. Um, and again, takeaway is please just call before accepting travel. And this is one thing that you definitely want to catch on the front end, because sometimes travel is prohibited. Like if it exceeds the gift limit, but a lot of times it is permissible. It's just going to be reportable on your end. Um, but, but like I said, you guys, you want to contact just to figure out before accepting the travel, whether you can or cannot. Now I just have one quick case vignette on this subject. So a local consulting firm is hosting a seminar regarding homelessness in the city of San Diego. And the firm offers you free admission to the seminar. And the question is, can you accept the offer? And the answer is that yes, you can accept. have you received a reportable gift and the answer here is that you have not received a reportable gift because there's a gift exception it furthers your city duties so there's there's no gift there if you receive lunch however at the seminar then it's possibly reportable again it depends on the source of the lunch and the value and whether of the sources given gifts in the past And then also if the seminar is in Hawaii, then all of a sudden travel and hotel expenses get included. And that makes the analysis a little bit more difficult in our rent. So we just need time to look at who's offering the travel, what role you'd be performing, et cetera. Um, but like I said, a lot of travel is acceptable, especially for your city job, but it really depends if it's like an outside travel. It's more on the vacation side of of the ledger than we would want to know. Um, exactly the details, but. That's it for gifts and now I just want to get over Megan and go over the next concept and hopefully we'll get you guys out here. Sure, yeah, not 1 more right before the travel 1. ah, Okay. Excuse me. I'm sorry. I have one more gift hypothetical just to go over with you guys. So you're invited to attend an invitation-only celebration party hosted by the Padres after they win the World Series. You're told the cost of food and beverages at the party is $250. You attend the event but only stay for a few minutes and you don't eat or drink anything. Have you received a reportable gift? And the answer here is that you haven't. And good thing, thank you, Megan, for noting this because this is a common one that we see. It basically is called like the drop-in exception. It says if you drop into an event invitation only and you don't stay for the main meal or the feature entertainment, then you haven't received a gift. So even if you ate a few appetizers before you left, you'd still qualify for having dropped in. So that means that there's no gift reporting on your end things. However, if you save for the entire event, obviously then that exception is off the table. You'd have to report $250. And then also, if you brought a guest with you, then all of a sudden you have to report double that value. So $500, just because a plus one would be attributed to you and reportable on your form 700. Now with that, I just wanna pass it off to go over one more concept.

Hello again. We are almost done. So close. Okay, so I'm going to talk about future employment. And these are things to keep in mind in your role as planning commissioners if you or your immediate family are seeking future employment with a private company. And there's an important note here. AB1286, this is what I talked about a little bit earlier, AB 1286 requires public officials listed in Government Code Section 87-200, which all of you are, to disclose on their Form 700 any arrangement for prospective employment. And arrangement for prospective employment is defined as an agreement pursuant to which a prospective employer's offer of employment has been accepted by the prospective employee, including through verbal or written acceptance. So if you're accepting a new job, you're going to have to disclose it on your Form 700. This is the thing that I said we don't know yet where it's going to go. The FPPC is going to weigh in at their November 20th meeting about where exactly that will go. But under this new rule, public officials who are required to disclose this must disclose four things. the date that the filer accepted the employer's offer of employment, two, the business position, three, a general description of the business activity of the prospective employer, and four, the name and street address of the prospective employer. So if you're really curious, you can tune in at the November 20th meeting, but this is something that's going to get worked out very soon and in advance of the April 1st filing deadline, which will be next year. So the general rule for future employment is that you may not use your position to influence any decision that may affect a future private employer for you or a member of your immediate family. And if you come across this situation, you must recuse yourself from matters involving that future private employer. and this prohibition applies if number one you've submitted an application or a bid or two you've talked to someone with hiring authority about a job and this rule doesn't prohibit you from seeking this future employment it just protects the city by attempting to remove the possibility of bias to the extent you're looking for this new job and an important caveat you keep hearing me say private entity it does not apply if you're seeking a job with a public agency so if you're looking for a job with the county or the state this wouldn't apply So our last vignette for the day, Monica, the planning commissioner. She's also a partner in a local architectural firm. The commission has been asked to consider a permit that would allow a local developer to convert a downtown apartment building to condominiums. One day she runs into the developer who tells her he's accepting bids for the design of a separate small commercial building in Pacific beach. Monica indicates that her firm is definitely interested and asked about the deadline to submit a bid. Monica then participates in the commission's decision regarding the condo conversion. The question is, has monica violated the ethics ordinance and here yes monica has violated the ethics ordinance and instead of voting um she should have recused herself from the commission's decision decision regarding the condo conversion and why um the policy here is that when monica votes on the um condo conversion we don't know is she voting because she really thinks that's the right move or is she voting because she wants to impress her potential um future employer here so monica needs to recuse herself and the fact that she didn't means she violated the ethics ordinance So now I'm going to turn it over to Brynn to tell you how our office can help going forward.

All right. So we like to say contact us. There are no bad questions, but things can go wrong if you don't ask the right question at the right time. We do provide, as I mentioned, technical advice on these ordinances. We provide both verbal and written advice. And what I mean by that is you can email us, you can call us. But if you've asked for a formal opinion, that usually goes through our commission and then is posted publicly. We haven't seen that kind of request in quite some time. Understandably, people don't want to air their ethics questions, but that is available to you if that becomes important in some way. Formal written advice does provide immunity, so there is a benefit to asking for a formal written advice. That is immunity from enforcement by us, the Ethics Commission. Advice from another department on a government ethics question does not provide immunity. But again, we don't have an attorney-client relationship. Of course, your attorney-client relationship is with the city attorney. So I want to emphasize that we give technical advice and are only able to give technical advice on these laws for future action. And you have been asked to be a part of the planning commission because of your expertise in the area in which you work. And that expertise is of great value to the city. and we thank you for that. I venture to guess that though your role on the planning commission is probably more fraught than other volunteers who work for, or excuse me, volunteer for the city of San Diego because of the nature of what you do outside of being a planning commissioner, right? There is a nexus between what you do on the planning commission and what you do outside the planning commission. And so you always have to be thinking about how what you do outside of the planning commission can intersect with your work on the planning commission. I know I don't really need to tell you that, but it's something that we think about when you call us with your questions and when we're preparing to do this training. So that's why Future conduct. If you need to call us, please call us soon. Call us early so that we can assist you for future conduct issues. Last, Our website has a lot of information. You could spend a month on our website. It has a lot of fact sheets and several fact sheets that are very germane to the ethics questions that are unique to your commission. So please feel free to use that. resource. Our contact information is on the last slide. And I just want to thank Megan and Ryan for their expertise today. And thank you very much for taking the time to put us on an agenda to provide you guys the training, especially on such a busy day. And also thank you for your service.

Okay, that adjourns our hearing for today.