Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the 12/04/2025 Planning Commission hearing. I will call the hearing to order at 01:03PM. Miss Carmen, can we please have roll call?

Thank you, Chair Wardlow. I will begin with Chair Wardlow. Here. Vice Chair Boss? Present. Commissioner Barnwell?

Here.

Commissioner Balkhy?

Here.

Commissioner DeLuccio? Here. Commissioner Peterson?

Here.

And Commissioner Wiskum? Here. We have quorum. Thank you.

Thank you. Let's get started with preliminary matters, request for continuances, withdraws, postponements, or ex agenda items. Ms. Arsenyega, do we have any? Ms.

Thank you, Chair Wardlow.

We do not. Ms. Wonderful. Do we have any announcement or appeals?

Ms. Thank you, Chair Wardlow. We do have one announcement. I'd like to bring up the reappointment of commissioner Balki and commissioner Wardlow. So we'll be continuing on in the next calendar year with the same group.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes? May I

make an announcement I just want to announce that our esteemed assistant city attorney, Tava Ostringer, has just been promoted to a, to chief assistant city attorney, otherwise known as Caca.

Congratulations,

Teva.

Well deserved. Well

deserved. Thank you. And now we will go on to item c, review consideration action on the following draft Planning Commission minutes and resolutions. So, have three here and I'd like to break it up because I know some folks weren't at all the hearings. So, first, 11/06/2025 Planning Commission minutes, 11/13/2025 Planning Commission minutes, and the Planning Commission resolution number ten twenty five for Los Patos Underpass Removal Project. Are there any Planning Commissioner's comments on the minutes or resolutions?

I have a comment. Actually, read the minutes. I have a comment on page four of the minutes from November 6. That was the most positive, and it

has to do with the

we put a couple of conditions on there. And those conditions are in the resolution. However, it's numbered incorrectly on the minutes. Number one is not on page one. It's on page two. You had to go to the resolution on page two to find that condition. So, that's my change. And otherwise, I'll move the minutes if there's no other comments.

All right. Before we go there, are there any public speaker comments on the minutes or resolutions?

I do not have any speaker slips at this time.

Okay. Wonderful. Commissioner Deluccio, do you want to move the November, and then we'll go to the others?

Can I move the resolution also? Because they're they come together.

That's fine with

me. I'll move as amended, the resolution and the and the minutes as amended.

Great. I'll second it. Mary May we

have roll call for the November 6 and the Planning Commission resolution for Los Patos?

Mary Jane Thank you, Chair Wardlow. I'll begin with Commissioner Balkhy.

Yes.

Mary Commissioner Deluccio?

Yes.

Mary Commissioner Peterson?

Mary Yes.

Commissioner Barnwell?

Yes.

Commissioner Wiskum? Yes. Vice Chair Boss? Yes. And Chair Wardlow? Abstain. Motion passes. Thank you.

And then, we will now go to 11/13/2025 Planning Commission minutes. May I have a motion

to approve?

I'll move the minutes. Second.

Thank you. Bauke seconded. Thank you. Can we please have roll call for the November 13 minutes?

Thank you, Chair Wardlow. I'll begin again with Commissioner Bauke. Yes. Commissioner Deluccio. Yes. Commissioner Peterson. Yes. Commissioner Barnwell.

Yes.

Commissioner Wiskum. Yes. Vice Chair Boss. Yes. And Chair Wardlow. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now move on to public comments pertaining to items not on today's agenda. Do we have any public comment speaker slips?

Thank you, Chair Wardlow. At this time, I don't have any speaker slips for general public comment, though if anyone in the audience would like to speak under general, you can approach the podium at this time. But I'm not seeing any movement. And if anyone in the audience would like to speak under a specific item, you can bring, fill out a speaker slip at the back of the room and bring it up to me. But with that, I will move to virtual participation where we don't have anyone online with us. And but I will acknowledge that we received written correspondence from Sherry McNone and Arne Cooper and give it back to you.

Thank you. We will now close general public comment. We'll move on to discussion item three, single family streamlining project. This project aims to simplify the process for single unit housing. The commission has asked to consider the proposed amendments and provide feedback to staff. We have Ellen Cokinda, city planner and Ted Hamilton Rolle, acting design review supervisor with us today to provide a staff presentation. The floor is yours.

Thank you, chair Wardlow, commissioners. I also wanna acknowledge Brenda Belts, planning analyst is here to answer questions. We also have supervising transportation planner, Jessica Grant, and community development director, Alison DeBusk on deck. We are here to today to present the draft ordinance amendments, associated with the single family design, board streamlining project for your consideration. And before I begin, I'd like to just clarify a numbering issue in the staff report. On page 13 of your packet, the number three b should be three a and so on. Also, I'd like to request an additional ten minutes for the presentation from the chair. Twenty five minutes total should suffice.

Yes. Thank you.

Thank you very much. This project implements much needed changes to the city's design review process for single family development. We've heard from homeowners that they're frustrated by the complexity of the design review process for home improvement projects and the delays that can result. The city spends an ordered amount of time on and resources on those minor projects that usually have little to no impact on the neighborhood, but take up space on public hearing agendas. City council has heard the community's feedback and in 2022, the land development team oversight committee directed staff to make the process simpler and more efficient in response.

Along with the amendments specific to single family development, we're proposing a host of amendments that address the new state laws, housing element updates that reduce constraints on housing development, and clarifying amendments to the zoning ordinance that streamline processes and simplify code language. This is the second time the Planning Commission has seen this project. The first was in March 2024 when staff presented preliminary amendment concepts for discussion. And since then, we've held additional discussions at the single family design board, done outreach to the Santa Barbara AIA, the Santa Barbara Association of Realtors, some neighborhood representatives, project appellants, and we've also briefed city council on the code amendment concepts. For today's hearing, we'll provide an overview of the proposed amendments, open public comment, and then take initial questions and comments from the commission.

This is a discussion item and no action is being requested today. However, we do anticipate returning for a recommendation to city council in early January. As a refresher, this project was initiated back in 2022 as a result of the 2020 Novak Consulting Group report, which the land development team oversight committee used to direct staff to make streamlining improvements to the design review process. Starting in 2023, we reviewed three years worth of SFDB project data to look for opportunities to streamline, put out an online survey to folks who'd been through the SFDB process, including homeowners, architects, designers, planning consultants, and others. We also held focus groups with current and former SFDB members, as well as design and planning professionals who had been applicants before the SFDB.

In addition, we held working group meetings with American Institute of Architects or AIA volunteers in SFDB subcommittee. And this year we held a briefing session at City Council on the proposed amendments and met with project appellants. We have three main goals for this project. First, to reduce the number of single family development projects subject to design review. Second, to streamline the public hearing process for single family projects.

And third, to create more flexibility to address common homeowner interests. This project does not propose to eliminate the SFDB or even significantly reduce its purview. Instead, the goal is to make measured common sense changes that help staff get to yes on more projects. Key project actions include updating the SFDB code and guidelines and incorporating complimentary amendments to the zoning ordinance. Goal one is to reduce the number of projects subject to design review.

The primary change we're proposing to achieve this goal is to exempt alterations from design review if they don't result in new floor area and either visually match the existing development or result in a new cohesive design. Site improvements would also be exempt if they involve less than 50 cubic yards of grading. And this is a new approach compared to what we discussed with you in March 2024 when we were still proposing a design review trigger for major alterations and attempting to define what a major alteration is. We changed course on that approach after realizing that creating such a definition posed challenges with implementation and objectivity and usability of the code. Here's an example of how we'd apply this new approach and what we mean by exempting alterations from design review using a project that received SFDB approval.

The existing mid century home in the top image needed a new roof, windows, and plaster. There is no change in square footage, only this cosmetic exterior update and remodel. Under current code, the project required consent review due to the number and extent of the changes proposed. However, under the proposed code, the project would not require a public hearing since it only involves exterior alterations and the resulting design is cohesive and consistent with the SFDB guidelines. If these amendments are adopted, we anticipate at least a 21% reduction of SFDB projects.

This is a conservative preliminary estimate of the total number of projects that would be reduced. The bare minimum that we can expect to be eliminated. The actual reduction in projects may be higher. Note that there is little change to the share of projects that's reviewed at full board. That's this red triangle here.

28% under current code, 27% under proposed code. This demonstrates that we are not proposing to change anything that would remove the most significant projects like new two story houses from SFDB purview. Goal two is to streamline the public hearing process by consolidating SFDB review from two approval hearings into one. The current process involves public hearings for both project design approval and final approval. Project design approval is the main SFDB approval and it's one that counts for straight state permit streamlining purposes.

Final approval despite its name that applies otherwise is not the substantive SFDB approval. Instead, it's only the approval of final project details and verification that those project details substantially conform to the project design approval. Currently, appeal final approval is appealable by anyone withstanding, even though its scope is narrow, limited to color and material details and whether the project conforms to project design approval. The proposed process front loads the review, the final details to project design approval, and defers review for substantial conformance to the building permit phase performed by staff. If staff find that the building permit plans do not substantially conform to project design approval or are otherwise uncomfortable making a decision, we have the option to refer final approval to the SFDB.

Final approval decisions made at SFDB would only be appealable by the project applicant. To assist staff with making these post approval decisions, we are introducing a process for determining substantial conformance to your approved plans in the SFDB guidelines. This is a lot of text on one slide and we can come back to it, but for now just know that there are seven substantial criteria substantial conformance criteria that need to be met. Minor variations to plans may be approved if they meet these criteria, and if they do not, then a revised project design approval is required. This makes it much more clear to everyone what to do when a plan set deviates from what SFDB approved and was something that SFDB project opponents and neighborhood representatives requested.

By consolidating the SFDB approval process, we're implementing a Novak report recommendation to reduce the number of appeal points, shining a light on project design approval is the most important approval, and by eliminating a hearing, we're helping the city comply with the five hearing limit for housing projects set by the Housing Crisis Act. Also, most jurisdictions only have one approval step and one appeal point for single family projects, which we think is sufficient. We also proposed to change the eligibility requirements to appeal HLC and ABR final approvals. As with final approval decisions made by the SFDB, the proposed amendments would make ABR and HLC final approval appealable only by the project applicant. Again, this facilitates the city's compliance with the Housing Crisis Act for housing projects.

Along with streamlining the final approval process, staff proposed updated findings for SFDB project design approval. We've reduced the number of findings from seven to five, shortened the text, and reworded the findings to keep their original intent while also focusing them on SFDB's purview of house size design and aesthetics. This is something the SFDB has requested and will help with the clarity of their motions. We also propose cleanups to the hillside finding and grading and vegetation removal findings that focus the SFDB's review on project aesthetics and reduce the amount of text for them to read. Again, helping with clarity of motions.

Another streamlining code amendment is to update mailed notice triggers for all design review boards. The biggest changes are two additions. Currently, a 500 square foot first story addition requires a male notice. We're proposing to increase that threshold to 800 square feet. This aligns with state ADU law that allows ministerial approval of an 800 square foot ADU.

And similarly, with second story additions, we propose to increase the notice threshold from a 150 to 250 square feet. This would allow staff to administratively approve a small bedroom addition to an existing second story, something that the current code and guidelines do not allow. Lastly, for design review ordinance amendments is a concept that the SFDB, HLC, Planning Commission, and City Council all supported, so I'll keep it brief. Currently, process to approve or deny a single family project exceeding the allowable floor area, currently called an FAR modification, is done in three steps. First, a required concept review at design review.

Second, the formal decision at planning commission, And third, back to design review for project design approval and final approval. The proposed process combines these three steps into one, making the design review body the decision maker. SFDB stakeholders indicated that FAR findings have more to do with aesthetics than land use, therefore design review is the best review authority. In addition to design review ordinance updates, we propose to update the single family design board guidelines. There are two main sets of guidelines for SFDB.

The single family resonance design guidelines, which we aren't proposing to change, and the general guidelines and meeting procedures, which we are proposing to overhaul. This overhaul includes a general reorganization and reformat to enhance readability, simplifying and consolidating the long list of SFDB goals, and enhanced process guidance, including the addition of substantial conformance criteria that we already talked about. And to help streamline the process, we also plan to expand the guidelines criteria for administrative staff level approvals of minor projects. As a refresher, staff process admin approvals daily for small projects like window and door changes, small additions, reroofs and more. And to provide context for how this works, when an applicant submits a design review application, staff reviews it and determines the level of design review based on the scope of work and guidance in the SFDB guidelines.

We assess whether the project meets the criteria for an admin approval or whether it needs to be bumped up to consent which is handled by one or two members or the full board of five members. So right now we are just discussing admin staff level approvals. The first thing I'd like to highlight is that we're expanding administrative approvals of accessory buildings and additions at the 1st Story from a maximum of 500 square feet to a maximum of 800 square feet. In line with the noticing trigger and state ADU law, this allows approval of up to 800 square feet. Accessory buildings would have to be outside of the front yard and qualify to qualify, and additions would have to not significantly alter the front facade.

The next thing to highlight is additions to a second or higher story. Currently the code and guidelines only allow a 150 square foot second story addition to be approved administratively. We recognize that second story massing can present, compatibility and privacy issues, so we're not proposing to allow entirely new second stories on an existing one story building to be approved administratively. Instead, we're proposing to be able to approve a modest increase from up to 250 square feet to an existing second story. And lastly, I wanna highlight decks.

The new code standards for decks would exempt one deck max 16 by 10 feet per facade, and decks larger than that would require design review. For decks that require design review, first story decks up to 800 square feet and second story decks up to 250 square feet would be eligible for administrative approval. Roof decks would remain ineligible for administrative approval as they currently are. And here's an example of the type of addition that would qualify for admin approval under the new code. It's the red hatched area on the slide.

This addition required consent review because it was over the 500 square foot size limit allowed for administrative approvals under current guidelines. And by allowing admin approval of up to 800 square feet, we're allowing more flexibility for projects that are obviously consistent with the SFTP guidelines. They don't alter the front facade or a cohesive design style and are located in consideration neighbors. This would allow more streamlined permits for projects like adding a bedroom addition at the rear of the house. And for comparison, here's an example of an addition that would not be eligible for admin approval with the new standards.

Even though the addition shown here is small in the one story and meets most of the criteria, it does not meet the criteria that prohibits additions being in or significantly altering the front yard or the front facade. This addition does just that, adding a significant amount of massing and disrupting the symmetry of the fenestration. And it's important to keep in mind that just because we receive an administrative approval request, we do not have to approve it administratively, and we regularly refer admin approval requests to consent or full board if they don't meet all the criteria. The last single family streamlining component component we're sharing today is zoning amendments that help streamline home improvement projects and address common homeowner interests. Our primary approach to achieve this goal and to reduce the number of automatic design review triggers is to create design standards from existing design guidelines.

Applicants can either design to these standards and be exempt from discretionary design review or request an exception reviewed at SFDB. This allows the community to maintain aesthetic oversight even with state mandates to reduce design review. One such guideline turned standard is that upper story decks should be 15 feet away from the property line. Currently, is a design guideline that is becoming a code standard. For fences and site walls, the maximum height is per the zoning code and the code now specifies allowed materials including wood, black or green painted metal, masonry or stucco.

Disallowed materials include chicken wire, vinyl, unfinished CMU block, and chain link. These materials are based on those limited in or listed in the SFDB guidelines currently. Exceptions to these new standards can be requested at design review. Initially, we had planned to exempt all minors owning exceptions from SFDB review. However, we recognize that over height fences, walls, and hedges as the one shown in this image can significantly affect the streetscape and shared property lines between neighbors.

Therefore, we're keeping the process the same for fences, hedges, and walls with a public hearing and mailed notice required. We are proposing a new process for the more commonly approved MZEs including building height increases in the setback, trash enclosures in the front yard, and newer expanded openings in the setbacks. Those would now be reviewed administratively using code standards based on the existing findings for pioneer zoning exceptions. We're proposing minor changes to height regulations for fences and hedges illustrated in the red text. Notably for front yard fences, the maximum height that's allowed is decreasing from eight feet to five feet, but you can still request an MZE to go up to 12 feet.

This may seem more strict at first glance, but this actually allowed us to eliminate the design review trigger for front yard fences over three and a half feet tall. Instead of having this automatic design review trigger, we're allowing a five foot tall fence in the front yard by right as long as it meets objective design and material specs aligning with the current guidelines. As you'll see in this table, we also introduced standards for height for retaining walls. That is not something that's currently in the current code. These next few concepts are aimed at providing homeowners more flexibility in how they develop their property.

The main change we're proposing is to remove the requirement that parking spaces for single family residents, duplexes, and condos have to be covered. This gives property owners building a new house the option to not build a garage, potentially lowering project cost and reducing project size in bulk. Note, we're not proposing to change the number of required parking spaces, only the stipulation that they must be covered. This provides significant relief from regulations. The current zoning code often forces people into a path they don't necessarily want to take just to get an approval.

The new regulations provide more common sense options. This particularly benefits folks with non conforming one car garages who want to add another parking space. Currently, someone with a non conforming garage wants to get a permit to alter it, they have to make it fully conforming to current code, which can be quite costly and is sometimes infeasible due to site constraints. The proposed code would allow these folks to get a permit to demolish their non conforming garage and replace it with uncovered parking spaces, saving time and money. These process improvements also allow more options for folks who want to use their garage for something other than parking, but don't want to convert it to a full fledged ADU with a full bathroom and kitchen.

Currently, the code allows your garage to be either garage or an accessory dwelling unit with no flexibility to permit it as a workshop, playroom, storage, or anything in between. By removing the covered parking requirement, the proposed amendments would give people options to keep their garage as is, or convert it to a space that better meets their needs like storage or a guest room. Along with allowing the flexibility to build or not build a garage, the proposed ordinance would allow the construction of a guest house that can be used only by the occupants of the main residence, their non paying guests, or domestic employees. This gives people more flexibility to build a space with a bedroom and full bath for their guests to visit without the expense of adding a kitchen. Again, this is something that current zoning does not allow.

We also propose easier to meet open yard requirements. There are many lots in the city between 5,006 square feet, and they often have a hard time meeting the required 1,250 square feet of open yard when planning an addition or an accessory building. To address this, we propose to update the zoning code to reduce the open yard requirement to 800 square feet for lots 6,000 square feet and smaller. We also propose to change the minimum dimensions from 20 by 20 feet to 20 by 15 feet. This will make it far easier for folks with smaller lots to meet the open yard requirements while still providing ample open space.

Along with ensuring adequate open space, the proposed amendments promote vibrant streetscapes by requiring landscape in the front setback. Currently, have nothing in the ordinance or guidelines that prevents a front setback from being entirely covered over an asphalt. And to address this, we propose to add a requirement that at least 50% of the area in the front setback be planted as shown in this sketch. To address privacy concerns voiced by members of the public, we propose to add standards for upper story windows within 15 feet of an interior lot line. They can either use a minimum sill height of 42 inches or be oriented toward the front or the rear.

This prevents large floor to ceiling openings looking directly at neighbors. This is another example of an existing guideline turned into a standard. The single family residence design guidelines encourage upper story openings to be placed on a front facade like in the image on the slide. Currently, there's not a codified process to issue building permits to address immediate threats to life and property. The proposed amendments add a procedure for emergency permits that allow the community development director to approve a temporary emergency permits.

These approvals are subject to conditions and limitations including that the permanent work be permitted under the regular process after the emergency has been addressed. This helps us be nimble and flexible when things like landslides or fires happen and quick remediation is needed. Occasionally, are projects that the code requires to go to the community development director or staff hearing officer for a decision, but the project is controversial or complex enough to warrant review by a higher review authority. The proposed code allows the director or the staff hearing officer to refer the project to the next highest review authority without holding a hearing to do so. This eliminates what is effectively a wasted hearing for a referral allowing the project instead to just go straight to the next highest review authority for a decision.

Before I conclude, I want to mention how this project implements one housing element policy and three programs. By reducing design review triggers, increasing mail notice thresholds, and creating objective standards using the existing guidelines, this project implements policy h 1.4 reducing constraints that impede housing development. It also facilitates special needs housing under program h e three by streamlining the review process for group homes and employee and farm worker housing and expanding the zones that allow low barrier navigation centers. Program HE five is the through line of the whole project, streamlining design review. This is the common thread between the Novak report recommendations and the housing element implementation, reducing design review triggers and streamlining public hearings.

And lastly, program HE eight facilitates temporary housing and emergency shelters and allows homeowners to live in an ADU or a mobile home on their property if their primary residence is destroyed or damaged. It also eliminates the requirement for discretionary approvals like performance standard permits and conditional use permits for small and large home daycare facilities and lowers barriers to permit daycare centers. Overall, we crafted these amendments to help city staff get to yes on simple projects more quickly and efficiently while maintaining aesthetic oversight on development. The project maintains the city's objective of ensuring new development is compatible with the neighborhood and facilitating neighbor participation. It also results in a simpler process, better efficiency, and achieves state requirements related to the housing element and other legislative updates.

So following today's discussion, we anticipate returning to the Planning Commission in early January for a recommendation to city council. After that, we'll go to Ordinance Committee and City Council in the spring. Thank you very much. That concludes my presentation.

Thank you very much. That was very helpful and informative. Just really quick, have a question. Would we be able to get these presentations in advance of the hearings? Because this was really helpful. We will now move on to public comment. Do we have any members of the public that would like to make comments on this specific item?

Thank you, Chair Wardlow. At this time, I do have one speaker slip for public comment, so I'm going to invite Derek Booth up to the podium. Though I see that others have public comment, you can bring it to me, and I'll grab it from you. Me start speaking. I'll start with Diamond.

Thank you. It's nice to see all of you again. I'm sorry it's under these circumstances. I've written a letter to you on this subject, and I'll try not to go over the same points. Here, I'd really just like to emphasize one thing.

The streamlining proposal is cast largely as an effort to improve the applicant experience and reduce the load on the single family design board. These are worthy goals. But I do want to remind the board, and the staff, and the commission that the single family design board was originally created in 2007 to address what's described in things that I've read as an influx of McMansions. And to provide a way to honor and to protect the characteristics of residential neighborhoods in the city that make it such a great place to live. Planning staff has told me that they've been directed to treat applicants as clients.

And I heard that too when I was a county staff person. But surely the residents of the city should be their ultimate clients. I feel that this has been forgotten. Such that now the support of the staff will support, and the single family design board will approve the overall bulk and scale of just about anything that seems to come across its desk. Where guidelines are routinely abandoned when they don't suit the applicant's purpose.

And where it's left to the neighborhood to call foul on omissions or outright misrepresentations in proposals. If you do nothing else in your recommendations to the city council, please encourage the council to remind the single family design board of their original purpose for existing, to stiffen their spine, and just to say no in the face of clear transgressions to our city's design guidelines. And lastly, until evidence proves otherwise, retain yourselves, the Planning Commission, as an appealable body throughout every stage of the design review process. The even the current proposal for substantial conformance is large enough to drive, I'm not sure of the right analogy, a truck through. At the time, Chairman Bauke provided me and pointed me at other cities' substantial conformance guidelines, some of which I've reproduced in the letter to you.

And I hope that you will carry them forward to the council. There's a point at which staff discretion and having helped us building permit plan checkers, is really not appropriate, where neighborhood interest and substantial debate and concern has been raised. We just don't trust the process. I'm really sorry to say that, but it's true. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Booth.

Thank you. With that, we'll move to Ellen Bildstone.

Good

afternoon. I'll apologize. I'm struggling with a cold at the moment, so I'll do my best. I hear I'm an architect and representative of AIA advocacy. We put together a letter that unfortunately got to you pretty late in the process, but I'm hoping that you had a chance to see it.

Overall, our group's assessment of where this process has landed under the excellent guidance of Ted and Ellen Kokinda is really, really positive. We think these are really great changes that are being proposed. We skimmed the document and overall thought it was extremely good. It was, as pointed out by Ted's presentation, based largely on the survey that was conducted in 2023 that highlighted a lot of problems with the process. And we think that many the proposals address those directly.

The one area of concern that we had was that we still see a fair amount of ambiguous language in what's required for the applicant to provide at the beginning of the process. There's still a lot of language in the document that says things like, in some cases, things may be requested and the board may need to know certain things to provide more visual aids in the stream of the review of the project. And we think that ambiguity would be an ongoing problem to the process. With that, we think that AIA advocacy is very available to continue to meet with city staff and continue to improve the current ordinance proposal. And we also believe that it would be a very positive thing to have an annual or biannual review of the process and see how this is how these changes are impacting the number of projects that are being heard by SFDB and how it's going.

So we think that those types of changes are are going to really improve everything overall. Thank you.

Thank you. With that, I don't have any more speaker slips for in person public comment. Though if anyone would like to speak, you can approach the podium at this time. But I'm not seeing any movement, so I'll move to virtual participation. And we do have one hand raised. So Cass Ensberg, I'm going to allow you to speak. You should be able to unmute at this time.

Hello. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Wardlow, Planning Commission, staff, and community. Special thanks to Mr. Hamilton Roll for his presentation and to Ms. Kokinda for their work on this very important streamlining measures.

I am Cass Ansberg and I'm an architect here in town. I sent a letter that I hope you were able to read and my apologies for not sending it earlier. I will just highlight a couple of points. First of all, I I appreciate and fully support your work as planning commission as well as design review and our city staff who manages the process. Design review, in my opinion, is a critique that is fundamental to the design process and to the realization of any good design.

In my opinion, there is no guarantee for approval nor should there be. Approval is granted when requirements are met and an acceptable design produced. This is the responsibility of the applicant and their designer. It is not the responsibility of the review board to design the project. Their responsibility is to be clear and reasonable.

And I think some of the things that staff has come up with here will will help to remove any questions or ambiguities that may may exist right now. I have sadly seen many times when applicant returns multiple times with designs that fail to meet neighborhood concerns or the intent of the comments given by the review board. In my experience, this is not the norm. Rather, applicants with a skilled designer and a good design that is sensitive to and has included neighbor support achieve design review approval in short order. This is the way to streamline a project, not by limiting the number of reviews to benefit proposed projects that have not convinced the board that they are ready to be approved.

Meeting the conditions including a good good neighbor policies and appropriate compatibility in terms of size, bulk, and scale and aesthetic is the responsibility of the designer applicant team. The applicant has the power of a smooth streamlined process by proposing a design that meets these basic and stated parameters. In summary, let's just remember the principles importance of design review process and quite frankly, the process of planning commission and thank our design review staff, the planning commission, and all the design review boards for their service to Santa Barbara to ensure the quality and beauty beauty of our built environment. With that, I support the staff's recommendations, and thank you again for your service.

Thank you. With that, I don't have any more speakers online. So, I will acknowledge that we received written correspondence from Derek Booth, Kevin Dumaine, Matt Gries on behalf of the AIA Santa Barbara, and Cass Ensberg, and give it back to you.

Thank you. I will now open it up to my fellow commissioners for questions.

Who would like to go first?

It's not showing up on my

screen. Commissioner Bauke is first on my screen. I will come look at yours. Thank you.

So I'm not sure. But anyway, it was leftovers. I just

Who would like to go first? We're just having technical. Okay. See. Commissioner DeLucia.

Oh, yeah. Oh, I Okay. I will start, but I really didn't have my button pressed, but I will start. I'm happy to We're sorry. Everybody was in queue, but I will I'll be happy to I'll be happy to go first. I I, all, think this is an outstanding report that we got today. And a lot of work has gone into this. And it's going be so cool when we finally get this all together and we can move forward. I think most of it's in place here. I have to ask questions right now, not to liberate us. I'll ask some questions. Does the city have an architect on staff?

Commissioner DeLucia, thank you. There is a city architect on staff on the public works side. And, yeah, they're not necessarily associated directly with community development work. I think their, you know, role is more involved in capital projects.

Okay. Thanks for answering that question. I'm kind of surprised.

If I could, through you, Chair Wardlow, to Commissioner De Luccio. So, it was we've years, we had a lot of feedback requesting that there be a city architect within community development, and particularly having more oversight over design review. And the city went through a hiring process to find an architect, And that hiring process end up it was a failed hiring. So, we couldn't find the interest or, you know, there's all kinds of things. But generally, it didn't end up we didn't end up with a city architect. Instead, you ended up with me as the design review supervisor. So, I'm sorry, but not sorry at the same time. But that has been reviewed and explored, and we just weren't successful with it. So, we kind of have been we went in a different direction.

I think Steph does a great job. However, I feel like, so there's not a slot open to hire one in the future. So, at this point. Haskell: I think that's With all the design boards here, there's not even a, well, the city I came for, we had an urban urban designer. Well, in in that in that capacity. With all that's going on with the boards, you would think that a representative would, especially for major projects, would would be involved like an architect and be come to the meetings or something. So, but this is my I guess it's a comment and a question, I'm very surprised that that role is not in place.

And if I may, Commissioner DeLuccio, I think we've historically relied on our design review boards as being experts throughout this entire process. We have people in the audience here from AIA. We rely very heavily on their expertise, their design interest, their design input. So, not having a licensed architect or an urban designer, that very specific role on staff, we try to utilize our community resources.

In which we have excellent community resources. I just think that by having such a role would bring more credibility to the process. It's just my opinion. So, next question. I know that right now we're trying to streamline this and a lot of stuff goes to the hearing officer, I noticed. More, is it minor zoning exemptions that they get a lot of? I've been watching the meetings. It's like, it's just modified. They need minor modifications. And so, that would pretty much roll up in to the administrative level in the future.

John Commissioner DeLucio, currently, minor zoning exceptions are reviewed at design review exclusively. Appeals of those decisions would be heard at either city council or planning commission, depending on the design board. But those are those are all design review decisions. What we're proposing is to keep fence, hedge, and wall miners only exceptions for overheight fences, walls, and hedges at the design review level and require a public hearing. But there are other design review MZEs we call them that are simpler.

They're just raising the height a little bit and the setback. And our thinking is that if we can evaluate those and make sure they meet standards in the municipal code they're not exceeding those standards, that staff can administratively approve those.

So, what's going before the hearing officer? A lot of modifications like I need to encroach a couple of feet here or there.

Male Correct.

Female that will remain at the hearing officer?

Male Correct. We're not proposing to change anything under the staff hearing officer's purview.

Female Okay.

And if I may clarify. So, when we created Title 30, and it was launched back in 2018, the minor zoning exception process was created. And so, under Title 28, it requires modifications. That's a more onerous process to get a modification. So, one of the streamlining efforts then was to create minor zoning exceptions. And now, we're taking that one step further and taking most of those minor zoning exceptions that just are kind of rubber stamp approvals at Single Family Design Board and our other design review boards and making them staff level decisions. So, it's just a constant iteration and process improvement. Okay.

The other question is, I know when they come before modifications come before the hearing officer, a staff person, a planner will be there and they, there's a pretty detailed staff report, with very comprehensive staff report. I know we're trying to streamline things and I'm just wondering if you guys hadn't looked at that in order to streamline that process because I'm sure that costs the applicants some money also. And staff is I don't have staffs is making is is we're supposed to make the city is supposed to charge what it takes to do something. And I don't I have a feeling we're not making we're not evening it out.

I think that's correct. And actually, it's interesting. You mentioned this, Commissioner DeLuccio. Yes, there's always ways to look at. We're obligated to write staff reports when a project goes to the staff hearing officer or planning commission. But certainly, the level of formality and the depth I mean, we've tried to cut back where there are coastal development permits for ADUs, for example, that, you know, we're forced to take those to the staff hearing officer. But there's always ways we could try to reduce that amount of staff time when it's really, again, a non controversial project or fairly And

then, the question is, so when before design review board, so by taking some of the minor stuff away from them, which they would rubber stamp anyway, would give them more time to focus on, I'll call them major projects, major design. And is that what the intent would be also?

That's the idea. And that has multiple benefits both from the staff side and from, well, from staff, for applicants, and for the design review board members. You know, there there are so many single family design board projects currently that we have to have two full full time staffers to handle all those projects. Whereas Mhmm. HLC and ABR only have one. In addition, the I lost my train of thought.

Sorry.

Well, I could just add on to what Mr. Hamilton Rolle was saying that a handful of years ago, we actually went to city council and modified the code to reduce the number of board members on SFDB from seven to five because we were having a lot of challenges with appointments, finding getting quorums. So, what was happening, we'd have a lot of like, there's just this huge number of projects that have to go to public hearings for decision because we couldn't administratively approve things. So, development projects were backing up. We were losing quorum.

Board members were getting burned out. I had board members leave in the middle of their terms. And it was a really stressful time. And so, by alleviating some of the quorum issues and trying to just alleviate the sheer volume of projects that they see, again, the intention is that we they're still responsible for having oversight over the major projects that have big implications for the neighborhood. But just to be conscious of, these are volunteers. It takes a lot of staff time. And what can we take off that the community generally finds acceptable?

I'll ask one more question, and I'll let my other commissioners drive in here. So, when these projects come before design review, you know, obviously they see the design, and they've and all that stuff. But do they get a staff report also? Is there because I know where I'm leading with this is the neighborhood compatibility where I know they've had some issue problems wrapping their hands around neighborhood compatibility. And I know you did some you sort of revised it, you took some away from them and with some of the land use type findings you guys will, can make and then they can deal with the design type of, of, neighbor compatibility.

But I noticed I watched the meetings that when you go like the hearing officer has these reports. And when you watch a design board, I don't see, if I look up, I don't see any staff reports. I just, it's like almost to me like it's like free flow. So, we're, And I know that creative people are kind of free flow in a sense. But, where is the discipline there? And to help them out?

That's a good question. Commissioner Deluccio, part of the challenge there is that there are just so many design review projects on, you know, you have a two week cycle for full board and commission projects and you have multiple items per agenda. You have the same staff person running those agendas and you know, they'd be writing potentially 10 staff reports every two weeks. It gets it gets challenging to implement. Whereas with our development review team, that's a bigger team of of staffers and they are, you know, although the show hearings are I think every week, it's fewer staffers per hearing basically.

So, there's, it's a little bit easier in the timelines with development reviewer such that you can facilitate a full staff report. With design review, it hasn't quite been achievable. However, I will say that for more complex projects, projects involving multiple discretionary approvals or projects where staff thinks that the design board might benefit from a memo or you know additional explanation. We have prepared miniature staff reports or memos.

But there's a checklist you go through before you decide who's going to be reviewing it. And then it, when so, when it gets up to design review, it's if that's where it belongs and it's in a way it's in a way where it can be heard. And a lot of, you know, a lot of the I's are crossed and the dot T's are crossed, I's are dotted or whatever. You know I'm saying? How does it all of a sudden, it gets up to that level of design review, staff is reviewing it first, and it's in a place where it can go to design review to be evaluated. Is that correct?

That's correct, Commissioner DeLuccio. And just a couple other thoughts is that, you know, when we get new board members, we do a lot of training and have them go through the guidelines. And it's, you know, with any guideline, there's always a little bit of a learning curve. And when you look through more projects and you get more experience, then you start to understand what are those you know, how do the guidelines connect? How can I use the guidelines as a tool to make the required findings that are before the single family design board?

But it's also the responsibility of the applicant. You know, a lot of what our job is to communicate, Hey, you have design guidelines that you are required to you know, that you need to make sure that your project complies with, because that's what again, the board is going to be looking at your projects against these guidelines, and then they're going be making recommendations. So, there's a lot of responsibility on the applicants to be familiar with it, and to kind of be able to create their own argument to before the board of like how they think they meet them, and or not.

So, design review is not going to go away at the administrative level either, correct? It's going be design review and regulations, you know, that you're going be using the regulations that have design in it, in the regulations in order to approve the windows and doors and stuff like that. Correct?

That is correct. There are proposed design standards within the proposed zoning ordinance.

I'm looking at the first objective. It says reduce the number of single family development projects subject to design review. It's really subject to design review before the design review board. It's not design review doesn't go away.

Correct. There's I think there's sort of a shifting of to administrative design review, right? So, you meet certain standards, then we're effectively doing administrative design review when we're doing zoning plan changes.

And, they're

objective design review. They're objective standards. Yeah.

In that sense. Okay. Those are my questions right now. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner DeLucia. Commissioner Varmelev, I mean, Commissioner Balkhy, if you have a question or please click your thing, because it got messed up.

So if

you'd like to go next, I'll go to you. Commissioner Balkhy.

First off, thank you for all the hard work. I know that this is a big, big lift in undertaking, and making sure it all matches up. You change one thing, and you go deal with something else. They really understand significant effort getting something like this before us. So thank you on that.

I've got three areas I'd like to get a better understanding. First off is, Mr. Booth made some comments, is how we drew our lines as to changes in substantial conformance. Could you walk us through what our current role is, what we're proposed to do, and how you made those determinations?

Thank you, Commissioner Bauke. To the secretary, if we could have the staff PC on the screen, please. These are the proposed substantial conformance criteria. Currently, this doesn't exist in the code or the guidelines. So these are criteria that in consultation with community members and designer view members, we came up with these to try to give an objective standard for changes to approved plans.

Now Oh, go ahead. I was just gonna say, I think we really tried to get at the things that would be most important when looking at changes to approved plans. Main things would be conditions of approval and height. So, if you have a condition of approval that the single family design board or another review body made, if you do revisions to a plan, that revision should absolutely reflect that condition of approval. And basically, what this allows for is if we see a plan not be consistent with any one of these criteria, staff can refer the project back for revised project design approval.

So another full approval hearing. Or if it's a really kind of minor change, we can refer a project to the single family design board for a decision.

Okay. Look look personally looking at this, most of them make sense. The one that just doesn't make sense of why something would change that much between, you know, something that was approved is the floor area. What What world would all of a sudden you have in 150 square feet more of a project from A to B, especially when things are drawn in CAD now? I have a hard time with that one. But the other one's a height that can get, because sometimes the site conditions get to that. And that one, I'm having a hard time with.

Commissioner Bauke, and through the chair, that's really intended to address comments that come through the building plan check review. Often there are times, you know, they haven't included room for mechanical equipment or various things that just were not anticipated and then they end up becoming needing to become part of the floor plan. So things come up. There are also times though where people change their mind, right? Something changes between when they had their project reviewed and they decide, oh, I really would like a bigger closet or a bigger bathroom. So that happens as well. We just wanted to provide some flexibility to address it.

Okay. And now, I understand your logic. Don't agree, but that's okay. That's how this works. Okay. So, is that it on substantial or do you have something else?

I just want to thank you, Commissioner Bauke. So, currently, as Mr. Hamilton Rule mentioned, we don't really have this information in. And I think we heard a lot from appellants, from you know, we had a number of conversations with Mr. Booth and understand that, you know, there's we want to build some trust, rebuild trust with staff, and making sure that we can point to these, we have these objective standards.

But right now, the way it works is if there's some after project design approval and final approval, something comes in in the building permit phase, and they have a completely different massing, or they go from, I want to do, I'm going from a three story house down to a two story house. Like, that's really, that's such a major change. That's obvious. We're going to send that back to single family design board for a revised project design approval because there's so much massing change. And when there's not, when it's not that obvious, then we take it for either final approval or review after final.

Both are kind of, you know, where there's the purview is looking at it through the lens of substantial conformance. So, usually the board's doing that. So, we've often kind of relied on the board to make that call when it tends to be not the most obvious decision. And here, again, we're just trying to ensure that we can point to things and say, okay, we're, you know, especially if something's controversial. I mean, this is just, the objective, but within these guidelines, we also identify, like, if there's something that's so touchy, it's just not worth, you know, let's look at this and be able to send it back if we need to.

Yeah. I appreciate that thought process. The next area is has there been any discussion and thought about working towards turning our guidelines into objective standards?

Thank you, Commissioner Bauke. Yes, there has. And in fact, there is a state law that basically prohibits agencies from creating new subjective standards and guidelines. So if we create new guidelines, they need to be more objective going forward. And I think our our proposed single family design board guidelines are a step toward that.

They're based on existing subjective guidelines and we're trying to make them more objective as we go. I think we've really where we've really made progress with having a more objective process is through the title 30 zoning amendments that introduce objective design standards for certain project elements that are currently in the guidelines. We we anticipate that to result in a lot fewer design review projects having to go for discretionary review while still being able to maintain a level of aesthetic oversight.

And if I may add, we had conversation with our SFDB working group and our who also had AIA members on it. And we thought initially, well, let's think about this. Like, if we're doing a second story addition, is there something that we can just approve? If you're set back 15 feet, that you don't exceed 1,000 square feet, you know, just certain objective standards. And there was a lot of concern from that if you create such objective standards, then people that are in the code, then everyone's going to design to that and it may not be the most aesthetically pleasing building or something that really works for the neighborhood or there's just other considerations.

So, we, again, tried to make things as objective as possible and kind of moving in that direction, and create taking a lot of the principles that were guidelines and put them in as standards. And so, this was kind of the first pass, but still keeping some of the larger concepts, not really taking objective standards to, like, a second story addition.

I appreciate your response, because it's a balancing act. Understand it, because design review can get you a better product, but at the same time having standards sometimes simplifies and at least puts boundaries on the discussion, which you're not like dealing with things that are just you should have been there in the first place. I'll I'll move on to my last last topic area, which is something that I'm trying to understand how we use FAR. Because FAR is based upon size of property. Correct?

And then we have this 20 house rule or concept, and you could help explain the thought process of that. Because I'm trying to understand truth in zoning and equity between property owners that just because there's a situation I had personally, and I'll just put it out there. Now, I had a property that was an acre in size, in a neighborhood that had houses from 7,000 square feet down to 1,500, and neighbors that had lots at 5,000 to an acre. And the 20 house rule was like we had everything, and the folks at the single family board was always going, well, your house is too big. And I go, well, the property is like four or five times bigger than us.

And it's a question of does that process create a, what I'll call, creation of homogenous Irvine of Santa Barbara, or allow us Santa Barbara to be Pasadena, which has all kinds of variety from big mansions to small houses. How does this work? What are we doing to change the FAR and how that process works in this conversation?

Yeah. Thank you, Commissioner Bauke. So the maximum FAR applies to lots that are 15,000 square feet and less and developed with two or more stories. So you have to in order to be subject to a max FAR, those are your parameters. With the 20 closest house or 20 closest lot study, that is something that is in the SFDB guidelines and on the city website in our FAR supplemental application as a as a supplemental submittal item for properties that exceed 85% of the FAR.

Back when the SFDB was established in the early aughts, there was a lot of discussion about FAR and what the the house sizes should be, what the square footages should be. And if you look in the single family residence design guidelines, there's a chart that has all of those square footages and what those percentages of the max FAR are. In short, we're not proposing to change anything about the maximum FAR as part of this project. That was discussed so thoroughly when SFDB was created and you know, we didn't really have any input from any particular source that indicated that should be changed. However, we are trying to, with this project, trying to simplify how size, bulk, and scale are looked at, and recognize that the 20 closest home study is only one tool in the toolbox for evaluating home size.

You're absolutely right that the study can result some wacky numbers, especially if you have different sized lots next to each other, and you know, maybe one is subject to max FAR and is developed with two stories, and the other is developed only with one story, right? So, you're kind of looking at apples and oranges. In addition, that study only looks at gross square footage, not net square footage like the the max FAR uses. So, this is, and we acknowledge this, this is a confusing aspect for especially members of the public, but it is not intended to be an end all be all kind of calculation for how big a house should be. It's just one of the tools that the single family design board and the HLC use to look at house size.

They, they can definitely use other tools like three d renderings, streetscape perspectives, as long as those are drawn correctly, are also very helpful and you know, three d models to evaluate how big a house is going be in relation to neighbors.

And if I could add, I've seen similar issues. Not a lot, but there's one project in particular that was on a really large lot, and it was a project that was proposing a pretty substantive size residence, but all the lots adjacent to it were significantly smaller. So, it was kind of apples and oranges, And it even it didn't have it wasn't an FAR requirement. Rather, it was, again, exceeded 15,000 square feet. So, it was just a guideline.

And I watched the SFDB struggle a little bit. And in that particular instance, I had meetings with the applicant to say, Okay, you know, you really need to if you're interested in getting this through, you need to kind of help them understand where you know, your lot in relation to these other lots, and kind of help them, kind of bring them along as to why a larger lot could support a larger development, and it kind of makes sense, and you don't necessarily that means that you, oh, now I have to shrink this house down. But on the other end, I think that in this community, there's, there are gonna be homes that are just too large, and that there's just not a community interest. And so, even currently, we have an automatic design review trigger in our code for a residence that's over 4,000 square feet, because again, there was a community interest in not having something so massive. So, even if you have a large lot that could accommodate something, but I think in the instance that you're talking about, I think it's really just trying to help them see, like, this lot, it doesn't look like the rest, and it can accommodate a larger development area or development envelope.

And I can still be conscious about where I'm developing, and again, it doesn't have to be it doesn't match the scale, because that could really differ. And so, it's just since we had that project, we Mr. Hamilton Rolle did multiple trainings with a single family design board on FAR and the 20 closest lots, and what are we looking at, how do we understand what this means, you know, how should we look at this in context with the scale of a lot or the ultimate size. And since then, they haven't struggled as much with FAR because of that training. And we just, as I mentioned that handful of years ago, when we were just had this backlog of development projects, there was a lot of burnout with SFDB members.

We didn't have, it was almost, we didn't feel comfortable asking them to take more time out of their work lives to do trainings. So, once we kind of reduced the number of members, kind of got the quorum issues out of kind of in control, we focused very much on training them. So, I think it's so much about training our board members so that they get that, and they can have that sophisticated review when there is a lot that comes in like that.

Okay, thank you. And I appreciate that knowledge and how the process has clearly evolved over the years. The situation I was talking about is like 2007, when they were brand, brand new. And so, it's good to hear that that training has been happening, and this 20 house thing is not the only criteria to get. So, those are my questions. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, commissioner Balkhy. We'll now hear from commissioner Peterson.

Thank you. And thank you all for bringing this before us. I know this is a lot of work. There are a lot of pages involved in this. So that's my first point. My first question is we've heard already today about limited staff capacity in terms of review and process. Do you all have an estimate of how much staff time as a percentage of your time goes into preparing SFDB agenda items or in general, the amount of staff time that's spent getting ready for discretionary review by boards or commissions? Agendas, mailings, noticing.

Yeah. Thank you, commissioner Peterson. In short, the answer could be a 100%. We have two staff members devoted to SFDB. We have one who handles full board projects and one who handles consent.

And it's their full time job to basically prepare projects to get on an agenda. And that involves multiple steps including application completeness review, routing to different departments, preparing application completeness letters, communicating with applicants, preparing notices, preparing agendas. So, it's all wrapped into getting to, you know, the project to an agenda. We don't really have quantitative estimates just, know, currently of the percentage of time that a staff member spends say doing an application completeness review or preparing a mailed notice. We do have a fee study coming up in the next year that will look in greater detail at that.

We can, you know, if and when we provide an update on how this project is going after implementation, we can come to you with more information on that.

And if I could add to that, to Commissioner Peterson, that especially with single family design board, it really the amount of time it takes to process a project can really there's a large range. And because what's unique about SFDB is that to construct or to design a single family home, you are not required to be a licensed architect. So, sometimes we have the, you know, incredible architects who are proposing single family homes, you know, hire you know, property owner hires them. They know how to get through the process. They know our application completeness review.

They know what materials. Just know how to package everything. And then, we have homeowners who might just like try to figure out how to do it themselves, and that can take a lot of time, a lot of iteration, a lot of hand holding, clarification, learning curve, all of that. So, it really runs the gamut on just the amount of time. So, any time we do a fee study, it's really the average time it takes. But there can be, again, with single family, it tends to be a little bit unique because we have such a range of applicants who come in, and so there's a different level of need and customer service required as part of that.

The idea is getting to more ministerial review will free up some staff time to do other things like approving projects.

The idea is that we can, there's kind of different levels to it. So, taking some things that require design review hearings, taking those and making those administrative, so we don't have to take them to a hearing, and we can approve them either that someone could submit straight to a building permit application, and we can do the design review right there, concurrently with the building permit application. And then, there are some things that trigger design review and no longer trigger design review because we've created objective standards in the code. And if you design to that, then just go straight to building permit. And again, we've kind of created the standards based on what our single family design board guidelines show.

So, again, the intention is that we're honoring the community interest in materials and design standards, and relied on all of kind of our architectural predecessors, many of whom are still here and who've helped create this document and this board. So, yeah, there's kind of different levels to it. But yes, ultimately, we free up staff time for hearings to then be able to do staff level approvals moving through.

Thank you. And Commissioner Peterson, may I just add a quick note to that? Another kind of angle of this is that, you know, we don't anticipate this resulting in too much more work for staff, you know, since we will still be doing work to move projects through. But where the reduction in time is really gonna be noticed is on the applicant and the homeowner end where instead of going through, you know, a several months long process to get their project approved at a public hearing, they're going through, you know, probably thirty days to six weeks total from when they submit a building permit application to when they get their permit issued, ideally. Thank you.

I want to move on to something else. So on page five of our staff report, it's the first paragraph. It says, in reviewing three years of SFDB project data, staff found that approximately 45% of projects were building or site alterations that did not involve any changes to floor area and were instead routine maintenance upgrades, repairs, etcetera. And then if we go back to page two of our staff report, this what we're reviewing now, project aims to reduce the total number of projects that require SFDB review by more than 20%. Streamline the public hearing process for single family projects and provide more flexibility within the zoning ordinance and design guidelines to reduce permitting barriers.

So how did we arrive at the goal essentially of having 20% fewer projects come before SF DB rather than 45% where plans are not floor plans are not changing?

Thank you, commissioner Peterson. The 21% reduction is again just a a bare minimum, what we know we can expect that will be reduced. It's based on projects that are currently triggered that we know for sure will not be triggered by the proposed code. That said, we've not had time yet to do a really in-depth analysis and get a super accurate number partly because we're kinda comparing apples and oranges between the old code and the proposed code or the current code and the proposed code. Therefore, it's a little tricky to determine exactly which projects out of that three year dataset would be triggered and which wouldn't.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if the actual project reduction is closer to that 45% amount. And that's kind of, you know, on the high end of where we'd we'd like to be. I'll leave it at that. Yeah. Guess

framing this as a question, you know, we're exempting from what's required by SFDB review or we're exempting almost under this draft ordinance or exempting most alterations that don't that that substantially conform. Certainly, that percentage if what you're saying is 45% of the projects are not changing floor area and we're routine maintenance mostly, then certainly the percentage is probably gonna be higher than 21%

or most likely. I think that's I think that's a fair assumption. The projects that wouldn't be eligible or that wouldn't I'm sorry. The projects that would still get triggered would be wholesale exterior alterations with site work. You know, things that actually would potentially have an impact on the community, an impact on the streetscape where something completely different is proposed.

The things that we're trying not to trigger are projects that don't change the massing, but just change kind of the, you know, the frosting on the cake, so to speak. But they result in a cohesive architectural style or they match the existing to a certain extent. So essentially what it would take to come up with a, you know, a more definitive estimate of the number of projects that would be reduced is we'd have to look at all 440 of these projects that we reviewed and analyze them against this new proposed code and to try to determine whether they would trick a design review or not. So we just haven't quite had the time to do that at this point.

And Commissioner Peterson, if I

could add to that. I would just say, yes, staff's estimate was definitely conservative. You know, we wanted to take a conservative approach. I think you also can't underestimate how much people want to avoid our process. And so, if there's a standard that they can design up to to avoid the process, I think that's going to start happening. So, we may see even more than what we anticipate.

Thank you. Thank you for answering my questions.

Thank you, Commissioner Peterson. Commissioner Barnwell?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Could you go to page 25 on your presentation? I think it's 25.

Commissioner Barnwell, mean on the PowerPoint?

Yeah. Those little numbers in the lower left hand corner there, page 20 slide 25. Yeah. There we go. I'm curious, how did you come to the numbers in the proposed? For example, accessory buildings current February proposed August. Why wasn't it July or August? Where does how did you come with that? This also applies, if I may. I think it's on page 19 you have somewhere around page 19, slide number 19, you have another one where you've come up with square footage numbers. I just wondered, yeah, that guy right there. Where where did how did you do that?

Great question. Thank you, Commissioner Barnwell. These two slides, slides twenty and twenty five are related. 20, the one that we're on, has to do with mail noticing thresholds. When a project requires a mail notice, it also requires a public hearing obviously.

And in order to administratively approve a project, it it can't require a mail notice. So that's kind of why those numbers have to line up. So the mailed notice can't or the mailed notice threshold has to exceed what can be approved administratively essentially. Now how we actually got to these numbers is the state's already allowing the construction of an 800 square foot accessory dwelling unit Right. Ministerially without any kind of design review.

To be consistent with that and just to allow more flexibility and encourage folks to develop one story buildings at the back of their house, and be able to add square footage, we're proposing to be able to administratively approve up to 800 square feet on the first story.

Yes. Well, let's just go to decks, for example. You got 200 to 400. What if somebody came in with a 450 foot deck? I mean, they're out of luck. Right? So that's what you're trying to do by these guidelines is to have people come in with a 400 foot deck. Correct? So that they they read the code and they see what is allowed to allow them to have a streamlined process. So they're gonna do a 400 foot deck.

We think that the new ordinance will definitely encourage folks to design to those zoning limits. We'd certainly expect to see people request exceptions at DesignerView to exceed those. And these numbers are based on what projects that we have administratively approved in the past. We looked at a bunch of administrative approvals over the last number of years and also tried to calibrate these numbers with those. So we were able to commonly approve up to 400 square feet if it met certain criteria. So, it's kind of based on

the experiences you've had and the applications that have come before you in times past, and that's how you've arrived at this. Correct?

Female And Commissioner Barnwell, if I may add, again, had our single family design board subcommittee, our working group subcommittee, and which included SFDB members, architects, and then AIA members, some who are sitting behind me. And so, a lot of this was driven of like, what's too much? You know, that's kind of where you start. It's like, what's maybe too small, but then what's too big, but that's just not appropriate. And so, that's kind of where the how we navigate some of these conversations. And again, we're trying to align everything and look at what's acceptable, look at different examples, talk about it. So there is a lot that went into it.

Okay. Thank you. By the way, before I go any further, I agree with the comments by my esteemed colleague, mister Bauke, when he said that this is a a Herculean task, truly a Herculean task. And it's probably not over when we're done with this one either. We'll still have to tickle it.

But and I also wanna compliment you guys in your presentation today. You are all you're very well spoken, and you seem to understand this very well and I appreciate that. I have a question on just out of curiosity on hedge heights. The eight foot head height, is that after the front yard setback, can you build an eight foot head right on the sidewalk front line? I you couldn't, but I see them all over town and everybody says, I can do foot hedge height. And I have I thought that had to be set back. Is that wrong?

Commissioner Barnwell, that is correct. The so the current code allows an eight foot hedge right at the front property line. The distinction is that it it can't be within what's known as the visibility triangle, which is 10 feet back from the driveway and Yeah. Feet to the side. Currently, an eight foot hedge is allowed though, and that has to do with hedges having kind of a softer appearance and effect on the property than a fence. And that's why fence the allowable height for a fence is lower at

the front

Yeah. Lot line. I

I would I am a general contractor, and and much of my literature that comes my way is talking about modular housing. I didn't see you guys addressed, or did you address specifically modular housing, making it easier to just crane in something and set it down? Or is that already an easy process? And somehow, how does it fit into these things?

That's a great question. And currently, modular housing is protected by state law in that it can't be subject to design review except for very specific things. And if I'm if I if my memory serves, it's exterior cladding, basically like your siding and your roofing. So those are the only two things that can be subject to design review. That's a current regulation.

That said, we really don't see a lot of modular housing requests in the city. I will say that we do have a pre approved accessory dwelling unit program that does have a few, I think one prefab design. So, that is one area where we were seeing those.

And if I may add to that, commissioner Barnwell, that, the current trigger single family design board triggers has a specific design review trigger for modular housing, which doesn't really comply with, you know, the state law as a whole. So, we just struck that. And, again, we're just referring to state law based on what can be done.

Because I've heard much conversation, and I don't know it to be a fact, but that it was, quote, difficult to do modular housing or frowned upon. And would like to see that not be the case. But I don't know the details of our code on that issue. The it seems to me we have a lot we have the from my times past and my history with the city, the, community development department has been suffering like all the departments have from budgetary issues and staffing and be able to have full staff, etcetera. And it does seem to me as though some of this could be or might be thought of as a potential for fee increases.

Now I know that you mentioned I heard you mention a comment earlier about fee increases, but have you done some studies associated with some of these reductions as all and also some increases in the fees? I won't go any further on it. It's it's a complex issue. But it seems like we should be having a parallel discussion about that. And we should be it seems as though a global look, not just at this as a staff reduction speeding up for the homeowner, but from our own internal needs to have more money, free up staff to do other things, etcetera.

Commissioner Barnwell, I'll take a first stab at that and then have Ms. Kokinda supplement. As we've proposed it, the process wouldn't result in too much more or necessarily different work than we're already doing. We already have a fee structure that captures administrative reviews at three different levels, including one that involves a good amount of back and forth with the applicant, property research, etcetera. The fees to go to a public hearing are higher than the administrative approval fees.

And I do expect some change to occur in the fee structure after this is implemented and we study and get a better idea of what it actually takes to do this as far as staff time. But I don't see a potential for too, too much change. And I'll let Ms. Kukinda take it from there.

Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Barnwell. So, we again, maybe a handful of I'm going to say everything is a handful of years ago. But it probably, maybe five or six years ago, the city went to 100% cost recovery for our land development fees. So, it was a different change. We didn't want to subsidize land development through the general fund. And that was, I think, '18 was the year we did our last land development team, like, fee study. And so, what Mr. Hamilton Rolle was mentioning earlier, that fee study is happening in 2026, so in this next year. So, I expect that to really outline the time it takes.

Hopefully, we have this ordinance an ordinance in place to then be able to react to current code and how much time things take. And Ms. Belts here on my right has also been working using our Acela software permitting for staff to be able to do time tracking. So, for each of these projects to kind of use that time to have more, you know, useful data of like what is the time expectation. But generally speaking, I think we've been increasing our annual fees roughly 5%, and adding new fees here or there as different processes come through until we get a new LDT fee study.

So, that hopefully will again illuminate some of these changes and be more responsive to what does it take generally, and are there other efficiencies we can help?

I'm glad I'm heartened to hear that. And I don't I had a couple other questions, but I'll hang on. I won't mention them right now. I would like to leave the audience with this one thing. And I don't know how we get back at it because it was such a political hot potato.

But we changed the hedge heights a few years ago. And I would just invite everyone in the room to notice that the charm of our town is the ability to see the architecture from the street and not an eight foot green hedge. And I think we have made a grievous mistake with that hedge height. And I don't know if that's something that we can talk about here. But it it when someone points it out to you and you look at it, you go, oh my god, look at all of that. So I leave it with that. Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you, commissioner Barnwell. Commissioner Wiskum.

Thank you, madam chair. Okay. I'm going get probably down in the weeds a little more. I just want a clarification on the open yard change. So if your lot is less than 6,000 square feet, you're reduced from 1,250 square feet down to 800 square feet of open yard. And, the minimum dimension for all lots is reduced to 15 feet by 20 feet. Is that correct? So it doesn't matter what size lot you have.

Commissioner Wiscomb, I think that's correct. I'll have Ms. Belts correct me if I'm wrong. But the reduction okay. The reduction from 20 by 20 to 15 by 20 applies to single unit and two unit developments regardless of lot size.

Okay. So it's all lots? Correct.

That's what

you're saying. Okay. Okay. Good. It just wasn't clear to me. Okay. And then I wanted to go to I'm on exhibit A, is the Title 30 draft. Determination of existing grade. It's on page 27. For purposes of establishing existing grade as defined in this title, the topographic elevations of the natural ground surface as it existed five years prior to the date of the application for grading, filling, or other site alterations is used.

Why the five years? That just seems there's people that excuse me, do grading. I know it's happened in our neighborhood. And then they apply. So, you know, it's been altered right before they apply. So where did the five years come from? Just I'm not trying to get too much in the weeds, but that just doesn't seem right to me.

A good question, Commissioner Wiscombe. The five year limitation already exists in the code. And it's located in the definitions chapter, which is at the front of the code, and it's often overlooked. So, that's why we're putting it in this section it's proposed in to add a little bit more clarity. This issue does typically arise when you have grading permits that are issued separately from building permits and somebody does grading before doing their And full so, the intent is to provide or to prevent situations where someone artificially raises the grade before development.

Okay. So, if I may so, there's a really good example that came up, Commissioner Wiscombe, that there was a subdivision that was approved by the Planning Commission I think it was the Planning Commission and there was grading involved with that subdivision, but there were no houses proposed. And so, those houses could come two years, three years, five years, ten years, they might never come. But if it let's say someone raises the grade significantly, and then builds a two or three story home on top of that, we put five years as the cap because we really wanted to, again, kind of look at what is the overall kind of height is just one example of an impact to a neighborhood if you've got development there. So, we kind of were looking at the existing grade within that five year timeframe because it could have implications for whatever future development is on that if there's no development proposed at that time.

Female Okay. I understand. Yeah, I understand that. I just think there's got to be some convoluted examples where it works the other way. But, so Female

If I may, it has confused people before. Yeah. And I know that we've had a lot of internal conversations about just kind of what makes sense sometimes or will there's just assumptions, well, isn't the existing grade what is out there today? And that may not have been the case. So there's different reasons for it.

Okay. That's fine. Okay. And then I'm going on to this is, again, this is 30.15.120, which is screening. And Mr. Hamilton Roles, I sent these questions to you ahead of time. But the standard methods for screening and buffering of surface parking mechanical equipment and any other objects or land uses as required by this code to minimize visual noise and privacy impacts to surrounding property rights of way? Oh, that's not the question I was thinking of. But do we require now screening of trash receptacles or is that gone?

It's it's required.

It's still required.

Section thirty point one four zero point two two zero, which is trash, recycling, and personal outdoor storage. Got them written down here. And section one forty thirty one forty one five five for screening. So we we did move screening standards from the definitions chapter in 30.15 to 3,140.155.

Okay.

So And that covers trash enclosures.

So it's still required. Okay, good. And then oh, this was the one that I didn't get. So then on page 151 Exhibit A number six, landscape buffer requirement, the physical separation between vehicle areas and residential structures must be provided in the form of a landscape planner with a minimum interior width of three feet located between any vehicle parking or maneuvering area and the former garage door. The depth of the planner may be reduced only as necessary to maintain the minimum required parking space dimension within the driveway.

So I'm not following what that means.

Commissioner Wiskim, this happens when we have, ADU garage conversions. So, if someone's converting their garage to an ADU, they have to remove the garage door. And, the idea is to improve the aesthetics of of that area so that you don't have your driveway paving just ending right at the the wall of the structure. It's also to provide a little bit of a safety buffer between the driveway and the the building. That you're not able to pull right up to the building.

So you're putting the landscape buffer right in front of where the garage door used to be? Correct. Yeah. Okay. So okay. Because we just saw a project a couple weeks ago. Well, don't know. Oliver Road. And and he's actually got to he's converting his garage, but he's actually going back morph it because he needs to tandem park and he can't hang over into the into the setback. So he's moving it.

So there's no space there for any landscaping. So you're saying then so in that case, the depth of the planter would be nil because the minimum required parking space must be in this driveway. Okay. Allison's, yeah, she's nodding her head. Okay.

Now I get it. That just confused me because we had just seen that project. So okay. And then this is just a clarification, and I think maybe it just needs a cleanup. But on page two seventeen in Exhibit A under B, alterations do not result in an overall roof pitch greater than a four inch rise over a 12 inch run or a roof pitch to match the existing development on-site. I think what you mean is or you can have a roof pitch that does match it. You

need to

change that language. Yeah. Okay. I assume that was the case. Okay. And then I want to go on to public scenic views. We see this a lot in the coastal zone and it's pretty well defined in the LCP. But otherwise it's not as far as I know. So I want to know where we put a definition and how we handle this because it's very subjective, I know. And I think when you get out of the coastal zone, you know where the public views are because we have those few corridor diagrams. But what do we do?

Great question. Preserving views has been, and this is public use, has been a goal of the SFDB since the board was created. And as you mentioned, the local coastal plan does have certain scenic views within the coastal zone that are defined and mapped. So that's one, though those are a set of views that the SFDB has the ability to weigh in on and protect. The California Environmental Quality Act also defines public scenic views as generally being from public gathering places like parks and the wharf, etcetera.

So the SFDB's findings to approve a project include special consideration for protecting those views and prevent things like mass vegetation removal or scarification of hillsides by excessive grading.

Okay. So it's really from public places to view something.

Is that

defined here? I see you mentioned the term a lot, but I don't see it defined. And maybe maybe if it's not defined, it should be defined because that's very confusing because I could be standing in my driveway and someone's building a house above me that might block the mountains, but that's not a public view. Yeah. So, Ms. DeBusca's shaking her head, No, it's not.

Right. And Commissioner Wiscombe, I think if we expanded on that or tried to define that a little bit more, kind of just identify these items, we could put that in the guidelines and have that documented and have a place to point to. That it's clear to members of the public and applicants and board members of, you know, when they're thinking about the finding they have to make. Here's the we're what we could do there.

Yeah. That would be extremely helpful. Extremely helpful. Thank you for that. Okay. And then oh, okay. And then, I'm just going to go on to oh, projects over 100% FAR require story poles. And it depends what the configuration of the project is, how many story poles you need. So might we add a requirement for how long story poles need to be up? Because sometimes we see projects, they are gone the minute we leave the site.

And I'm thinking that, you know, if a neighbor wants to, you know, forty eight hours or something, would is that possible?

Commissioner Wiskum, so right now, we have our visual aids application, which identifies a minimum of seven days and But up through the that is not it's not codified, nor is it in our guidelines. So we could always add that to the guidelines in addition to just being

think the it's reasonable for so neighbors can really have a look and, you know, people are busy. So, okay. So you'll put that in the guidelines then. Okay. Okay.

Okay. And then on page so I'm in I'm sorry, I'm in draft guidelines now. So on page seven ten and seven eleven, I wasn't sure if there was any difference in this. Number one is property owners preparing plans for their own property are exempted from licensing requirement by Business and Professions Code blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then number four, plans for owned property. Per Business and Profession Code, same code, any person may prepare conceptual or project design review plans for any landscape project on a property they own. Oh, that's just landscape project. Okay. So it is different. Okay.

I missed the word landscape. Okay. Thank you.

Okay.

Okay. And then I wanted to look at page seven twenty three, Exhibit F6.3, Project specific administrative approval standards. And then number P is retaining walls. You know, I think for safety's sake, I think there should be a maximum height of retaining walls for administrative review. There, you know, there can be some pretty lofty retaining walls that require structural engineers and they require good drainage and, you know, your three and a half foot or high one I think is fine under administrative.

But I think there should be as if they got higher, there should be something.

Commissioner Wiskum, regarding retaining walls, the proposed code does include zoning height maximums for retaining walls.

Okay.

And staff can only administratively approve the max zoning height for the specified item. In this case, within 10 feet of the front lot line, we could approve, max three feet. All other areas, it's max six feet. On the right hand side, you see maximum height with a minor zoning exception. Those would all require a public hearing at mail notice because that's an MZE request.

Okay. So maybe you need a little asterisk note next to retaining walls in in that administrative approval. So people know that it's not any retaining wall. Okay. I'm getting there. Okay. And then on page seven forty six, Exhibit J of oh, no. Forget about that. That was that was something I sent to you, mister Hamilton Rolls, about it says southern oak woodland. But I think that was maybe an error. Vegetation removal talks about southern oak woodland. Yeah. Is that an error? Yeah.

No. That is correct. Yeah. It

is correct.

What is southern oak air southern oak woodland?

Oak woodland is protected.

I know oaks are protected. Yeah. Yeah. But southern, southern oaks, I mean our oak is Quercus agrifolia, which is the coast live oak. So I just wondered where the word Southern came from. That's all.

Commissioner Wiskom, that is a very good question. All of our biological resources documents refer to it as Southern Oak Woodlands. Okay.

So Okay.

But you're correct that it's

It might just be Southern California oak woodland. That works for me. I don't care. Okay. And then page seven forty seven, Exhibit J. This probably is for Ms. Ostranger. The public health, safety, and welfare are appropriately protected and preserved. Should we get rid of the word welfare? Because you've made me do that before. For single

family homes we can use the word welfare. It's under the Housing Accountability Act that we don't use welfare.

Okay. So, but it's okay here.

Yeah. And Commissioner Wiskomm, I'd like to clarify that on that specific page, that is reflecting the current SFDB findings for approval of a project. The proposed findings do not include they're different. They don't include that verbiage.

Oh, really?

Oh. So, that's just a comparison of the current versus the proposed findings.

Oh, okay. Okay. I missed that.

Female And if I may add, that was at the request of the single family design board. They really struggle. It's either it's just kind of rote, And this project complies with this one, and it doesn't really have meaning. Or they feel wildly out of their comfort zone if something comes before them, and they're an aesthetic board. That's what they want to focus on. And so, they were very strong in their opinion of having that removed.

Oh, okay. That's really interesting. That's I'm surprised that that's as a landscape architect that was like the first thing.

Well, I think, again, from your planning commission perspective,

you

all would look at that finding in a very different way given the context of what you look at. But when purview is design review, and they're architects, and public at large, they you'll have another project that you'll see later on that addresses that. And I can just say, again, that was very strong opinions from the single family design board.

Okay. Okay, fine. Thank you for that. Okay. And then, Mr. Hamilton Rolle, can you go to I think it's slide 17. Yeah. Yeah. What propose final approval appealable only by project applicant? Really?

That is correct. That is what we're proposing.

Wow. I what does someone do if I mean, you you've truncated the process, which I think is great, to streamline it. But what if, you know, mister Booth was sitting here, they went through, you know, what do you do if if if a neighbor thinks something is not not right? You know, the FAR calculation is wrong or, you know, what I find this what's the rationale for this?

So, if I may, Commissioner Wiscombe and commissioners, that this was there's multiple things happening. So, we wanted to reduce the number of hearings, or projects that had to go through such an excessive number of hearings. But by taking away the final approval, there is going to mean that there's going to be more detail required at project design approval. So, the projects that the board will see at project design approval will be flushed out a little bit more with more detail. And then, we created the substantial conformance determination criteria, that seven criteria that outlines if you change if it doesn't meet any one of these seven, that's an automatic revised project design approval.

So, that's not even a substantial conform it's like, if it that's the objective criteria to tell us that you are out of substantial conformance, and therefore, you either need to redesign to go back to what was approved, or we're going to send you back to a public hearing for a revised project design approval, which opens up the appeal process all over again. So, that's where that one would come into play.

So, project okay. So, project design approval is appealable by anyone. Anyone. It's the final approval, which you've truncated that in a lot of cases, right?

Female We've truncated it so that it would be through the building permit application. Right. That staff says, okay, we don't, we can't, we're uncomfortable granting final approval. So, we're going to refer this back to the single family design board for the final approval. And that hearing is what can

Yeah. Okay. That could I only

be appealed by the applicant.

Yeah. I only heard half the sentence, and Commissioner Barnwell did, too. We went, What?

I'm sorry to scare you.

Commissioner Wiskom, just to add on to that. One of the main reasons that we are doing that is actually to help benefit the applicants and their understanding of the process. Right. Because it is very confusing to people. They think the final approval is the one that matters. And really, it's not. It's project design approval that matters. Then they get frustrated that they raise issues about size, bulk, and scale, and they can't be addressed at that final

That makes perfect sense. Okay. That's great. Thank you. Okay. And FAR. So we've you guys added some pretty serious language about how to calculate FAR. Did you not? Or has that always been in there? No?

Female The FAR has always been

in there.

I know it's been in there. But did you

Female It's relocated. So, that's why it looks like there's changes. It's really it's there are no change. It's just relocated.

Female Okay. So we rely on applicants for FAR calcs accuracy. Is that correct?

That's correct.

Female Okay. And does staff ever check if they're asked to check? Staff

Go ahead.

Yeah, staff does check, double check the FAR calculation.

You do, okay. Because there was a case where there was a big discrepancy in an appeal about how FAR was calculated. So it's a normal process now for you to check FAR.

Correct.

And has been, correct.

Okay. Okay, fine. And Ms. Bilstein talked about adding an annual review internally to ensure the new guidelines in Title 30 are working well. Have you considered doing that? I think that's a good idea.

Absolutely. I mean, I love feedback. And I Yeah. Think that having some practice and kind of seeing how does this work for staff, how does it work for applicants, how does it work for the board, how does it work, you know, kind of what is the neighbor experience with kind of what they can expect, I think it's a great idea.

Yeah, okay. So I think that would be important. And that's where you get your 21% number. You get our real number. So and then are we still calling these guidelines? Is that I know Commissioner Balki asked that question. So we call them guidelines still?

The proposed single family design board guidelines will remain, yes. Are

certain Okay. I think that's all my questions. I just want to say this has been the staff report was amazing. The whole process has been amazing. It was a lot of material. But you guys just did an outstanding job, unbelievable job on it. So, just thank you very, very much.

Thank you, Commissioner Wiskum. As always, Commissioner Boss.

Thank you, Madam Chair. All but one of my questions have already been asked and answered, so thank you to my fellow commissioners. My only remaining question is if we'll communicate these changes or updates to applicants who maybe have stopped in the process in the past because there were issues with Open Yard or the appeals process. But under the updated guidelines, maybe it would be a smoother process for them. So, I'm wondering if we'll have communication with applicants that didn't get all the way through the process in the past.

Thank you, Vice Chair Boss. When this ordinance or a version of this ordinance is adopted, there will be a lot of communication to the public about, you know, a, that it's adopted and b, what the new code standards are and what the guidelines say. So we anticipate doing a good amount of training for staff, for members of the public, you know, publishing land development team bulletins. And members of the public can always sign up to receive those Female updates

online. So, if they are interested, that information is out

And if I may add to Vice Chair Boss that we also will be able to again, once we have staff trained, we can start implementing this immediately because we have a lot of the zone Title 30 zoning ordinance updates are things that have come out of frustration through the building permit review, the garage conversions. Well, I don't fighting people. Well, I don't want to put in a stove here. But in order to grant these things, you need to have certain things. So, there's going to be immediate implementation that'll just make just general process easier and streamline things.

So, it may not just be people who are kind of waiting in the wings, but just also people who are kind of starting the process and who make assumptions, but might not know everything. So, we want people to understand their options and get what they really want, generally speaking.

Great. I really appreciate that. Thank you. Commissioner Barnwell.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. One last comment. Are you going to take this to an AIA chapter meeting and a contractors association meeting? Would that be something on your get it out there proposals? I think that would

be Thank you, Commissioner Bartwell. And just while we're on that topic, I'd like to thank the AIA Santa Barbara chapter for their support and their input on this project. I don't think they're in the room anymore, but they've been an instrumental part of this this project.

We I didn't mean just thanking them, but I meant once it's implemented, you take it to them and say, Okay, here's the new rules, and here's what we've done, and here's our contact process.

Yes, absolutely. That is something we'd

like to do. Thank you.

And the Contractors Association, we have worked with them as well throughout this process. So, were also very excited VANILA about it. But, yeah, I think that's part of the

Thank you, Commissioner Barnwell. Okay. Well, many of my questions have been answered, so thank you to my fellow commissioners for all of their work on this. I'm just going to go in order and hopefully hit on things either that weren't directly asked or that I continue to have questions on, kind of in order just of the staff report. So first, for one D on the streamlining the process for minor zoning exceptions by converting commonly approved MZs into zoning standards.

So there was a lot of discussion in the staff report regarding fences and the fact that many of these hearings are rubber stamped. I just wanted to understand, it seems that the fence aspect was taken out as one of the ones that would be kind of approved through this new process. Could you just elaborate on why that is and how many hearings are we seeing on fences specifically? Don't know if you know that answer, but just a rough ballpark because maybe we want to keep that in. Just wanted to understand a little bit more.

Thank you, Chair Wardlow. So, like I like I mentioned, we did originally plan to take fences and hedges out of the public hearing realm, but we do get a lot of questions, interest day to day just from members of the community about fences and hedges in their neighborhoods. And we recognize that they do have potential for impact on the streetscape and also between neighbors. So we thought that it would be a good idea to maintain a notice requirement so that people in the neighborhood and especially adjacent neighbors could understand when a proposal to build a tall fence or to permit a tall hedge is going in place.

And if I may add to that, Chair Wardlow, that, you know, we of all the zoning changes and things, we heard a lot from our zoning team that they do not want to touch fences and hedges, that they want to keep those at the public hearing because and maybe this isn't the Massachusetts the ten years of Massachusetts, fences make good neighbors, and they're always have a lot of enforcement, a lot of oversight, a lot of complaints come in directly about fences in both interior and front. And the only in order for people to even be aware that there's going to be a fence, you need to have a mailed notice so that, you know, it goes to the property owner. So, it just it kind of makes sense politically and just to, you know, ensure that we've that there is oversight. And I am similar to Commissioner Barnwell, just very like, there's a real interest in not kind of building big walls up along our streetscapes. And I have a real sensitivity to that.

So, I think that from a design standpoint, that you're if you're just an individual homeowner, you might just care about, Well, I want this privacy. I want to use my yard in this way. But they're not necessarily thinking about the streetscape and kind of what that means. And so, I think having that oversight is really critical. So, it's kind of looking at it from different perspectives. Okay.

I really appreciate that. That makes sense. And so, thank you.

And Chair Wardlow, if I can add a little bit to that. I really do want to highlight that we are allowing by right now a five foot fence, where before it was only three and a half feet. So that's, know, we're trying to edit the zoning code a little bit so that we can be a little bit more flexible and and get those projects through. And to answer a part of your question that you asked before, I think about 37 out of the four forty projects Okay. That we reviewed were for MZEs only. And by and large, they get approved. There does tend to be a little bit of neighbor interest, but they tend to be one and done hearings at consent when they're Okay. When they're proposed.

Female Thank you. That was really helpful in addressing my question completely. So, you so much. Next question, really slightly. I think a couple of people have touched on this, specifically Bauke. So, we've received some comments, public comment on the new definition of substantial conformance, which I'm very excited to have. So, I appreciate the work that you all have done on that. I think that's a really important aspect of this as we all saw in previous hearings. But did we really compare with other cities? Because just in looking at the brief examples that were provided in public comment, they are a lot shorter.

So, just wanted to see do we have other cities that we are kind of more akin to that have more robust criteria like we have proposed here, or are we kind of new to setting the robust criteria?

Chair Wardlow, the criteria that we have that we're proposing are based on largely the county of Santa Barbara's substantial conformance criteria. This is a shortened version, but we also did want it to be, you know, usable and kinda tailored to what we think the design boards and the public would be interested in in enforcing as substantial conformance criteria. We could certainly look at other jurisdictions outside of this area to get more ideas, though, if that's a suggestion.

Female No, think that's a perfect answer. So, I appreciate that. I just wanted to make sure we weren't just like going out alone and being the first to have such a robust one. Thank you.

Female And I chair Wardlow that Mr. Booth shared the substantial conformance determination from a number of other cities. I know that there were a couple examples that he shared for today's comments to the Planning Commission, but there were others that he had shared. And he had shared the county, and Santa Barbara County, in particular. And just, we want to make this, as Mr.

Hamilton Rule said, usable. So, having object there are a lot of other standards that aren't subjective. So, it's really kind of, you know, it's, that's harder to make those calls. Or, again, when it's staff, if zoning staff or any staff member should be able to look at it and not be a design review expert and be able to say, This complies or not. We want to kind of make it just fail proof at that stage.

No, I appreciate that. I think you guys have done a really good job of balancing the need to, you know, address individual issues in a project, but also trying to create objective design, you know, that can be reviewed by a number of people. So, okay, thank you. Next, this may be a silly question because maybe it's really obvious, but for 3B, when we're talking about the options for creative use of homes by allowing conversion of existing garages, which is awesome, very excited about. It says there's a limit to 500 max square feet for for this. What if the garage is bigger? Is or do we just not allow bigger garages or why would we not allow like, why would the only conversions be limited up to 500 feet?

Chair Wardlow, I think

It's on page 13 of the staff report saying a maximum 500.

Just want to make sure I'm answering this correctly.

Chair Wardlow, that's generally the size of a two car garage. If I mean, my personal garage on the West Side is was 550 square feet. I understand concern, and I'm just trying to think, you know, it's it we wanted to kind of, again, what's typical?

Do you want to

say anything else?

Just given that it says a maximum of 500, maybe we can adjust that to have more flexibility because I don't know why we would limit ourselves Say a maximum of or I don't know why we have a maximum.

Sure. Wardlow, my understanding of what we're proposing is that the 500 square foot maximum applies to guest houses, which are a specific type of of accessory building. Garage as conversions can large as the garages currently. So, you have a 600 square foot garage, you can convert that amount of square footage.

Okay. That makes sense. Then to the question of the guesthouses, same thing, same Why would we limit it to 500? I just want to create the most flexibility of this. I love this. I'm so excited to see that you have added this as a component of this, but I don't want to limit it we don't have a reason.

Yeah. The garage conversion is not limited. It's the guest house as Mr. Hamilton Rol said. And it's actually six fifty square

feet. So

I have in my notes says this allows owners to add a guest house a maximum of 500 square foot building used for guests without the need to create a separate dwelling unit.

We may have altered that number with the same idea that you were having since we've written that staff report because now in the code it says six fifty.

Okay. So we are proposing First of our error. That's our error and we had that internal Female conversation and changed it. Wonderful.

All right. Well, now it's six fifty.

Female Yes.

Female So, again, for the

guest What if it's bigger? Female For a guest house?

Female Yeah.

Female Then they wouldn't qualify under the ordinance as written.

Female But if earlier, I

think we were talking about something where we were talking that the maximum for like an ADU with no design review is 800. So, wouldn't we align with the 800?

Female I think that's good feedback.

Okay. So, maybe I'll just include that in my comments.

Chair Wardler, just one additional comment on that. There is still some benefit to people pursuing the ADU because it does add to our housing stock, whereas a guesthouse does not. And so that is just something to keep in mind in terms of do we want to incentivize it as much as ADUs are incentivized?

That's a fair question. But from a cost perspective for, you know, an individual homeowner that already has, you know, that's so significant to go through the ADU process, I mean, we get that feedback a lot.

Through the chair, the cost is not necessarily more to go through the process to get a guest room. The difference is really only in the cost of installing the kitchen. So, don't know that there's a huge cost difference whether you call it an ADU or it's a guest house. You still need

a building permit for it.

Okay. I see what you're saying. Wait. Okay. I may come back to

this later. And Chair Wardlow, if I may, I just want to point the Planning Commission to the code section that does reference six fifty square feet is on page 152 of the amendments. So, it's 30.140.115C2. Okay. So, that's just in the code. Yeah, our staff report is slightly off, but what's in the code is what we're proposing. I

think Commissioner Peterson has a question, so I'll let him Just jump

on this topic, are there different occupancy requirements in our city between ADUs and guest homes? Like, could a guest home be a short term

rental? Or

is it more easily allowed to be one?

So, the planning commission on December 18 will be reviewing a staff report on short term rentals and home shares. And so, you'll be seeing a definition for what's the difference between a short term rental versus a home share. And there are different policy or there's different proposals that you all will have a chance to look at. So, I would generally say that a guest home is not supposed to be used as a short term rental, but let's just put a pin in that, and you'll discuss that December 18.

Okay. Zooming out, just to confirm this, there are are there more restrictions on what you can do with an ADU than with a guest home? Do we have more city prerogative over what you can do with a guest home?

So, Commissioner Peterson, so the ADUs, it's just there's different requirements for what you need to have installed. So, the accessory dwelling unit requires that kitchen. There's different building code. But it allows smaller setbacks versus what a standard setback would be for a residential zone if it's an accessory structure like a guesthouse. So, there's just different people use the code that they want, and that makes sense that gets them what they want as far as they can.

And what we're doing with this whole the garage conversion or the allowance to create guesthouses is just to kind of give people the full, you know, the range of options that try to work with what homeowners want. And so, for your occupancy, you know, let's take out the short term rental and like that commercial side of things. But generally, this could be used for, I mean, I think it just the building code, if it's residential occupant I don't know enough about the building code to know all the ins and outs. But we're kind of looking at it with, are you creating habitable space or non habitable space? And there are certain building code requirements if you're creating habitable space.

And habitable space could be a guesthouse or a guest room or an at home office, which might be different than storage. I want to I don't care about my garage. I want to convert it, but I'm just converting it to storage, which is non habitable space. And so, there might be difference in the building code there.

Okay. And I don't want to belabor at this point. Did you have any other questions? Sorry.

No, thanks. I'm just trying to get this understanding of, yeah.

I think we're on

the know, same why would you do six fifty if it's similar to an ADU? Yeah, thanks.

Female If I may, I do think that, you know, Ms. DeBus pointed out that accessory dwelling units count towards our housing inventory just like the numbers, so they count. So, if we provide all the same incentives as an ADU, then people might ought not to add the kitchen to get to that unit that helps us out with our RHNA numbers. So, that's, you know, we're conscious of that. So, we don't have to give everything away, but we're just still trying to be expansive, provide more options, but may not give it everything.

So, the biggest difference is that the ADU obviously requires a kitchen and the other one doesn't? Correct. Okay. Got it. So, we don't want to encourage we're allowing the same size as the ADU, then we don't want to encourage that. And then, we're creating housing that doesn't have a kitchen, which isn't really great housing. Okay. I see your point. Okay. That was very helpful. Thank you for

working with If

I may, want to just kind of add to that. The point of the ADU ordinance in requiring kitchens is to not have substandard housing. It's to provide for heating and cooling and bathing and cooking facilities. And prior to ADUs being permitted by law, saw a lot of that, especially including our community. So we do want to explicitly have that kind of level of quality of housing and housing stock that allows smaller units, but also full cooking facilities and not having students and the like not have those facilities.

So it's just a different type of rental that can also be rented separately, etcetera, to someone not associated. So I do wanna be clear, that's not just us wanting a credit. Do want to be clear that there is really a need for that type

of That makes a lot of sense. I really appreciate you guys walking through this with us. Get it now.

And through the chair, I think it's been mentioned before, but we know that people build ADUs when they don't necessarily want an ADU. It's just their only path to get something. And that is substantiated by a survey that SBCAG did. And I don't have the numbers in front of me. Jessica or Ms. Grant is looking that up in case you want to see those numbers. But it was a little bit staggering what percentage of them are not actually being used as residential units in the county. So, this is another path so people can actually maybe get what they want. Without having

to go through that. And then we're not counting what we think is housing stock when it's not housing stock.

Exactly. Okay.

Got it.

And to add to that, what we currently see, we have so many demands for someone just wants a full bathroom, they have an accessory structure on-site, some kind of accessory building. It might be different from their garage. But we only allow, the code only allows a three by seven foot half bathroom. So, you can't, if you start to put anything, kitchen, or you know, you start to move into a different lens of code review. And so, it's been so restrictive.

And someone might say, Well, I just want to have my pottery studio, or, I just want to have my home office and, you know, my workout room with a shower in there. What's the big deal? But we won't allow it. There's kind of different considerations, and it's just, again, as Ms. DeBusk was saying, people just go the ADU route and build the kitchen, do the whole thing. They might not use it for housing, but it's just because they're trying to get a full bath.

Okay. This is great. Well, I think that you guys are spot on. I think that six fifty is more reasonable than five, but I like that we're still prioritizing the EDUs in the way that we are, but while allowing for that flexibility of like, hey, I want to have a pottery studio and a bigger bathroom. Okay. Okay. I think this is my last question. Okay. Can you give a little bit more background on our open yard, our decision to reduce open yard? But first, can we start with like when did we start our open yard requirements? What like when did that go into effect originally? And is this the first reduction in open yard that we are doing?

Commissioner Wardlow, hello. I don't know when the open yard I mean, it's been in place in our ordinance for a very long time, at least since the fifties and probably before. So we've had open yard for a long time, But it and it has been altered multiple times. We altered it in 2017 when we did the Enzo update for Title 30.

So we reduced it in 2017?

We changed it. We we added the that provision with the 800 square feet for the lots less than 5,000, which now we're changing now to be lots less than 6,000. So that was added in 2017.

Okay. So we've reduced it once before. At least once. Okay.

Least once.

Maybe more.

But at

least once in my memory.

Yeah.

And so what is our rationale or I'm sure you guys are getting feedback and that's why we're considering this. But I think of the wonderful Sheila Lodge and I remember her talking to me like one of my first times in planning commission about how much work the city did to ensure that we really protect green spaces and trees. That's why when you're standing in the mountains and you look down on the city, it's so beautiful. I'm concerned about moving away from that. And I just really want to understand like why would we be considering reducing this?

Like what is the big benefit? Is it that you know folks are just flipping out that this is becoming making projects so unattainable or like I would rather us keep the open yard requirements that we have today than reducing them. I'd rather create maybe more flexibility, but to put this to reduce it, I don't know. I'm concerned about that.

Could I ask, are you referring to the single unit and two unit open yard reduction or the multi unit? All of it.

Okay. I know that there's more flexibility now in the way that you're approaching the multi unit. I think I would need to look through like there's a lot of notes here. But I just don't I'm concerned about the whole thing. I think with the multi unit, if I'm recalling correctly, I'm okay with like the differences of the types of open yard yet flexibility. That's okay. But I'm concerned about the move to just reduce open yard broadly in the various ways that it's proposed here.

Teri Wardlow, I'm going to talk a little bit about one two unit development, and then I'm going to pass it over to you maybe for multiunit development.

Actually, let me start because mine is shorter. The multiunit we don't feel the multiunit open yard is being reduced. 15 is the same as it is now. It's just the individual dimensions and the flexibility provided for the private open yard, like

the balconies and the decks. So, the same amount. You're just moving them around. Right. But the balconies is different than open yard, but

It's part of the open the overall 15% still needs to be provided, and that's the current standard now. Okay.

And so, that's still happening. You're just giving more flexibility in how?

In how it's provided in multiple locations of different shapes and sizes.

And so, that's why your question your part was easier. When we get to single family residence, we're talking about specifically reducing.

Correct. Yes.

Okay. And so, it is a reduction, but the majority of our lots in this single family lots are 50 by 100. So, most of them are around 5,000. And that's where the open yard threshold for the 800 square feet, that's if it's for lots 5,000 and under. So, anything if you're 5,001 square feet, then that means you are obligated to have twelve fifty square feet of open yard with a 20 by 20 open yard minimum dimension of 20 by 20.

So, what we see, and what the kind of our we can look back at a lot of open yard modification requests that happened at the staff hearing officer for people with lots under 6,000 square feet that are nonconforming developments, so they don't meet the open yard the twelve fifty open yard requirement, or they're maybe they can't get that 20 by 20 area. And what happens is, there's a lot of first of all, they usually, if they trigger design review, they go to design review, have to get concept review, then they go to the staff hearing officer, there's the staff report, is the whole process. There's an appeal point. And then, they go back to design review. And generally, if they're a constrained lot and 6,000 square feet is still pretty small, and if, let's say, you're a corner lot, there's just other site constraints that a lot of these are just generally, the open yard mods are always approved.

So, we kind of think in our minds that if there's something that just always seems to be approved no matter what, then let's change the standard to avoid the extra process. And for a modification, it's at least, what is it, $5,000 approximately for one modification. So, it's a lot on a single family homeowner when they are trying to maybe they have a two bedroom, one bathroom home, and they want to do a small addition, and they have open yard issues. And so, it just becomes really expensive, time consuming, and not worth the heartache. So, that's why we're, for single and two unit development, we are proposing just, again, to cap it at the 6,000 square feet and under is requiring 800.

And is the so, you talked about non conforming existing buildings and I think that makes a lot of sense because these, you know, the buildings are how they are and then now we're coming in with rules saying, hey, conform to this. So, I I understand that. When we're if we're talking about new development where they're starting over, you know, it's brand new, Can we keep it for that? Because to me, 6,000 a 6,000 foot lot isn't small. It's, you know, I look at places all the time in our city and they're 4,000 or whatever. So like to me, I I don't wanna I'm just concerned about moving away our open yard aspect if it's a new development. But I I hear you on the non conforming.

Chair Wardlow, to add to that, lots less than 6,000 square feet are substandard lots. The minimum lot size in a single family zone is 6,000. These are all going to be small lots per our zoning standards. That was part of the rationale why we moved it from 5,000 to 6,000. So it's really only reduced for those lots between 5,006 square

feet. Okay. I don't want to continue to belabor this. You guys have made a really good point. I agree with you. I don't want applicants to have to pay tons of money to go through these simple things that are getting granted modifications anyways. I just don't want to start going down a path that we're moving away from the open yard.

Sure. TeriAnn That was was alluding to before the modifications that come before the hearing office. A lot of them are the rare yard modifications. So, have another question. So, with all with ADUs coming in now and accessory buildings, is that another reason why you're reducing the size of the square foot of the open space?

Yes. Commissioner DiLuccio, the ADU regulations are certainly a part of the reasoning for reducing required open yard 800 square feet. That's currently, I believe, what the minimum is if you are proposing a detached ADU. So, this further aligns single family regulations with ADU regulations.

This was really helpful. I really appreciate your time in answering all these questions, and thank you, as I echo my fellow commissioners, for all the work that staff has done on this. This is a huge undertaking. So, thank you so much for all of your work. I think that wraps up my questions for now. Again, I appreciate my fellow commissioners' kind of high level questions and then the in the weeds questions. So, I think if anybody has no more questions, then we can move on to deliberations. Who would like to go first? Commissioner DeLuccio. First

today. Okay. So

Female Passionate.

I think overall, did again, you've done an amazing job on this. And I think it's almost there. And I think I agree with all the input today, suggestions to incorporate those. And I think the training is going to training, once it's put together, adopted, I think it's in the training which will make it successful. And then, we'll have the annual review after one year to see how it's going and what kind of results we're seeing.

I never did understand why we had so many stages of review. The you know, I never understood the PDA part of it. I understood the part before that. And I understand it comes before the review board a number of times anyway, a couple of times probably. But I never understood what the PDA, why it had to go back for a PDA.

So, I like the way it's being collapsed where it should be with the building process when you pull the building permit. And again, you can always send it back to the design board if you find that, you know, it's not conforming to what they approved or the applicant doesn't feel that they feel it does conform and then you can throw it back to design board. So, I like that. But I like and I know it's all about streamlining too. The state has caused some of this too where we need to move along, unfortunately, a little quicker with streamlining. Because is there only five times they go through the process, the public hearings for the single family review board

also? For Commissioner DeLucia, that's for new single family residences and for other housing development projects at ABR and HLC.

Another thing is the neighborhood compatibility findings. I think you did a great job with that, also segregating it. What really belongs before the design board, what they really need to make those findings a more streamlined approach of making those findings and helping them with that. And maybe as we go forward and this is adopted we and it's being executed in the training, and maybe staff can help a little more in getting them to they feel comfortable or can make the findings. And maybe it's maybe it is one page document or something as type of I don't mean a full blown staff report.

Maybe maybe they do need some guidance with some kind of page or two in front of them to help them. And then finally, I'm not gonna go there with hedges. I'm from another city. And anytime you try to regulate hedge hedges, you you know what happens. I I do like the way you do out you do you see, do find it interesting that the page has showed it showed the fences and the retaining wall and the hedges.

I found it kind of interesting how you started eight feet on the hedges already for the administrative. And then it goes all the way up to twelve and fourteen feet. So I thought that was kind of interesting how it didn't start a little less than eight feet. But again, I'm not going to go there. Think I understand why you're settling for the higher height for it's more privacy issue. Is that why the folks people want hedges for privacy? Commissioner Deluccio, that is one consideration,

but mainly we're just not proposing to change what currently exists.

Right. And I totally agree with you. I get it. It gets very political. Those are my my end comments at this time. But thank you very, very much.

Thank you, Commissioner Deluccio. Commissioner Wiskum.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just can't compliment you enough. It's a major, major piece of work. I can't imagine putting this together. But so thank you for that.

I just I do want refer to the AIA letter. I know you've worked hard with them. And they say here, we recommend eliminating ambiguous language in Section four of the proposed guidelines such as in some cases may be requested or may need to show. I would like to see you maybe go over that and see if that could possibly be a little bit more probably a little bit firmer in the language and not so subjective. If you can do that, that would be great.

And I'd like to see some sort of annual review process to see how it's going, not necessarily in front of Planning Commission but just internally so you can make changes if you need to. I'd like to see a note on your admin approval chart for the retaining walls that refers to the code section the height is different, right? Is that clear? Is that, yeah, making sure.

Commissioner Wiskom, that is clear. And I just want to clarify the proposed admin guidelines or the administrative approval criteria rather do specify a max height of five feet that can be administratively approved.

Oh, it does. Okay.

It does.

Okay. So that's there. Okay. I didn't see a note on the chart you showed here today that I missed that I guess. No. And Yeah, I think that's pretty much all I have. So I want to thank you very much for there were a couple other things I think that we talked about. Oh, I know that we talked about.

Commissioner Wiskind, the public view. Pardon? Defining the public Oh, The scenic public view. We've got my notes here.

Yeah. Definitely that. I think that's really important. And yeah, add that and then, oh and then add the, think you already have it, the story

polls. Story polls to add that to the guidelines so that it's very explicit and what the expectation is for keeping them up. Mary Stott: Yes. Okay. And

I think that's, that's all I have. I just wanted to thank you very much for, for everything. It's I think going to be a wonderful document. And it's, I think it's really going to help. And it's going to help people that are doing projects without permits, you know, that that this is, you know, going to me, once it gets out there it's going be an easier process and you won't have the under the radar, as many of the under the radar. Not that we have many of those in the city.

So, you very much. Thank you, Commissioner Bliskum, Vice Chair Boss. Thank you, Chair. I want

to thank staff as well. I think this was I know it was a lot of work and a long time coming and appreciate thorough public outreach and really considering the comments and feedback from everybody you talked to. I especially want to thank you for Exhibit C as I was trying to go back before between A and B and then I discovered C. So, was very helpful. Thank you.

I kept my sanity a little bit. But, just also want to call out the solution for providing options for creative use of home space and conversion. I think that's going to be really welcome, especially as household dynamics change and there's more shared housing. I think this will be really helpful to a lot of households. So, thank you for all your work on this.

Thank you, Vice Chair Boss. Commissioner Bauke.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just for shortness of time, I concur with my fellow commissioners' comments. Great job, continuing effort here, and I think our commission has provided you some very good input. I think the only thing I have on my list is that conversation about substantial conformity as to the square footage. Think that's just I mean, we're talking something, you know, 15 by 10 could be in that change.

That's, you know, Allison mentioned some situations where things might come up, but none of those would have fallen into that kind of category. It'd be like maybe 20 square feet or something, not a 150. So I really would want you to look at what you think would be a reasonable thing because changing plans afterwards, I mean, if you want to change your plans after it's been approved, that's on you, and you should go back and, you know, it shouldn't be, oh, you you know, you got a free pass because I decided to add another another bedroom to my project. I just don't don't get that. So, thank you for that.

Thank you, commissioner Bauke. Commissioner Barnwell.

Thank you, Madam Chair. You didn't use the phrase granny unit, but that's what you're talking about, with that six fifty square foot thing. And I remember a discussion about granny units, and we we were so, onerous in our requirements that over the course of something like twenty two years, we had we had permitted nine of them. And yet everybody wanted the art studio or whatever that thing is. And this I agree with the 650 square foot square footage number.

That's a that's not a two bedroom place. That's like a one bedroom or studio. So it's it's use is restricted by its design. So I think he did well on that. And I have many people who are gonna come to you to do just that because they want a room with a bath. They don't wanna rent it out. They just want a room with a bath for their teenage daughter or whatever. Thank you very much and a great superb job.

Thank you, commissioner Barnwell. And yes, I will echo the feedback from my fellow commissioners. This was a huge effort and I really appreciate the staff report. I thought oh, sorry. Shoot. I apologize. Commissioner Peterson,

you can go first.

Thank you. I can go last if you want.

No. I'm sorry.

So, thank you to staff for all that you've done. I think this has been a years long process, and you all should be commended. I echo what what's been said. Small point that, commissioner Wiscom supports me raising here is, a southern oak woodland is a woodland ecosystem that includes multiple species or characterized by a mixed canopy of trees such as coastal live oak and other types of oak. So we're incorporating our oak here into that.

Possibly. But I'll leave it at the species. So that covers oak. That's good. My only comment would be I would personally support I know there reasons, This has been a long process as to what was excluded from discretionary review. I personally would support trying to look for anything else that can be put into ministerial approval exempted from the discretionary review to free up staff time and to get things quicker more quickly turned around for applicants. I don't know if it's possible, but I would support it. Thank you.

I apologize to you, Commissioner Peterson. Thank you for your closing deliberation marks. And yes, I will jump off of what Commissioner Peterson just said. I think this is a really great effort in terms of working towards streamlining and doing more ministerial review. I know this commission has seen a number of projects where we've asked that question of could this have been, you know, done in a different way where we're not requiring a hearing.

I think this is a really, really great work product that addresses a lot of those for the single family design board. I again just commend staff for all of this. I had made like extensive notes thinking like, okay, we're gonna have edits in these different sections and really I think you've done a phenomenal job of answering everyone's questions and being really thorough. I think, you know, I wrote out each of the bullets because I thought we were going to be maybe have issues with different bullets. And I think unanimously, I think we're all in support of every aspect of the proposal that's been put forward with the multiple bullets per through the three goals.

I will echo Commissioner Wiskum on the definition of public views, I think that's something that's important that we add into this. But this is a really this is vast improvement, and I'm excited to see that. To Commissioner Peterson's point, of course, in your immense spare time, if there are others, but maybe that's something that, you know, when we do this review of what's working, what's not based on this, how this goes, we could, you know, staff may have other ideas of potentially other things that could be included in something like this. But this is a really great first step and I'm really excited. So, thank you all for your strong work on this. There is no motion required on this. Is there anything else that you all need from us?

Chair Ward, though, just one thing I wanted to say, adding to all the things. I want to thank the Planning Commission for your comments the last time this was here. It kind of sent us into a bit of a spiral trying to figure out you know, how do we define you know, minor versus major alterations. But I think where we ended up is a much better, cleaner ordinance and a better way forward. So appreciate all those comments originally.

Wonderful. Well, with that, if there's no other further direction needed or questions from the team, we will close this item out and move on to the administrative portion of our agenda. Does yeah, does anyone need any I feel like we're I feel like there's something else that you may need.

I think well, given commissioners well, Chair Wardlow and commissioners, I'm hearing that there aren't significant changes, but I do think that, you know, our goal is to hopefully still come in early January. Mr. Hamilton will be likely out for portions of January and for exciting news. And I'll let him share that. And ultimately, we might still be able to get this in.

It requires a twenty day notice for the ordinance changes. So, that's really why we can't make a decision or the planning commission can't So, make a decision I'm still hoping in early January, and we can update the guidelines and the items that have been discussed here today.

Right. Thank you so much for reminding me of that. So, and that's why we're not reading the recommended findings at this hearing. We'll do that in the next hearing. Got it.

Okay. Perfect.

Well, thank you all so much. Really appreciate everyone's hard work on this, and I hope everybody has a great rest of their day. We will, as the planning commission, move on to the administrative portion of our agenda. Does anyone have any committee and liaison reports, starting with staff hearing officer?

There was no hearing officer meeting since the last time we met. So, next week perhaps.

Okay. It looks like Commissioner Varnall

was in

the Thank you, Madam Chair. I carried the torch to the council on our discussions relating to the Paseo Nuevo remodel. And it was a very, very interesting meeting. I don't know if you guys watch it, but it was long, really long. I think there were a 100 people that spoke. I just wanna I wanna compliment this group. I I I had some trouble with those applicants and what they were saying. An example was they said, well, you know, this is one of the longest

Chair Wardlow

to use

Commissioner Barnwell. We can't really go into depth on that. If you can give like a succinct report out.

We can't go into depth on what the council said when I was covering that?

No. But you can give

the succinct report of what happened at the hearing.

Okay. What happened was Brian brought a drawing that showed a dramatic comparison of size, bulk, and scale for what was proposed compared to the courthouse. The council complemented the planning commission on having brought up the two primary issues of the housing at Lot 2, which was a big deal, and the underlying the gift of the underlying fee. Our having dealt with that gave the council a lot of ground to stand on themselves to be able to move forward with it. They had information on the numbers that we did not.

And they came to a what they referred to as a soft no. They required a lot further discussion and much more transparency, and much of their of their concern had to do with the housing. It was a very interesting meeting. Thank you, madam chair.

And thank you, commissioner Barnwell, attending on behalf of the planning commission and making your remarks. So thank you. Alright. Anyone else have any committee or liaison reports? Okey dokey. With that, it is now 03:45 p. M. Record timing. And that concludes our 12/04/2025 Planning Commission hearing. Our next meeting is tenderly scheduled for Thursday, December 11. Thank you all, and have a beautiful rest of your day.