Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Yeah. Yeah. Welcome to the February 11, hearing of the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission. As is our custom, would you please join us for as we recite the pledge of allegiance? I

pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Villalobos, will you please make the TV coverage announcement?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning to everyone. Excuse me. Planning Commission hearings are televised live on County of Santa Barbara. CSB TV channel 20 at nine a. M. In the South Coast, Long Poke, San Luis Valley, San Maria, and Orchid areas. Rebroadcast of Planning Commission hearings are on Fridays at five p. M. On CSB TV channel 20. Today's hearing will also be streamed live on the county's website, as well as the county's YouTube channel, and will be available for download in a day or two. Should I move on to roll call?

Yes.

Great. Commissioner Cooney. Here. Commissioner Ford. Here. And Chair Reid. Here. And Commissioners Park and Martinez will be joining us shortly.

Okay. Next the agenda status report.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and Commissioners. In regards to our agenda today, we have two items on our standard agenda. One is, the first one is the plantation nurseries development. And the second one is the continuance of the recreation master plan workshop. Staff and napkins are ready to present on all those items today. I can move to the projection report, Mr. Chair. Yes please. Our next hearing was scheduled for February 25. But at an earlier meeting we have canceled that. So there will be no planning commission hearing on February 25. So then our next hearing after today will be on March 4. And that will be in Santa Barbara. And then on that hearing there are two items projected.

The first one is a rezone in the San Yez area. And then the 2025 comprehensive plan annual progress report by Lawrence Planning. And again, March 4 is in Santa Barbara. The next hearing after that is back here in Santa Maria on March 11. And we have a government code consistency, a vacation of a road in the Summerlin area. And then we have projected long range planning bringing forth ordinance amendments related to utility scale solar projects. Again, that's on March 11 here in Santa Maria. The hearing after that will be on March 25. Two items on that agenda. That one will be in Santa Barbara.

There's the Chick fil A project at Cali Real. And then we also have a general plan rezone project in the Eastern Galita Valley on that day. Again, March 25 in Santa Barbara. And then April 1 is in Santa Barbara as well. One item projected, which is an equestrian event center that's located in the San Yenes Valley. And then April 8 we have one item projected, which is an oil and gas amendments project that's planning is bringing forth. And then we don't have anything projected after that. The April 8 hearing is back here in Santa Maria. So that concludes the projection report, Mr. Chair.

Alright. Thank you. Now it's time for general public comment. We accept public comment for items not included on today's agenda. So is there anyone present who wishes to make general public comment?

And for those of you online, raise your hand and I'll call on you. No hands on zoom.

No hands. So we will conclude general public comment. Next, just in time, welcome Commissioner Park. Planning commissioner's informational reports. Does anyone have an informational report about a meeting information that they discovered? Commissioner Hart. Absolutely.

That's why I drove a little faster. There are a couple of things I want to report on. One is I think very well actually both are appropriate for today with the Rec Master Plan. But they're not Rec Master Plan issues. I'm going be on a panel for the Small Farm Conference on February 22, which is a Sunday.

And the subject is Is There a Right Kind of Agri tourism? So that's a relevant topic. The conference is put on by CAFF. I don't have any idea what that means. I figure CA means California and one of the F's means farm. But anyway, it's a group of small farmers. And the conference is put on, oh it's free, by the way, and it's organized and moderated by Rachel Callahan, who is the same University of California Davis person who puts on the California Agri tourism Summit. Very nice woman. And I've met the other panelists. One's a young citrus farmer, small farm.

She's in Redlands, California. Another is in Sonoma. They're facing a lot of the issues we talk about. So it's kind of interesting to hear what people think and say. And Rachel told me that the California Ag Tourism Summit, right, will be repeated again this year. It won't be in May like last year when David Lacki and I went. It's going to be in September, September '25. And it's going to be in Paso Robles. So it would be a very easy one for people to attend different sessions without having to, you know, spend three or four days in a hotel. So I would urge people to do that.

You know, at these summits they all talk about Santa Barbara County because our ag enterprise ordinance, for all its glory and its minor faults, is the ticket in ag tourism in California. We got the first one. Which brings me to an issue in the, in the, the, our AEO in implementation. I hear all sorts of stories from landowners and their agents about applying for permits under the AEO. Some of my, I do discount somewhat because I find that some of the agents haven't read the AEO and haven't, didn't attend all our hearings and things.

But I was approached by someone who did. And they're having issue on low impact campgrounds, which you might remember is something that we specifically built into our ordinance. And it was built in because we had pending Assembly Bill five eighteen that was going to allow low impact campgrounds, that's nine or less, and it wouldn't have all the requirements that we have for environmental health for septic and water. The bill passed. I helped lobby for it.

I reported here last, was it summer or early fall, that it had passed. And we needed to do what we would do to trigger our adoption of that ordinance, or rather that new law. Very easy because the new law says that if you have an ordinance that is compatible with the standards of this law, which, you know, is the nine campgrounds, those kinds of things, and that's what our AEO has specifically written to match. David Lackey wrote it up that way. Then all you have to do is send a notice to HCD, whatever HCD is doing in this, I don't understand, but they do.

And then you're authorized to, you know, take these permits. Problem is, it's reported me folks go to EHS and they say, you know, with the law as it is right now in county, we still can't issue permits for these kind of campgrounds. And we don't know when we will be able to. That'll be up to the board and to PND. And so here we are.

Could you, Travis, Jeff, someone, please discuss with Lars and Jason, excuse me for using first names, at EHS and coordinate because I think our ordinance is already there. Okay. I don't think we need to do any new ordinance. I think we just need to do a simple notification to HCD. And I also brought that up a few months ago. So that's just a request. Not bagging on anybody. Looks like you're nodding, affirmatively.

Mr. Chair and Commissioner Park, yes we will look into it. And I think after this hearing we can provide additional information to the commission and to Commissioner Park. I think Mr. Seward has been working on this issue, so he has information on it. Excellent. We're not agendized to go into detail on this today, we can provide information post hearing on how we can navigate this.

Well I appreciate your work. And EHS's work. You know, I can remember all the effort we went through this. And Lars and Jason were always there for us and very helpful and patient. So it's, I'm not criticizing anybody in any way shape or form. Just want to make sure we get there. Thanks.

With that, we will proceed to reviewing the minutes of the 01/28/2026 hearing. To any commissioners, have they noted any additions, deletions, or corrections to those? Commissioner Cooney?

Mister Chair, I I move approval of the minutes of our hearing of January 28.

Okay. And I second.

You may. Okay. All in favor?

Aye. Alright.

Is a director's report available today?

Mr. Chair and Commissioners there won't be a director's report today. Director Plumman is out of the office. And so she will provide a director's report at our next hearing.

All right. Thank you. So with that we will proceed to our standard agenda. Mr. Villalobos, could you please read in the first item?

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The following is a hearing on the request of Rich Gro Nursery Products, Inc. To consider case number 19 RVP 115 and to adopt a mitigated negative declaration. Case number 22 NGDU 10 and mitigation monitoring program contained in the conditions of approval pursuant to state guidelines for implementation of the California Environmental Quality Act.

I wish I could talk that quickly. It's kind of like an auctioneer. All right. So aside from the levity, Ms. Mitchell are you prepared to proceed with the staff report? Yes. Please.

Alright. Good morning Chair Reid and Commissioners. My name is Tina Mitchell and today I'll be presenting the Plantel Nursery's East Side expansion project. The project site is located on East Clark Avenue between Telephone Road and Dominion Road just outside of the Orchid community plan area. The site is within the rural area of the county and is surrounded by agriculturally zoned parcels that are developed with ag uses including row crops, ag processing facilities, and oil and gas uses.

Here's a closer look at the Plantel Nursery's lot which covers about 137 acres total. The western 60 acres of the lot is built out with the existing Plantel Nursery's greenhouse operation. The proposed project would expand this operation to the eastern half of the lot, which is about 77 acres. The existing greenhouse operation on the western portion of the lot was permitted under development plan o eight DVP seven, which was approved by the Planning Commission in 2010. There were a couple changes to the development plan approved in 2016 with a substantial conformity determination and in 2019 under an amendment.

Both of those were for relatively small additions. The existing structural development covers approximately 23.7 acres and includes seven greenhouses, a shop and office building, a germination building, a water recycling facility, and solar carports. Here are a few photos of the existing greenhouses, the germination building, and open growing areas. Hours of operation at the existing facility are 06:30AM to 6PM, Monday through Friday year round. And the number of daily workers on the Western Side operation varies between one hundred and twenty and one hundred and forty employees.

Yeah.

This

is the view, looking towards the East side which is the side of the proposed expansion project. The project site has been subject to previous disturbance including strawberry cultivation with hoop houses, grading to create pads for open growing areas, and some temporary equipment storage. As this photo shows, fallowed areas have grown in with non native plants. The project is a revision to the development plan o eight DBP seven to allow Plantel Nurseries to expand the greenhouse structural development to the eastern portion of the parcel. This will include 13 new greenhouses, a new germination building, and a water recycling facility, all of which will look and operate similarly to the existing operations.

An 80 foot wide strip of new landscaping is proposed along Clark Avenue to help screen the development from public views. Hours of operation will remain the same and the expansion area will require 10 additional full time employees. Adequate parking will be provided on-site including for employees and truck staging areas. On-site slopes are generally less than 10%. However, grading will be necessary to even out the terrain and all grading will be balanced on-site.

Overall, the project includes approximately 36.7 acres of new structural development. Here's a site plan showing the layout of the greenhouses, germination building near the center of the lot, water recycling areas, and the water storage tanks. Both storm water and excess irrigation will be collected and conveyed via gravity flow to the retention pond area for re reuse in the greenhouses. Access will continue to be provided via Clark Avenue from the existing driveway, follows the red dash line between the existing operations and the proposed expansion area. Additionally, the traffic study for the project concluded that there's adequate stopping distance on East Clark Avenue and additional turn lanes are not needed to accommodate project generated traffic.

This table shows the phasing plan for the project and this was included with the staff report. We did make a minor correction here. The only difference between this corrected version and the version in the staff report is that phases three and four are under stage one rather than stage two. The project description included in the conditions is accurate and this is the version of the phasing plan that was studied for CEQA purposes. So stage one includes all grading and infrastructure for the project site and then construction of the first four greenhouses and the germination building.

And stage two includes construction of additional greenhouses on an as needed basis and it's estimated it'll be two per year. Total construction time is expected to last approximately five years but their development plan would allow for ten years if needed. This slide and the next slide show the elevations for the germination building and greenhouses. The germination building will have a maximum height of approximately 24 feet and there is no height limit for ag structures in the ag two zone. The greenhouses will have a maximum height of approximately 23 feet.

All building materials, paint colors, and proposed landscaping have been reviewed by the North Board of Architectural Review and are subject to their final approval. The project is consistent with the comprehensive plan and the land use and development code. The type and intensity of development proposed is consistent with the intent of the ag two zone as well as the Ag commercial land use designation which both allow for heavy agricultural uses. The project meets all requirements for setbacks, building separation, height limits, landscaping, and parking for the zone district. The project also complies with all applicable policies and standards related to aesthetics, noise, drainage, cultural resources, and public services.

Project was also analyzed for consistency with county ag policies and overall the project will increase the efficiency and productivity of the current operation and will supply local farmers with vegetable transplants. As discussed in the staff report, adequate parking will be provided in an area that's not visible from Clark Avenue or neighboring properties. However, landscaping in that parking area would restrict maneuvering areas needed for large shipping trucks and equipment. Therefore, the applicant has requested a modification to waive the requirement for landscaping in parking areas that exceed 3,600 square feet. The project is also consistent with chapter 25 which is the county's petroleum code.

The site contains two plugged and abandoned oil wells in the northeast portion of the site. And chapter 25 requires a 200 foot setback between buildings and oil wells. The project will meet the setback for the greenhouse structures. However, the proposed water tanks will be approximately 90 feet away from one of the oil wells. Chapter 25 includes provisions reductions to the 200 foot setback with authorization from the petroleum administrator.

So staff worked with the department's petroleum division to review the project layout and oil well access and the petroleum administrator authorized the setback reduction. The project was also reviewed by CalGEM and a condition of approval is included that will require the two wells to be exposed, surveyed, and leak tested prior to grading permit issuance. And if required by CalGEM, the wells will be re abandoned in accordance with their requirements. Environmental review for the project was processed with a mitigated negative declaration in compliance with CECA requirements. Significant but minimal impacts were identified for air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, biological resources, cultural resources, and public facilities.

During the public review period, we received comments from APCD, CalGEM, and California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which were all addressed in the final MND included with today's staff report. The analysis in the MND concludes that the project will result in a net reduction in trips and water use after accounting for the discontinuance of the traditional row crop cultivation that has historically occurred on-site. A total of 10 mitigation measures are included as conditions of approval. These include measures to prevent impacts during construction including wildlife surveys, worker trainings for bio and cultural resources, and a solid waste management plan. Mitigation measures related to operations include a natural gas fuel use limit and a greenhouse gas reduction program which I have more detail on in the next slide.

So as detailed in the staff report, the project includes a variety of new equipment to support the greenhouse operation, but the vast majority of emissions are associated with the greenhouse heaters. The projects includes 416 new Holland heaters and these are used inside the greenhouses when interior temperatures fall below 60 degrees Fahrenheit. That's usually between November through April. And the heaters are fueled by natural gas. When modeling emissions for CEQA, we are required to assume the worst case conditions that could happen on any given day, which in this case would be the heaters running at full capacity for twenty four hours.

However, based on the applicant's experience with their current operation, twenty four hour usage isn't necessary because the heaters can typically be turned off once the sun has begun to naturally heat the greenhouses. Crop hardiness and planting rotation schedules can also result in less heater use. Based on this knowledge, the applicant opted to incorporate a natural gas fuel use limit for the project which has been applied as a mitigation measure. This fuel use limit is equivalent to running the heaters at about 50% of the rated daily capacity or less. In addition to the fuel use limit, the applicant will be required to implement greenhouse gas reduction program using specific reduction measures from a menu of options that are detailed in mitigation measure GHG one.

With these two mitigation measures, impacts related to air quality and greenhouse gas emissions will be insignificant. Staff also worked closely with APCD while reviewing the air quality analysis and when crafting these mitigation measures. And APCD provided a condition letter for this project that is included with attachment b to the staff report. Based on this review, staff recommends that the commission follow the procedures outlined on this slide in order to approve the project. One, make the required findings for approval as specified in attachment A of the staff report including CEQA findings.

Two, adopt the MND and mitigation monitoring program included as attachment C of the staff report. And three, approve the revised development plan including the modification request subject to the conditions of approval in attachment B of the staff report. That concludes my presentation. Staff is available for questions. And also available for questions, we have the applicant team from Plantel, their air quality engineer for the project. And then we also have the county's CEQA consultant, WSP, that helped with preparation of the MND. That concludes it. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you. First, Commissioner Park courteously informed me that I somehow omitted, asking for ex parte information or site visit disclosures from commissioners. So, I know Commissioner Park and I made a comprehensive site visit yesterday hosted by Stephen Waldron, who I believe is operations manager, general manager. So we did that. Any other commissioners have anything to report?

Yes. It's been about probably over a month where I met with the applicant and a couple other staff members, their general manager. I'm forgetting their names but I'll remember them. Great.

Thank you. Commissioner? To report Mr. Chair. Okay. Thank you. Okay. With that, I have a few questions. With respect, let's just start off with the oil wells. You know, I read the data from, well, Dogger, later Caldium. Those two wells were abandoned approximately 1952?

Yeah. That's correct.

Oh, yeah. Because I I recognize some of the names in the paperwork as friends of my grandparents and, yeah, people. So it was that was before any of us were born. Even Commissioner Park or I. So, and I think that necessarily that might necessitate you know some questions on the integrity of those. So I was gratified to see that they will be inspected. And if abandonment is required, it will be to the latest specifications.

Chair Reid, that's correct. There's a condition of approval that requires, you know, CalGEM to be involved with the inspection of those wells. And if it's required by CalGEM then they will be re abandoned up to their current standards.

Okay. And with respect to that, the expenses incurred in that abandonment, who would they be paid for?

Chair Reid, I believe that would be the applicant's responsibility.

Okay. Excellent. Next question is with respect to the greenhouse gas, the gas use limitations, and the monitoring. Your report explained that, but I I would like, is there a reporting procedure to county or to staff to verify, things have been conducted in accordance to the conditions of approval?

Chair Reid. Yes. There is. So the the mitigation measure details, that they will have to have metering devices to monitor and take reports of the daily, natural gas fuel usage. That gets reported to our permit compliance staff monthly, and, they will review that. We also have APCD, to assist us with reviewing that data as needed. So that's part of the mitigation measure language and monitoring requirements.

Alright. Another question with respect to rainfall management. I know the the pond system is designed to to collect and save that water for other uses. Just like to in the event of a major rainwater event, are they are those ponds and the associated grading, are they capable of handling the totality of the runoff from that site without causing, you know, flooding on adjacent properties or roadways?

Chair Reid, yes. So there is a drainage study and storm water control plan that was prepared, that includes, you know, analysis of those ponds. And, that goes to our flood control division for their review, and they review it for consistency with the county code chapters 15 a and 15 b requirements. Those ponds will exceed the storage capacity needed for a one hundred year storm event and they have proper emergency outflows as needed.

Okay.

That's all detailed.

Yeah. Alright. Next with respect to traffic. Traffic volume. Now this expansion is going to increase number of daily employees by, is it 10? 10.

That's correct.

10. And it would be anticipated there are probably going to be more shipments leaving, the facility due to the expanded capacity?

Chair Reid, that is correct. And that was all, calculated and accounted for in the traffic study that was prepared for the project. And when you account for the Strawberry Farm discontinuing, it's actually a reduction in the total number of trips and that accounts for deliveries and employees. So that's all accounted for in the studies.

So fewer trips, that's good.

Correct,

yeah. Oh yeah. That's why I wanted that to be come out in the hearing. Parking, They're putting 76 new spaces but only 10 new employees. Is that

That's correct. So Chair Reid, there is about nine or 10 actual employees spaces and then there's room for about 76 spaces in their staging area which they need for their operations for receiving and shipping out the shipments. So yeah, they need the larger area for their shipping areas but they really only need 10 additional spaces I would say. So Okay. Plenty of additional spaces.

Okay. Last one I have at this time is landscaping. The the the plant palette for landscaping. Where did that come from?

Chair Reid. So that I think they had, they have yeah.

Plan Air.

Plan Air. Landscape architect on that one. And that does get reviewed by North Board of Architectural Review. So they would look at the plant palette to make sure that it's appropriate and there's no, you know, invasive species of that sort.

Well, I like the native plants that were picked out. I think it's a great palette. I wasn't gonna criticize it. So I just wondered what the genesis was of that one. I think it'll be very complimentary to the area Yeah. And has a you know, some of our favorite natives. So thank you. With that, I will give the mic to any commissioners that have any additional questions.

Thank you. Just quickly, could you remind us with the addition of the 10 employees, how many employees total that is currently and then projected?

Yeah. Commissioner Ford through the chair. So they're currently at 120 to 104 40 employees. So it would be 130 to 150. Yep.

Thank you.

I don't think I'll need more than that. Hi. I'm I'm Scott Nicholson. I recently retired from Plantel, but I was there when we were putting all this plan together. And first of all, I'd like to really thank Tina Michelle for sticking with this plan over the years. It's taken us a while to get through this, to go through all the mitigation measures and make sure everything is is appropriate. And we think that it's a good plan. It's, basically just an expansion of our existing operation. We do face periods of time when we are, at maximum capacity in our existing facilities. So this will allow us to expand our production.

And so unless there's any other specific questions, that's pretty much what I have.

Just for the general public that's watching and may be interested, could you give me a, just a couple minute explanation of what your operations are?

Our operations are, for the production of vegetable transplants, and so we produce from seed in our seedling trays, a miniature plug or a miniature plant that we sell to the farmer. We sell directly to the farmers. We're not a retail operation, And so by starting the plants and selling them to the farmers, the farmers get a better yield in the field. They save time in the field. They save water and pest control products in the field, because they get a instant start with the plants that we provide to them.

Right. Well, thank you very much. With no additional questions from commissioners, we can proceed to public comment. We have no public I have no forms, so no public comment in the room.

For those of you online, if you would like to speak on this item, raise your hand. It must be for the next item. No hands raised.

No hands raised. So any additional comments from staff?

Members of the commission chair, we are content with the information provided. But happy to answer any further questions.

Well,

interesting. I guess we can progress to deliberations. Well, I'll start. This, you know, Plantel has been a fixture and I think an important element of the local ag community for a few decades With respect to this expansion plan, it seems it would, you know, be a great asset to their operations. It appears well thought out, well mitigated with respect to potential effects, with respect to, you know, the immediate and, you know, larger concerns would, obviously be greenhouse gas maintenance, management of the abandoned wells on the property, and traffic, which are, you know, typical of most projects, particularly projects of this volume that we are faced with.

It appears that all the effects of those are are well mitigated and well conditioned in conditions of approval. I even think the landscaping will be a a benefit. So at this point, after reviewing all the pertinent materials and the presentations of staff and the testimony from applicant, I would be prepared to give it complete support for approval. So any other? Commissioner Park.

I like that little bell. I don't know what it was for, but it's like at a restaurant you're about to give a wedding toast. And that's kind of what I'm going to do, because I think that big picture, sometimes we need to celebrate things. And the fact that Plantale sees the need to expand this much says a lot for farming in Santa Ana or Santa Ana where's Santa Ana in the Santa Maria Valley. I'm looking over there at Claire Wyman, and eight years ago, I think, when I became a Planning Commissioner, Claire and Larry Farini took me on a tour of the valley and we went over to Plantale.

And I've had a number of tours at Plantale, both this facility and the Gary one since then. And it was impressed upon me how absolutely central to veg farming Plantale is. I mean, you could make an argument that they're the most significant enterprise in this county in terms of their importance for doing something. I mean, you could make that argument. And I encourage people to go on tours They always participate in farm day, which is in the late summer.

And then I know they're having some tours in September, which I guess is farm day, I'm not sure. But everybody should go there. It's fascinating. I heard yesterday that last year they produced 1,400,000,000 plants. And I bring that up just because, again, big picture. One of the things that appropriately received a lot of attention here was GHG emissions for the heaters. That's what we're supposed to do. But you look at that, when you're producing 1,400,000,000 plants, think of all the carbon sequestration that's going to occur once those get planted and grow. It's phenomenal. So it's very important.

Something that's important to me particularly is, I'm not trying to pick on the 4th District, but most of our older oil wells are in the 4th District, are they not? Yeah, think they are. 80% of oil. Yeah. And what worries me about these older wells is how well were they abandoned? And some of them never really were abandoned. They're little strippers or they're just inactive. And there's a lot of release of methane. And methane is probably our worst greenhouse gas. It is, luckily, it disappears quickly, but it's still bad stuff.

So any chance we get to take some old wells and make sure they were abandoned properly, and if they weren't abandoned properly or if there's some release, to do it under today's standards is a good thing. So I think that's a good thing here, not a bad thing that you're dealing with these wells. Anyway, I absolutely support this project.

Commissioner Cooney.

Thank you Mr. Cherry. This is interesting to me. I'm not a farmer. Though I spent several summers working on farms and appreciate the difference between a well run and a sloppily run farming operation. A very well done report by Ms. Mitchell. Answered all of the questions that I had about this project. So I will be adding my approval to those of my fellow commissioners.

Commissioner Martinez.

Yes. Since first meeting with the applicant and staff, I've been I found this project to be in the right place, progressive, and responsible. I'd support it.

Commissioner Ford.

Thanks. This certainly has been a long time coming, and although I'm pretty much a city girl, I really appreciate the comprehensive thorough planning that has taken place, And extensive mitigation and modifications that lead me to support and in fact celebrate the project.

So, well, I'm chair, so I'll make a motion. Alright. Excuse me. Yeah. I would like to sit forward a motion that we make the recommended actions as included on slide 15 of the staff report.

They make the required findings for approval specified in attachment A, including the CEQA findings. We adopt the mitigated negative declaration case number twenty two NGD ten. Adopt the mitigation monitoring program contained in conditions of approval. And we approve the project case number 19 RVP zero 000115, including a modification to waive the landscaping requirements for uncovered parking areas that exceed 3,600 feet. Subject conditions included as attachment B. Commissioner Ford.

I'll second that motion. Thank you.

Mr. Villalobos could we do a roll call?

Certainly, Mr. Chair. Commissioner Cooney. Aye. Commissioner Ford. Aye. Commissioner Park. Aye. Commissioner Martinez. Aye. Chair Reid. Aye. Motion passes five to zero today. Commissioner Cooney. Motion passes five to zero.

And thank you to staff for all your meticulous work on this item. Can we take a, what about a ten minute recess to, or fifteen to change for the next item? What? Ten? Ten.

The February 11. Yeah. Welcome back to the February 11 hearing of the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission. Mr. Villalobos, will you please read the next item into the record?

Yes, thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The County Planning Department and County Parks Division will conduct a workshop with the County Planning Commission regarding the upcoming comprehensive plan and ordinance amendments related to the recreation master plan.

Thank you. And just as a bit of positioning, this is our third workshop on the Rec Master Plan. The first workshop was largely information, informational on what we deal with, which is the recreation benefit program portion of the Rec Master Plan. It's

a

little narrow in scope. This has to do with the public private partnerships that will enable participating property owners, not restricted to ag owners as the AEO was, will allow them to be able to participate, create, certain uses which are allowed in the rec master plan. The second hearing was very broad in scope and was intended to invite and elicit comment from stakeholders, interested groups, and others relative to the broader plan. Now, the goal for this workshop is, again, narrower in scope. Our intent today is to provide, direction and information to planning staff that they will use to prepare the rec benefit program, Not the overall rec master plan.

To prepare the rec benefit program so it can proceed to preparation of the programmatic EIR. We are not, although we invite public comment, public input, we are not going to be acting on individual projects or proposals included in the overall rec master plan. This is, we have a specific goal, and that is to prepare it for the programmatic EIR. After that is prepared, we will embark on a series of hearings as necessary to really refine the elements. And at that time we'll implement or consider public input in refining it.

So with that, I'd like to proceed to our staff presentation. Ms. Mitchell?

Mr. Chair and commissioners, as we get ready to show the slide, again, Jeff Wilson is the director of planning development department. Struggled that one. Then have Jeff Lingren with the community services department. And Tina Mitchell is the planner on this one. I just wanted to follow-up with Chair Reid's introduction. That was awesome and perfectly framed what we're working on. I just want to add a couple tidbits to that. That's a scientific term. Is that what we're doing today with the planning commission is a subset of the greater recreation master plan.

As Chair Reid indicated. In addition to the recreation benefit program, which is again part of what we're doing, we're also doing ordinance amendments to encourage additional recreational uses throughout different zoning. As well as we are updating the land use element with policies. As well as looking at the agriculture element and maybe adding policies there. So we are more narrow in scope as far as what we're doing and what we're coordinating with the planning commission on.

And yes, there is the larger rec master plan that has specific project in it that Mr. Lindgren can talk to. So as today, we're looking for comments from the planning commission in regards to those components of ordinance amendments or policy amendments that we're looking at. Which are designed to help support the greater recreation master plan that we're working on. So having said that, I will turn it over to Mr. Lindgren to have some opening remarks. And then to Ms. Mitchell.

Thank you, and good morning. This morning, well, again, I'm Jeff Lindgren, assistant director for Parks in the community services department. Thank you to Mr. Wilson and Ms. Mitchell for assisting us in these hearings and the development of the rec plan overall.

We also have a team of consultants. WSP is working on our environmental documentation, and Erica Leachman is helping us finalize rec plan elements. So thank you to our full team. As we move forward today, as your chair pointed out, we are on the third continuance, I guess the second continuance, third meeting of a workshop format, where we are looking for, you know, feedback and input that we can include in our project description for our environmental document for the rec plan. In front of the planning commission in the coming months will be the output from that.

We will bring back the public version of the environmental document and our kind of final collection of proposals for the recreation master plan and the amendments to the land use development code. And the comp plan elements that we are looking to revise, all in support of recreation in the county. Okay. We jump into that first slide, please. Thank you.

Today we are looking for some feedback from your commission about the components of the amendments, as we just mentioned. I will discuss some of the feedback that we've heard throughout these workshops. And then we will also spend a little bit of time talking about the amendments and precisely get into some of the details about what those amendments might look like in the land use development code. And we're really looking for your discussion today to focus on the areas that we'll present to you in the next minute or two. So next slide, please.

Recapping some of the feedback we received over the last few months, and actually going back to when we released the NOP for the environmental impact report. But overall, we are hearing support for development standards that support low impact outdoor recreation and sustainable trails. That's good. We are hearing support for streamlined permitting processes. So using the zoning clearance and the LUP process rather than what's generally required now, which is a more stringent CUP conditional use permit.

We are getting good feedback on the rec benefit program as an innovative approach and the use of public private partnerships to help provide recreation across the county. We've heard excitement and a lot of interest from nonprofit sector, from landowners, from various groups who have particular interests in certain types of recreation. So those are all very good things. Next slide, please. We've also heard some critiques.

And in the comments we've received, there are definitely some differing opinions and some tension between some of the things that we're suggesting. We've provided a list of incentives to help applicants through the recreation benefit program. And we've heard both that those incentives are not valuable enough, and then we've also heard that some of those incentives might be too much. We've heard that setbacks from agricultural, productive agricultural land could be too big. We've also heard that they're not big enough.

So these are the kinds of comments that we are hearing in this process. We're hearing that rec benefit programs, zoning and the parcel size should be considered. For example, we've heard that rec benefit programs should be limited to parcels larger than 40 acres. There's a challenge with that. We do have some parcels and some projects that we'll talk about a little more detail later that are potentially on smaller parcels than 40 acres that would not be applicable here.

Not now. Sorry. We've heard a lot of comments about the relationship between the rec benefit program and the agricultural enterprise ordinance. A lot of those comments are focused on, you know, the RBP is not compatible or not consistent with the AEO. And we said this in the very first hearing on this topic.

There are different programs. Direct benefit program is not an extension of the AEO. It is a completely separate program with different goals, and utilizing different tools to achieve those goals. So they should not be confused. However, we have taken some ideas from the AEO that make good sense as we move forward with development of the RBP.

But they are different programs. And then we did hear some comments about how this program increases tourism more than it may increase recreation for locals. So those are that kind of encapsulates some of the information that we've heard. We've also heard a lot of comments about individual projects that are not something that you're really considering today, but I just want to point out that we have heard those comments as well. Next slide, please.

One of the big efforts in the plan is to simplify the construction and permitting for recreational trails. So this slide indicates, you know, some of the steps that we have taken, including a meeting two weeks ago with a group of trail builders. These are the folks that actually get out with the shovels create the trails out of the dirt and rock. To get some feedback from them, and we'll be incorporating some of that as well. But here, we see, you know, a land use permit or zoning clearance for recreational trails.

More complicated trails could require a CUP. No permit for trails on public agency property. Trails should be sustainable following the Forest Service guidelines. That means that they are designed to minimize erosion and damage to the land. We have guidelines here for how adjacent, how close they might be to active ag land.

We are sticking to the guidelines we've used historically to assess cultural and biological resources on a site, and then plan your trail accordingly. We're looking at different fencing options, so we can address some of the adjacency to other property uses, and how we might do that. Currently, we have a variety of fences that we can use, depending on how much security is needed between different uses. And then, we've looked at how a trail can exist in compliance with the Williamson Act. And in that case, it is following the uniform rules.

Next slide, please. And I'll pass this off to Jeff Wilson.

So we want to do a recap of the recreation benefit program in regards to some of the comments that we received. Just to highlight those comments and some of the items that have come up as questions. So just as a recap from our prior meetings is that when we look at recreation benefit projects, there's an eligibility requirement to qualify to be a recreational benefit project. And this isn't a blanket that everyone can have these incentives or other allowable uses that are eligible for a recreational benefit project. So we want to make that distinction is that there is a eligibility process to be qualified as a recreation benefit project.

And then once you're eligible, then you can have those incentives for permit streamlining, other uses that wouldn't otherwise be allowed. So we're not saying that What we're saying is that you have to be eligible. So you're not going see country ins all over the place. You're not going see trail site cafes everywhere. They're part of a recreational benefit project.

So it's very narrow in scope as far as when you'll see those other uses that otherwise wouldn't be allowed. In addition, as far as like streamlining options that we've set forth, those are made available as incentives. The other point that we wanted to make is that the existing zoning, comprehensive plan element policies, Williamson Act, uniform rules, all those things, development standards still apply to recreational benefit projects. So they still have to comply with infrastructure requirements, building codes, environmental health standards. What we're talking about is just adding some incentives to help streamline that process on the planning and development side.

But everything else does. A lot of the recreational projects that we see or uses are already allowed or could already be permitted, with the exception of those other uses that we've identified with the planning commission. And so we're just creating a path to create an incentivized public private partnership program. One thing that we did want to clarify and just bring to the attention of the commission, recreation benefit projects are allowed across all zoning designations, or specific zoning designations. But when we look at the Ag one and Ag two zoning designations, the recreation benefit projects initially were focused on Ag two.

When we got comments, want the planning commission to look at do we want to make recreational benefit projects available to Ag one zoning designations as well. The other comment is to limit recreation benefit projects to anything greater than 40 acres. When we look in the future on the horizon, we've identified that there are some potential projects that could take advantage of the incentive program. We talked last time about the Guadalupe Campground project. There's a San Yenes River Trail project that's trying to get underway.

We have the Galiti Community Park. Those projects are on or adjacent to parcels that are less than 40 acres. So excluding benefit projects for parcels that are under 40 acres could limit the potential benefit of this program. So we just want to have a little caution and not just saying, hey, want to limit everything to 40 acres and above. Or there could be an opportunity to say, limit certain uses in the recreation benefit program.

As in, hey, we want to limit the country ends to a certain parcel size or premise size. Or we want to, there's ways that we can tailor the rec benefit program to address the 40 acre minimum size and not just exclude it from everything less than 40 acres. So that's something we're going to talk about later when we get to the slide where we're asking for input from the commission. Again, we've strived to have clear development standards for these additional uses, including parks and trails. One highlight, there was a lot of comments about who makes that eligibility determination on whether or not a recreational benefit project has a significant component or contribution to the county.

That would be reviewed by staff. However, the ultimate decision is the directors. So the director of CSD would be the one that would actually make that decision. It isn't a line staff decision. They review, make sure they have all the components there, and then ultimately the decision is the director on the eligibility for that benefit component of a recreation benefit project. And then as it relates directly to the rec plans, projects and recreation needs. So there's that balancing. What are they proposing? Does it meet with the recreation plans goals and objectives? Or is there some other benefit that we didn't foresee, but that is all recommended to the director and then make that decision.

And then one thing that we're not, haven't highlighted in this slide though is, in addition, we're trying to build in an appeal process. And so in case the applicant developer says, hey, have a great idea, and it isn't determined by the director that it is eligible, then they can appeal that and have that opportunity to have it heard by another body. So that's just a quick sum up of some of the comments we heard on the recreation benefit projects and their features. Next slide. I'm not going into detail on this slide.

It's available to review later. When you're sleepy, you want to go, you know, or you can't go to sleep, you want to read it, this is what this is for. We just want to highlight that our purpose and our goal is this is a recreation project. It's to advance and include, make available more recreational opportunities throughout the county. This isn't ag enterprise ordinance two point zero.

This is a recreation project. So there are similarities. There is some overlay between what the ag enterprise ordinance did and what we're trying to do with the recreation benefit projects or with the ordinance amendments. But there is, the big difference is that this is focused on enhancing and increasing recreational opportunities. The big difference is when the ag enterprise ordinance requires that there to be a primary agriculture existing on the site in order to access the ag enterprise ordinance options.

With what we're proposing, that requirement doesn't exist because we're focused on recreational opportunities. So with that, there could be impacts to agriculture. And so we're trying to be transparent with that and clear that there could be impacts to ag, because we're not saying you have to maintain agriculture on your site. So that's part of the environmental review that we're going to undertake, or we're undertaking right now. So that's kind of a distinction we want to make, is that this is recreational focused on how to create a public private partnership to enhance recreation.

Next slide. As I mentioned earlier, we are in addition updating the land use element in regards to policies that are focused on recreation. So those are in your prior materials. Those ordinance or comprehensive plan amendments. We are also looking at proposing amendments to the agriculture element. We want to ensure that we're internally consistent through the comprehensive plan to make sure we don't have policies that are inconsistent with each other. And so when we come back for determination final action, we'll have those policies available for the commission to review as well. We don't have those drafted yet. But that's something we're looking at moving forward. Next slide.

So having said that, I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Mitchell and we're going to go through a series of slides. And we're going to pause on each slide to allow the commission to provide input, thoughts, ask questions on specific key areas that we're looking for input. Again, the focus is to make sure that our project description for the programmatic EIR is inclusive of all the things that we're looking for in the future so we can have it analyzed. And so Ms. Mitchell's going to lead us through a guided tour of those focus areas.

Thank you, Mr. Wilson. So yeah, we're going to transition to some specific issue areas that we're looking for the commission's comments on. You can kind of think of this as a checklist of what we're hoping to accomplish for today's hearing in order to move us towards publishing the EIR. And these pertain more specifically to the LUDC amendments and the rec benefit program primarily.

So I think we're looking for feedback on each of these things but I'll just walk through the list really quickly to give you an intro and then, you know, feel free to jump in commission. So first, is the range of incentives sufficient to entice private parties that are interested in proposing RBPs? And we have heard some feedback since the last workshop that we wanted to raise here today. There has been some interest as having overnight or summer camps as an additional allowed use incentive. So that's something we are hoping to consider.

Also, standalone wellness or SPA facilities, that's something we've heard that we think could be a valuable incentive. So we're considering adding those two uses. Moving along on this list, we're just looking for input on the zoning for rec benefit projects and those additional allowed uses. The minimum parcel or premise size for certain uses and incentives. So is there a minimum parcel or premise size that the commission wants for country ends or trailside cafes, that type of thing.

Setbacks for trails and the rec benefit project incentive uses, that's kind of a key issue that's come up quite a bit, especially for setbacks from active agriculture or more specifically row crop agriculture. We have been stating 200 feet. That's what we've proposed originally, but we are, you know, open to other ideas. The streamlined permitting pathways, and just in general, the permit paths that we've proposed for things like country ins based on the range of rooms. Those are things that we welcome input from the commission.

And then finally, limits on the size of additional allowed uses. So the things like country inns or trail side cafes. And the next two slides are going to go into a little more detail on that so you might wait to see those first. We have kind of come up with some numbers that we've heard based on feedback and we think those could potentially work for those types of uses. So I want to pause here and see if there's any feedback from the commission on some of these general topics. And then we'll finish out the last two slides after that.

Yeah, I have just a couple questions about definitions. You say overnight summer camps. So is this like an in residency camp for kids to come and stay at? Is that what that is describing?

Cherry, I would say that's accurate. Yeah, we don't have a definition quite yet, but that's the concept that we've heard.

Okay. And then with respect to spa and wellness, would those be day use or overnight?

Yeah. Day use is what we were thinking for that, Chair Reid. So there is the opportunity, I think, to include spas or wellness as part of like your country inn or a hotel or something like that. But this would just be like a standalone day use wellness facility.

Okay. Commissioner Park.

I've thought about these topics a lot. Duh. And I spent a lot of time talking with the two Jeffs here and Ms. Mitchell. But in preparation for today, I prepared a one page sheet with some bullet points. Could you pull that up, Mr. Villalobos? Or Ms. Mitchell? Or whoever? And, so I'm guessing now is the time to go over these. And if you think we need to look at the next three slides first let me know. But I think not necessarily. So let me go through them. First on setbacks.

I propose something that addresses some of the concerns that have been expressed by the grower shippers and the ag advisory committee for a long time on buffers. And we had a different kind of solution on the AEO, where we created that farm overlay. I want to do kind of a hybrid. Not not create any new overlays on the rec master plan, but if you've got a farm in the overlay, row crop farm, and you've got a rec master plan project in the overlay, then I think we need to have a thousand foot setback from the row crop and orchard agriculture to that rec master plan use. And that would either be the public project or an incentive project that's allowed in the direct master plan.

And outside the AEO farm overlay, if those things are, if one or the other is outside, Then I propose we go to a 300 foot setback. And if somebody wanted to go to 400 I'm not going to get in the way. But 300 foot setback from row crop or agriculture to the RMP improvement. And these setbacks may be reduced by agreement between adjoining landowners. That's an issue that came up in the AEO and there was some question about whether we could legally do that.

And we ultimately did do it in the AEO. There's a whole paragraph of language in there. It's a little cryptic when I read it again, but that's what it does. So this would be essentially to import that idea into the AEO. Why do I want these larger setbacks?

One, to address the concerns of those organizations. But two, it's to recognize that this is different than the AEO. These projects under the rec master plan, there won't be very many of them, hopefully be some, and their incentive projects, they'll be larger in scale than what's allowed in the AEO. AEO talks about a six unit farm stay, for example. Now we're talking about a country inn.

Will that be 24 units? Will it be 48? Whatever it's going to be. It's going to be bigger building, more traffic, more people, and the potential for conflict is greater. So I think we need larger setbacks. I'm glad to go on the next one unless somebody wants to talk about this from staff. But I think you're generally okay with this, or what do you think?

Chair Reid, Commissioner Park, yes. I think that this can all be analyzed and and seems like a good starting place. There's a couple other setback related issues I'd like to just bring up. I'm guessing this is good enough time. One of them is if there are some sort of geographic or physical barrier between the proposed trail or rec benefit program and the adjacent ag, say there's a significant change in grade or a culvert or a creek or some other natural feature, I would like to have some discussion about how your commission would like to treat that circumstance.

Let me address that. I think we spent a lot of time talking about that concept, the AO, and developed some good language about it. And I just simply forgot to refer to it. I should have referred to let's incorporate that. But, you know, anything that we write up we're going incorporate a lot of language from other things. But that's a very good point. That would be really important to do that. So can I ask a question?

Yeah.

So Mr. Chair and Commissioner Park and other commissioners, sorry that sounded really weird. Planning commissioners. In addition to the setbacks, there's two setbacks that we want to be focusing on. There's a setbacks related to the recreation benefit projects. Like country inns, trailside cafes, or if those recreation benefit projects include a trail. But in addition to those setbacks, the larger setback that Mr. Lindgren's talking about has to do with those items that aren't a rec benefit project. Which could be somebody that wants to install a private recreation trail on their property. So we also want feedback on that setback as well.

And to, I guess my question is to Commissioner Park, would these setbacks also apply to private recreational trails that are outside of a recreation benefit project? So if that's the proposal from the commission, then that's fine. We'll explore that and look at that as well. So what the impact of that is if somebody wants to do a private recreational project on their property that's over the public, not a rec benefit project, they want to put a trail, do these setbacks apply to that? A thousand foot setback if you're in the ag overlay. And then if you're outside of it, then it would be a 300 foot setback. Unless there's a topographical feature that helps isolate that trial feature.

Well, not to be evasive, but I'd like to think about that some more. And you know, we're all going to think about this a lot more. It's going to take months before we get an EIR back. And it's going to, then we'll get to the actual approval of language. So, there'll be plenty of opportunity for everybody in the audience, everybody watching, to comment further about specifics.

But, my general reaction to that question is that if it's both the row crop agriculture and the project are within the existing AEO overlay, then these setbacks should apply even if it's trails. Because trails will draw people in the proximity of these row crop farms, and you would think that there will be a smaller concentration of people on a trail than at a country inn, I mean, obviously. But the odds that that person will have a stray dog that wanders over and ruins a lettuce field and causes shutdown of crops and things like that in farms is very real, and it's just as true of a trail user as not, and the possibility that somebody could get injured with potential overspray and all that. So I think you would include that. So, I hope that answers your question there.

Commissioner Martinez?

I think I'm finally understanding what is happening here from what Commissioner Park just indicated as to the, you know, the setbacks in regards to, and I remember these discussions as to row crops. And my question is, that sounds more like a bright line rule which is applicable without well, is there is there an exception to the exception to the exception? So my question to staff is is, I mean, are we really looking just for the few bright line rules that we're going to have, and then it's working around those things with all the exceptions up to the because otherwise we can talk into infinity of exceptions. But I remember that bright line rule, and that's something that's great to incorporate into it because that was discussed and it's clearly applicable. Because if I recall, nobody could use that bright line rule to say you can't put something next to my property because I'm going to start a strawberry farm next month.

It had to be something in existence. I think that's what we were talking about originally in the past. So I agree. If we can incorporate some of those bright line rules into it, we're not reinventing the wheel, but we're also not getting into the exceptions to the exceptions to the exceptions of an endless thing. Because I imagine this is going to provide not the concept, but at least the box that we're going to work within.

And within that box there will be the working of staff with those bright line rules. If there's questions to be had or questions to be addressed, those would in time come to the planning commission to say, look, we have the situation, it's a unique situation, or just different. And we think this is how it should be applied. I mean, is that what you're looking for?

Commissioner Martinez has shared that is correct. That's what we're looking for. And I think you're you and Commissioner Parker are right on target. There are there's overlay or overlay with the Ag Enterprise Ordinance that has some very good bright line standards that we could apply to the rec benefit projects, or just recreational uses as well. So that's what we're looking for the commission. Like, hey, whether there's a BrightLine or whether there's specific things, as we talked about, we can import that in to make it clear and consistent across.

I think there's an important point to be made about the definitions for these buffering setbacks. Because there's an earlier slide, I can't remember which one it was, and it referred to, you know, the existing proposal of 200 feet from active agriculture. The question is, and I asked you folks yesterday, what do you mean by active agriculture? Let's face it. Most of these projects, and there's not going to be more than a dozen in the county, if, with luck, are, are, they're not going to be near row crop agriculture.

They're going to be out in the grazing areas. And so, I asked, okay, is active agriculture grazing areas? Because trails tend to be defined by topography. They need to be where they need to be and it doesn't much matter whether it's the edge of a ranch or not. And, and the answer I received that active agriculture for that purpose won't be defined to include grazing areas.

It'll This is a protection that we're talking about for row crop and it's it's the least likely place to actually find recreation master plan type development. So, maybe that's a good reason for me to go on to the next item. May I do so? Premises size. The idea, specific idea for a 40 acre minimum premises size or parcel size came from an excellent letter from WeWatch, right there.

And we've been discussing this for months about what's the best way to handle this issue. And they came up with a good one. I know one of the prior slides said there's going to be a possibility of a need for trail passing over smaller parcels and things like that. My point is let's not throw away this idea of a minimum premises size, but let's preserve it especially for incentive uses with buildings so that you don't get five acre parcels all in a row, each with a trail side cafe and a small hotel. That would look like a truck stop in San Bernardino or And we don't need to do that.

So that's just a solution I hope you keep in mind that try to preserve that 40 acre minimum premises size by relating it to borrowing incentives within smaller parcels, not necessarily the trail itself. Permitting path, this is something I've thought about actually for several years and I remember a conversation with a Glen Hartman who owns most of what we would use for the San Andres River Trail. And he was complaining about how it took seven or eight years to get the CUP for the zip lines. And also in the conversation were folks from Granite who have adjoining property and we would also use their property for that trail. They said only seven or eight years?

It took us twelve years for some project they had on their rock crushing plant. And it just illustrates that when you talk to real landowners, their real concern is CUPs and and how kind of amorphous the whole process is and how long it takes. So, what I've suggested for a long time, and want to make sure it got here again, is we should consider reducing or eliminating the compatibility finding, that's generally finding 2.1.5 that we have in suggested findings for CUPs for these kinds of projects. Why would you ever do that? You're going to go through an eligibility determination, whether look through at a fine tooth comb, what the project is, what public benefit is provided, you know, what trail, what ball fields.

And then is it, and then is this thing making a substantial contribution to that, in kind contribution. And I think that's essentially going through a compatibility determination process. And why repeat it again and force these people to say, okay I'll go through the eligibility process. I'll go all the way through and then at the very end, just like every other CUP project, somebody can come up to the mic for the first time in their three minutes of fame and say it's not compatible. And no one's even met them before. And there we are. That drives landowners crazy. And if you have that, very few landowners are going to want to engage in this. So at least consider this idea. Zoning.

There's a reference to campgrounds in, I think, some of the succeeding slides. I point out that it's worthwhile to consider having a campground incentive for Ag 140 parcels or larger. And I'll be very specific. Just to the north of the San Andres River, between Beulton and Solvang, there's an array of parcels that are approximately 70 acres apiece. Okay?

That's the most logical site now for the Ceninez River Trail. And we need incentives for folks to do that. I don't want to see big KOA style campgrounds on those parcels because they're on that highway, because of, you know, 70 acres sounds big, but they're they're deep, and so you, you know, it could be a mess. On the other hand, some kind of campgrounds would be a good incentive and would fit. And I'll be very specific.

We approved a CUP last year for one of those parcels to have a large covered horse arena for horse show events and to have those kinds of events. We didn't make a wedding chapel out of it, you know. And very typically, at horse events, whether they're endurance rides, horse shows, the things you see at the Paso Robles Fairgrounds during their fair, people bring their horse trailers and they stay overnight in their horse trailers. Okay? And that's camping of a sort, and that's an allowing that would be a nice incentive that would allow us to get that trail.

Okay. The range of incentives. You've already discussed spa, wellness, overnight summer camp type uses. I think most of the spa wellness facilities actually will wind up with, as part of an overnight accommodation with a small country inn. So I don't think we're expecting to see 20 fourseven, you know, gymnasiums do weight lifting. Okay. Process. Should I save my process comments for your last slide?

Chair and Commissioner Park, yes, think that would be appropriate to save So

six and seven deal with that. Eight, I don't know where it fits. So let me just cover it now. We've had a lot of testimony that's kind of near and dear to my heart because it's from people that are equestrian people and they're talking about the trails I use when I ride. And a theme is that we need to be able to discriminate sometimes between trails that are open to everybody and trails that are not open to everybody because some users we might want to exclude essentially exclude every other use of the trail by anybody else.

And I don't know where that fits. That's not really part of the RBP program, don't think, but it's part of the policies that we'd be approving. And I think it's important that we recognize the need for variation sometimes from the multi user trail model where appropriate. We shouldn't keep ignoring the horse people. I spend more time out at Live Oak probably than anybody.

And think my uses of trails are legal and I'm following cow paths, exploring things, you know, whatever. And clearly to me some trails are appropriate for multi use and some absolutely are not. The existing ones are not. I think you could create some that could work that would be. But, we can discriminate between types of trails, location, how they're built and we can suit the needs of everybody and I don't want to keep saying no to the horse people. I want to say yes, we'll work on it with you together. So that's why I have that in there. But I'll reserve six and seven to when you get to the process slide, okay? Thank you.

Commissioner Cooney. Yes,

I'm jumping off script here, listening to Commissioner Park, talk about trail use because I heard as we started this matter that we were not going to get into whether trails are multi use or whether some trails could be reserved, just for horses and so forth. And if we're going to discuss that and invite comment on that, I'm going to have to recuse, due to a relationship with one of the parties involved.

Chair and commissioners, just to follow-up the prior conversation and to respond to Chair, or Commissioner Kearney. We're not intending to speak on specific trails or trail segments. Especially those that may be identified in the recreation master plan. There are policies that support variation of trails and trail users. But I think as far as that conversation, we aren't intending to go into detail on a specific trail or trail segment or trail users today.

I thought that at the outset, but not everybody was in the room at that point. And so maybe inadvertently it would come up because it is a concern. There's no question about it. But that's fine. If it if it does, I just won't participate. So be aware of that potential

abrupt

departure. Yeah. Thank you. One thing I wanted to interject, this might be an appropriate part, since we had a discussion of setbacks. I would like to explore with respect to setbacks, increasing the inventory of available fencing styles relative to providing separation from these projects or trails from row crop agriculture, either due to special sensitivity or perhaps histories of incursion and intrusion from a particular site or trail.

And I would like to include that up to and including things like cyclone fence or concrete fence, something that's really impervious, but only as a special case to supplement setbacks or perhaps, in cases which adequate setback could not be achieved by normal means, by other means.

Thank you, Cherry. Those are good comments. So unless we have any other specific comments on this slide, we can always come back to it or any you know, comments that you have on these topics. I'll just go through the next couple slides. Can you just

Oh, sorry. She can't hear my whispering. On this slide, we just want to get, we wanted to pause here to make sure that the commission had time to provide any response they wanted to on these areas. A lot of this area is focused on the material we provided the last two workshops. Especially like when you look at the rec benefit project, the permitting path for allowed uses. We're proposing a land use permit. And also an ability to waive the requirement for a development plan. On certain projects, the goal is to streamline the process. And it isn't to exclude public engagement or public notification. It's just to provide a streamlined opportunity to move through the process.

So we just wanted to make sure we paused for a second here with the commission. If there's any other comments that they have on any of these areas, we're open to having that discussion. Otherwise we can move through the tables that we provided earlier. Commissioner Ford.

Thanks. I am really excited about the innovative approach, kind of groundbreaking about the RVP. And I want to make sure that I understand now what you want to make sure is added in terms of incentives for this public and private partnership. So could you just for the benefit of the commission and also the public, just review one more time how you are going to address incentives. Because the last thing you want is to have a great plan that doesn't incentivize the private parties.

Commissioner Ford through the chair. So the primary incentives, and I can just kind of run through them, is the streamlined permitting pathway.

Right.

That's what Mr. Wilson just talked about. You're skipping the DVP development plan requirement. And in lots of cases just getting your project with a single land use permit. There are some projects that will require conditional use permits but that's your number one incentive is the streamline permitting.

Next incentive is additional allowed uses. So these are uses that are not normally allowed in the zone and are also kind of, creative uses like country ins or trail side cafes. So additional allowed uses is the other incentive. And then the third one that hasn't been shaped up too much is waiver or modification of certain development standards. That's something we're still kind of looking into. Did I get all of them?

Would add that we're contemplating how we might incentivize by crediting parks development impact fees. That's a fourth category.

Chair and Commissioner Ford, based on the comments we received through this workshop, there were two other uses that we've talked about today that we're going to be looking into. Which is including a wellness center as an incentive use, as well as defining a camp. What comes to mind is like the Boy Scout camp, or those camps down by Kachuma Lake. Or maybe corporate retreats to have a definition, clear definition on what a camp is. So it's not really a campground, but it's a camp where you go and have a retreat.

Like we have these educational camps that happen every year. So those are the things that we're looking for the feedback. So it was helpful. So we're going to add those two as incentives. So that's where we're talking about today is this range of incentives. Again, the entry into the incentive world is having a beneficial contribution recreational progress. So when you look at the whole of the project, there's a private component that may or may not have a recreational component to it. But there's always this in kind contribution to the county for recreation. Those two components then open up this incentive opportunity. And those incentives then can just augment and support that whole recreational project.

Thanks. I

had a question with respect to the overnight, the summer camps. You answered a lot of it for me. But for the over for the summer camps, are they going to have their own set of standards in terms of number of structures, number of attendees, a whole set? Or should they be inherently different than structures built to accommodate adults and the general public?

Chair Reid and commissioners, I think the short answer is yes. They will have to have some standards to go along with them. There's some assumptions we need to make for the environmental review. And so we'll have to build in some of those assumptions. So if there's any comment from the commission today to help us narrow what that assumption would be as far as size and scope of those camps, that would be helpful. Otherwise we would analyze it looking at existing uses that are out there and make that assumption as far as what would be permitted.

Okay, I was always thinking, is the camp going to be for 30 kids, 100 kids, 50 kids? How many structures, what size? And when you're looking at a summer campground with kids there, their impact on neighbors in terms of noise and things could be doing the kind of things kids do at camp could be substantially different than if you had buildings that adults were going to be in. So, yeah, would imagine it would require its own set of standards and sizes. I'd like

to speak to that. Because I, idea on these things was generated by my site visit to a very nice property. It would be at the beginning of a Glyta trail to the mountains would be great. And it's a very generous local Santa Barbara person who's been thinking about a performing arts camp. And, but you know, needs to be in an isolated property, this one is.

The kind of summer camp properties we have now in this county, Rancho Alegre, the outdoor school, they are isolated properties. It deals with that. But you've got to look at those and hear from potential applicants on size. He's absolutely right. You would imagine to be sort of more dormitory style accommodations for these young students as opposed to executive suites.

But we would also have some on-site employees, staff, and there'd have to be housing for them. So it's these are all good questions, we just need to dig into it. It would be not a very frequent use, but an important incentive use for some of these. And especially for the, where I mentioned.

So chair and commissioners, so just to frame this conversation. Oh sorry.

I

would just add, I think in terms of incentives along this idea of day camps, summer camps, etcetera, I think schools would be really appreciative of this kind of opportunity, no matter how isolated or not. Size really matters in this case. And also I think sort of allowing for the idea of all year round camps rather than just summer camps. Because so much of outdoor education is during the school year now. Especially in Santa Barbara County. So perhaps just expanding that definition. Thanks.

So Chair and Commissioner Ford, thanks. So just one caveat on this. When I talk about the assumptions for the EIR. If we're doing a discretionary permit path for these camps, we don't have to get down into the details of it or come up with like specific standards. If we wanted to create an option that they could have a camp that's a land use permit, or even a, maybe a land use permit would probably be okay.

We could work out some of those assumptions. But if we were trying to do those without any discretion, we'd have to come up with objective standards. So we don't need to get into detail into it. I think we have enough information today to kind of frame it for our environmental review. And then come back with a proposal of permit type and size for the commission when we come back with the ordinance.

Yes. Okay. So we can always come back to this, but let's look at the tables on the next slide. So the next two slides are kind of a condensed version of Table one that was provided on January 14 for that workshop continuance. And so we've listed the additional allowed incentive uses there with some of the standards that we specifically had blanks listed for and that we want to confirm with you today that these are good to move forward with for the purposes of CEQA.

So the items in bold are things that we specifically had blanks on in table one. And we've inserted some numbers there based on feedback that we've heard and just more analysis that we've conducted on them. So for example, Country Inn, we had a blank listed for the max floor area and we've come up with a number 20,000 square feet. That's essentially based on a potential room size of three fifty square feet, multiply that by 48 rooms maximum and allow in some additional space for circulation, lobby, amenities, etcetera. So that's the number we came up with.

We're not, you know, tied to it by any means but it's just something that calculates out. Another issue on the country ends is we heard about room size, like regulating the room size and we're kind of leaning away from that. I think there might be maybe a minimum room size for purposes of like building and safety requirements. I'm not sure about that. But essentially we're just going to put a max footprint area or floor area that you would have to comply with and that gives operators the flexibility to make larger rooms or design it for what's economically works out for them.

Trailside Cafe. Oh yeah. Let's pause on So Country

Chair and Commissioners, if we could pause just on Country Inn. There's some things that aren't shown on the slide is that we're also proposing if there's a conversion of an existing structure, that these requirements wouldn't come into play. So if you have an existing structure you want to convert into country end, there isn't a size requirement. So we just go off of the existing footprint of that building, maybe have a percentage of increase that you could have, 20% increase to accommodate the new use. The other thing that we want the commission to also consider is that we've heard a lot of proposals.

These numbers relate to if you're building a structure from the ground up. So it would be like a single structure. There are some proposals out there where they would like to do more of a clustered cottage type facility. And so what we're saying is we can take the 20,000 square feet and say, if you want to do clustered cottages, then you're the max floor area total of all the different cottages would be 20,000 square feet. So you just total those up. That's just something for the commission to consider when looking at coming up with the country in and some of the standards that we're looking for.

Commissioner Park?

Just an obvious point, is that, you know, I identified a proposal to limit these larger commercial incentive uses to parcels that are parcels and premises that are 40 acres or more. And I think that conflicts with the minimum lot sizes that are in this slide. So I don't want anybody to think that because I haven't spoken to what's in this slide that I've changed my mind in the last thirty seconds. I mean I know my mind works that way, but it's not this time.

So, Commissioner Park and commissioners, yeah, we put a minimum lot size of five acres. If the commission wants us to say, exclude country ends from anything less than 40, then that's what Commissioner Park is referring to.

Quick question.

Commissioner Martinez.

So when you're, I'm reading employee dwelling. That's the employee dwelling for the country in?

So Commissioner Martinez, these are separate uses that we're doing. So right now we just pause at country in. Employee dwelling is a separate incentive use.

Okay. So then, in that regard, in regards to employee dwelling, I mean, since you see a lot of H2A workers and all that, there's already the requirements for the minimum space that each employee is supposed to have to live in. So there may be some, what I'm getting at is there may be some helpful guidance from those things which would come in, in regards to a minimum rather than a maximum. Because if an employer wants to make Cosmo Hall for their employees, I'm sure they're not going to object in regards to that realm. But also, in regards to employee dwelling, are you thinking that, is your thought process in regards to the employee, whose employees are these?

Are these the person that are working on the grounds, or are these employee dwellings that can be going to different locations for other people? In other words, like a labor contractor. I'm going to work for anybody and everybody, but these are going to be my employees in a centralized location.

So chair and commissioner Martinez, the intention behind employee dwellings is focused on employees of the on-site use. Okay. So if you have a recreational benefit project, it would be employees that are employed by whatever that use is. So if you have a campground or you have, I mean it could be a country end, but whatever the recreational project is or whatever that project that's getting incentive, it'd be employees of that project. And so they're different than the ag enterprise ordinance or H2A requirements.

This is, for example, let's say you have an equestrian facility, and you have a campground, and you have employees that may not qualify as an ag enterprise ordinance employee, but they're still employees of your recreational project. That provides an opportunity to house that employee on your property. We don't want to have, we're not trying to incentivize workforce housing in the Ag zone. This is really specific to that recreational benefit project.

Okay, great. So that, what you're saying then, that language of being restricted to that box that you just described, that will be in here. Okay. Thank you.

Commissioner I think that's a very good question, Commissioner Martinez. And it's one we've specifically discussed recently. You know, definitely that this is different than the employee dwelling unit ordinance. Because there, those that were here at the time, and I included me, we wanted to make sure that we could design a program that would allow folks, as is common in the Santa Maria Valley, where a big grower might have seven or eight farms that might want to concentrate the dwelling units on one of them. You know, but that's not what this is all about.

But I think I kind of choose to disagree about the idea that the employees who could live in these employee dwelling units that are an incentive have to be related to that particular recreational benefit use. This is the first I've heard of that. This came up in the specific environment of frankly the Fox And Cannon Trail through that whole wine growing area. And the thought that some of those vineyards, some of those vineyards and wineries would participate in allowing a trail to go through their properties. But something that's very important to them, and that's why it's such a good incentive, is when they have somebody who's out there trimming grapevines, that's an ag employee and they can live there.

Okay? On the other hand, they've got to drive people in miles and miles to come and serve wine at a wine tasting or or or do other things. And so for them to have the ability to have those employees live on-site, even a limited number of them, is very important. And I think those employees don't need to be the person who opens and closes the tents each day or sweeps the new trail, but actually includes other employees. And that's kind of how I've been pitching it for years.

So Commissioner Park and Commissioner Martinez, the Chair, I might not have been clear on that. So when you take a step back on the rec benefit project, to get access to have an employee dwelling in regards to this, you have to be eligible for a recreational benefit project. So in Commissioner Park's scenario, if you have a winery that is proposing a recreation benefit project, that opens up that incentive, and they can put an employee dwelling on that. So that would answer Commissioner Park's thing. But it wouldn't be open to a winery that isn't engaging in a rec benefit project.

So we're not going to have carte blanche employee dwellings throughout the Ag zone or anywhere. The requirement to get that would be you have to be providing an in kind contribution, some recreational benefit. That then opens up that opportunity to have an employee dwelling. We could, that just puts the parameters around that employee dwelling. The employee may not necessarily be related to the recreation thing, but that incentive then is open to that development. So we could resolve Commissioner Park's concern is that it could be an employee of the winery or whatever that facility is. But the winery has to have some in kind contribution to be eligible for that.

Okay. I'll dive in now. In terms of the country inn, I know we've had several suggestions about room size and max room size. So I would fully support the concept that you give them the max floor area. It's up to them to decide how big they want to make their rooms. I like that. I think that's an improvement over giving them a suggested room size of three fifty or 400 or even larger to accommodate families or ADA. I like that overall limit. I further like the increase in size to 3,000 feet for the trail side cafe. My reasoning in that is it's not always a beautiful day with bluebird weather.

It might be drizzling or raining or cold or really windy where people would welcome the chance to have additional seating inside. So face it, 1,200 feet is not much to have the cafe and, much inside seating. So I I think that is appropriate. The tourists serving commercial, I think the 3,000 is reasonable, but I don't have a I'm not really steadfast in that one. So open to to negotiation.

But given size of well, minimum lot size, any legal lot, I don't know if any other commissioners have discussion around that one. Apparently not. So maybe we'll let it's the 3,000 feet we could include that in the environmental analysis in my opinion.

I'm in the same position you are. I don't have enough examples in my mind to know whether that's too big, too little. I think it kind of feels big in a way, I don't have an opinion right now. I'll have to save it.

Any more comments with respect to this slide? Proceed.

Thank you. Yeah. And just a reminder that, you know, these numbers can be adjusted downwards if needed, but this is to help inform our sequel analysis. So that's good. Switch to the next slide.

There we go. So looking at some other uses here, campgrounds and RV parks, we have added in in the bold text there quite a bit of information that was left blank previously. So we've added some numbers, for a land use permit, 70 sites, minor conditional use permit, 120 sites, and then full conditional use permit 121 plus sites. And, that's based on information from campground operators that we've received, at least the 70, minimum number. That's what we've heard is, like, needed for a viable campground operation, economically.

So that's where that came from, but we are open to input on that. The other information there in terms of, like, occupancy per site and, max length of stay, that's what, county campgrounds currently operate at. So that's the basis for that. Landowner provided accommodations, right now we have it listed as no minimum. But if you recall the Ag Enterprise Ordinance, those campgrounds, I think it was 70% of the total sites could be landowner provided accommodations.

So air streams, small cabins, that type of thing. And then setbacks, we've added some numbers there but obviously we can talk about different numbers for that. And then the other uses, you know, they're not bolded out here but we do, you know, it's open for conversation and discussion so feel free to chime in on any of those. Campgrounds, I know Commissioner Park mentioned the desire for those in Ag one for like equestrian overnight uses. I think the rural recreation could potentially cover opening up rural recreation as an incentive to Ag1, if you qualify as an RVP.

So you could potentially get overnight camping through that pathway. I think that's all I have to say, but if you guys have anything to add.

Any comments from commissioners on that slide?

Just to repeat my comment on the minimum lot size. I don't want to give that up, the 40 acre minimum premises.

So Chair, I'm going to ask Commissioner Park on that clarification. So we're talking about campgrounds here. So I think that, are you inferring that no campground incentives on anything less than 40 acres? So that would exclude possibly some of those sites along Senes River Trail, if they're smaller than 40 acres? We're talking about campgrounds here. Not country inns or trails like cafes. This is, this minimum lot size is specific to campgrounds and RV parks.

I can just start yelling, but whatever. You don't want that. I I get your point. But knowing that specific example and knowing that those are essentially 70 acre parcels, 65, 70 acre parcels. Because a concern that that that's logical.

People in the audience have it. People that just thinking about this have it is, well this all sounds good, but if you get a bike trail through some EDRN type community, then then are we going to see a campsite on five and ten acre parcels and and and what what will that look like? What will it be like to live there? And that's different than somebody that's got a ranch of a few thousand acres out on the roads or even fifty and sixty and seventy acre parcels. So we've got to think about what's the effect on the neighborhood and I hope that these projects, if we get any of the trails, ball fields, other things and incentive uses, that they're, that I hope they're unobtrusive, know, that people don't even notice them.

They enjoy them, but they don't see it, they don't feel that it detracts from their lifestyle and their community.

I have a just a in the campground RV park, setbacks from lot line and existing residences on lot. Does that mean neighboring residences? It says existing residences on lot. What does that exactly mean? A neighboring residence next to the RV park? Because if I lived, an RV park and some guy had a big motor home with a generator running all night 10 feet from the fence, I might not be happy listening to the ball game, especially if it's a team I don't like. Yeah.

Especially the weather.

Yeah. Just what does that mean?

So Chair Reid and Commissioners, what that means is that we would only allow those teams that you don't favor next to your properties. So we want to be very specific that it's the opposing teams are allowed next to Commissioner Reed's property. So I think the intent of that was setbacks from there may be a typo when you there's like a lot of lots in that sentence. So setbacks from lot line and existing residences, and then maybe on adjacent lots. So we want to have a setback.

If you have a house, as Chairwita indicated, that there's a setback from the adjacent residence. If you're proposing a recreation benefit project on your own property, then you're kind of buying into that recreational activity.

I'm just saying that because I have a friend who lives adjacent to the Elks Lodge here in Santa Maria. And they have their RV parking. And they have fuller, I think full hookups, but there have been times when people have been sitting there with their generators running and it drives them nuts. So I would rather not, I would rather avoid that for residents in the county areas.

So Chair Reid and Commissioners, would you recommend a 30 foot setback? Or we just put a ballpark figure in there not to use a recreation pun on a recreation project. 30 feet setback Do from adjacent

like 30. I would think that's better. Not perfect, but better. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to take away somebody's right to have the RV parked. But I don't want to create a problem for a neighbor who's probably lived there, yeah, well, was already there.

Chair Reid, if I might, just to clarify on our discussion about campgrounds on parcels less than 40 acres, went back and verified the concept for the Guadalupe Campground that we've been talking about with the city of Guadalupe in the past. The campground component of that is on a 15 acre parcel. And then there's some sports fields on an adjacent parcel to make up the entirety of the project. And the sports fields are on a 25 acre parcel. So even combined, they end up being slightly less than 40.

So that we just want to be cautious of that if we're going to make parcels less than 40 acres one of the bright lines in our discussions. It could impact some of the important don't break out an

important project. But I want to make certain there's a mechanism of considering the needs of neighbors to the quiet enjoyment of their property. Yeah.

That has stimulated a question in my mind that I keep forgetting to ask. I'm sorry, but I'm just that age. I've had a lot of conversations with people over the years on Rec Master Plan about where they might build campgrounds and so forth. An example, when we look to San Andres River Trail, we've got those row crop fields that are kind of inside the levee, or what levee there is there, and there's another part on the other side of the freeway. And restriction that we look at every time is that they're in the floodplain.

And and you just can't build improvements in the flood plain. So I'm I keep looking at the the the Guadalupe project and and here we're talking about, well, would we want to have a smaller minimum parcel sizes to accommodate this? How does that project get past the building restriction that you don't put improvements in a flood plain? I mean, I'm assuming we're not going to throw out all those building restrictions in the rec master plan. We've saying we're going to keep all that.

So how does that thing which is clearly in the flood plain ever get built? I mean, improvements at all? To make it worse, in the eighties, I chaired the the a group that had every agency imaginable and it was we drafted this point cell management plan. I think I was the chair of the land trust at the time, that's what it was. And even then we talked about having a campground in that general location, but we kept it up in the dunes, up in the hills to get away from the water.

Anyway, I hope you have a good answer to that question. Or maybe it's just a bad question. You tell me. Well,

what typically happens is your site that is donated for recreational purposes has some impediment. The prime building land is not the land that's going to get donated. So for recreational purposes, we are always grappling with a variety of challenges on the site. Sometimes it's flood plains, sometimes it's slope, sometimes it's soil type, or who knows what. But those are, you know, efforts we would undertake as we go into deeper development of a project concept.

Yeah. Maybe. No

more questions from commissioners. We can proceed to the next and slide.

So I think that concludes our presentation. We do have some backup slides to aid in any discussion. But we can go back to Commissioner Park.

So chair and commissioners, if we could just show the next two They were included in the packet today. Actually, can you show the, yeah. So we just, for setbacks, we thought this was a great graphic. It shows when you talk about having a setback, we talked about Commissioner Park talked about a three and a foot setback. So for those that enjoyed the Super Bowl, or if you didn't enjoy the Super Bowl, this is a great reference to what a 300 foot setback is.

And we equated that to steps. So we're looking at a 300 foot setback. You're looking at a football field that's three sixty feet. It's 126 steps. So when you talk about a trail and a setbacks with trails, somebody wandering off a trail, a thousand feet is even that's like three football fields. So when you talk about these setbacks, want to put in context of what you could equate those setbacks to. The next slide is, this is from a former packet. This is just a conceptual process. And I think Commissioner Park had two comments on this one that we wanted to share. But we just wanted to, again, draw the commission's attention to high level process of how this would work.

Then Commissioner Parks, you want us to bring up your

Like a flash of it, and then we'll go back to this. Okay, the items that I want to address here are numbered six and seven. And the first is on step two that's in that graphic we're going to return to. And the next one is with regard to appeals, which is step three. So now let's go back to that graphic.

Okay.

This stuff on process is actually the most important to me right now. And it's something we've really struggled with. How to make things work for the landowners and work for the public. And I think staff did a good job with its initial slide, I mean its initial form and has done a lot of really good noodling, I think as Mr. Lindgren put it, over what the answers should be.

And I was really pleased in my last conversation. So I want to throw out some other ideas that just improve this a little bit. I can't even take credit for them because, you know, when we've been talking to each other for five, six, seven years it's kind of hard to remember who made what idea and then who improved it or whatever. So, let me just go ahead. You start off with an application, okay?

That's step one. I'm going to skip that right now. I'm going to go to step two, consultation. And this consultation should not just be a consultation between P and D or Parks and the applicant. It should include everybody that would normally see in the subdivision review committee, you know, fire and so on and so forth, but also KRATEC, AAC, okay?

So they get to have a word about whether this is an appropriate project and and what kind of contribution would be respected. But to make this really valuable consultation where the applicant gets to learn what all these agencies want. So they don't get all the way to the end of the process and find out oh, with EHS I actually have to have this thing or that thing. You know from the get go. Frankly, if you have that consultation process and it's recognized, I know what the board's going to do, they're going to say P and D you should have that in every project so that the applicants would have the benefit of knowing from all the relevant departments what they're expected to do and they know it at the get go.

So I really want to see an expanded consultation process that will make the folks at Craytaq and AAC feel like they're getting properly included. It's just a good thing for a number of reasons. Now, but I'm going to move on to the step three is there's this determination made, and it's ultimately from a CSD director, that you're eligible, you know. You are contributing to a public benefit project, like a trail, ball fields, whatever, and you're making a substantial in kind contribution to it. Okay, that determination's made.

But what if it's not made and the applicant says, you know, somebody ought to look at this that knows more about it or has a different perspective. I want an appeal. There should be an appeal at that step. It shouldn't be at the end of everything. It should be at that step on the eligibility determination. Okay? And just on that issue, who would it be made to? I've heard all sorts of ideas. One idea was it goes to the Planning Commission, but there's some thought. This isn't strictly a Planning Commission kind of issue.

It includes recreational stuff. And the planning commission, its composition changes from time to time. And so the best we could kind of come up with as a group was CSD, P and D, maybe planning commission, various groups like that will appoint a representative to an appellate review board that's for this purpose. And we have some appellate review boards like that in the county. One of them is on property taxes. There's another one that I don't even understand what it was. I stumbled into a hearing and it had, you know the one I'm talking about. Okay.

Building code I believe it was?

It was. Yeah. Anyway, so you'd have this appellate review board that could address that particular question. It would be a public hearing so the public could appear and say something about it. I think it shouldn't be the public's right to appeal, I think it should be the applicant's right to appeal.

Except, except. I think this needs to be linked in with my idea about CUPs and whether there's a compatibility finding, and I'll tell you why. I can justify getting rid of that compatibility finding 2.1.5 for CUP determinations at the P and D level, which would come later. Okay? But only if those same issues have essentially been addressed in the eligibility determination.

So if the public can't talk about compatibility because it's ruled out as a finding, then I think they should be able to be party to an appeal at this stage. I just think that's logical. Hope that makes sense.

Commissioner Park, to the chair. The last part. I think initially we talked about the appeal would only be for the applicant.

I know that. I'm modifying that. I'm saying if I'm successful in getting rid of that two point one point five compatibility finding for rec master plan CUPs, I want to give the public the chance to make that appeal at this level to raise their concerns, make sure they're raised. It may be that no one in the world agrees with me, that that's fine. I've at least voiced it. The big picture thing here is I want to have the consultation at step two that's expanded and have some right to appeal after step three and that it go to an independent review board that will, will appoint representatives to.

If I can, if I can walk through this with you so I understand it, please, Chair Reid, Commissioner Park. So we envision the majority of our rec benefit program projects would utilize LUP process. So those would not be part of the second appeal. But if it's a larger project that's kind of beyond the full scope of the rec benefit program and can take advantage of some of the incentives, but still requires a CUP, that's where you would be eliminating the compatibility finding and having this appeal process. Does that sound

it's right? The same appeal process, it's just who can file the appeals. It's not like a second appeal. It's just essentially in most appeals, as you just said, they'd be limited to the applicant alone. In certain unusual circumstances they would be available for the public, members of the public to actually file an It would allow members of the public to be noticed and speak to every appeal.

So Commissioner Park, through the Chair. Looking at all the incentives, there'll be a very few, there may be, the intention is that very few of these recreation benefit projects actually make it to CUP. So the initial idea was that we create standards and some objectivity to processes as all land use permits. So a land use permit already does not have that compatibility finding. So we're actually going to, with what you're proposing, we're actually going to introduce another appeal availability that wouldn't normally be available to a land use permit.

No, only have it for CUP type projects.

Okay. So just to, so I'm trying to reframe and understand what So you're if a recreational benefit project reaches the scale of requiring a conditional use permit, only those projects would have that availability for a member of the public to appeal them during the eligibility process.

Right. Essentially they're giving up the ability to come in and argue lack of compatibility for the findings at the P and D level. And, but they're going to want, and I've said, well, you don't need it there because those same issues will be covered in the eligibility determination. Well, they should be partied to that there. It's a trade off. But it like you say, it's it's it's gonna be a rare occasion.

So, any more questions or comments from commissioners? Any final comments from staff?

Don't have final comments. We narrowed down the workshop today to very specific items. We just wanted to let the commission and the public know that we did, we have received a lot of information, a lot of public comments from a lot of important stakeholders. I'd be careful not to name them all, I might leave some of them out, then I'll make somebody upset. But we do have all that information. We're still synthesizing it, going through those. We did receive a lot of comments on the policies. We're still reviewing those. So I just want to make sure that the public and the commissioners understand that we are looking at all those comments, and it will be going through those as we move forward.

Sorry. I'll get that eventually. We're about to proceed to public comment, although I have to, again say that unfortunately I skipped over ex parte from commissioners. Does any, do anybody have any ex parte relevant to this item? I have to say that I can't remember if it was before the last hearing or after the last hearing. But I did have a meeting with Kathy Rosenthal of the Santa Ana Valley Riders and did have a meeting with Claire Weinman of Grower Shipper Association. Commissioner Park your light's on.

I know. Because I turned it on.

Okay. No kidding. You

know I couldn't begin to catalog the number of people I've met with. But I don't need to because your brain and body has internalized the principle that on legislative matters like this you need not make ex parte disclosures. So, I was glad to hear the one you made, and I hope you had a good time, but nobody else has

to Better do safe than sorry.

There you are. See, you've already been With placing episodes inside you

that, we'll proceed to public comment. We have six, three minutes apiece. So someone had some constraints, wanted to conclude by one. I think you're in, it looks like you're going to be in the clear. I would like to begin first. Can we begin with Mr. Kevin Snow in the Hearing Room in Santa Barbara?

Sure.

My name is Kevin Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I came in a little bit late to the meeting, I didn't hear the very beginning. But I wanted to simply stress how, appreciative we are for the work that that this commission and the county staff has put into trying to formulate the rec master plan.

But with regard to trails in particular, it is very important to me and to the people on Craytaq who have been tasked with trying to advise the commission and their supervisors on the many difficult issues that come up with trails. And one of the things that we've been trying to communicate to staff building this document is to incorporate the comments that we have, written to them, and to you regarding the wording and the meaning of the policies being developed to treat trail issues, which are inherently difficult and complex as we go forward. Because the experience that we have had over the years on the ground acquiring, building, and maintaining these trails has been incorporated into the language that we are encouraging staff to incorporate. And as a result, we've given them actual wording that we would like to see used. And if it isn't going to be used, then to meet with us and to explain in some detail why it is not appropriate.

So as we go forward, I understand from what I just heard a few minutes ago that further comment and discussion will be taking place. But I'm hoping that we can look in detail at the wording of these policies so that we can really come to an agreement to make them work the best as we go forward. Thank you very much.

Thank you, mister Snow. In our hearing room here in Santa Maria, we will start with Kathy Rosenthal, and following her will be Katherine Rohr. Three minutes please.

Good morning Mr. Chair and members of the Commission. I'm Kathy Rosenthal. I represent the Santa Ynez Valley Riders. And I would like to tell you that we've been working on this project with Craytaq for over five years now. We knew that the policies and whatnot were going to come up. And we have some issues still that are outstanding, but I'm sure we'll work through them. I did want to talk about public outreach in terms of what is approved through the RBP and actually the recreation master plan itself. I sent you excerpts from this document. This was the document for Live Oak Trail that was created in 1989.

We have these in our files for our writing group, because we were instrumental in working with Mike Pajos, and some of you may remember him. He was the director of the Parks Department at that time. And this document lays out a thorough and very inclusive evaluation

of

the Live Oak Trail when it was open to equestrian riders. This represents the gold standard that we expect will become a regular item in going forward with trails planning. Because we feel it's becoming a more constrained resource, and with constrained resources, it affects a lot of the other things that are becoming scarce as well, such as wildlife habitat, water quality, that kind of thing. This document is, to our knowledge, opened the door to equestrian riding in Santa Barbara County. And it's interesting to note that over the years we have not had this introduced into any county documents as an existing trail.

And it does not show up in the revised draft master plan as such. Project for the North Shore Trails project says that there will be 12 additional new miles added when the project proposed is completed. And that's simply not true. Those 12 miles have been there for years. They've not been acknowledged by the county.

And furthermore, I'd like to acknowledge that the equestrians have not been asked to participate in long term planning prior to this for trails and inclusion of equestrian uses in those trails. You can't find it in the county documents anywhere. So, to that end, we are most concerned about public outreach for the, rec master plan and the RBPs. And the inclusion of equestrian use and considerations for our continued opportunities, recreation opportunities. The documents should, the documents here and the process that you had showed on the screen needs to include a public notification and a public period for comment.

And possibly, becoming part of the engineers for these projects. Inclusion of equestrian uses has been overlooked for at least the last thirty years. The gentleman who started, who worked with Mike Pajos was one of our founding members. And we need to have the appeals process and the public comment process. All right.

Thank Okay. Thank you very much. Katherine Rohr. She will be followed by Chip Wohlbrunt.

Thank you. Honorable Planning Commissioners, Katherine Rohr for WeWatch in strong support of protecting, preserving and promoting agricultural land in the Santa Ynez Valley. And I want to note that the RBP and the AEO, I recognize, we recognize that they're different programs, but they affect the very same agricultural parcels. So we do have concerns that the RBP could weaken long standing protections if it ignores those standards that are in place to protect residents and agriculture. Recreation planning should prioritize public resident serving parks, trails and facilities.

The county's existing community plans and land use policies emphasize recreation for local residents and protection of agricultural usage. So it should go without saying, and I hope it does, but as a foundational matter what I didn't see in sort of that planning process diagram was a threshold determination that participation in the RBP is going to require that it's said that the project satisfies a recognized county verified recreational need. And that would be, you know, in lieu of setting us up for ad hoc review going forward. So those RBP determinations, that initial determination should assess whether there's actually an identified need. And the verification sources exist in the RMP's needs assessment, appendix A community surveys, and our local community plans.

And that's detailed in our letter at pages three and four in footnote 10. Once a general recreational need is established, RBP incentives need to be strictly consistent with existing law, especially the AEO and the land use development code so that ag remains primary on ag land and RBP incentives on ag land are ag related. We've prepared and annotated table one with specific AEO related recommendations related to RBP allowed uses for you and your staff. I have hard copies if you're interested. And let's see.

Larger tourism projects like county ends and spas and tourism stores lack a sufficient access to recreation or agriculture. We offer in our letter for your consideration several practical safeguards including the limitation to ag 40 parcels or greater except where the AEO permits incidental food service on smaller parcels. We recommend an adoption of a three year cap with review for the San Yenes Valley. And relatedly in terms of simplifying and streamlining the process, we recommend requiring that all RBB projects meet AEO standards for setbacks, noise, parking, etcetera. Finally, use the LUP but require that RBB applications for non AEO eligible uses remain subject to public review by the Planning Commission.

The RBP is a major land use experiment and needs this safeguard in a way that respects our community plans for individual planning areas. And we really want to ensure that a disproportionate number of RBP projects don't end up in a single planning area. And I don't see any guardrails for that at this point.

Thank you for

your Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Did you say you had extra copies?

I do. Yes. I'd

love to hear it.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Chip Woolbrant you're going to be followed by Clara Weinman. Mr. Chair, members

of the commission, thank you very much for this opportunity. I want to start out with just noting that in order for this to work your incentives have to allow, incentivize things that can't already be done under the rural recreation provisions of the ordinance. And I think that unfortunately you've missed that in a couple of places, and staff has missed that in a couple of places. I'm going to go through those. I'm sorry if I end up taking more time, and I will work with staff and any commissioners on the other comments I have.

First on the country in concept. I'd note there really, and probably for all of these, there should be a sliding scale based upon property size. We're talking about right now at least properties that are as small as five acres, maybe 40 acres, and as Commissioner Park knows as large as over 40,000 acres. And the standard for parcels, I would say, probably anything over three twenty acres, which is a big cut in your zoning ordinance right now, should have a different standard than for smaller than that. I also think that you should fix one of the things that didn't get done in the Ag Enterprise Ordinance, which is that there should be a provision for clustering where you have existing multiple parcels.

And so you can go in and create a project that uses those existing parcels to get to higher numbers. I also think that any square footage limitation should follow and should be coordinated with the development plan size limitations. The county several years ago changed that blanket 20,000 square foot number so that now if you have larger parcels you don't have to get a development plan with higher acreage. I also believe that the height limit in Ag. Two is 35 feet.

So I'm not sure why you're going down to 25 here with this program. I also don't understand why you continue to have this provision about not allowing certain kinds of food services. I think that that's just a confusion perhaps between P and D staff and EHS staff. So I think you should leave to EHS rules the kinds of food services you can have. For example, requiring that a trail side cafe only have ready to eat food.

Which I think is going to limit anybody's interest in that. I also think that in the provision for employee dwelling units that should be linked to the number of employees needed for a particular project. And so I think you're going to have lots of particularly country inns where you're going to have more than five employees. And you may have circumstances where they might live in a style that is not a single family 1,200 square foot residence. So again, I don't think that you should, particularly when we're just talking about environmental review, I don't think you should put those levels of limitation.

Thank you very much. Thank I've marked this up and we'll make copies and send it to you. Thanks.

Okay. Next will be Claire Weinman. Weinman followed by Mary Hayden who will be our last speaker. Do we have anyone on the phone or online?

We have at least two online. Two online. Okay.

Hi, good morning. My name is Claire Weiman. I'm the president of the Grower Shipper Association of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties. We remain engaged to promote community harmony and well-being as the plan is being implemented. We did submit a comment letter and would like to highlight a few key themes.

First, in terms of the LUDC amendments, we'd like to emphasize the importance of development standards regarding setbacks and fencing, especially for new potentially sensitive uses such as trails, parks, playgrounds. Specifically, we strongly support a 1,000 foot setback from row crops and 400 to 600 feet for orchards and vineyards, with mechanisms to adjust downward with the agreement of the neighbor. Topography could be a factor, but that's not always a view that's shared by some of the other pressures that crop growers in particular are facing among others. Regarding fencing, I have heard great conversations on that. Just want to emphasize that it's important that it's adequate to separate the uses, especially to protect food safety.

And for example, a cyclone fence could be a better way to achieve that than just a rail, two rails. Regarding the recreation master plan projects, we've previously shared concerns about several of the specific projects that remain and remain concerned about those, and have included substantial evidence in our letters detailing why we have those concerns. Regarding the recreation benefits program, we still have grave concerns about the structure and process and the integrity of the program as it's currently outlined, and seek major revisions to prevent misunderstandings and conflicts in the future. Again, also heard some great discussion about that, and also detailed those extensively in our March letter. Finally, we'll seek direction from my Board of Directors, but my recommendation is to remain opposed to reopening the ag element.

It's a great document and has aged well and would be concerned about other implications from that. We appreciate your continued attention to these important issues and look forward to our continued engagement. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We will proceed now to our final in the room speaker. I believe we have two online after this. So Mary Hayden. Thank you.

Hi. My name is Mary Hayden. Thank you for letting me speak today. My family owns and operates the Ted Chamberlain Ranch, which is in the San Ynez Valley. I was very active in the Ag Enterprise Ordinance with Commissioner Park.

And I've been attending all these hearings about the rec master plan just to get a better understanding to educate myself how this could be used by specifically the ranching community. And the question today about the range of incentives to entice private parties to proposed RB, excuse me, RBSs. The idea of trail side cafes, country inns, spas, overnight camps, employee dwellings, these all really need large capital investment. And I'm not sure, I don't know how many people have that sort of income or investment ability to to create one of these. So I think you're missing a lot of incentives that will not have, need these capital investments, such as festivals, activities, events that could be related to whatever the activity or the recreation could be.

I know on our property, especially having something that's a permanent structure would not be compatible with our primary ag use. And specifically if this has to also be passed by the uniform rules, I don't think these would pass for my property. Yeah, so I think there's a whole area of incentives that you haven't discussed. And I'm sorry I'm bringing this up so late in the process, but this is when I'm finally understanding what probably will not work for me and what potentially could work for me. So I appreciate you listening. Thank you.

Well thank you for It's bringing never too late. Commissioner Parks. I have a question. You

know I agree with what Commissioner Reid just said. It's never too late until we get it done. And we always get things done a lot longer away

than we

think we're going to. It just sort of happens. I don't know why. And so good ideas are always welcome. I get your idea and I thought about that a lot in the AEO process is that for a lot of ranchers, they're not going to commit the capital to build things. They want to try other things. And now you're suggesting that we should explore incentives for the REC master plan. I've struggled to think of what they would be. I mean, this is kind of the best we've been able to come up with after several years. One thing that I think is probably valuable to ranchers is the employee housing, but you're going to get that anyway under the Ag Employee Dwelling Unit Ordinance.

And so now you're talking about, mentioned festivals, things like that. They're already allowed to some degree under the AEO. So I guess what you would be saying is allow them to a larger scale or larger frequency. And, you know, under the AEO, that's also allowed if you go and get a CUP. And so I guess what you're suggesting is, well, if you've provided a public benefit, like on your ranch, I know you're kind of not there yet, but someday you might say we'll allow a public trail.

Okay, so in return for that public trail, you'd get the right to have larger scale events and maybe more frequency without going through that CUP process, which you know is already available. Am I summarizing kind of where you are?

I think so. I just, it just came to my mind today. So I haven't really thought it all out.

That's all right.

So let's say we put a mountain bike trail or something like that on our property. But then, and I don't remember the name of the, a woman named Nancy Eckhart. She wants to put on different biking events sort of thing. So you know, we could have the trail, but then having larger events five times a year sort of thing. Or we've been approached about having a music concert or something like that. Could that somehow be affiliated or and I don't know. Just thoughts like that are yeah. Well,

know, was let's see, who's at County Ms. Kim was entered into a foot race that was going to be at one of our local ranches that was kind of at the limits of what would be allowed at the AEO, assuming they got all the permits. But that organization normally puts on something of several thousand at a time, which would clearly be the kind of thing you're talking about.

Right. Like the Spartan race and

stuff Yeah,

like you go.

Okay. Well thanks a lot.

Yeah, thank you.

Chair, Commissioner Park, in the vein of that last comment, we do have a response whenever you would like us to respond to that. Beans as a workshop, I think we can be a little bit more flexible on. So in the summary we gave back in December, on page 18, there is a category of incentives that may accommodate what was just presented. This is called, it's called outdoor adventure and recreational activities. And so that is more of a larger category of uses that we didn't get specific on.

We got specific on country and stuff like cafes and those things just because we wanted to create parameters for what those uses are. But that outdoor adventure recreational activities, it does talk about BMX, mountain bike courses, larger type events. So outdoor theaters, amphitheaters, outdoor shooting, archery ranges. There are some opportunities there. So the incentives isn't narrowed to just country ends or trail site cafes. We're trying to be inclusive of other recreational activities. So we're willing to work with the last speaker to see if any of those incentives would fall into that category.

Thank you. Mr. Villalobos, if we go to the online speakers.

All right. I see two hands up. If anyone else would like to speak, raise your hand. Our first speaker will be Dan Draw to be followed by Matthew Hoefer and then Phil Jones.

Thank you, David. Mister chair, members of the commission, Andrew, second district representative. I submitted a late letter to mister Villalobos last night just about a page. I don't know if you can put that up, David, or not. My my screen sharing capabilities are as limited as my PowerPoint presentation capabilities, so I won't venture that.

But I did wanna just talk about I think the members of Craytaq are a little concerned that it's we've been in this public hearing process for over two months now, and we still have no certainty about what's going to be done with addressing our comments, what the exact process will be to address those comments. Since I've done, like, 500 of these hearings, the typical procedure that I'm familiar with is you come back and you say, gee, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna include these. We'll work on these. And we've asked that several times if we could do that, but that hasn't happened yet.

And that didn't come up very well, did it, David? So, you know, I don't need to go into you the go ahead and scroll down a little, David. So I I think what we would like is some certainty, and I think that many of the committee members have a lot of frustration that nothing has changed and nothing has been addressed to date, and and we're still uncertain how it might be changed or addressed. So I think it would be good for the commission to give us some certainty as we provided very specific recommendations. And I would note that the parks division actually went into the master plan and cleaned up a whole bunch of errors and omissions based on one of the KRATAC letters that we submitted.

That hasn't happened to the policies. They're still exactly as they were when they were issued, and that's of concern because we have some fundamental concerns with the policies that we think are a real red line for the committee. Let me just give you an example. David, you'll scroll down a bit, please. A little bit further. On this policy number, the item c down here, this is about protection of trail character and resources, etcetera. I just wanted to add add an anecdote. There's a lot of shoulds and and woulds and coulds and maybes in the policy framework. Those don't those don't mean anything at all. Based on my forty years of professional experience working with the county, they're absolutely meaningless.

They don't require anything. And even where you have shells, lot of times, things don't happen. And yesterday, our Kratzak meeting on Monday, we were at San Diego's Airport, and this nice pilot, this gentleman who lived in San Gabriel wandered in and asked, oh, gee, are you guys meeting? You know, are you the county trails committee? And he came in and he just unloaded. He was so upset about what happened to the Valley View Trail. It was his favorite hiking trail in the Orchid Hills. And he just said, the development has totally destroyed my favorite hiking trail, and thousands of people are adversely impacted. And this was just a one off. He didn't even know what was going on.

So, you see how important it is that we have clarity about exacting trails, getting trails, protecting trails, etcetera. And we provided a whole host of recommendations, and I'd like to see the commission provide some clear direction on how exactly these are going to be addressed. And I think the subcommittee is very concerned about this as well as all of Craytaq. So I won't go through the details of these policies. You've had them for a while. I just appreciate your work on this, and we look forward to hearing how we're going to resolve this issue. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next.

Commissioner Reid, I want to say I have some questions for County Council but about I'd like to wait until these other speakers are done. Okay.

Our next speak speaker will be Matthew Hoefer to be followed by Phil Jones.

Good morning. Can you hear me?

Yes. Go ahead.

Great. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Matthew Hoefer. I'm an attorney with the law firm Brownstein, Hyatt, Farber and Schreck. I represent Suzanne Duca, a local resident and advocate for the equestrian community. I'd just like to briefly comment on two related issues. One is the draft master plan's handling of the North Shore Of Kachuma Lake, and the other is the county's process for changing the use of a public trail. As I'm sure your commission knows well, there is a big difference between the North Shore and the and the South Shore Of Kachuma Lake. The South Shore is adjacent to Highway 154.

It is developed with a lot of recreational facilities. The North Shore, by contrast, is very remote and difficult to access. There is some cattle grazing that occurs up there, and otherwise, the only historical human use has been the Live Oak Trail, which the county set aside over thirty years ago as the only county trail that is devoted to exclusive use by equestrians. This relative lack of a human presence has allowed the North Shore to remain a rich habitat for a variety of animal and plant life, especially bald eagles. It's also provided a safe space for equestrians to ride without concern that their mounts will be spooked by bike riders, dogs, or pedestrians that are unfamiliar with trail etiquette around horses.

The safety issues posed by conflicts among these trail users is very well documented. The plan discusses increasing recreational activities on the North Shore, including by expanding trail uses, but it's unclear what exactly is being proposed or how the environmental and safety issues are going to be addressed. Because this land is owned by the federal government, there are federal laws that require site specific environmental review before such changes can take place. There's also a state court judgment in place that binds the county to prepare a site specific EIR before trailer uses can be changed in this manner. So my first ask to your commission is that the county clarify what exactly is being proposed for the North Shore and Live Oak Trail and what additional environmental review will be conducted if the county actually proceeds with these projects in the future.

My second ask relates to the proposed code amendments that are being discussed today. The current proposal is for major changes in public trail usage to be accomplished either with an LUP, which can be issued without any public hearing, or with no pub no permit at all. As the Live Oak Trail case illustrates, it's very important that the county hear from all interested parties and stakeholders before making substantial changes in how public trails are used. So we'd ask that the proposal be modified so that either a CUP is required before major trail uses are changed or at least that a notice public hearing be held before such decision is made. I submitted a letter ahead of today's meeting that describes these issues in more detail.

I hope that you will read it and consider these matters as the master plan moves forward. Thank you very much for your time.

Our I have a we have a question from commissioner Park for mister Hoefer.

So speakers obviously say can you hear me? So now I've got to say it to Mr. Hoefer are you still there? So can you hear me?

Yes sir, thank you. I'm still here.

There you go. Good. I keep hearing the reference to North Shore and I think I need to have a definition of what that means. Because by way of background, I spent a lot of time out there. I spent a lot of time on the North Shore, and I've proposed to parks and explored and and proposed and explored with local horseback riders, such things as fishing spots, remote campgrounds, new trails for horseback riders, and I've kinda pioneered those in a legal way by following existing cow trails.

And But then there's also North Shore Of Cochuma that is to the West Ocean words of Santa Cruz Creek, where no one goes right now, unless somebody like me gets lost. And are you talking about all of the North Shore, including the part we already use? Are you talking about just that North Shore part that's West Of Santa Cruz Creek? Because I couldn't begin to answer your question, your first one, until I knew what you're calling North Shore. Can you answer that now?

Sure. I'm I'm referring to the entire North Shore of the lake beginning at where the Live Oak Trail crosses crosses the river on the East Side and and running over to the the area that you referred to as where where nobody goes now.

Okay. Then I'm kinda getting mixed signals from horseback riding community, which I'm a part of, as to whether you want us to do anything for horseback riders on the part of the North Shore that's used right now. Anything additional? Okay. Well, thanks.

Mr. Villalobos, I think we have one more.

Our last, speaker will be Phil Jones.

Yes. Good good afternoon, commissioners. I guess it's afternoon now. My name is Phil Jones. I'm a co trustee with the Better World Trust, a five zero one c three nonprofit.

I'm speaking today to support the recreation master plan and proposed amendments. My address is 222 Winchester Canyon Road, Goleta, California. I'm speaking today to support and encourage the program for private public private partnerships as a key strategy to acquire and develop new parks, trails, and recreational facilities throughout the Santa Barbara County to strengthen the county's commitment to recreation needs in unincorporated areas. The following are some ideas for the Winchester Canyon region located just outside the city of Goleta, which would be expanded recreational uses on private lands like hiking, equestrian and biking trails, passive recreation, birding stations and parks. The proposed mix of recreation, hospitality and wellness users will significantly expand opportunities for the public to enjoy private properties in ways that do not current currently exist while promoting agriculture uses.

Amenities such as boutique country inns, resort spa, retreat urates, RV parking, RV camping, a health and wellness center, and equestrian facilities will create a diverse range of outdoor experiences associated to visitors of all ages and abilities. The addition of arts and craft shops, coffee houses, farmers market, farm to table dining with kitchens, and the event centers will establish and create a community hub that supports small local businesses while inviting residents and visitors to spend more time engaging with the natural settings. Adventure based uses such as zip lines and equestrian trails will further promote recreation and active enjoyment for the natural landscape. Education opportunities will expand substantially through partnerships with UCSB and other universities, which envision on-site restoration and habitat enhancements. In addition, the presence of specialty institutes such as the Institute of Culinary Education, Agave Spirits Institute, and Coffee Training Institutes could help create a regional center for agricultural These programs would allow students, researchers, and the public to learn about emerging crops, sustainable farming practices, and culinary sciences.

We request that the unincorporated regions of Goleta Valley and Winchester Canyon area be incorporated into the recreational master plan EIR and analyzed in the documents, which will help streamline permitting in the future. Thank you for for your leadership in making recreation a cornerstone of sustainable planning.

Thank you, mister Jones.

So that concludes public comment. Mister Jones was our last speaker. Yes.

All right. Back to staff. Any closing comments? Any comments in response?

Chair Reid, I think we've heard a lot of good feedback. And we're happy to take that into consideration. I think we've gotten all the answers that we need for a CEQA analysis, so we'll be ready to move forward with that which is great. That was our biggest objective for today. And we will continue to work with the stakeholders that have comments remaining.

Okay. So Mr. Wilson, do we need to take a formal action on the recommended actions as given in the memo

Or no? So Mr. Chair and Commissioners, we did have recommended actions. Being this is a workshop, really those recommended actions are just to receive and file the material that we presented so far. And that the workshop isn't subject to CEQA. So I think we have those recommended actions available if you want to look at those. So, Chair, I think we're bringing those up right now.

We'll bring those up. While we're pulling that up, I'd just like to thank your commission and all of the speakers that have been involved throughout this process. We've had numerous meetings with different groups since the December meeting. It sounds like some of those folks maybe were not satisfied with the outcome of those meetings, but we can continue to speak with them and see how we might address some of their issues further as we go forward. And as context, we are hoping to release the public version of the EIR in coming months.

We had planned to get it out in March, but with discontinuance for about thirty days, that may push it back a little bit. But I think we are ready to proceed on getting that document ready to go. And then, once that is published, we will plan on meetings again with your, commission for deliberations on the rec plan and the amendments themselves. In the intervening time, I think we've got some other commission meet committee meetings to attend. Craytac, Park Commission, probably AAC.

I'm not sure exactly how we'll roll all those out, but they'll be taking place in the coming weeks as well.

Okay. Any Yeah, I don't have a

question for the staff, but for Ms. Richardson. And this relates back to Mr. Giraud's letter. And I'm going to ask a general question, so I think that's fair to you for a general answer. I'm sure you're thinking of the same things I've been thinking about. I see in the KRATAC letter a request for stronger policies that essentially would condition certain housing projects and so forth with the provision of recreation. And if I'm oversimplifying then I apologize to Mr. Giraud and Kraitak, but that's what I'm reading. And I know the history of things is going way back.

We had really almost no restrictions on conditioning. Then we had the Nolan case in City of Tigard, and there's still good law. But things got a little confused, at least in my mind, with our housing element, because we knew that in order to get it approved, we really couldn't condition much of anything at all, or HCD would reject it. And so I know that when we looked at these major Gallita projects under the housing element, we really weren't able to work in getting parks through conditioning. We got it in other ways.

So I'm a little confused right now as to whether we can do the kind of conditioning that's referred to in the KRATAC letter and it suggests revision of policies under current law.

Chair Reid and Commissioner Park, so as you said, we're subject to takings law. So the Nolan, Dolan nexus and rough proportionality, that kind of underlies all the policies that the county applies and adopts. Additionally, as you mentioned, we have the housing element, and there's been essentially annual changes to housing law under the Housing Accountability Act that make it more difficult to condition or restrict housing projects. So we'd have to look at the particular details. But in general, especially for housing projects, it's very difficult to place conditions or restrictions on them. For non housing projects there may be additional options.

But at least for these rec master plan things, we don't really have to worry about HCD and the housing element, the way that we had to worry about it for the housing element. We're more concerned about the constitutional issues, right?

Right. To the extent that the county is adopting the recreational master plan, whereas the housing element also separately had to be certified by the state. This does not need to go through that separate process.

So we might have a little bit more authority. Okay. Well I knew you'd have a great answer and you'd thought about this already. So thank you. And I'm done for the day.

Okay. Everyone look at the recommended actions. Do we have a motion? Don't all jump out there at once.

Move to adopt the recommended actions. Recommend the recommended actions. Do we have a second?

And I'll second that. How

about a roll call Mr. Villalobos?

Commissioner Cooney.

As I indicated earlier in the hearing I could not participate in what turned out to be a part of the testimony. So I'm not going to vote on this proposal we have before us now.

Okay. Commissioner Ford? Aye. Commissioner Park? Aye. Commissioner Martinez? Aye. And Chair Reid? Aye. Motion passes four to zero.

Okay.

I guess this meeting is adjourned. Well, thank you.