Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay.

no that's fine we're about to go live recording in progress thank you guys

Welcome to the regular meeting of the Planning Commission on Tuesday, February 24th, 2026. This meeting is called to order. Margaret, please call the roll.

Yes, Madam Chair. Commissioner Silvamini.

Here.

Commissioner Saade. Here. Commissioner Summers.

Here.

We are waiting on Commissioners Haveman and Mercado, but we do have a quorum and we have an excused absence from Commissioner Alvarez this evening.

And I'm here too. I meant to ask that. Chair Rodby. Thank you. Now to the order of the agenda, are there any commissioners that would like to change the agenda? Nope. Nope. Okay. Thank you. So next we'll move the meeting procedures. The City of San Rafael is committed for all to participate. Did I miss something? No. Okay. In our public meetings. I want to welcome everyone that are making the time this evening to participate. Margaret, can you tell us how public comment will work this evening? Yes, ma'am.

Tonight's meeting is being recorded and streamed live to YouTube. Viewers can also watch directly through Zoom using the link on the agenda or by dialing 669-444-9171 and entering the meeting ID, which is 826-8602-8480-POUND. We are offering closed captioning for this evening's meeting on Zoom. Select the live transcript button on Zoom to enable the feature. If you're experiencing any technical difficulties, please email me at margaret.kavanaugh-lynch at cityofsanrafelde.org. That's easily found if you look for the planning manager on the website. In order to provide oral testimony, speakers must be present. Displayed on the podium is a timer to help you stay within the allotted time frame. You are invited, though not required, to introduce yourself and say what part of San Rafael you reside in or if you live from outside the city. For future meetings, if you would like to request accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act to provide public comment virtually or remotely, please submit your request to me at least 72 hours in advance of the meeting using the email already noted for consideration.

Thank you, Margaret. Next on the agenda is oral communications for the public. Remarks during this section should not be on items on the agenda and may be anything within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Planning Commission. You may have up to two minutes. Are there any public comments? Thank you.

Good evening. I am Joe Farnsworth. I'm with the Small Business Administration. I'm here because Marin County was added to the disaster declaration and I'm asking your support in providing information to the public to make the public aware that Federal disaster loans are available to assist with recovery rebuilding from the king tides and the tidal floodings that happened December 31st through January 5th. We currently have a disaster loan outreach center located in San Rafael at 1600 Los Gamos Drive on the third floor in room 301. Their customer service reps are available to assist with disaster loan applications, explain eligibility in terms of and terms, provide mitigation and refinancing information, and answer questions about economic injury disaster loans. They will be closing up on Friday. Their hours are 10.30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Next week, they will be moving to Stinson Beach, and then the week following to Corte Madera. Um, loans are for up to 2 million for businesses and nonprofits up to 500,000 for homeowners, real property up to 100,000 for personal property with interest rate as low as 4% for businesses to 3.625 for nonprofits, 2.875% for homeowners and renters. The terms are up to 30 years. There are no payments and no interest accrued for 12 months from first disbursement. A lot of applicants use the federal assistance while waiting for insurance to pay out from the damages occurred during these Title floodings, they would use the loan and then once the insurance is paid to quickly pay back in order to not accrue any penalties or interest for utilizing that loan. The application deadline for physical damages is April 6th. And for the economic injury for businesses, we're talking about assistance for working capital, equipment, and even personal property and property damages as well. I do have a packet here, the leave with the planning commission. I will be sure to get a digital copy to everyone present by email as well by end of the week. If there's no questions, thank you so much for your time.

I have a quick, sorry, SBA is small business.

Small business administration.

Administration, okay, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your time. Have a great evening. You too.

So we have one action item, but the draft minutes of January 13th to 2026. Does anybody have a command or an edit? And if not, can I get a motion to approve?

I'll approve.

I'll second.

Margaret, can you call the roll, please?

Yes, Madam Chair.

Commissioner Summers?

Yes. Commissioner Saade? Yes. Commissioner Salvamini?

Yes.

Chair Rodby? Yes. Motion passes unanimously.

So there are no action items this evening, so we will move to the director's report. And Margaret, can you give the staff report, please?

Good evening, Madam Chair, members of the Planning Commission. Margaret Cavanaugh Lynch, planning manager with me is Greg Miner, deputy director of the Community and Economic Development Department, and we're pleased to give you a basically an overview in part of the study session that was shared with the City Council on February second, and We've added a new information. We've customized it for the planning commission. So basically an overview, and I know most of you watch this at home, so I apologize if this is redundant, but you can ask us questions, and we also have some more things to add to it. So thank you for coming out on this cold evening. purpose of this study session is to go over the state laws that are now in effect that were used here in San Rafael. As you all know, there's dozens of state laws, but we really saw one over and over and over again. And that's the one we want to focus on for this discussion. And no one knows better than the four of you how that What law that was when it took a little bit more about the development activity that we've seen since two thousand and twenty one. That's not a accidental number. That's when our general plan and downtown precise plan went into effect. So basically this is a report back on how those documents are doing among other things. um we'd like to share with you the report out of what we heard at the council uh study session as far as especially on the future or all the planning commission um in terms of development projects and finally i want to give you a a highlight basically a highlight reel of the discussion of anticipated projects that are the long-range planning items that you'll be seeing in 2026 and some early 2027s um so um When we presented this to the City Council, we explained a lot about the state density housing laws. I know this audience knows just as much as I do about those laws, so we're just going to cut to the chase here. We had 18 projects in the city of san rafael since 2021 there's some caveats so that we can get into it but the short of it is um 17 of them use the state density bonus law and this is multi-family housing only right it's not single family it's not any it's not commercial only but what we've seen is a lot of multi-family housing projects and all but one use the state path one used in sb 35. So what you know, but I will say for anyone listening at home that might have missed the Council version of this report is there is very little discretion for cities and state density bonus law housing projects. And for what it's worth, there is no discretion at all on the ministerial housing projects. In this case, we have one SB 35. further under the state housing accountability act cities can only deny or decrease density if a project would have a significant quantifiable direct and unavoidable impact upon the public health and safety and there's no feasible method to satisfactorily mitigate or avoid that adverse impact um so as you've experienced firsthand that's a very very high bar the good news is this is how our plans were designed right we uh the general plan 2040 and more recently the housing element which was adopted in 2023 has a number of policies and programs that again since they mostly came to the they came to the planning commission and i think at least two of you were on the commission at the time um we are we have a pro-housing stance we want People who grew up in this community and people who want to live in this community to be able to find housing in this community. It's the Council's been very clear about that. There's a number of programs or policies I could have put on here. I just went with a theme. So, and I'm not going to read these two, but I will hit the underscore. Um, we're supposed to focus on future housing. Um, We're driving alternatives to driving is most viable and we're supported. We are called to support downtown's continued growth with quality residential environment. Our housing element has a policy that says we are going to apply for a pro housing city status with the State of California, and there's a number of criterion to that. But in spirit, we already are going that way. And finally, we are called. We are also mandated, but we are called. We leaned in to implement state and local density bonus housing programs. So The good news is, and what one of the things we've heard of the City Council is years, and there's more on the slide, too. But there's four years of effort went into those documents. They're working as they're designed to work right. So that's the the community spent nights and weekends, as did you on those documents. You as the planning commission, and We we are actively trying to add housing. Um! So those policies and programs are there. There's one more program I didn't put on a slide, but it basically said in the housing element. You should come back in five years and check in and see how the general plan and precise plan and the housing element is doing. And that city session in front of the Council and this tonight is the beginning of that check in so that's we are, we are in alignment with what the hopes were of all those folks who did all that work for those many years.

Sorry.

Okay, by the numbers um. Since 2021, we've so this is as of January 17th. That was when we were preparing the PowerPoint for the City Council. It's also my birthday, so I stuck with it. But so these these numbers have shifted a little bit since then, but that this is this.

It's important to recognize your bias.

I just want to I don't want to I don't want to keep that below below the table here. Whether so these numbers have shifted a little bit these numbers are true right so preliminary review is a. Non formal it's an informal submitting submittal to the city of San Rafael what a committee is. it's not a it's not a formal project yet, but they intend to come in and. The I know for a fact that. One of the big projects that's in that preliminary review was just formally submitted. So, like, they really do sometimes come in. Sometimes they go away, but sometimes they come in and they're often often filed under SB three thirty. That's another state law. So if they file the preliminary review that locks in all of the codes, the fees, it holds the table still. So the development team knows what they're trying to design for. It's a I think it's an outstanding law. It has a lots of parts and pieces, but preliminary reviews like this is what we think we want to build. And these are we want to lock in the codes that you're using now so that things don't shift as they go through the process.

Absolutely. So with that, so because I'm fairly new here, so I don't know, understand some sometimes the process because some of the some of the projects that were already proposed or preliminary reviewed have used a new law. So how do we I mean, it seems like the playing field always changes for us. So whether we have agreed to something when a law whatever what was what was PB, Peter Vitale PB, Peter Vitale MCB4- Within the law for the for the planning Commission, it seems now that they've before it comes to us they've changed they kind of changed the starting line or the finish line. to adapt to what they really need and change some of their things.

Yes, there's two ways a project can modify itself as it goes through the process. If you submitted, not you personally, but if a person submits a preliminary review application or an SB 330 preliminary review application, they have 180 days to make a formal submittal. um in that time they can change their project approximately 20 percent like so it's 100 units it could be 120 units etc and it's still got that safety harbor of those are the codes those are the fees that's what you're going to have to finance for right because it comes down to their return on their investment um once a project's entitled Our codes require them to vest that and there's that's a legal term. But let me step back from that. They were supposed to pull file building permits, pull building permits and put a shovel in the ground. That's one possible way you can invest in that to your window or those entitlements could vanish. We, being pro housing, have allowed at least one of the projects that comes to mind, maybe two to reapply or extend their entitlement out. So seven Oh, three third, for example, is under construction right now, but it actually came in originally before the precise plan. But it was a they. It's a housing project. They've got their footing. They came back. It was actually, I think, purchased by another developer, and they're like, We're ready to go, and we're ready for housing. So there was a perfect match. So those are the two ways that things can change a bit, or there's a window to discuss it more. Usually, when a project comes to the Planning Commission, they've done all their due diligence. They've invested tens of thousands of dollars even before the objective design standards became a solid topic for planning commissions across the State. they are it's they were very development teams be very reticent to change much because they've just done all those plans and they'd have to go get a new cad well you know it's not millions of dollars to redo your cad and i've got architects that can help me with that but um they they they think millions they've they think it's cooked and they're they've done a lot of uh City Council Chambers, Engagement on their own to get to that point, and so that and now, with the objective design standards there's very little movement on anything when it gets to the Commission, they know exactly what they have it. So as of January seventeenth, there was a hundred and one units that were in that we think we're coming in category. There was five hundred and thirty-five units that were formally submitted, so they were assigned a project planner. They were. We were doing a completeness review, etc. One thousand one hundred and eighty-three had received an approval or entitlement. So then that's worth noting that includes phase one of North Gate. That's got some town homes, the residential one project, which is town homes on the on the kind of the southern border. We only included phase one of North Gate in this entire chart. So there's a whole other phase, but I didn't want to. This is this is impactful enough. I didn't want people to think so entitled only because we know they're coming in with residential one rather soon. So that's that's that's entitled and moving towards you. At that time there was 331 appealed. Both appeals have gone to Council. Both appeals were denied in case you haven't been that close in as you had other things you were doing that night. 700 Erwin and 10 33rd are approved. that was a long meeting yes that was that was that was one of the longer ones i think for council um 368 are under construction and again that only includes um what's happening at northgate phase one we're not i didn't want to scare you further and there was 192 units that had gone through all of that process and were built so that that's where those numbers come in so all in Two thousand, seven hundred and ten dwelling units in our pipeline, as they call it coming coming soon to a city near you. Now there is a moment between appealed. I mean, entitled and under construction. And again, I've got two professionals. I'm sitting on my commission. There's there's a funding discussion that happens. You know, there's pre there's the plans are, I think they used to call them 80% plans. I don't know if they're called that anymore. That are the entitled set. And then there's, oh, did you want mechanical, electrical and plumbing and structural and very expensive reports and studies and how that works. When an entitled project submits a building permit, I take a deep breath. It makes me super happy. And when they pull them, I'm even happier because that means they have their construction financing. So that's just stuff in the background. But not everything entitled gets built. Funny thing happens. Economies change. Materials become more expensive than they thought when they priced them out a year ago or two years ago. But we will see much of this. And in case there's any question about how this looks according to past years, it's a lot more um so uh you can see on the chart that between 2010 and 2014 there was about 150 units built i'm only using built everything else isn't fair that far back right um 2015 to 2020 it was closer to 300 just a touch more than 300 units built and if you're you can see the two colors of that chart on the screen If we build everything in our pipeline, we're over in the 350, 380 range. So it's as hectic as you think it is. And I want to just respect all of the time and effort that each of you have put in to review those projects. That's a lot of units. I've worked in several cities in the East Bay and the North Bay and other states. This is a boom by anyone's measurement. We are a city that is adding housing at a very steady rate. Not only have we seen more projects and more units coming in, there's been a lot of work done by the director, the deputy director and the planning staff to decrease the processing time of development projects. Every development project has its story. And I also want to acknowledge that from the development team side, they think of a project starting when they're in pre-app stage. These are formal submittal dates. So that's I was just trying to do apples to apples in some way. So to give you a vibe. But right, 1010 Northgate Walk was submitted in April of 2016. Y'all remember DRB. They did a few of those. They went to Planning Commission for a study session in October of 2018. There was some more DRB study sessions that appear on this chart. And the project was approved at the Commission by July of 2019. project was better for the reviews that it got, but it took a long time. And now the state of California would not allow this process to have happened. Right? 1033rd Street, which was the project that was appealed, and I want to say before it was formally submitted, that site was delisted as a historic resource based on a historic evaluation that was done. So to be fair, the development team, if they were there, would include that in their timeline. But when the project itself was formally submitted, It was February 6 of last year, and it was approved in November 18 of the same year. So we've gone from years to months, and it's gotten harder. I will tell you, just from a staff standpoint, that's not whining. That's really just factual. We used to go, the project's submitted. We'd route it out. Hey, building. Hey, fire. What do you guys think? Let us have your comments. We would do a completeness check. We would do a SQL review, and we'd bring it to you. We have to do a completeness check based only on the checklist that's on the page when they submitted their Sp. Three thirty pre-application. So we have years back. We've got much more detailed in our checklist, because that's the only things we can ask for. And then we do a consistent ticket when they get to complete. We do a consistency review. consistent with objective design standards and policies that are objective in the city's adopted documents. So anything that's a goal, anybody would know you can't put a driveway that close to the intersection is not an objective design standard, right? So we are having to codify All of it, and then find it. Make sure that public works is giving us all of their objective design standards that fire is giving their objectives that police all those so that we have that measuring sick to look at the project against. We get one shot, and if it's not on that list, we can't hold a project to it. There's probably legal exceptions, and I feel like I can almost hear Andrea, even though she's not here tonight. There's probably exceptions to that, but that is how the standard practice goes now. That's we never did a consistency review. It's a two years ago. So I mean, yeah, so that's it's it's good. It's again what this results in is a very intense review of the project at least three times. And everybody has the same copy of the rules. That's a really good thing. But I'll tell you that cities didn't have to do that whole consistency review at all. You were just supposed to know where the driveway was supposed to be right. So so it's gotten harder. We've gotten we've gotten very efficient. We've got standard procedures now that we weren't in place when I sat down two and a half years ago. The city went through Covid like lots of things that were working before Covid didn't work after Covid. I have a lot of respect for the former directors and planning managers and staff that were here, but we've really worked hard on doing our best work as quickly as possible. So that's just something to to point towards. That was also, by the way, a goal in our general plan. So Along with this boom, we are very aware that that's impacting our city services. So this is just kind of a piece of good news along the way here that we have impact fee studies underway right now. The park impact fee study is now complete. Traffic mitigation fee is underway. and public safety fees analysis are kicking off. And that's all in working with our other departments collaboratively. But this effort is within the community and economic economic development department. So it's it's collaborative and a pretty significant lift. But it's this is how we keep our quality of life while we're adding more units to our city. And lastly, this is just a slide to show you the heights, because I think of all the things we've heard, I understand that density is translated into traffic, but height seems to be a touch point or a friction point for us all. So you can see we've had three at three stories, three at six stories, four at eight stories, 13 stories is right across the street. That's Fifth Street, right? And you know where the 17 story project is at. So It's nothing. Nothing to see.

One with a couple more people in the room.

Yeah, that and the other room. Okay, so I know that most of you, if not all of you watched that. So I just wanted to kind of go over it and I skipped the slide about how density bonus projects work because I figured you guys would start throwing paper at me. But yeah, that's what the council heard. That's what the community heard. We are definitely, the plans are working as intended. And we checked back in and the council, there wasn't unanimous things said on this, but they're mostly, the majority of the council members present said Yes, I remember all those nights I remember those community meetings I remember the charrette I remember the farmers market and all the sticky boards. That was the will of the people, and we are, we are going this way, so that was it was really good to hear that because I wasn't present for that, so it was great to hear. That we are standing behind that we like it, we want to visit maybe refine but we're not going to reopen the general plan in a significant way. Question two was, should the staff research the role of the Planning Commission with respect to the review of housing developments? And that was in direct response to what we have seen in this chambers with you. the fact that i was joking with greg that one slide you're not going to have because it wouldn't been professional but it was in my mind to do it of having a person pointing at you saying your hands are tied right the the frustration um in some members of our community why can't you and they look it's very personal they're looking right at you how can you let this happen like One of the things I've done in my spare time in my past was I was a commissioner for eight years in El Cerrito. So I know what it's like to try to buy milk after a hearing. And it's just, it isn't personal at all, but it sure can feel personal. And if you're running into the people in stores and they sometimes look at you, it, again, could feel personal. A couple of commissioners did pull me aside and say they were concerned about being in your seats, presiding over hearings for development projects, but having very little authority to do anything other than what we pointed out, like health, safety, welfare, way up here. So we asked the question. And I think the council came back, and that was one of the things they were. A clear majority, as it added there, and it was in this clip from your staff report of it, They want you to continue to hold the hearings for the housing projects. But I want to make sure I tell you the why that I heard that night. This is where the community understands how the sausage is made right. This is We try in our staff reports to explain the context. We try to frame the legal discussion. We will have folks here always to help explain, and you can say, Staff, can you please tell us again why we don't have more jurisdiction over this topic? And we will tell everyone over and over again, because most people are busy with their lives until they get a hearing notice near them. Right? So explaining the why, explaining where The authority comes from what what authority, we still have. They feel is a very important step in transparency for local government and. I know at least one of you, but probably more of you also felt like no, this is, this is where we roll up our sleeves and we talked about it, so I just we did ask and I. City Council Chambers, made a pretty good plea, but the Council was clear that this is something they would like you to continue to do so, that was the report, we wanted to bring back to you for for your information. City Council Chambers, which now brings me to where we have something new to talk about a little bit it was in your report but. What are your powers and duties like? How did we get here? Right? So this is municipal code section to something something. Um, and there's eight different things and I'm not going to read you that slide because that would be terrible. But these are the things that the municipal code of the city center fell believes the planning commission has purview over. You get the big subdivisions, you get the conditional use permits that are either brought up to you because they're controversial or they're really big in the first place and controversial. Environmental design review permits is a long way of saying those housing projects and new mini storage and new commercial centers big building big building outsides is what that translates to. An appeal of the director comes to you that's that's completely makes a lot of sense and anything that you as a body do gets appealed to the Council. And then there's the other matters, which is that thing that in your job descriptions that you probably saw at some point other duties as assigned. So anything where someone's like, this is kind of crazy. Let's run in front of the planning commission and get their input. Most of those I would say especially two, three and four are governed by those very strict laws when we're talking about housing projects. So and most of you have only seen items one through five and probably really items one through four. The thing about housing projects is and that's the majority of what we see. And the thing about development projects is the timelines are not negotiable. So whenever we have housing projects or current projects coming through the pipeline, we have to bring them to you in front of, and our staff resources have to be allocated to serve the current planning projects, because if we don't act on them, they are approved by right, and there's all kinds of litigation discussions that can fall out from there. So they always always have to be our priority. So and that's how We've typically done that in the city and honestly every other city I've been at that's under 100,000 population. Here's the other things that is in your power and duties list that don't typically make it to you, except for big huge lifts like the general plan and the precise plan and the housing element. City Council Chambers, General plan updates zoning text updates zoning map updates and any other land use matter that the Council would like to you're basically a sounding board for the Community right, you are. City Council Chambers, The body that here's the Community when they're concerned and they just got that hearing notice so whether we're changing at you laws or we're adding a six story building. you hold the space for the community to be heard and that's that's reflects this um i know that i don't know commissioner saude or commissioner rodby if you were here for the precise plan the general plan were you part of that fun yeah is that it was commissioner saude i was here for the housing element okay and i think maybe the

so hard six years it's been a minute yeah um but i was started on the drb so i did see some of it okay and that's where i think i saw this housing element okay oh the housing amount came in 2023 it wasn't but yeah so i've seen a number of those things come through okay so whether on the drb and i know commissioner summers you were on the drb for many years as well

There's a lot more all right, so I won't I won't give you a pep talk per se, but most of you have not seen any of these, which is where you can add the most value. So I want to, um, as mentioned in the staff report, um, Most of the power in cities today is in the long-range planning. It's in the creation of the objective design standards. It's in the refinement of the objective design standards. It's in the crafting of the codes. By the time it gets to the current planning stage, unless it was already written and adopted three years before in the SB 330 phase, it doesn't count. If I have a new code today that said something, I couldn't apply it to anybody. that's currently in the pipeline that's just how they have dibs it's they're already in these are the rules that they had they have the rules when they started it's fair it's appropriate but it that's when i watch the community get so concerned like whether we need to address this differently we should do something now it's like yes yes and that's it's a that's a slow curve up to up up an ordinance that we can apply to a housing project So one of the things that has happened kind of slowly at first in September, late September, we did a reorg in CED, and I have been given the role of long-term planning. I help, I assist, I back up, I try to be a good team player, but I am your long-range planner because that's the vision of the director. That's what makes sense. We need to get ahead and do the refinements as soon as possible. And in that vein, you're going to see a general plan amendment, which is, it's just fun. Like, this is one of the finest general plan amendments you're ever going to see. AB 2140. is state law that's a few years old that says, if the fire department would like to have more money after a catastrophe, it'd be cool if they put their local hazard mitigation plans, which they've already, they did those last year in San Rafael, put those in the, they call it the safety element, but they're a safety and resilience element. So we're just amending our general plan, but we're putting in this so that we get in line for grants. That's something else that long range planning does. better than anything ever is help be in alignment for grant opportunities. It's like, oh, you want that sentence? Give us two meetings and an adoption and I'm right there. So the fire department came to us and said, do you think you could help us with that? And I'm like, how's March? So that's where they'll be here. And Quinn herself will be here. So you can ask her all kinds of really cool fire questions. And then we're bringing it's called but in in the staff side it's the low hanging fruit. zoning modifications to provide clarity. Things like our definition section, which is going to then impact the use charts because I can't make a word up over here and not show it on the US chart so that's doing very low hanging. The Venn diagram between common sense and zoning doesn't overlap very much, but it'd be good to update our definitions so that they make sense to common folks who really don't want to speak zoning. I think that I think it's a really great goal to make zoning at least transparent, right? It's still a legal term. It's still a bunch of stuff, but we're updating our definitions, and I'm working really hard to get the use charts to match those. And one of the things that came up during the appeal process was just common sense stuff. It's like you have five working days starting that night or starting the next morning, right? And that makes a big difference when someone's getting money together for an appeal. Just clarifying our processes and it's going to come to you in waves, so this is like the the the amount of stuff that I can pull together and make sure everyone gets a chance to review and they're comfortable with but that's march 10. There's a little bit more coming up the next four slides, and this is just a highlight reel like there's so much more we could do. But so they draft a new local process based on incentives is another question we asked the City Council. You know what? We don't have a lot of local control that's true, but There is a path that we were trying to craft where if they want to come forward with a project that does not meet the minimums for the state density bonus law, so they don't meet that level of affordability, they meet this level. And they're, I don't know, eight stories and they agree to electrification. Like there's things that we have in our adopted documents that we would like to see. Maybe they're going to be ministerial. it's you know we have we have a few carrots so we're we're working as staff to try to pull those carrots together um as soon as we as soon as we have something that doesn't that seems to make sense and i want to run it by certain developers that we already know and um local developers and say does this make sense or is it going to be like the precise plan where we have that optional height thing that everybody promptly ignored. Like I know they ran it through a charrette, but it didn't actually come to fruition. So I want to test drive it a bit. And if it does seem to have any traction at all, it'll be coming to you. Everything. The Planning Commission is a recommending recommendation body. Sorry, English. um for every code or general plan change so you're not the body of action but you recommend and you edit and you tell me geez margaret i don't know where you're going with this but you should rephrase it right so you're my you're my think tank so uh the incentives plan the we're supposed to make sure that everything in the general plan is in the zoning code but i will tell you that it's not quite that way so we have to go through and align There's allowed uses in the general plan under certain sections of certain parts of our Community that doesn't show up in his own encode and you just have to know to look so that's not crazy and it's hard on small businesses so we're going to update our codes was in line with their general plan. State would like us to update our accessory dwelling unit ordinance every six months so we're going to bring it up to date and do our best SP nine has changed, we want to bring that up that's the. It's another really great state law that we haven't seen much of in San Rafael, but it's basically the ability for people with single family homes and large lots to add more homes and separate their lots and add housing almost in a much more non impactful way. That's not exactly English, but you know what I mean? And then the hillside ordinance has been a topic of discussion with a particular commissioner and others. It was designed at a time that no longer exists. So we need to, we need to reopen that. And that's going to be a lot of conversation about what, what's the goal? What are we trying to achieve? We don't want right orange houses on our hillside, but what do we want? And so how are we going to do that as a community? You are my think tank. Um, possible modifications to streamline and incentivize improvements of single family homes and businesses. We'd like to get out of people's way. We'd like them to invest in their homes and their small businesses. We'd like to help tenants do their improvements. Now, if it's a historic building, we have a different path. It's very important. That's tied to our sense of place. We have a wonderful historic downtown. However, we have some regulations that are out of date and we'd like to like i said hold the community values in place but get out of the way of things that really don't need to be at a hearing so we'll be bringing a list of that to you and then we will use your feedback to revise the code towards that direction um downtime precise plan we want to modify some objective design standards because we couldn't enforce them we've we've now test drove that document really well and there's a few more we'd like to actually have apply So we will be bringing all of those to you. Modifications for the rest of the city to the objective design standards. We have a very short. There's some in the municipal code in the zoning code. There's a sum that we have as a memo that's enforceable, but we'd like to flesh it out and do a more comprehensive review. I mean the downtown and downtown and Northgate are the two places we're seeing a lot of housing or a lot of new development in general. So we, we want to make sure that the community's values are in black and white and enforceable and can be pointed pointed to when a new project comes in. Oh, and by the way, there's two specific plans, right? So very exciting. The Southeast San Rafael specific plan is now underway. We had a bunch of back and forth with MTC. The funding source is the federal government. So I'll let you think about how challenging that was to get it all aligned. But it's underway. I met with our consultant team, WRT, today. And we're setting up the kickoff meeting. That is really exciting. Really, really exciting. That's also the most... So in the realm of planners, there are specific plans and then there's like really super juicy. This is going to be fun. It's really complicated. That's what the San Rafael East San Rafael specific plan is. We have so many challenges and opportunities. So it's going to be fun.

Can I ask a question? Yes, ma'am. To what extent is, can a commissioner get involved in the local planning? planning meetings around the Seminole specific plan for my, I mean, it's my district. Yeah. Is it acceptable to go to these meetings and

yes i will ask our city attorney to give you a written guidance on that but generally speaking you are an individual and you don't lose your individual rights um you have to be super careful about that looks good the chair approved it right so there's there's some back and forth that you have to be aware of but um i and i will ask our city attorney to give you written information but you City Council Chambers, At the very least, you will be you're allowed to observe right so that's happening and then. City Council Chambers, These are twin it's called oh bag mtc is the metropolitan transportation Commission i'll start with that one I don't know what it stands for but it's a grant. City Council Chambers, One Bay area grant Thank you Greg minor saves me one Bay area grant has cycles and the bag three. We got the former staff applied for and received two grants for approximately say about $800,000 each. I will tell you, for the specific plan for East San Rafael, we are trying to, with our partners, trying to find additional funding because it's just that fun and it's just that complicated. But these are twins. They are both granted at the same time. They both run on their same grant cycle. The Northgate RFP includes them all. It includes the land adjacent to the mall. It does not actually include the smart station proper. There must have been a solid reason for that. I don't I'm still researching it and I'm actually going to reject the former director, but it's it is separated by an entire large cemetery. So the cemetery itself isn't in it. And then the smart station just south to that isn't. But all of the commercial industrial area adjacent to and some of the residential of to the Northgate Mall is in the Northgate RFP. That was launched two weeks ago on Friday, and we had a pre-bid meeting Monday. I've had 24 people show up to ask questions and get ready to submit. So I'm excited that we might get a robust response to that proposal request and get that underway. Those are both due to be completed by June of 2028. That is when the OBAG 3 grant money stops. So it's not too short amount of time, but this is not going to be maybe we should stop and study this over here. This is going to be very robust and compact specific plan process. So as citizens, you're allowed to go to meetings. And then as a commission, the drafts were coming to you. and if we get stuck on, I will tell you one of the things I like to use planning commissions for is if there's a controversial item, you are my favorite referees. I love to bring things because there's a decorum, there's a way to run a meeting, there's folks that understand what we're trying to achieve already seated. So if we're doing something and it starts to not feel like we're getting the answers we need or the input we need, You might see it more than a few times, but you definitely by law and by our own intent, the drafts all come to you. So and then the environmental documents come to you as well. So a lot of work is coming up on those two topics soon. So those are really that's the entire presentation. And it was informal. And I appreciate you asking questions. And if you have any other questions, Greg and I would love to hear how to how to help. You bet.

Bear with me here. So first question is, is how do they define health and safety in a project? So to me, that's as broad as anything else, because I know traffic doesn't fall into that, but crossing the street or getting from one place to the other, there's not really a clear, some of the projects we've looked at, granted it's close to railway systems and things, but what is health and safety? I think that's pretty broad. That's my first question.

I'm glad to start, and Greg, if you'd like to step in too. So everything in planning is now a legal term. It sounds like English. It is not English. It is attorney English. So health and safety used to be a finding in planning. Health and safety and welfare, that's the police powers in which the cities derive their power to be cities. So that's kind of how far it goes back. the when we talk about development projects and health and safety it's a defined term in state code and i don't have it this evening for you but i'm happy to email it out to all of you so that you have it but it's a very high bar and it's a two-part bar it has to We have to have an objective design standard that requires this thing that if you don't hit it, you are jeopardizing the health and safety of the city or the community. And we can't mitigate that impact in any way. Like, okay, so I don't want to give an example because I think it would take us in a direction that I don't think I could explain much more about. But it's not only there has to be this very high bar that somehow this project doesn't meet. And i'll tell you that 99.9% of the housing projects they're going to follow the building code. They're going to do a, you know, foundation design discussion to the nines before they go for their building permit, because they have to know how it's going to stand there in seismic zone for right. We are home of the earthquakes. So it's tough to hit it. There's a defined term, and I will get that for you. But not only do they have to hit it, if there's something that's fuzzy, we have to find a way to mitigate that. City Council Chambers. Before we can impact the density of a project or revise a project.

Can I ask a follow-up question to this? Just because I don't want to take a whole nother round. So there were City Council meetings for certain projects where not all the Council, but part of the Council approval of a project or didn't agree with approval of a project based on health and safety. I know there was talk about sequencing in the city council meeting too and about how we get there. So I think there is a tension between having this completeness review and the high bar and then even people up here saying this doesn't feel like it meets health and safety. I don't know exactly what my question is, but I think that we need maybe that's something we need to study further, but I do think. That health and safety point is like it's going to have to go through a lot of more rounds, but I think what the public wants to see is like. you know, I don't know, they want to see that, like, yeah, like, it actually meets it, although the project hasn't gotten far out enough for us to be able to, like, really see the nitty gritty, right?

Right, yeah. For example, the building code hasn't even been contemplated by the projects that you see, right? They, developers believe that the project they're showing you will be able to meet the building codes, you know, health and safety codes.

I mean, if we're going to question health and safety from what I'm hearing from you, it's got to be a very quantifiable and defined and in writing reason why we are saying no based on a health and safety thing. And not only we don't believe that what you're presenting meets that health and safety, but that you cannot mitigate it. So, I mean, that's what you're saying. I mean, it's a very hard bar to say, well, we don't think you're doing it and we don't think there's anything you could do about it. That's a huge bar to set. I think that's what we're being asked. If we do question that as commissioners, then we better be so studied on what they're asking for that we might. Here is why it doesn't work.

We're not qualified to say that.

Exactly. We're not building officials or fire captains or

I think the other thing is our qualifications. We, for the most part, are basically required to approve most of these projects because they've already gone through the work through your department and through staff and other departments to make sure that they meet the base requirements. So I think... part of the thing we do up here is say yes they meet all the standards because we know that the departments have said yes they meet all the standards um so we can't really use health and safety as i feel like we should be able to but i don't i guess i don't know how we could even say no this doesn't mean health and safety just outside of like um you know personal anecdote you know

It's really, it's very complex. I totally agree.

Our cities do have the ability. I mean, every city amends the building code. They have a section in our municipal code where we've amended the building code. If we don't, if a city believes that, um, For instance, you know, this is kind of all been rewritten anyways, but the WUI, okay, the Wildland Urban Interface, all the cities, San Rafael was one of the very few cities in the county that actually went with what the building code said for a long time that said the WUI standards and those fire standards were only applicable towards new structures.

Mm-hmm.

a remodel did not trigger you having to meet WUI requirements. If you did an addition on your house in a WUI zone, you didn't have to do all the WUI requirements on your addition because it wasn't a new structure. San Rafael was actually the outlier in the entire county. The rest of the county would require you, like, no, you have to use tempered windows and And maybe that's changed now, and I know the fire code's changed, but this is just an example that our towns do have the ability to amend the building code. I'm wondering if there's a vehicle, maybe not on the planning side, but from our fire department and our building code side to maybe planning as a discussion with those different agencies and say, hey, you guys have the ability to amend these kind of hard and fast things. safety and and human health and safety codes for our own local codes and bam now it's in writing and it's codified in our city yep no that's that's a vehicle to maybe you know ratchet those things up so it doesn't become a planning issue

Yes, that's a great idea.

But also for me, you two both are in the architect world and I'm not. So I look at health and safety and think, is that just about the actual building we're talking about? Or is that anything post the building being built, health and safety? So we build an 18-story building and it's a blind driveway that looked good on paper and it's legal, but two people get killed in a driveway. Okay. or injured in a driveway, is that health and safety? Does that come after the fact? So health and safety to me is so vague. And for a non-building person, it's very vague to me. And how, I mean, it seems like we can make health and safety almost anything. If a good attorney got health and safety, and I'm sure they could spin that around to mean almost anything.

Yes, there's case law that informs the definition. And it's so again, we have the Greg was reminding me to put the slide back up. So that's those are the two things you have to say in order to deny or decrease the density of a project. But the defined term of what is a avoid uh health and safety in that in that section of the housing accountability act i will work with our legal team to get a definition for you when we bring projects to you to your point commissioner saude it's been through the fire department the police department the public works department and the city attorney and we are all looking at each project is there anything that crosses the health and safety standard as defined by the legal term And we put that in your staff report. So you can point to that because it goes through sanitary.

It goes to it goes to water. It goes to all those things. And I think we hear that a lot, too. Like, oh, we don't have enough water for that. Or, you know, like, well, the water district has said we do. Right. I can't argue that it doesn't, you know.

Right. Right. Yeah. So what that's, and we try to keep the staff reports short of storytelling because it would be easy, but it's, we do try to put in the information, like why you know that it's got enough water is it was routed to the water department and they did, you know, concur that this is going to, they're, they're ready for it. That water, wastewater, we route it to our refuse collectors to make sure that they're, they believe they can serve the site and, And then every interagency department, we have in the city right so it's. We try really hard to vet the projects before they get here, but it doesn't mean. You should definitely have the definition and it doesn't mean the Community is not looking at you and saying. But that's going to be a terrible place for pedestrians, what are you going to do about it so that's we can't we can't address that, but we can we're by the time a project has come to you, it has been. as thoroughly vetted as we humanly can, but the definition matters.

Got it. And also, to piggyback on that, the council meeting that heard the appeals, the legal ramifications of trying to... avoid the project, it would have cost the city, could have cost the city $10 million, and the project would have gone through anyways. And so it would have taken, I think the number was 15% of our general fund to pay that fine on top of the project going through the way we had approved it. So the financial ramifications of us You know, not approving a project could be great.

Exactly. You are a third body of you're not staff and you're not counsel, right? You are in your own independent judgment is how you act. And we try to put everything we can in the staff report in the findings and in the conditions so that you're comfortable whatever action you want to take. um you you you are appointed to do this third thing right and i really want to honor your role in this it is it isn't as slam dunk as some of the committee members may be alleging but it does feel very narrow now when we get to the multi-family housing projects and hopefully the other things we're doing will sweeten the deal um a bit for you but it's it is a very focused discussion at this point when it comes to housing

I have a quick question to follow up on the city council meeting where it was suggested, along with some other that they would go to sacramento that the city goes to sacramento is that happening or do you know.

I have not. been tasked with contacting our state legislature per se. That would be, if we were to do that at all, it would go to the city manager's office and the city administration would have a conversation. There's, Councilmember Hill in particular brought that up. There are, anybody can go to Sacramento and speak to our representatives, right? i was at a planning conference where buffy wicks said she's one of the biggest proponents of the housing laws um and she's like hey if something's not working you should come tell me so i want to let you know that miss wicks is inviting conversations um i think she meant it too i don't think it wasn't a dare it was you know my whole comment was please stop passing them and let us see what we've got so far it's like you're making a cake and you keep throwing in ingredients I don't know how to tell you if it's successful or not. But so right, that was brought up. I don't, very honestly, I don't know how much traction we'd get on that topic. But it doesn't preclude anyone from going. And if tasked, I'm happy to write what I would say to our representatives. We followed the rules. We did exactly what you asked. We designed these documents to make housing happen in our city. And it's a lot and it's all at once it's like that movie everything all at once, help us help us to continue to do this in a in a productive fashion, but I. I don't know how successful that would be and actually it's Wednesday, because I only said half of what I wanted to on question so meanings comment, there is a state law that says, and it was I think it just got stronger in January. If a city denies a project. the um all the attorney fees are paid for if the project is found to be uh appropriate um we pay their fees and if it seemed to be done with um malice Like we don't want housing here. But I don't any example you can think of not in due diligence. It's double the fees and there's penalties involved that they can put on top of it. So it's there is a city in California and I can look it up. But I was talking to other planning directors about this because I'm like, what are you all doing? Like, what are we all doing here? Like, how do we anybody's got any traction on something? They're like, well, I heard a city that was passing a bond. Yeah, getting ready to pass a bond if they if they took if they appealed a project because it would have sunk their general fund. Because attorneys fees alone like those numbers were estimates.

So they're getting ready to just deny something and pay the fees. They're like, well, we'll eat the fees because we don't want it.

But can you imagine telling that. To your taxpayers, right?

So there's, that's what I'm, I'm not sure the taxpayers want to say, yeah, I'm willing to put my money for it to stop these things. That'd be interesting.

It is not my point that we should pass a bond. I'm just saying the number is so astronomical that it starts to be like, you pass bonds for your library. You pass bonds for a better fire station, right? We're talking about permanent improvements that make your lives better. the penalty fees are significant. And those were estimates that we heard that night.

How come we're not seeing this in, like, Tiburon and Belvedere and Sausalito? I did have a question. We're not seeing, like, these 10-story buildings proposed, you know, on... They don't pencil out. In Tiburon. Sure, they'd probably pencil out huge in Tiburon, wouldn't it? I don't... Get nice water views.

The land value itself is, like...

Well that's a whole different animal that's county but yeah that's that's.

The the question I have is the pro housing city in quotes. What is that is that something that we are getting a benefit from is there does that come with the benefit to be a pro housing city is that a financial gain.

It does help, I believe, with grants. And I think that Mr. Minor is looking it up right now. But it's a designation given to select cities in the state of California. I know that El Cerrito, because that's one of my former employers, was designated that. I believe it puts you in a better stance to get grants through MTC. But that's true. So that's why. You get like a plaque. We're not looking for plaques for plaque's sake. It's all about how to get in the best position to get the most money to do better things.

And the questions keep coming. I apologize. But please apologize. Do we do we ever have the will we with some of these new conditions that will give us some some hate these or decision making or but the ability to cap how many buildings get built in a year? Do we have the ability to say we've approved 1000 units this year? That's the cap.

There's no current cap in the city of San Rafael, and housing and community development is the State agency that we spend a lot of time in communication with, and We the answer would be they would never allow us to do it that's the shortest possible answer Greg and I and. Our housing manager at a other conference late last year earlier this year it blurs where one of the higher management folks from hcd. spoke and they're like so we're getting a lot of questions about how someone could parse something so they could do something a little different so when it comes to housing your answer is yes. So where's a lot of, um, there's other laws on the books like no net loss. We aren't allowed to. We have a housing element. We have sites. We have a number of units. We're expecting if something if someone comes in and develops a site lower than we thought they were going to develop it in terms of units, we have to figure out where the where that balance is going to be made up. So if we start There was a time in the 90s where I think Livermore had a cap. I was trying to think of where I saw it done. There's no, I don't believe that the state of California would allow us to cap housing today. We can do boundaries on our growth and that's why you see city limits. Like you're driving in San Rafael and all of a sudden you're in the country. You've driven out of our city limits, right? We can control sprawl. There is nothing that I'm aware of that would allow us to say, we're good now, we can start for next year.

I think what, like some of the questions he's asking, and I'm just hearing it from a lay person's point of view is like, not like, you know, have so much in your head. I think what you're asking is what levers does the city have? And the whole reason behind the state laws is because all these cities were making all of these limits and definitions and codes. in order to suppress housing. So the state laws are written in such a way that it wouldn't allow us to do that.

No, I understand. My thing is just we're showing good faith by doing the buildings that we're doing. But you also don't want your city to become a madhouse for three years. And maybe not the number of units, but maybe the number of projects that happen within a period of time. Do you want 40 buildings going in all at once? I think that... just trying to figure out if there's a way to limit the amount of major projects going on at one time is kind of my question, but I understand that it would be really hard for them to say no, but, um, It's more about being able to limit the congestion of all the construction going on all at once in some of these big projects because you've got the possibility of the new project happening.

um that we just um approved and then a block and a half away you have another building going in so that at the beginning i mean just because something's entitled a doesn't mean it's actually going to even really get built and then be the timeline for like in our world in the professional world the timeline to get from an entitlement to actual pulling building permits can vary so vastly depending on the jobs i i don't think just because we pass these buildings they're all going to get building permits at the same time

We're passing so many projects and nothing's getting built. Exactly. That's, that's the frustrating part on my end. And I do think like, yeah, if we had to deal with stuff, then at least we could have more housing stock, especially in the downtown, you know, that's where the precise, that's where the general plan and all the downtown precise plan, all those public meetings and stuff. People said, yeah, we want it in the downtown. Yeah. So it's hard to find a balance.

I've heard specifically from people on some of the teams of some of these developers on some of the projects we've passed on the sly that they're not penciling. I've had one literally say I was complaining a little bit about one building and one person on their team told me. it's not penciling it's not going to get built at least not the way you guys passed it it might get built smaller or lower or a different building, this was somebody on the team so they're not necessarily going to get built switch is interesting.

If I could kind of follow up on some of these comments, and also offer a sneak preview of the upcoming agenda item. So part of what i'm doing over here is working on a city council report for the annual progress report on the city's progress towards the housing element and progress on its general plan. And part of that is you get a, there's a table every year where you see how many projects have been entitled versus built and how we are doing towards our, the RENA, the regional housing needs allocation for San Rafael that the state of California has determined we need to facilitate. So I think that'll be a good kind of snapshot where you can see, it may feel like, you know, all this development is happening, but we may only be, you know, We may only be actually building a fraction of what we're supposed to be facilitating and we may be entitling a lot more than is actually getting built. So that might help kind of give a sense of where we are, a better sense of where we are, perhaps. And it's also an annual progress report. So we'll see in March, March of this year and then March of next year. And we can also see over time how we've been trending.

In terms of the cities. Nice.

I was going to sneak in that update later, but I thought it might follow up on some of these topics.

In terms of our housing element, because the state and local Bay Area government puts a gun to all the city's heads that you need to produce a certain amount of housing units. I mean, once you entitle them, we get credit that we've entitled them, right? They don't have to necessarily get built, because there's a quota or there's a number that we're supposed to hit, right? Yeah.

I'm sort of off the top of my head speaking here, but the goal is to build housing. The legal responsibility is to plan for housing. We're the planning department. We can't force builders to build them. The goal. But the goal, of course, is to have buildings built. But legally, our responsibility is just to plan for the growth.

And the arena's numbers chart all of those. So there's entitled, but there's also built and um And I wanted to just go back and touch on one thing that Commissioner Saade said. All of this is happening because for, in that other slide that I had, for so very long, it wasn't happening, right? And so the state passed a couple laws and a few cities were like, oh, I can get around that. And they're like, really? And they passed some more laws. And then they passed some more laws. Like, this started in, like, the late 70s, early 80s. And then it's just rolled, right, to now it's like... yeah, if you get in the way, you're paying their attorney fees and then we're going to penalize you fiscally. Like it's just, um, San Rafael's been playing by the rules. We've done this great general plan and it's great, um, precise plan and we're working on two specific plans that are going to bring in housing near the smart stations because that's where those are right? But the story starts with, and you've heard it, and I heard it during the Northgate hearings too, hi, I grew up here, I love my hometown, I can't afford a thing, right? And that breaks my heart. And then we have all these folks that are coming over 37 every day to work in our stores and work in our hospitals they'd like to live here too, right? So that's the bigger need is we would love to have people join us. And that's, it's really frustrating. And you guys are right in the gears of how this is happening. But it started with a declaration by the state of California that we have a housing crisis. So it's hard in the weeds to recall that. One of the thing I want to say, because I want to add some faith into the we could have three buildings under construction in downtown at the same time. So in the community and economic development department, our staff has created very robust construction plans. Where you have to tell us where the trucks are going. You have to tell us where your staff is parking. You have to tell us a lot of things. You can't just block our streets. You're going to need a permit for that, and we're going to schedule that. So you can't just oh, we shut down fourth street today. No, you didn't. So we have two projects underway downtown right now and yeah shout out to the building division um and and um and this whole ced staff on okay this we can see this one coming right we don't want two concrete trucks blocking our roads and if they're going to we're going to have a plan to detour the traffic so it's hard as it's been mentioned more than once the smart state the smart train is enough Don't make us have to figure out all the side roads to get to the school to get to the grocery store. So, um, as much as we can control, we are setting up traffic control plans, construction control plans so that, um, we don't accidentally close our downtown or close our north end of town. Um, because we're being so darn successful.

All right, my last question, I promise. Sorry. So I did recently, there was an article about San Francisco planning a building. So kind of piggybacks on what Stuart had just said, Commissioner Summers, sorry. Regarding, so my question was, is this building in San Francisco, the builder, good faith, Took off 6 stories because out of it was a good faith thing. They reduced their building by 6 stories. Um, do we have, um, so is that something that. As commissioner summers alluded to, is that something that happens after we've approved the building? Is it something that would happen in the planning? The staff sort of vetting a project. Where and when is probably the best way that could happen if a said project came up that seemed really, really tall?

hypothetically so hypothetically uh so hypothetical city in a hypothetical city not us um i will tell you that's a unicorn that is a one in a million and i don't mean to disparage a developer that i have not met and i actually love developers because that's how we can touch buildings as opposed to like i used to joke that what do you do for a living i make paper that's what i do and now i I bet they looked at their calculations and figured out it wasn't going to pencil at that height. And they're like, let's give it to them and we'll look so good. Because we cannot say, great, but you're just six stories too big. That would be a very expensive series of steps that we would have to undo. Good point.

And then, but circling back to Margaret's PowerPoint presentation and the feedback from the study session, there wasn't, it seemed like a desire for staff to explore an incentive program to encourage developments more aligned with what was envisioned in terms of heights as part of the downtown precise plan. So hopefully you wouldn't have to rely on some Some unicorn you would actually have like enough incentives in place. So people were able to would come in with a project that align better with the heights that were envisioned. So that's part of what we're going to going to explore going forward. Right.

All of these questions are excellent and the planning Commission is supposed to be lay representatives of the Community at large, so we have ringers and I love them for it, but that's not required, so thank you for coming and bringing your questions.

I think what I think we're just jaded. No, I don't know if we're ringers. We have a meeting March tenth. I alluded to. Yes, sir. I will unfortunately be absent.

Okay, good to know. So just letting you know ahead of time. And Madam Chair, there is no vote that that's a typo, just so you know.

Is there any more questions? I have some questions. Okay.

Just a couple. I have more questions now that we have discussion. I won't go into that. Now that we're speaking about density and height, one of the questions I have is based on the study session that the city council had.

Mm-hmm.

or that was somebody in the public had at the city council study session and they they had said something like oh you know when we figure out the base project and then the sb project um that one project had underground parking and it like you know he basically saying that like the parameters were totally different and so like you know I guess it'd be I don't know if that's the case or not, but if you address like how how we look at apples to apples like if somebody shows like underground parking and then their other app you know like thing they're comparing it to doesn't.

Yes, I can't comment on any particular project because that would probably get me in trouble. But when we have a project come in in the downtown, as you all know, there is no density standards and the rest of the city, we do have a density standards. Instead, we have a form based code. So it's the concept is solid. It's we don't really want to talk about what's inside the building as it affects the larger community. We're talking about what the rectangle looks like, right? So, um, City Council Chambers, On each so 1033rd the fifth street project 700 or when all of those projects that were in the downtown precise plan area as part of their plan said bring us a base project, the base project is if we follow all of the objective design standards. This is what it looks like. And typically they include their parking in the first couple floors. They don't put it subterra in the base project. They're like, this is what it looks like. Or honestly, in the downtown precise plan area, we didn't need to put in parking because you can't require it because you're within half a mile or whichever from the smart station. So the base project is a conceptual study of what the box looks like based on the objective design standards that we can enforce in the downtown precise plan.

The above ground box.

The above ground box. Yes, ma'am.

Yes, ma'am. And that, actually, you mentioned the general plan, or sorry, the downtown precise plan, why we don't have density. But when that was written, we didn't have these stricter laws. So, in fact, does density allow us to control that box and, like, kind of... Help do what the form-based code is trying to do it's it's a really challenging conversation and so I

We have height maximums in the downtown. We have height maximums outside the downtown. If it's a state density bonus project, if they hit that qualification, they can waive a height every single time to put the number of units that they need to put in that project to make it pencil. And we used to be able to ask performers to say, I'm not sure that makes sense to me. Can you give me the math to show me that? We can't ask for that anymore. So the burden is on the city to say, mathematically, we've done all this work and it doesn't make sense because we don't have all the inputs that they have as the people building it, right? So any state density bonus project has a certain number of concessions and an unlimited number of waivers. So everybody who's doing a project that qualifies under that path that everyone is using Can we have our height just right out of the box, there is something. So in the base project, the number of units, they put in that box. is important and it's based on the size of the units that they're putting in their project so they have. one bedroom units that are 300 square feet and two bedroom units that are 500 square feet in their actual project. That's what we need to see in the base project. Or you could obviously stack the deck. I'm putting in micro units and I'm putting in a million of them, you know, so that doesn't pencil here or we would have seen them by now. But so there's.

It's true.

that not having a density does have an indirect consequence on the height. But trying to limit the height in any way starts to be very complicated. And again, there's that haunting comment from the HCD person of if we went back and said anything that would have a chilling effect on housing. We are starting to go in a direction that may not be supported by the State. So these are conversations that we are definitely having, and the Council was like, No, we were okay with the housing downtown like that's that's what we meant to have happen.

I think a lot of the public was too, and that whole general plan got.

Yeah, I think everyone believed the heights we wrote in with the heights they were going to get.

That's, that's the kicker, I think, though. Yes, that's what I'm trying to say. Like, does the density help us get to the intent of the downtown precise plan? Or, you know, like the general plan, I guess, as well.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it turns out what we did is we set the height limit for their base project. Yeah. And so we're looking at what we have a few levers left to us. We are all talking about it and working with our legal staff about what do you think about this? What do you think about that? But the concept, again, to Mr. Miner's point, is we wanted the housing. And maybe it's just the height. The 17-story building caused a lot of pain and friction. That was very easy to see. So is it the number of units? Is it the height of the building? What can we do to still address the housing crisis? Yeah.

And I think Council Member Kurtz said in the study session, a lot of the young families and people that are low income don't have a voice at the meetings because they can't afford to live here so like we're not even hearing from the people that we need to have right in the city so i i get that and i think that it's hard to see change in any so i get i get it's not that i'm like all for like high rises or anything but i think that And I don't think that's going to happen here. Although I guess 17 stories is technically a high rise. It's not like San Francisco, I guess. I don't think we're going to turn into San Francisco. But I do think all the traffic and all the other things that people are worried about are going to be mitigated once we don't have people coming and trying to get in and out at 101 at like 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Yeah.

Yes. And just to your point, it's a lot of change in a very short amount of time. Yeah. And I think it's really, it's causing... um causing pain there's some suffering involved in this conversation that it's definitely you know what we can do and what we can act on is a separate discussion but i really have a lot of empathy for folks that are like i don't recognize my skyline anymore it used to feel different downtown and it's and it's going to continue to change yeah it's going to be more it's going to change i think i have an easier question

Um and I I don't know if you've looked this up yet. Um but um and the other study session there was reference to other cities and um other other jurisdictions that are handling this whole situation in a way that's like like what are the tools they're using like how are how are they like getting these projects done without like the some of the pain that we're feeling so in the presentation we talked about a few cities that have a kind of the process that that greg minor mentioned of um if you

Due to the hour, I'm going to use my more of my informal language. It's like a carnival ride. If you're this tall, you can ride that ride. You can have a ministerial permit if you meet these very set criterion that are goals and objectives that we've already said in the city with value. Like I would say, let's say nine stories and a number of climate action items that we would like to see brought forward and bike parking, which was a topic that came up and it might be the precise plan has a little bit more bike requirements than we are Um, going to see in the near future. But but there's things that we have an adopted document said that we these are really important. So we put a few of those in. There are cities that are doing those. So, um, Oakland has some, uh, Sacramento has some. Um, I think Petaluma has one that I saw. Um, I happen to live there. Um, so, um, What is not happening anywhere. And I've called several folks to be like, what have you figured out? Because there's no reason to, we're not, we're not the only city.

We're not reinventing the wheel.

Right.

Yeah.

every city with housing going on that I know. So that includes Oakland, that includes Sacramento, that would include West Sacramento, that would include, so San Francisco is not a, that's not a comparison, right? That's just, but, um, Novato has got some housing. They've had a couple of 2011s go up there, which is tall buildings that are ministerial. Um, We're going to continue to talk to them, but I've called Morgan Hill. The whole South Bay is on fire in terms of housing construction. They're like...

it's it's where we are right now there really is no way to um there is no answer and then what's the role of the planning commissions in those jurisdictions so like if there is a lot more ministerial review like what is a body like i mean obviously non multi-family housing projects but you know what are the things are they doing are using their planning commission for

Um, all of them. So, for example, Berkeley has zoning adjustments board, which looks at development projects and a planning commission. It only looks at policy items. So that's one city that I know I've thought my head in El Cerrito because I I still have ties there. Their planning commission is exactly the same position that you are in, but they see the things that are at that level. Major designer views would be the translation. I am happy to call any other city that you'd like me to check in on. We've talked about comp cities a lot. We're kind of a rare creature. But cities on the smart tracks would be a fair comparison, right? So

Sonoma Petaluma Santa Rosa not Sonoma but Petaluma Santa Rosa I'm just running up the the chain Novato I'm happy to pull that information for you yeah I think as we you know go through get to April and we're answering these you guys are looking answering these questions it'd be good to have that those things kind of considered and and maybe we're going to learn something that allows us to not reinvent the wheel there and I think I might have asked Oh, well, that was another thing I was going to ask how we can incentivize minister review, but I think that topic was.

Well, I think the Council, I think it's important, I mean we end up being the first touch for the public.

You know.

So if it boiled down to one Council meeting, you know, I think we're here to try to maybe help the public understand the project, but also help understand what our role is, and maybe to actually express that. Hey, our hands are actually tied to some degree to be that message to the public saying, Yeah, we get it. And we are members of the public at large and say, Hey, we do empathize with you, but you know, we can't, we can't deny this. And then by the time it gets up to the council, you know, at least the council's had that one meeting that, you know, instead of it all just happening at once, maybe it's more of a service to the public that we're here in order to That's what you that first touch yeah that's what I heard it and get maybe more into the weeds of the little nitty gritty details, because they don't want to be talking about every little. thing on you know, a balcony or this or that service are.

They are coming here thinking we're providing one service, and we're coming here knowing that we provide a different one.

Right.

So I think that's where the tension lies.

Some education to the public, even from the staff at the beginning of the meeting, saying, hey, here's what our purview is here. Make it very clear. But we do it, but people don't listen. It's like, you know, if you're the chair, I've run enough meetings and you guys have run enough meetings where you can say to your blue in the face, hey, here's our purview and here's what you and the public, this is what we get to talk about, you know. For instance, traffic is not on our purview and we can't talk about traffic. And then the first person gets up, oh, I want to talk about the traffic. And you're just like, okay, what are you going to do?

And that's democracy.

Exactly.

Right? Right. City Council Chambers, So we have two minutes is up by the Commission, the Council was clear that they want to get Commission to continue to see the housing, the multifamily housing projects and it was about. City Council Chambers, Right nobody. Nobody cares about this stuff or understands how the sausage gets made, as I keep saying, until they get a hearing notice and it's somewhere near them or somewhere near their school or it's somewhere like, oh, my God, that's going to my commute is going to be now so much worse. And we do really we our staff reports are to inform you for the information that you need in order to take an action. But we're writing it. for the community and we try very hard in our presentations and people deserve to be heard so well and so that's you're holding the space for the community we're running a series of educational hearings right that's unfortunate but true in some cases with housing projects is yes certainly changed we're not here to make decisions but to educate

Yeah, and I think that, like, in the study session prior to this, like, oh, we're experts. But, like, it doesn't matter if we're experts or not. We're just, at this point, a sounding board. And is there a way to have these meetings without having a vote? Is there a way to, I guess you have to because anything that doesn't has a ministerial, like, hopefully we have ministerial view on things that don't show up here. So I think that'll help. What's that?

I'm writing that right now.

I know. So I think that may help actually lighten the load considerably. Like if we can get some of these projects that do meet everything, then like they don't come here and we don't have to have this back room. But unfortunately, a lot of the people that are, I mean, everyone's busy. Nobody is looking at the agenda for every single city council meeting or every single planning commission meeting. But Like we don't have those people here. We don't have those voices in the room during things like this that can actually make an impact. And that's where we need them. We don't need them like when we're at a point where we can't even, you know, we can't really do much at that point.

City Council Chambers, Right with the just to reiterate the Council said discretionary planning items will be coming to the Commission as you're the body of decision to use that legal term. City Council Chambers, There is ministerial ones like SP 35 or SP nines that right now, you would be getting those two because we have no other body, I am trying to put that code together so that that's. And then I need to check in with people in administration to make sure that's what they want as well. But it's, to your point, and we've made this a couple times tonight, there's a lot of people that are in the room. There's the people that want to live here. There's the people that are commuting in here. There's young families that are trying to find a way to move back to where they grew up because they love their community and they love their schools, right? So it's... City Council Chambers, Unfortunately, I think the role of the planning Commission to.

City Council Chambers, We're all having those conversations with our own kids right now. City Council Chambers, So it's so. City Council Chambers, kids i'm wondering how the where, where are they going to go it's you know where they are there at home.

City Council Chambers, If there's anything that the Commission would like us to add to the staff reports or add to the presentations that you're not hearing now that would help frame this conversation, we are very much open to the input.

I'm also really interested, and I think a lot of the frustration for me and for the public is we're just blowing through these gigantic projects, yet when I want to do a little something on my house, there's like a federal court case for me to build a fence. And all of a sudden, I'm looking at... a variance or this or that or these all these little funny things that need to go up and and have uh ten thousand dollars in fees to build a ten thousand dollar project and things get really out of whack for the little guy so i think just to bridge this conversation when we're looking at our zoning code edits and where there could be some relief maybe just for the common person while we're in the midst of these giant buildings, I think there's a lot of frustration because I do have a lot of my projects are very small and the roadblocks and the delays and things I've been getting hitting, getting hit with worse than I've ever seen in my 30 years of doing this. And now even in San Rafael, things are taking a lot longer than they should for really small things. I can see the common person being extraordinarily frustrated it's like i can't do something on my house or i have to go through this six month process but we're going to approve a 17 story building in six months like something's out of whack totally so we should hear that maybe take this big conversation but maybe boil it down to also like how can we simplify things for just mom and pop and maybe mom and pop trying to make some more space for their own family and kids to live too Yes, because it is getting too hard.

I got to tell you, I totally sympathize. And when we work on that, we're talking about the efficient, making it more efficient and for single family homes and small businesses. I will be calling on both you and Commissioner Sade to read the draft and tell us, you know, I'll talk to you beforehand, and then I'll see if I got it because that's you folks both do work with residential clients, and I want to make sure that There are things that are sacred, right? You don't want a bright orange house on the top of your hill, right? You don't want a 18-foot retaining wall. I can show you those photos. They're scary, right? But there are things. Our code was designed at a time when... That was what we were worried about. And right now, like I said, I'd like to get out of the way. I'd like to encourage people to invest in their homes and invest in their small businesses. And if we can chart that path better, we're very interested in doing it.

I also would just like to recognize the work that the staff does to get us to where we have the decision that the work that's done behind the scenes is phenomenal. People ask me how it is being on the commission. And I say the staff does all the heavy lifting. And I just want to thank the planning commission staff. I call them my staffers because I'm kind of a big deal. No, but in all seriousness, the heavy lifting is done by the the planning staff, and it gets us all the information we need when we show up.

have all the information we absolutely need to have so i just want to recognize the planning thank you for that and i wanted to just throw that in as christina estadio renee knickernegg and michaela o'brien are the stalwarts that are doing all of this work in addition to our consultants you saw christina ratcliffe you saw um i don't remember janie's last name but there's a bunch of consultants that we All set. All set. We're very specific in particular about the consultants that do our work, and then we read all of their work before it comes to you, but your Planning division staff that's not here tonight does so much work to make this all come together. And then all of our other departments that, in addition to all of their full-time jobs, they're reading all of our development projects and commenting and trying to help us with the objective design standards. So it's a big, huge team effort, and I will pass on your thanks.

Being a planner has got to be one of the hardest jobs around. and then everybody it's it's i've always i love my planners and i've always looked you guys right in the eye i'm like it's kind of a thankless job you're under fire from the council you're under fire from the public you got architects like me calling up and complaining about a fence or whatever and how do you hold it all together because it's it's amazing what you guys have to listen to it's a really good community to work yeah no it's you're good people

Okay, any more questions? Nope, okay, thank you. Does any member, commission member have any public?

Public. I just wanna make sure we've answered the three questions that were in the staff report. Do you feel like you have enough to go with from us?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. I feel like we've got a lot of input in while I'm not taking notes because I'm bad at talking and writing. I'm going to listen to this again. And yeah.