Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

All right. Welcome to the March 12th, 2026 Planning Commission hearing. I'll call the meeting to order at 1 p.m. Ms. Carmen, can we please have roll call?

Thank you, Chair Boss. I will begin with Chair Boss.

Present.

Vice Chair DiLiccio.

Present.

Commissioner Barnwell.

Here.

Commissioner Bauke. Here. Commissioner Wardlow.

Here.

And Commissioner Wiscombe. Here. We have corn. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll get started with preliminary matters. The first topic on our agenda today is requests for continuances, withdrawals, postponements, or ex-agenda items. Ms. Arseniega, do we have any?

Thank you, Chair Boss. We do not.

And do we have any announcements or appeals?

Thank you chair boss. I do want to bring to your attention and the public's that the general plan annual progress report will be going to city council next week on Tuesday. Um, we encourage both the public and the commissioners to read that report. Um, the plan, so it will get go to city council and be submitted to HCD per the requirements. Um, as of now, long range staff was planning to bring that item, to your commission afterwards for just a review of what council received and then in the fall would have a workshop or another check-in with the Planning Commission on just the logistics of that APR annual progress report. So please do tune in on Tuesday.

Thank you and I'll just emphasize that highly recommend reviewing the annual progress report. It is published now and you can provide public comment or feedback to the council if you wish. With that, we'll move to item C, comments from members of the public pertaining to items that are not on today's agenda. Ms. Carmen, do we have anyone in person or remote who would like to give public comment?

Thank you, Chair Bost. At this time, I don't have any speaker slips for in-person public comment under general, so I will move to virtual participation. If anyone online would like to comment, you can raise your hand at this time. But I'm not seeing any raised hands, and we didn't receive any written correspondence under general, so I'll give it back to you.

Thank you. We'll close general public comment and move on to item 3A, public review of the draft housing plan program environmental impact report. The purpose of this hearing is to receive comments from the Planning Commission and to the public on the adequacy and completeness of the draft housing plan program environmental impact report. And all comments on the draft EIR will be responded to in the final EIR, but no action on the draft or project approval will be taken at this meeting. We have staff and the consultant here to provide a presentation who will introduce themselves during the presentation. The floor is yours.

Thank you, Chair Baas. Planning Commissioners, my name is Julia Pujo, Environmental Analyst. I'm the assigned planner for the draft program EIR for the housing plan. Also here today is Chris Bursbach from Rincon Consultants. Rincon prepared the draft EIR on behalf of the city. I would also like to acknowledge the large coordination effort that reaching this milestone took. It involved input from numerous agencies as well as multiple staff with different areas of expertise. So a big thank you to Rincon and also to all the staff that worked on this EIR. We are conducting the environmental hearing for the draft program housing plan EIR. This is a required step in the CEQA process. And the purpose is to provide the planning commission and the public information on the CEQA and EIR process on the EIR project impacts mitigation measures and alternatives and next steps. and to receive comments on the draft EIR from both the planning commission and the public so that we may prepare the final EIR. The housing plan program EIR assesses the impacts of implementing the 32 programs in the six cycle housing elements. This includes ordinance amendments, process improvements, resolutions, actions to streamline permitting and other actions needed to meet state requirements. The program, uh, the programs also include existing ongoing and future programs such as the, uh, ADU ordinance, the short term rental ordinance, objective design standards, AUD ordinance, among others. A key assumption in the EIR is the construction of 8,001 new units, which is the city housing need, also known as the RENA allocation, by the project year 2035. The housing element cycle ends in 2031. However, the EIR assumes that units permitted in this housing cycle may continue to be constructed through 2035, and that also aligns with other regional growth forecasts. to highlight the differences between the housing element and the housing plan. The housing element is a state required policy document and is the mechanism used by the state to ensure that local government agencies are adequately planning for housing. It's an element of the general plan EIR and is required to be updated every eight years. And it sets the policy goals and programs that are required to meet the city's housing need arena. Uh, the housing element was certified by the state in February, 2024, and it was adopted by council in December, 2023. I believe, uh, in comparison, the housing plan is the implementation plan for the housing element. It requires specific actions such as municipal code changes. and the programs in the housing plan are subject to input and direction from the city council. Also, many of the programs in the housing plan are subject to CEQA because they have the potential to affect the land entitlements and development potential and development patterns. A program EIR is a type of EIR that includes high-level environmental analysis prepared for a program, plan, or policy. A program EIR is often appropriate for a plan that covers a wide geographic area and includes a set of related actions. The program EIR evaluates broad environmental impacts of long-term development and includes programmatic mitigation measures which are often regulatory in nature. The housing plan EIR, for example, includes ordinance amendment or mitigation measures that are ordinance amendments, MEA updates and standard conditions that can be uniformly applied to development. Why a program EIR? A program EIR focuses on citywide impacts. It serves as a repository of environmental information. and has streamlining potential for future CEQA reviews to support CEQA tiering. It supports long-term environmental planning, and importantly for this effort, it supports program HE9 of the housing element, which calls for resource protection and acknowledges the needs to plan for housing while also protecting natural and cultural resources. The EIR mitigation measures will effectively implement program HE9 of the housing element. And with that, I turn it over to Mr. Burschbeck to tell us about the contents of the EIR.

Thank you very much, Julie. I really appreciate it. Members of the Commission, pleasure to meet you all. I do want to emphasize again the level of coordination that it's taken among your staff and us as the consultant team to get to this point. As you're all well aware, this has been a long process and we've been Excuse me working with Julia Rose Rosie and their team including the city's city attorney's office on all aspects of the environmental review process and what I will be sharing with you today is a summary of A lot of time and energy and expertise that's gone into it including a lot of your staff So I just want to thank them for their their time So and And I think it's also, you know, just kind of jumping off of what Julia was just saying. This programmatic analysis is proceeding in lockstep with a lot of other related city staff exercises, including in particular the development of the master environmental assessment guidelines. And there's a lot of connectivity between the programmatic mitigation that's in this document and those guidelines in an effort to help streamline the city's overall planning process going forward. So that's happening. And then as I'm sure many of you are aware, there's also a potential opportunity for a program EIR to be a document that future development can tear from potentially if it is compliant with that. So we've worked really hard to make this a document that will be useful for the city's ongoing and forward-thinking planning efforts. So the slide that's up here, provides a high-level overview of the major components of the program EIR. Like all CEQA documents, the EIR begins with a project description and an environmental setting, which establishes baseline conditions for the city, and the impact analysis covers the full range of environmental topics that are listed as requirements under the CEQA guidelines. The program EIR also identifies effects found not to be significant in a standalone section, and that includes and also includes analysis of potential alternatives to the housing plan, which is a required component of the CEQA process.

Next slide, Julia.

So this slide lists the environmental topics where the program EIR identified that the housing plan's potential impacts would be less than significant without the need for any additional mitigation measures to reach that finding. So the findings here are based on primarily the nature of the housing plan as a citywide program that does not propose or approve any specific new development. as well as on existing regulations that already minimize the potential environmental effects of long-term growth and residential development in Santa Barbara. Topics such as energy use, geology and soils, hydrology, land use, public services, recreation, schools, transportation, and wildfire all fall into this category. So even where future projects may require environmental review, the city's regulatory framework provides these potential environmental, or reduces, I'm sorry, these potential environmental impacts to a less than significant level at the program scale. And overall, most of the environmental topics that are discussed in the EIR do not require new mitigation.

Next slide, Julie.

Again, I apologize for my cough. The next few slides highlight the environmental topics that do require mitigation. So for air quality, the primary concern is construction emissions from cumulative development activity in the city. These mitigation or the mitigation measure focuses on practices that are recommended by the Santa Barbara air pollution control district. And those are measures that control equipment exhaust and reduce emissions to cleaner engines and maintenance standards. Biological resources identify several required mitigation measures. These address potential impacts to special status species, riparian areas, wetlands, wildlife corridors and tree and vegetation removal. Measures in this section include creek protection requirements, riparian vegetation buffers, pre-construction bird surveys and oak woodland protections. And these measures help substantially avoid or reduce impacts associated primarily with regional air quality and biological resources and bring these impacts to a less than significant level with implementation of the mitigation described in the EIR.

Next slide.

Ground disturbance associated with future construction activity in Santa Barbara has the potential to uncover archaeological materials, tribal cultural resources, or even prehistoric or historic era human remains. Mitigation to protect these resources requires evaluation protocols, many of which are established by state and federal law, that apply when a resource is discovered. Consultation requirements with tribal representatives and protocols for inadvertent discoveries to ensure respectful and legally compliant handling of any resources that are discovered. For hazards, the EIR identifies potential risks associated with development near contaminated sites or locations with unknown conditions. Mitigation for this topic includes environmental site assessments prior to new development projects. and clear procedures that have to be followed in situations where contamination or abandoned oil and gas infrastructure is encountered. This slide is also a really good place to note, as I alluded to earlier, that city staff are actively implementing a lot of these mitigations through updates to the city's master environmental assessment guidelines that are working on right now. The MEA guidelines for cultural and tribal cultural resources were updated last year to incorporate some relevant components of the draft program EIR mitigation, and staff are beginning to work on updates to the MEA guidelines for hazardous materials as well. The next set of mitigations deals with construction noise, ground-borne vibration, and outdoor noise levels relative to city standards. Mitigation requires preparation of construction noise management plans, vibration control plans, and project specific noise studies and attenuation strategies for individual new development projects as those come forward. The program EIR also recognizes that a reasonably foreseeable outcome of the housing plan does include the need for new utility connections or other utility or water related infrastructure. And where development triggers new or updated utility infrastructure, The same standard environmental protections that are identified throughout the EIR referenced in the last bullet on this slide which circles back to all of the other mitigation measures I've discussed briefly, those would all apply for that type of infrastructure development as well. So together the mitigation measures described on this and the previous two slides ensure the potentially significant environmental impacts would be reduced through implementation of the mitigation required in the housing plan EIR. THE HOUSING PLAN WOULD NOT RESULT IN ANY SIGNIFICANT NEW ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS THAT CANNOT FEASIBLY BE MITIGATED WITH PROPER IMPLEMENTATION OF REQUIRED MITIGATION MEASURES. So this slide introduces the two alternatives that are evaluated in the program EIR. Even though the EIR identifies that there wouldn't be significant and unavoidable impacts, CEQA still requires an analysis of potential alternatives to the housing plan. Alternative one described on this slide is the legally required no project scenario. This is something that has to be a part of every EIR. And under this alternative, The assumption is that the housing plan and all the related municipal code and general plan amendments would not be adopted. As a result, in this scenario, the city wouldn't meet its RENA obligations and would not be compliant with state housing law. The regulatory structure and mitigation measures in the housing plan EIR also wouldn't be implemented in this scenario. And as a result, environmental impacts of this potential alternative could be greater than the proposed housing plan. Alternative 2 envisions a conceptual expanded housing plan program that would involve more housing than is required in order to meet the city's RENA obligations up to approximately 8,800 new units. We want to be clear here that the analysis of this alternative in the EIR focuses on the environmental consequences of a greater amount of development, but it doesn't speculate about the specific programs that could be expanded or implemented differently in order to produce this number of new housing units. The general concept of this alternative envisions higher residential density and accelerated housing production that are the basic assumptions that may be needed in order to meet the housing numbers that this alternative assumes. So as I think was reasonable to expect, this alternative would result in greater environmental impacts in some issue areas simply because of the increased amount of development intensity that's envisioned under this alternative. And after comparing this alternative as well as the new project alternative, the EIR identifies that the proposed housing plan, not either of those alternatives, would be the environmentally superior option because the housing plan balances housing production with environmental considerations through the mitigation that's identified in the EIR. This slide outlines areas where the public and the Commission are encouraged to submit comments to staff this afternoon. We're specifically asking for input on the contents of the draft EIR, including data sources, assumptions, methodology, significance findings, the mitigation adequacy, and the alternatives analysis. Public input is a key part of the CEQA process, and substantive comments about the content of the draft EIR will help ensure that it's an accurate and complete document to support or to be developed into a final program EIR that would eventually be considered by the city council. So this slide describes the range of opportunities for the public to submit comments during the draft EIR review period, which we are currently inside of. Comments can be made verbally at this hearing or submitted in writing via email or mail to the addresses shown on the screen. And we just want to emphasize that the city encourages broad participation to ensure that community concerns are addressed in the EIR. All comments will be reviewed and responded to in the final program EIR, and that will return to commission as part of the housing plan adoption process a little bit later this year. And I'm going to turn it back over to Julia for a little bit of a wrap-up, but I appreciate your time today and look forward to addressing any questions that come up.

Thank you, Mr. Berspach. To go over next steps, the public review period ends on March 17th. Following Rincon and staff will respond to comments and prepare the final EIR. We will take the final EIR to City Council for certification as well as adoption of CEQA findings and EIR mitigation measures. If City Council chooses the housing plan project alternative. There is no need for overriding considerations because no significant unavoidable impacts were identified. And then that all culminates to implementing the EIR mitigation measures which would effectively implement program HE9 of the housing element. That concludes our presentation and we are available for questions. Thank you. Great. Thank you.

All right. So I think that takes us, before we get into questions or comments from commissioners, to comments from members of the public pertaining to this specific item. Ms. Carman, do we have anyone in person or remote who would like to give public comment on this item?

Thank you, Chair Boss. At this time, I don't have any speaker slips for in-person public comment. So I will move to virtual participation where we have one participant online with their hand raised. So Steve Johnson, I'm going to allow you to speak.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment. I made this comment many times before in the past. I doubt that my comments will make much difference today, but I'll bring them up again. And in the following weeks when the housing results are reviewed, the housing results will show that the number of moderate income market rates units produced since 2023 is zero. That's the same number that have been produced in the last 45 years. Moderate income market rate, zero units have been produced. There's a handful of deed-restricted moderate income units. That's OK if you're a second-class citizen. But if you're a full-class citizen and you're looking for moderate income market rate units, It's a tough search, because none have been used in 45 years. It doesn't make sense that this current report that you're reviewing ignores that fact. And the answer, the primary cause is a complete bias in the AUD zoning against moderate income housing. That's recognized in the general plan. The general plan identified the bias and said, Average unit density, the average unit size has to be smaller. It's currently 811. If you want maximum density, 800 square feet is the average unit size. The general plan says no, that's no good. It should be 600. But that recommendation has been uniformly ignored. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

With that, we don't have any other participants online, and we did not receive any written correspondence on this item, so I'll give it back to you.

Thank you. I'll open up to my fellow commissioners for questions, and I have Commissioner Wiscombe first.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the presentation, and I apologize in advance if any of my questions are actually in that document. It's very lengthy. It's very thorough. But at any rate, I'm just going to start with a couple general ones. So we have a lot of administrative mitigations, I'll just say that, you know, of changes to municipal code, et cetera. Does the EIR have deadlines or time limits for these types of mitigation measures? In other words, this goes to 2035, right? Is that right? And so let's say we're at 2033 and some of these measures haven't been implemented yet. How do we deal with that? I'm just...

Commissioner Wiscombe, as part of the final EIR staff and with the help of Rincon, we'll need to develop what's called a mitigation monitoring plan, which outlines the strategy to achieve those mitigation measures, and that will have a time frame and outline who's responsible. And also, this effort corresponds with the housing element, and the housing element has some of those deadlines outlined. And so, for the purposes of Our analysis, we were looking at what would happen if 8,001 units came online in 2035 and what's the impact of that. In terms of mitigating those impacts, we need to implement those sooner than that in order to stay consistent with state housing law and our housing element.

Okay, that's a great answer. Thank you very much for that. Okay, and then in your bio one, I guess that's what you call it, mitigation or impact and then your mitigation, you require, it says that City Creek's Division and Community Development shall develop creek protections through amendments to the city's municipal code. Is this where, Ms. Peugeot, you may know this better, but is this the, the increasing the buffers of the Creeks, because I know that Creeks was working on that for a while and had a lot of controversy. So does that involve this?

Commissioner Wiscombe, yes, that is the effort. As I understand, there's an RFP out right now for sustainability to get a consultant on board and help with that effort, and that's going to be a work effort that's going to go through the rest of this year.

Okay, thank you very much for that. And then going on to... has two and has three. You talk a lot about, or some about the LUS, the leaking underground storage tanks in the report. But there's, I didn't see any mention of just a UST that we don't know about. I mean, I've had construction sites where USTs, oh, surprise, we have a UST on the site. So I don't know. Shouldn't that be somewhere in the report or is it and I missed it?

Commissioner Wiscombe, what we did with the hazards chapter is we worked closely with county environmental health services and the water board. And what they did is they helped us create a map where potential USTs and other contaminants from soil fills that don't meet current standards could be. And so we have a screening layer for that and there's a map in here. The ordinance and MEA update that we anticipate to come through that is going to create a process where development within that area, which is largely the downtown, the funk zone, the areas of the city that are older and have older commercial developments, that they will need to be screened and potentially require a phase one environmental site assessment for their application. And then there's another, we identify those triggers to make sure that they do what they're supposed to do to remediate the site.

Okay. So we don't have anything now for unknown USTs. I've seen that map. It's pretty scary looking. But we don't have anything for unknown USTs. These are all documented USTs. So my suggestion might be something about, you know, a process for right now undiscovered USTs. Okay, and then you go into HAZ 6. It discusses no impact to evacuation routes and concludes less than significant. And then you go on to say the large residential projects that require discretionary approval will get project-specific EIRs. So tell me where the builder's remedy projects fit into this, because I know that's...

A BIG TOPIC. THE BUILDERS REMEDY PROJECTS ARE CONSIDERED CUMULATIVE PROJECTS FOR THIS EFFORT. SO THIS IS NOT ASSUMING UNITS THAT ARE COMPLIANT WITH THE GENERAL PLAN AND THE BUILDERS REMEDY PROJECTS, THE ONES I THINK YOU'RE REFERENCING ARE NOT COMPLIANT AND SO THAT WOULD BE A SEPARATE ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW. AND ALSO AS A PROGRAM, EIR PROJECTS THAT ARE APPLICATIONS COME IN MAY CONTINUE TO BE subject to CEQA and environmental review. There's more streamlining and options and exemptions, but if they don't fit in those, they would be subject to the regular CEQA process.

And that's usually when they don't comply with our general plan, right? Correct. That they're subject to that process. Okay. So there then we would be able to tell citizens that that's a whole separate process and it's not like there's not going to be any impact for the builder's remedy projects.

Correct. Okay, great.

Okay, and then I don't know if you can answer this, but the discussion about the ozone plan and the report states that any general plan amendment that provides for increased population growth above what is forecasted on the ozone plan should have a significant impact on air quality. And you've covered the fact that we're not in conflict with that, even with the increase in population in this particular report. But are we close? Do you know how close we are to being on that border? I'm just curious. You may not have the answer to that, but I was kind of curious. We're within it, but...

I can try. I can try unless Mr. Birchbach has a better answer. The ozone plan is produced by the Regional Air Quality or Air Pollution Control District. And I believe they use the same SPCAG growth projections that we're using for our general plan. And so those align. You'll notice that I believe it's for the additional housing alternative. I believe we showed that there was an inconsistency because that's when we start to exceed our growth projections, and then that's where the assumptions don't line up for the ozone plan, and there's an inconsistency. When we had the alternative of more population. More housing. Yeah, more population growth.

Okay, thank you for that. I'm almost done here. Oh, okay. You kind of answered this before. I wanted to talk about the master environmental assessment guidelines for noise, but I think you've covered that in your timetable of when these things will be done.

Correct. So that will be part of the mitigation monitoring plan.

Yeah, okay. And then I wanted to talk about the school impact. That got a lot of controversy when they had the open house for the Macy's project, the school district. So can you kind of go over, is this, first of all, is this impact less than significant due to out migration, which you talked about in the document, or? you know, we've had more people leave the school, so therefore it's less than significant, or are we talking, I think there was another discussion about changing the boundaries of the school, so are these the kind of flexible things that the study's looking at to say that there's less than significant impact to schools?

Commissioner Wiscombe, we've gotten a few letters from Hope School District, and I believe that's what you're referring to, and we've received their comments as well as their comments on the housing element. What the EIR found is that school enrollment as a city has declined for a number of reasons, and there's Hope School District, there's also SB Unified, and... And so what it shows is that there's class throughout the city, there's classrooms with capacity available. And I believe what maybe was a little bit of a miscommunication is that we were referring to the open enrollment practices where within your home district schools have the ability or students have the ability to transfer from one middle school to another. Within HOPE, we did receive, they did a facilities analysis and we reviewed that and they also just recently provided us some updated information about their enrollments and their staffing levels. And so what they concluded in their most recent study is that there is a need for more classrooms within their existing school sites. The struggle that we have, and we understand those concerns are, those issues are concerning, and the struggle that we have as staff is that they are mostly fiscal and operational in nature, and the purview for this EIR and for CEQA is a bit limited when it comes to schools. There's a statute in the government code, and Ms. Osbringer can help me here, but it says basically that The mitigation we are allowed to implement for school impacts is development impact fees. And so currently we are already doing that. We collect development impact fees as part of the building permit process. And that is what, through the CEQA mechanism, we're allowed to do, and we are not supposed to do more than that.

To the commission, to Ms. Pujo's point, yes, there's case law that's very specific that CEQA, you don't review CEQA impacts, even though there may be impacts with regards to impacts on classrooms, but it's limited to school fees. And so that's why the EIRs, when there are specific EIRs, won't include a discussion on schools.

So we already have the development fees in place, so then we're covered? Correct. Okay, I get it. That's interesting.

Yes, so we do want to acknowledge the very real issues that they raised. However, what we are supposed to look at is limited.

Okay, thank you very much. Okay, I'm done with my questions. Thank you so much. Great document. We'll move to Vice Chair DiLugio.

Thank you. The schools was what I was going to talk about also. First of all, you guys did a really thorough job with this. I have to just tell you, and we're asking questions. In the school, you did a whole section on the schools. So who determines the impact fees? Who sets those fees? Can I ask that question?

I believe it's the state and the school board. Maybe Commissioner Barnwell knows. I believe it's not the city.

It's not the city, okay. Okay. The question is, this EIR, when it goes into effect, is good until the next one. We start the new housing element is due like in 2031. Is that when the new one is due? So then we have to do another one of these?

We will cross that bridge when we get to it. We're hoping that we can, this should be good through 2035. Okay.

So how come it took so long to do this when I know that you guys, I wasn't on the commission in 2022 when this first came for scoping, and how come it took so many years to do this?

A valid question, Commissioner DiLucio. There were a lot of reasons we had to pivot. We came and did scoping in 2022. We were largely responding to state law that meant that we had to rewrite huge swaths of the EIR, and then we would get to that point, and then there would be another change, and then we had to rewrite it again. And then also on, frankly, on our department side, there was just a lack of staff resources. We were understaffed during certain times. And so we were trying our best to meet priorities.

Well, you got there. So the next question is, with SB 130, a lot of these projects are going to be exempt now, correct? When they become individual projects. So we have a program, EIR here, And you did a good job of citing out a lot of the guidelines. Each one I know when you looked at each section, you cited the guidelines. So when you look at individual projects, and I'm thinking more like the La Cumbre, for example, which they're exempt from, both projects are exempt from, they're on the SBA 1-3rd, they're exempt from further environmental review. Oh, so how, but how do you, for any projects in general, how, if they're not required to have an S uh, to any projects and not required to have, um, an SB1, uh, an, you know, uh, EIR or evaluation where they're exempt, how do you match it against what's in here in the program EIR and what if they're not in compliance?

So that was one of the things that resulted in us changing, um, our analysis for some sections. And what we're seeing is really a trend for the state creating more ministerial processes where projects aren't going through any type of CEQA review. However, we still want to make sure that we're protecting resources at the end of the day. And we can do that through standard conditions that are uniformly applied. and our ordinances and our adopted guidelines. And so that's part of the work of this EIR is to identify those areas. If we're not looking through the lens of a process, but resources and what do we need to do to make sure that we're protecting resources at the end of the day, the mitigation measures are designed so that they will be standard conditions.

So the conditions can expand on what they need to do.

Yes, and that can be applied to not just CEQA projects, but...

Yeah, just in general. All projects, yeah. The other thing is we have 32 programs, I guess, in this EIR that are incorporated into the EIR. So are there dates assigned to these projects when they need to be complete?

Sure.

And are they required to be all complete for this to be an EIR that's in compliance?

Chair Boss and Commissioner DiLuccio, yes, the housing element... HOUSING PLAN HAS THOSE 32 PROGRAMS AND THEY ALL HAVE DATES BY QUARTER AND YEAR OF WHEN THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE COMPLETE.

OKAY. SO BY THE END OF THIS AIR, THEY SUPPOSEDLY WILL ALL BE COMPLETE?

YES. SOME OF THEM ARE ONGOING. SOME HAVE HARD DATES AND OTHERS ARE ONGOING PROGRAMS.

they would be exempt anyway from the programs would be exempt when you go through the 32. Some do, some programs with no potential to create physical environmental impacts. So there's a lot of those. And there's some that do, they do need to be looked at in order to put this EIR into compliance, you know, into what you're citing for less than significance in some areas. You'd have to complete those programs, correct?

Correct, so those programs could reference the EIR, and then also if programs come in for future amendments, they can also...

I can't talk program specific. However, of the 8,000 marina units, supposedly 2,000 will be from La Combre Mall. So I see an HE2 La Combre Mall planning area, so...

Commissioner DiLuccio, we can't talk about...

I can't incite that. No. I used to talk in general, so I guess...

I would like to say there's a reference to... You made a reference to the project complying with AB 130, and that determination has not been made.

Okay. Okay, so I'll stop there, then.

Thank you. We'll go to Commissioner Bauke.

Thank you, Madam Chair. First off, Good work. A lot here. I've read a lot of EIRs in my life and a lot of long-range EIRs. So the lifespan of this EIR is expected to be to what date?

At least to 2035, possible utility. Afterwards, it'll depend on the rate of development.

OK. Thank you for that. WHAT IS OUR CURRENT NUMBER OF RESIDENTIAL UNITS WE HAVE IN THE COMMUNITY? I WAS TRYING TO DO SOME MATH HERE. AI WILL TELL YOU IT'S AROUND 39,000. IS THAT A REASONABLE NUMBER?

I WILL HAVE TO LOOK THAT UP. I DON'T HAVE THAT INFORMATION ON ME.

LET'S PRESUME IT'S 39,000, WHICH FOLKS AT GOOGLE SEEM TO THINK IT IS. I'M TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE ALL MY FOCUS IS ON THE ALTERNATIVE ANALYSIS. COMMISSIONER WHISKIM TOUCHED A COUPLE OF LITTLE HOT POINTS THAT I HAD, WHICH IS HOW WE GO FROM OUR PROGRAM THAT WE ANALYZE AS THE PROJECT TO THE MORE HOUSING ALTERNATIVE And all of a sudden, because we're adding 807 units, all of a sudden two of these categories turn code red. One is on air quality and the other is on greenhouse gases. I understand and it's not unusual to see folks use the CARB plan or a regional forecast as sort of a screening methodology. But that's what I see is if they're inbounds, no problem. If they're out of bounds, nobody wants to go do the work. And my question here is, Is it really true that just adding 807 more units beyond the 8,000 really lands in a significant unavoidable effect for both of those categories? I think we need to go into a more rigorous analysis because I believe that the community would be best if this is going to be something we're going to tear off have the flexibility and also the documentation and maybe the council may want to adopt overriding considerations if even after a rigorous analysis that we would be able to be more aggressive towards meeting our housing needs. And I'm looking at just the delta between, you know, the project and the alternative and it's like, you know, it's I'll say inconsequential in the concepts of the community. So I really would say I would like to see us get to a little more rigorous analysis because I think the end conclusion would be for the alternative, if we did that rigorous analysis, that the determination would be the same as the project. So that's really where I come out on it. I UNDERSTAND WE'RE USING THE REGIONAL FORECAST. OF COURSE, THE REGIONAL FORECAST WAS ADOPTED BY THE REGIONAL GOVERNMENT USING THE DIRECTIVES FROM THE STATE, I BELIEVE, WITH OUR 8,000 UNITS, AND THAT'S WHY IT'S IN THE PLAN AND THAT'S WHY THE NUMBER AND THE CONSISTENCY. I GET THAT. we're still, this additional 800 units is really, just because it's inconsistent doesn't necessarily mean it is significant in its impact, and I think we need to go a lot farther on those two categories. So, sort of a speech, unfortunately, but I think you understand my thought process and how do we rectify this and whether the city's approach on this EIR would be better off, and maybe you can answer this question, wouldn't it be better off to do a more rigorous analysis on the alternative too than we did? We did what you would normally see, but I think to give the council flexibility to maybe go be more aggressive on the housing issue, we could go there. Sorry for that being sort of a monologue, but. There's a bunch of questions in there that you can probably answer too.

I'll try. Commissioner Bauke, I hear you and I understand the sentiment. In the reality, if we build 8,002 units, are we going to get a health risk impact from air quality? Probably not. The challenge we have is the answer in the CEQA guidelines that we are trying to answer with both air quality and GHGs is does it conflict with an adopted plan? And so what APCD has is they have their adopted plan for ozone. I believe the region is currently in nonattainment for ozone and ozone is like smog and diesel gas. and we're reaching attainment levels and so in terms of consistency with that, that's their plan and we have an inconsistency because we are approving more development than would be consistent with their strategy. I believe they're also required to periodically update their plan. I'm not sure how often but it's like a small interval three to five years, I don't know. And so it's possible that in the life of this EIR, they go through an update, actually I think it's probably pretty likely, and that might allow them to shift if we see a trend of more developments. So those are my thoughts, that even if we do more work and we say, hey, it's not really gonna be an impact if you construct these additional units and add this additional population, the inconsistency is still there in their adopted plan and that's what we need to address. And so if council's direction is to approve alternative two, I think the easiest route in that scenario is rather than go back and try to mitigate the inconsistency of a plan that's adopted is to just do the overriding considerations.

Okay. That would be my suggestion. That would be my suggestion because I think from a policy standpoint. There's definitely a clear need for more housing. And I've seen overriding considerations done for a whole lot less than a housing issue that we have in this community. I mean, the findings can definitely be made. for an overriding consideration finding in this case because of our crisis we have. So maybe that's something we should recommend to the council is to do that so they have flexibility if they want to do more towards housing versus just the program we currently have during this time period between now and 2035. Okay. So that's it. Sorry for the monologue, but that was sort of where I came out on the end of the day. So thank you.

Do we have any other questions from commissioners? Commissioner Wardlow.

I just want to say thank you to staff for the tremendous amount of work. This is a massive document, and I'm sure it took a lot of work, which is why I'm assuming that we're getting this a little later, given all of the work that you have going on for the various projects. I did just want to touch on something that Commissioner Bauke was noting. So in that line of thought, that is assuming that if we were to do above, which is the option two with additional housing, above what the RENA numbers require, that we still believe that the majority of this is less significant in terms of the impact that even if we went above the RENA numbers in terms of development, the impact on all of these various categories is still less than significant, except I think for maybe two.

Commissioner Wardlow, yes, that's correct, assuming that we implement the mitigation measures.

And the idea behind that is to give the flexibility to council if we were able to develop that. Obviously, we are woefully below. So to me, that seems like an unlikely scenario that we hit those types of numbers, given where we are today. And I look forward to learning more from staff of more of a holistic perspective on what housing has improved been submitted in terms of permits and then what is actually being developed. Because I think there is a significant gap between the projects that we review and the projects that are being actually developed. So I appreciate where Commissioner Bauke is going with this to have the flexibility that council would feel comfortable with more housing being built than even that is noted in the housing element and the RHNA numbers. But the reality of that occurring is unlikely, right?

I don't know how to comment on that.

Maybe this is more of a comment than a question. I really appreciate the work that's been done, and I'm grateful to see that we're able to move forward with housing in a way that's not going to negatively impact all of the various categories that you've laid out. I think I'm definitely concerned about the cultural and tribal resources, so it's good to see that from your analysis that this would not be impacted with the proper mitigation efforts. I'm also concerned about circulation, but it seems like again that even with maxing out to the housing that we would still be less than significant with mitigation efforts. So I really appreciate the work that you all have done. That's the remainder of my comments and questions.

Thank you. Thank you. So moving to additional comments, the two that I've heard, because I think that's the purpose, that's what you're looking for today, are to address what to do if we come across undiscovered underground storage tanks, so making sure that that's specified in the EIR, and then consider adding alternatives or impacts if we were to exceed the 8,000 units and how would mitigation measures change? So those are the two comments that I think I heard, or are there additional comments? Yes, are there additional comments? Commissioner Barnwell. And I'm sorry, I'll also ask, I think it was slide 12, the comments that you were specifically looking for today, just as a frame of reference for us. Oh, slide 14, thank you.

I apologize, Madam Chair, I thought we were in questions, so I do have some comments. I kind of want to bounce off of the top of some of the comments made by my fellow commissioners, beginning with implementation and timing. I understand your explanation of why specific timing is not included, but I think there needs to be an explanation in your report about implementation. You need to let the reader know that these things are going to fold out as we get into the need for each one. This is just an editorial position because I've done so much writing. But when I open up this document as a PDF, the pagination is one through 495. It is not 4-8-6 or whatever those things are. And the more and more I open these up, the more I wonder if a second set of pagination could be included so we can reference these things and find them easily because otherwise I'm at a loss sometimes. If I may, Madam Chair, just excuse me a little bit here. So on the aesthetics section, which is a 4-1, some of these things, I just don't think these are quite right. But in the third paragraph, when we're talking about views, we say that surface parking lots provide openness and views. Do we really think that surface parking lots provide openness and views? And do we also talk about the upper stories of buildings which are privately owned? Somehow, the way we're analyzing the effects on views is including things that I don't think mitigate the loss of views, if there is such a thing as a loss of view. When we talk about the downtown and El Pueblo Viejo areas and things, something I want to hammer on from now until the end of time, we as a planning commission have lost our planning tools by virtue of the state of California adding so many changes to the way we conduct our affairs here. for me the chief among them recently has been that we cannot require parking on any buildings if we can't require parking then we seriously need to look at the effect that that has on downtown and on transportation and all of the other things that tickle off to the side of it i believe that they're monstrously large but we have not looked at them so I don't know how this document addresses it, but there are several places in this document where we just kind of say, well, you know, AB, what is it, 2097, and here you go. I don't think that's the right answer. It may be an answer would be we don't know, but I don't think it's quite honest and correct to fail to somehow in some paragraph in this document address that. Because it seems to be huge. On page 41-4, we talk about light and glare conditions. It says that we require outdoor lighting within adjacent residential zones to be compatible with the neighborhood. And thus, we have reduced light and glare conditions because of that. But I don't think you need a permit for patio lighting or any of those other types of lighting. So how are we monitoring what we consider to be this glare if there's no permitting process associated with what can be rather bright glare? And I don't know that there are hours associated with that either. So I'm not necessarily, and I'm not saying, what I want to do is do just what you guys are doing. I want to head in the direction of getting this thing approved. But as I read this, there are so many things that I think could be rewritten in a little more honest, not honest, but straightforward fashion. This one just kills me. The City of Santa Barbara General Plan on page 41-7, the line says the land use development allows us to preserve the community's character with appropriately sized and scaled buildings. That is not true anymore. It just simply is not true. And we need to expand that so that the reader will understand that those rules that we used to have are not necessarily in place anymore. And further in that paragraph, the development of building size, bulk, and scale, those things have been ripped from our hands. And I think something like that, some explanatory paragraph needs to talk about that. Insofar as timeline things, I mean, when I look at the bottom of that page and we talk about shoreline drive, Dear Lord, wouldn't it be lovely to do shoreline, but when are we going to do it? How are we going to do it? Where's the money coming from? But I'm just saying those kinds of things. That's why I think the timeline paragraph or two is very important. I won't hammer the various places in the document where we refer to the city's building height limitation, because that's a fiction in the world that we live in now. On page 43-7, which is under biological resources, the near shore marine.

How do we know what the near shore marine is?

I mean, I sat on the city council once and they hired a guy and a gal to go in a scuba outfit at the end of Stearns Wharf and they found a desolate sand with no kelp beds at all, destroyed by the off flow of the Mission Creek. Thus, the fishing at the end of the pier is gone. So when we talk about this near shore marine, how are we measuring whether or not we are truly environmentally maintaining and conscious of that particular area? I wouldn't have brought it up except it's in the report. And I don't think we do that. And if we do, I'd like to know how we do it and how regularly we do it. In schools, I want to straighten out a couple of things. There is a state law, as you correctly quote, that lets schools within a district, lets a student within a district go to different schools. It does not allow students within a district to go to another district. Those districts have very ironclad policies, and they are almost never breached. So if you're in the Santa Barbara High School District, you don't get to go to the Hope School District. They are completely distinct and separate and i think the concerns of the hope school district are very real because if the lacumbra plaza goes in those that will be something that we need to address and i don't want to address it but that goes into the kind of discussion we need to have here regarding schools i realize that the only thing we can We actually can't even set the state dollar amounts for school fees, right? But there may indeed be an environmental issue associated with those 1,500 units. And we should say it, even though there's nothing we can do about it, we can't increase the school fees. But I do know for an absolute fact that Hope School District has a state limit on their bonding capacity. They have already passed two bonds, and they only have a limited capacity to pass a third one. So they could be dramatically affected by those schools.

Commissioner Barnwell, we need to not be project or school district specific.

Insofar as the Hope School District is concerned, I think there's more that we can talk about. But it is incorrect in there when we talk about the ability to transfer. That is not the case. This one kills me, and it has for decades. And maybe there's nothing we do about it. It's like the tooth fairy. I mean, you get to be age 12, and you don't believe in the tooth fairy anymore. We say repeatedly that transportation is, and I'm looking now on page 491, transportation is going to be easier because people are going to start riding bicycles. And that's just simply, I don't see that as being true. So I have trouble with the honesty of how we express state law 2097 and what it means for transportation, and particularly in this section of the transportation, what we call 4.9. Oh, another thing on page 497 under public transit, it says the Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District provides fixed bus routes. No, it doesn't. It provides bus routes, but they're not fixed. They move them all the time. In fact, the moving of those bus routes can screw us up sometimes. So that isn't a correct statement. They do provide bus routes, but they are not fixed. I'm curious also at the bottom of the page, and maybe you can explain it in this report, 49.7, the utility users tax, which is 6%, according to your report. Half of it goes to the streets capital. It doesn't say where the other half goes. I think a reader like me might be curious. Where does that other 3% of that go? Another issue for me that's huge, there's so many huge issues in this, but I realize we're not solving them here. So I want you to know that I understand that. But I would like the document to represent our awareness of these things. And on page 410.5, the Tahigwas landfill has a maximum permitted daily, and it is scheduled for closure on January 1st, 2036. And this report is going into 2035. That means that one year before this, one year after this report, we're going to have huge problem of where we're going to take our trash. And this does not even blink an eye at that. We had huge problems decades ago. And the trash pickup, that's how we got those three cans. And we start diverting things. But we need to be a little more honest about how solid waste management, over the time of the 10 years of this document right here, may or may not push us to Tahigua's needing to be readdressed. And Tahigua's being readdressed is going to be a monumental task for the city of Santa Barbara and the South Coast because nobody wants our trash and we don't know where it's going to go. On page 2-10, there's this really beautiful circle that talks about single unit residential. Now, my question to you is just, There's no such thing as single unit residential anymore. It's gone. And we haven't updated our zoning, but the ADUs provide additional units in every single, unless you can't tie into a sewer or unless you're in a fire district. So I wonder, is that 51%, it actually belongs somewhere else, it seems to me. But then also, because of pyramid zoning, you have commercial and office at 9% and medium density residential at 16%. But medium residential and high residential is underneath commercial. So how are those two statistics separated out, or should they be? Are they separated out? And how is that done? Because when I look at commercial office and it says 9%, and then I look at medium to high density residential, is there an overlap like the pyramid zoning says there is? Or have we just looked at commercial zoning and said, well, that's what we got? Because when we look at our commercial zoning, We also are looking at apartment zoning. Actually, we're looking at single-family zoning, if you want. You could put a house on State Street, as far as our pyramid zoning is concerned. I don't think this graph is... I think we should look at that graph a little bit. And I want to double down, as has been said by two or three of my fellow commissioners, on alternative number two. Something about alternative number two doesn't... sound like we've said enough. What it means to say enough, I'm kind of going with what my distinguished colleague, Mr. Bauke, said. And my colleague, Ms. Wiscombe, said it also. But I think we need to look at alternative, too, because I just don't think what we're saying there is the whole story. And then last but not least, on page 4710, we list land use compatibility standards. And the 631 down says gold courses, writing stables and cemeteries. I think we want to say golf courses right there. I don't think we have gold anywhere laying on the ground around here. And thank you. By the way, I want to wrap up because I write reports all the time. this thing is tremendous. It's wonderful. It's excellent. I feel like I'm basically, I'm just kind of proofreading here to kind of expand and or contract certain things. But if this becomes the Bible, we got our work cut out for us, particularly in the implementation component of it, which I understand we don't have to write and talk about here. But it was a great read. I kid you not. It really encapsulates... What we got to do, and when we're going to do it and how we're going to do it. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. If there are no further comments that I'm happy to summarize, but are there additional comments from Commissioner Bauke?

I just have one which I just randomly came up with, which is when we were looking at Alternative 2, is our suitable sites inventory at the very last paragraph that's on the website says 800 and 8,808 units, which is sort of odd. It's the same number that you analyzed in your document. So we've actually analyzed and found where you could put them in this community. I just found that to be very interesting. It was exactly the same number, and it says we've done the work. So I just want to put that out there. Thank you.

Any further comments? Okay. I did not have any questions, and I'll just add my gratitude. It was a great read. I'll second that. Really thorough and also appreciate just your knowledge about this document, just watching you respond. Very impressive that you knew this so well. So really appreciate the process. So the responsiveness, including the housing element programs and project comments. So just thank you. Clearly you have lived and breathed this thing for a while and just want to appreciate that. I'll briefly summarize what we heard as far as comments. And I don't know if you need a motion for that. No, okay. So I'll repeat, I think what to do, adding what to do if we come across undiscovered underground storage tanks, consider alternatives and impacts if we were to exceed the 8,000 units and how might mitigation measures change. And then in general, just acknowledgement and representing awareness of potential issues or specifics like timeline impacts of limitations on size, bulk, and scale, transportation modes, those kind of specifics. Did you want me to list all of those? Or I saw that you were taking notes.

Commissioner Ribas, no. We'll look at the recording if we need to. And thank you, Commissioner Barnwell, for your very thorough reading and notes. I appreciate a good proofread. And please feel free to submit written comments if there's others that you came across.

I know only policy wonks could say such a thing as I'm now going to say, but I really enjoyed reading that. It was very good. I liked it.

All right. If you don't need anything further from us, then we'll close out this item. Okay. Thank you again for your time and effort here. Closing out that item, we'll move on to the administrative portion of our agenda, beginning with committee and liaison reports. Do we have a staff hearing officer liaison report?

I do, from 3-4-26, a week ago, 11-22 East Haley Street. It was a modification to allow a second residential unit to be constructed on an R-2 lot that is less than the minimum lot area requirement of 10,500 square feet for a property exceeding 10% slope. So in other words, it was 1122 East Haley Street. The lot was 7,500 square feet, less than 10,500 square feet, and it had a slope exceeding 10%. So the second unit really wasn't allowed without a modification, and approval was based on a hardship. due to topography and compatibility with other residential development in the neighborhood. In other words, there is other, the finding was made that the adjacent residential does have a second unit and they do have a slope. So for that reason, based on hardship, it was approved.

Great. Thank you. Any other committee or liaison reports?

I have an HLC one. That was yesterday. I thought what was really interesting was the review of the draft of a San Roque historic context and resource survey. It was well received by the commission. A grant was given to the city to do this study. And they looked at 279 properties in the San Roque area that's over 50 years old. And of the 279 survey, the divisional surveys, just writing around that they didn't go on to the properties, just observing, they found 62 were eligible for city designation. 62 were eligible potentially to become for city designation, meaning they can come at a later date before the board to become, what do you call the word I'm thinking of, become certified or historic.

What is her name?

She's the secretary for HLC also. And NSHO. Thank you for that.

Madam Chair, could I add on this item? I actually read the report that they did. And I think you'll find very interesting the history of how San Roqui was developed and the planning methodologies that were used, part of the American beautification movement, and how those original first two subdivisions are basically new urban principles and which are followed today, and then of course later subdivisions of it. Biggie ended up with cul-de-sacs and things, but you see that, and that's sort of the 1950s post-war. What I found also interesting, a number of the homes in San Maruquillo, and there's a reference to, were built from catalogs. They were ordered up and delivered from a company, I forgot the name, down in Los Angeles, and so people ordered the, and that was done a lot in the 20s, and that's where some of those nice craftsmen in Spanish homes you have were actually Somebody ordered it, they shipped up the parts, and they built it, and it just sets us back to one of those planning concepts that we sort of got away from, but honestly, with today's technology, with manufacturing, it's actually something we might want to go back and revisit as a population. The one thing that's different, though, as I was looking at the floor plans, is the size of the homes were very modest. What would be considered a starter home back then isn't what the builder, merchant builders build as a starter home. And that's part of the reason why there's an affordability problem in California is the size of homes are much bigger.

I think you're referring to the small house movement. That's what the catalogs was, 1990 to 1945. I think we're getting off topic. Oh, I'm sorry.

So I just want to pass it on.

We'll stop now. It's not agendized.

Any other committee or liaison reports today? okay um moving on to discussion on subcommittees and workshops a reminder that the intent of that agenda item is to make space for discussion about active work products such as programs and policies are not specific but not specific housing projects that are under the purview of the planning commission which of course would be agendized to that end a reminder that commissioners can request information for future items for discussion immediately prior to adjournment As far as the workshops or trainings, we have received training on the permitting process in the city and on the Brown Act. And we do have one in the queue on the housing element update in the annual progress report. I see I have additional requests. Commissioner Wardlow.

I just have a question on this topic because I know that a lot of us are really interested in trying to dig in on some of the policies. So when we have this item, is it that we can move to create a subcommittee to work on specific policies? Because I know that Commissioner Barnwell is really interested in looking into parking lots and availability to have them be housing sites. I know there's been discussion about opportunities of how we could strategically increase density in the downtown core. Like, are these, is that what this is? Like, can we create, like, a working group to work on these things? Or, because I know we've had this on the agenda for years, and I'm just confused of when we're going to, like, do something with it.

I'll turn to Ms. Ostringer. To the commission, it would, you'd have to let me know what the topic is, and then we would decide if it would be an ad hoc, but most likely what you're talking about would be a standing committee meeting that would require Brown Act noticings.

Okay, so we would need to tell you in advance, like we can't say there's three policy topics and there's three or four, three of us that are interested in working on this and we want to create an ad hoc committee.

If you tell me what the topic is, then I could analyze whether it would be ad hoc or standing.

So can we have that discussion like right now of what we would want to do? Does that need to take place on the dais or does that happen on our own and then we come back to you?

You would tell me what the, just say what it is that you are interested in and then I will let you know at another time which way it would go.

Okay. So sounds like we can have the discussion. So I would be interested in having some type of ad hoc committee to discuss the putting what it could look like to put residential on city-owned parking lots, and then separately a conversation around density in the downtown core. Is that something that... Increasing density in the downtown core. Is that something that folks would be interested in discussing and kind of working on and thinking through policy around? And I'm open to other ideas. Those are just two that I've been thinking about. as well as potentially looking at zoning from the perspective of we've all seen projects that we would prefer be housing, but then it's a different use because of the underlying zoning. Is that something that you all would like to be involved in? Okay. So if we wanted to talk about those three topics.

Okay. Commissioner Wardlow, if you want to email me the three topics, I'll look at it. and discuss it with Megan, and then I'll come back and let you know which way to go.

And then do I need to identify which commissioners would like to be involved in that as well?

No, we'll do it at the next. Okay, great. And I'll read the running list that we have, and I know we're considering opinions. So one is on at least an annual basis legislative updates and possibly immediately following the legislative platform that goes to council. The Housing Element and Annual Progress Report, CEQA, residential development on city-owned lots, density in downtown, and possibly related to legislative updates, the impacts, so like parking-related legislation. So those are the topics that I have so far.

Sounds good. Would you actually, Chair Boss, mind emailing that to me? And Ms. Arcinnega? Yes.

Any other topics? Oh, Commissioner Barnwell.

Thank you, my esteemed colleague, Ms. Wardle. I would like to add, if we could, a serious long-range discussion on the effects of AB 2097 on our ability to plan downtown. And then the discussion about housing on city parcels is going to require an inventory of the city parcels. There's going to need to be that kind of thing, I think, happen. Anyway, yes, I think we need to do more planning, and these are specific ways in which we can talk about planning. Insofar as the housing on city lots, it's in this document right here. I didn't bring it up, but I can reference that as an official thing that the city has said they want to do, and then maybe that can be the doorway for our being able to do it. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Not seeing any other topics or any other requests to add. It is now 2.20 p.m., and that will conclude our March 12, 2026 hearing. Our next meeting is tentatively scheduled for Thursday, March 19. Thank you all.

Thank you.