Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the 03/04/2026 hearing of the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission. Would you all please join us in 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. Mister Villalobos, would you please make the TV coverage announcement?

Yes. Good morning, mister chair, and to the rest of the commission. Planning commission hearings are televised live on County and Santa Barbara television CSB TV channel 20 at 9AM in the South Coast, Lompoc, San Yenas Valley, San Maria, and Orca areas. Rebroadcast of Planning Commission hearings are on Fridays at 5PM on CSB TV channel twenty. 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? Please. Great. Commissioner Cooney? Here. Commissioner Ford?

Here.

Commissioner Park?

Here.

Chair Reid? Here. And Commissioner Martinez will be joining us shortly.

Great. Could we please move on to the agenda status report?

Good morning, chair and commissioners. In regards to the status of our agenda, there will not be a director's report today as director Palman is out of the area. And then if we look at our standard agenda, there are two items on our standard agenda, the Hagfer's rezone and then also the 2025 comprehensive plan annual progress report. And staff and the applicants are here and ready to present on those items.

Okay, thank you. Could we move on to the projection report?

Chair and commissioners, when we look at the upcoming hearings, our next hearing will be next week on March 11, and that will be in Santa Maria. There are two items on that one. There is one item, which is a government code consistency, and then the ordinance amendments related to utility scale solar projects. And, again, that is in Santa Maria next week. And then we look down later in the month on March 25.

We have two items on that hearing. We have the Chick fil A project in the Eastern Galita Valley area. And then we also have the comprehensive plan amendment and zone map amendment on the same area in the Eastern Galita Valley. That will be here in Santa Barbara on March 25. As of right now, there are no items projected for April 1, and we don't anticipate there will be any.

So I'll be making a recommendation to cancel the April 1 hearing. Then on April 8, we have one item projected, which is the oil and gas ordinance amendments. That will be in Santa Maria on April 8. And then later in April, we have April 29. As of right now, we only have one item projected for that, which is a development plan and CDP in the Summand area.

That takes no other items projected on May 6 and May 13. Actually, there's no other items projected in May. So it takes us just to April. And then if the commission would take up the April 1 to make a motion if they want to if you want to cancel it or not.

Does anyone like to make a motion to cancel the April 1 hearing? Move to cancel the April 1 hearing of the Planning Commission. Second. All in favor? Aye.

Public comment. Oh, there anything else, Mr. Wilson? Okay, public comment. Now is the time for general public comment for items not on today's agenda. Is there any member of the public in person prepared to make a public comment?

Mr. Chair, I've received no speaker slips and seeing no one rise. I also have no attendees online.

Okay. So we can proceed. Planning commissioners informational reports. Commissioner Park.

I'd like to report on a couple of things, try and hit each one quickly. I attended the Econ Alliance Ag Forum along with you, Chair Reid, and Commissioner Martinez was also there. We didn't sit at the same table, so don't anybody feel upset that we violated the Brown Act. And who talks about SHOP and things like that anyways? Anyway, it was probably my favorite one of those that I've attended.

The panels were so good and I thought some of it had to do with, related to what we've worked on in the past. The report from our Ag Commissioner, Mr. Chang, was excellent. He pointed out that from direct sales, direct revenues, Ag produces $2,000,000,000 You add in services, it's close to $3,000,000,000 in this county. Look indirect, it's $5,000,000,000 And some of the panelists noted how uneasy they were about things like the rec master plan and the ag enterprise element ordinance.

Not that they really oppose it, it just makes them uncomfortable about one more thing they have to pay attention to. So that made me think, well, know, we've got the goose that lays the golden egg, and we just need to be careful about their concerns. And I get that. But then the opposite thing, which is a little heartwarming, is we had a couple of panelists that brought it up to the other agriculturalists and said how they're taking advantage of it already and how pleased they are that it exists as an opportunity. So that was all good.

It sort of related to me to a panel that I was on a week or two earlier for the, I think it's Community Islands California Alliance of Family Farms. And we spoke about is there a right kind of ag tourism. There was I a learned that other jurisdictions are trying to do something like we've already done. The city of Redlands has an ag ordinance they did for orange farmers, an ag enterprise type ordinance. And I was told by other panelists it was interesting to compare that to ours.

So it shows that there's things for us to compare to. We're not on an island. I had a great question at the end. It was from a young staff person for some jurisdictions who said, how do I talk to farmers and relate? And I thought it was a great question so I struggled with that.

And it related to something that I've been taking courses on for my continuing education at the bar, as I renewed my license. And one was on cultural competency, being aware of the culture you're in and other cultures and how to relate. And I think there's a planning culture and there's an ag culture and so it's not just ethnic cultures. And it's something that I would actually like to get more training in. I mean, I appreciate the ethics training we have, but I think this is something that's important.

Lastly, in going over my twenty five hours of coursework that I'm jamming into one month, I'm taking all land use things because I don't practice in litigation anymore. A couple of takeaways. One is that so many people are concerned about all the new exemptions relating to CEQA and how we won't have CEQA available to condition to deal with mitigations and that there's a real trend with various jurisdictions to live with the fact you don't have CEQ anymore, but take those most standard mitigations and put them in your regulatory standards. So I think that's something I look forward to us talking about. And a last thing, let's see if I can remember what it was.

Oh, I also learned that some jurisdictions or really everyone in the municipal level is kind of chafing under the requirements on housing that the state has been producing every year. But some jurisdictions, like the city of Oakland, they're doing their own and finding if they do their own programs, they can make them more flexible, fit the usual planning concerns that municipalities have and still motivate housing. And I know my particular concern is moderate income housing because it just isn't produced any other way and I think that's something our county should look at, is actually going beyond some of the state incentive programs, designing some of our own for those particular sectors that we don't seem to be getting production on otherwise. So I told you I'd be long and rambling, but that's what I'll do. Thank you.

Well, thank you. It wasn't actually that long. But I also attended the Ag Econ Ag Conference, and it's a great conference. Every year helps really bring to the fore the great contributions of agriculture to the county. And really, through its panels and the discussion from the county ag director brings in the scope and variety of products it provides, the employment it provides, and the general importance.

And I just think one item of interest is derived from the panels of growers and other individuals that really give great insight into the issues faced by agriculture as well as the potential effects, both positive and negative, that we as regulators in the county can have on them. So I said deeply important insights. Finally, just an interesting item, we know a great many of our agricultural products in the county are exported. The five main export countries are Canada and Mexico, interesting, but also Japan, Kuwait and The United Arab Emirates. So I found those to be quite interesting.

So with that, I will conclude my report. Any others? No. Okay. Thank you. Since there are off. Okay. We need to move ahead to consider the minutes of our February 11 hearing. Have any commissioners have any additions, deletions, or corrections?

I do not, but I would move approval.

Okay.

I can second.

Okay, all in favor of approving the minutes of February 11, say aye. Aye. With that, we can proceed to our standard agenda. So item one, could mister Villalobos, could you read it into the record?

Yes. Thank you, mister chair. I'm following the hearing, excuse me, on the request of John Hagford's owner to consider case number twenty five r z n three and to consider California Environmental Quality Act guidelines section one five one eight three and recommend that the board of supervisors determine that the project is statutorily exempt from CEQA and that no further environmental review is required.

Staff, you ready to proceed?

I am. Mister Kringle?

Okay. Please

do. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Soren Kringle, and I will be presenting the Hagfer's Rezone Project, case number 25RZNDash3. The project site is a 1.4 acre vacant lot located at the Southeast End of San Ynez along Highway 246 with the Chumash gas station located directly to the West and the San Ynez Airport located nearby to the South. The proposed project is a request to rezone the subject parcel from retail commercial to which is c two to the general commercial c three zone district.

This request only requires a rezone and not a general plan amendment because the parcel's land use designation as established by the San Andres Community Plan is already general commercial, as you can see there. No development is proposed as part of the project, but the applicant has expressed to county staff their interest in developing a personal storage facility, which is not an allowed use in the Retail Commercial Zone District. I wanna be clear, though, any future development will require additional land use entitlements if they come forward. In addition for allowing for a personal storage facility, the proposed rezone would allow for 15 new uses not currently allowed by the C2 Zone District and would downgrade the permit requirements for certain other uses. These uses include agricultural processing, storage for contractor equipment, vehicle services.

And they're all listed on this table here and are included as part of the staff report. While new uses on the subject parcel will be allowed by the proposed rezone, the development standards between the C 2 and c 3 zone districts are virtually identical. This table from the LUDC shows that setbacks, height limit, density, and more are all the same for both zones. And also just as a note, since docketing the staff report, a substantial ordinance amendment has gone into effect modifying some of the commercial zones development standards. But staff has reviewed these changes and confirmed that all of these modified development standards will still remain consistent between the two zone districts.

Staff analyzed the proposed rezone for consistency with the required findings for rezones, and based off that analysis, staff determined that the request can be supported. The subject parcel is located near the edge of town and is surrounded by Highway 246, agricultural land, and existing commercial uses. And given that context, staff felt that it was reasonable to allow for the broader range of commercial uses on the property. There are also no sensitive land uses in the immediate area, and the proposed rezone would not introduce uses that would conflict with the surrounding properties. As shown in this graphic, there are already several C3 zone parcels in the surrounding area, including one located diagonally across from the subject parcel.

Additionally, the San Yenas Valley Community Plan anticipated commercial uses on this property and throughout much of the surrounding area. So because this request is simply to change from one commercial zone to another, the proposed project remains consistent with the overall intent of the community plan. And finally, as mentioned earlier, the development standards between the C2 and C3 zones are very similar. The proposed project was reviewed for compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to CEQA guidelines section fifteen thousand one eighty three, projects consistent with the community plan or zoning, and was found to be consistent with the build out anticipated by the San Yenes Valley Community Plan and its EIR. And as mentioned before, no development is currently proposed and the project will not result in any new significant impacts not anticipated by the San Yenes Valley Community Plan, and it will not increase the density that was established by the San Yenes Valley Community Plan.

So if the Commission concurs with SAS findings, we'd recommend that you'd recommend to the Board of Supervisors to make the required findings for approval of the project, case number 25RZN-three, as specified in attachment A. Recommend that the Board of Supervisors find that the proposed project has been adequately reviewed for compliance with CEQA pursuant to state CEQA guidelines section fifteen thousand one eighty three and adopt the resolution in attachment B of the staff report recommending that the Board of Supervisors adopt an ordinance amending the Santa Barbara County zoning map to change the zoning from retail commercial to general commercial. This concludes staff's presentation. I know the agent for the project is unfortunately sick, but he is online. And I think he will be saying a few words.

Mister Jones. Good

morning, mister chair and planning commissioners. Can you hear me okay?

Yes.

Thank you. I just wanted to to briefly, thank mister Kringle for his report and to state that I'm here to answer any questions that you might have. I don't have anything to add to the presentation. Thank you.

Okay. So now questions from commissioners? Commissioner Cooney? Oh, in Park. I'm sorry.

Commissioner Park? Question? We didn't report on ex party visits or ex party contacts or site visits. I probably would have been the most likely to get that because it's in my district and I did not have any ex party contacts. I did have a site visit. I just drove through the Chumash gas station and looked at the parcel. And that does lead to a question I do have. The parcel has a big ravine behind it, so I don't think there will be access through there. There's a little bit of a drop at the highway. And I'm just wondering, and this is a question for probably you, Mr.

Jones or Mr. Kringle, the access, what would the access be into the parcel were there to be this storage facility?

Mr. Chair, Commissioner Park, the access would be from two 46, so we would have an encroachment permit with Caltrans to access the parcel. We did do a very conceptual site plan, and I believe that that entrance was shown to be towards the western end of the parcel. The drainage is kind of in the southeast corner, takes a lot of the back part of the parcel.

And let me ask you to confirm a sort of an educated guess I have. I would think that if we had a retail facility on that property, it would have the same kind of access from the highway. And retail being what it is, that you want customers, not like the old Yellow Pages ads, and that there would be a lot more traffic in and out of the highway onto this parcel if it was ever developed under its current zoning as retail as opposed to what you're suggesting or the general uses that people have for commercial there, like the cabinet factory that's out behind it. Would that be a fair observation?

Mr. Chair, Commissioner Park, yes, that's exactly the mindset that the property owner had in requesting the change.

Oh, and by the way, I should say, I'm not reporting as ex party contact because of course staff is not ex party. But I do appreciate, Mr. Hingle, your efforts to get ahold of me and go over this. Staff has been doing that for quite some time now. And either of you all think that I need extra help or I don't know what. But honestly, in five to ten minutes and going over things with staff, I can avoid an hour or two of rereading different things. So I really appreciate it. It was very helpful this time. Thank you.

Commissioner Ford?

No, sorry.

Oh, no. I have a couple. Mr. Kringle, first, of surrounding properties. Have they all been properly noticed to give them a chance to observe what's going on, anticipate it and respond if they had one?

Chair Reid, yes. They've all been provided, mail noticing, to all the surrounding properties, detailing not only the hearing but also just as a completeness for the application. They also receive notices in the mail.

I'm sorry, I keep doing the opposite. This action we're taking today, it's simply a zoning change. It in no way authorizes any future development. If any future development is planned, it will be subject to comprehensive review as any other.

Jerry, and just one clarification. Is this a recommendation for approval of a zoning change, so the Board of Supervisors will be the final decision maker on that. And then you're also correct that any future development proposed on the parcel will require an additional land use entitlement. Now that's not to say that land use entitlement would come back before the commission. It could be a more ministerial permitting path. It just depends on what use is proposed.

Okay, thank you. One last question. I notice on the table of proposed new uses on your slide four, one of them is cannabis distribution. Is that retail or is that a wholesale warehousing type? What does that actually mean?

Chair

Reid, members of the commission, it points back to the specific use section. Travis, do you have anything?

That is not a retail use, that is more of an actual distribution operation. Cannabis retail is I think called cannabis retail. Thank you. Would not permit a cannabis retail store there.

Okay. Commissioner Ford.

Thank you. I'd like to know, you call out that, as we've talked about, no development, but you also, called out that this doesn't put into place any site disturbance. So what is there a difference between development and site disturbance?

Commissioner Ford, through the chair, I don't think there is a difference. I think, yeah, just to reiterate, like, there is no Nothing. Proposed development. No yeah, exactly. No grading is proposed as part of this approval.

Just the zoning.

Simply limited to the zone change.

Thanks for the clarification.

So at this time, we look for public comment.

Mr. Jerry, before we move on to public comment, I just, for the record, wanted I know that we had you'd asked if any of the commissioners had any additional questions. I just would like to request that you also just clarify whether or not the other commissioners had any exportation report.

For

Thank you. And

for public comment, I have received no physical speaker slips. Don't see anyone rising. And then we have no attendees online.

Alright. So do we offer does staff have any additional comment to make? So we are prepared to move on to deliberation. Alright.

Okay. Commissioner Park. Mr. Kringle, could you go back to this map slide? I'd like to point out a few things.

One, as you just heard, the site that's in green is in an area that's marked general commercial, because that's what the community plan says. So anybody that was participating in the community plan, looks at the community plan, relies on the community plan, would think this is an appropriate thing to do. This is not going to be shocking anyone in the public. And you can also see that most of that map is taken up with general commercial, it's right in the center and that's most of Downtown San Ines. So most of Downtown San Ines, which does have retail, it's not in retail zoning, it's in general commercial.

So this is totally appropriate to fit in with the rest of Santa Ana's. And as I pointed out earlier in my question, this site really feeds off the highway, and I just think it's better for the community to have one of the general commercial uses as opposed to being limited to retail. Because if retail is gonna lead to more traffic coming in off that highway. That's kind of the last developed thing on your right is you're heading out to come to Santa Barbara, and traffic tends to speed up and all that. And I wouldn't like to see retail there, people coming in and out, I could see some problems.

I think this is the right thing to do. It's been intended by the community. We're bringing it up to those standards, and I fully support it.

Commissioner Ford.

Thanks. I too support it. And as sort of simple as this seems, you know, being a new member of this commission, it was really helpful for me to talk to mister Kringle too to get the, actual understanding of the process of the history and the specifics of what this kind of zoning change would mean. So I, as I said, support it.

Commissioner Cooney. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would just comment that this is a good example of the difference between two types of zoning amendments and they're laid out very clearly in the staff report but but emphasized by staff today. And it certainly seems appropriate to maintain that distinction and offer applicants two pathways to change the existing zoning. So I'm prepared to support Commissioner Park if he makes a motion to approve.

And I as well think staff made a very comprehensive and complete presentation illustrating the fact that this change is in compliance with all relative ordinances and community plans, etcetera. And I would be prepared to support it in accordance with Commissioner Park.

So, do we have a motion? We do. And I didn't hear anything today that indicated there's any addition or modification of what the recommended actions are in the staff report. This is slide nine, I think it is. So I will move that we adopt the recommendations of staff that are set forth in slide nine of the presentation and in the staff report. I don't feel the need to read those. They're already there.

Commissioner Ford? Second. So, all in favor, do we need a roll call on this? Let's do a roll call.

Sure. Commissioner Cooney? Aye. Commissioner Ford? Aye. Commissioner Park? Aye. Chair Reid? Aye. Motion passes four to zero.

Great. Can we take a ten minute recess?

See if Okay. Mr. Martinez is

And mister wish you the best of health, and I hope you get better soon.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Of the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission. Mister Villalobos, would you please read the next item into the record?

Yes. Thank you, mister chair. The following is a hearing on the request of the planning and development department that the county planning commission receive and file the twenty twenty five comprehensive plan annual progress report.

Staff, are you ready to proceed? Please do.

Thank you. Good morning, Chair, members of the commission. Alex Tuttle with Long Range Planning. And I want to just introduce who we have here with us this morning, a couple new faces. So to my left is Kathy King.

She joined our team just a few months ago. She's our new supervising planner replacing Allen Bell, who has sort of retired for the second time now. So helping to manage many of our housing element implementation efforts. And then further down the row here, we have Ali Castaneda, a new planner with our team about eight months in, and then Danielle Moore, who will and Danielle and Allie will be presenting on the annual progress report this morning.

Thank you, Alex, for the intro. Good morning, chair read and commissioners. My name is Danielle Moore, and I'm joined here today with Allie. And today, we'll be presenting to you the 2025 comprehensive plan annual progress report. The Annual Progress Report, which is referred to as the APR, is a state mandated report that is focused on reporting on the county's progress on implementing the comprehensive plan alongside the county's progress in towards its regional housing needs allocation, which is known as its RINA.

State law requires the county to report the annual progress report to the Board of Supervisors, to the Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation, and the California Department of Housing and Community Development by April 1 of each year. The county also submits the annual progress report to the city of Santa Barbara in accordance with policies in the Mission Canyon Community Plan. And the staff report package today you have the staff report package you have received today is quite large. We recognize that. The focus of this hearing today is on a high level overview of the staff report package.

We will not be going into every single detail contained on it. Rather, our time will be focused on the projects that Long Range Planning is currently working on alongside our alongside a status report on the housing element implementation and our progress towards our RENA. County staff has made progress in 2025 on preparing a few comprehensive plan amendments, including continuing work on the state mandated circulation, open space, and safety elements alongside the new environmental justice element. Ponding and Development has also completed several zoning ordinance amendments this year, including the cannabis odor, senior mobile home park overlay, and emergency shelters zoning ordinance amendments. The 2025 APR reports on the status of the county's housing element implementation progress.

The board adopted the twenty twenty three to 2031 housing element update in December 2023, which contains 25 programs and 99 actions to help address the housing needs of the unincorporated county. To date, the county has completed 58 of these actions, and 38 actions are currently in progress. As a note, we have recategorized actions with an annual work effort to be marked as completed in the reporting tables each calendar year. Additionally, some actions also may have an outstanding Coastal Commission certification, So they are split into two rows in the reporting tables in the APR. And that is why our totals in this table on the slide add up to over 99.

They are to 111. Table one in the staff report provides more details on the status of each of the housing element programs. And in the next slide, I'll be walking you through four examples of housing element work that occurred in 2025. So this slide spotlights four housing element implementation work actions that occurred in 2025. The first example is from program 4.2, which is on inclusionary housing units and is led by the community services department.

In 2025, 12 affordable units were delivered under the inclusionary housing ordinance, six were rental units and six were ownership units. Units. All of these units are deed restricted, and they contribute to the county's affordable housing supply. The second example is from program 10.1, which is on accessory dwelling units. The housing element set a goal of a 100 ADUs being permitted each year in the cycle.

And in 2025, we the county has permitted 226 issued building permits for ADUs, which far exceeds initial expectations of a 100 being issued each year. The third example is from program 10.4, which is on preapproved ADU plans. In 2025, planning and development hired a consultant to develop four standardized preapproved ADU design plans, which are intended to reduce design costs and speed up permitting from homeowners, and planning and development anticipates this being released later this month. The fourth and final example is from program 14.1, which is on water and wastewater support for housing sites. In 2025, the county supported annexation of three rezone sites into wastewater district boundaries for the parcel of San Marcos 1, San Marcos 2, and Tatum.

This work helps reduce helps remove infrastructure constraints, enables housing development on sites that already have zoning capacity. Now we're going to shift gears to talk about the regional housing needs allocation, which is known as RINA. The Santa Barbara County Associated Governments, known as SBCAG, divided the county's RINA into two subregions for this cycle, which are the South Coast and the North County. The unincorporated portions of the county were allocated in total 5,664 units for this cycle's RENA. The county must accommodate 74% or 4,142 units in the South Coast total and 26% or fifteen twenty two units total in the North County.

Furthermore, the county's RINA is divided into four income categories, which are very low, low, moderate, and above moderate income categories. As we will later describe, RINA progress is only determined by the number of issued billing permits. And in the next few slides, we'll be walking you through eligible RENA unit types, our methodology for determining the affordability of the units, and our progress towards our RENA. Unit types that are eligible to be counted towards ARENA include single family dwellings, multifamily dwellings, accessory dwelling units known as ADUs, agricultural employee dwellings, and replacement units. Staff works all year on reviewing thousands of applications, which especially for the APR include our issued building permits in addition to entitlements and final building permits, which we also do report in the APR.

Information on those two totals is also available in the reporting tables in the package you have received today. During the APR preparation process, units are classified as one of two categories. The first category is deed restricted, which falls under an inclusionary housing ordinance or state density bonus law, And two is non deed restricted. Determine the affordability of non deed restricted units, are market rate units, staff follows affordability methodology that is shown on this slide. Staff first compiles countywide data on for sale prices and rental prices per community, ZIP code, and with the number of bedrooms.

Next, staff uses state HCD's affordability calculator, which is released annually to determine the affordability of the market rate units. Finally, the unit affordability for the units falls into one of the four categories, low very low, low, moderate, or above moderate. Planning and development will continue to improve the accuracy of collecting data sources for determining the affordability for new market rate units. So the APR also summarizes the county's progress in meeting its RENA for the housing cycle and 2025 marked the third year in this housing cycle. As previously mentioned, the only permits that are counted towards RENA are issued building permits.

And in 2025, the county issued 452 building permits for new units in the South Coast. These building permits included a 103 ADUs, 41 single family dwellings, 11 manufactured homes, and three multifamily developments totaling 297 units. The multifamily projects we included are Holster Lofts, San Marcos Ranch affordable income buildings, and the St. George development in Isla Vista. This table here on the slide shows a number of billing permits that the county issued for new housing units organized by income category within the unincorporated South Coast in 2025.

In 2025, the county issued a 111 very low units, a 195 units for the low income category, zero moderate, and a 146 above moderate units, which totals up to the previously shown four fifty two units. As you can see on the slide, there's an upward trend over the last three years in the number of units produced, and this year alone of 2025 saw more issued building permits than the previous two years combined. And the last row of the table shows the county's progress towards the South Coast Arena as a percentage. This graph visualizes the number of building permits that the county issued for new housing units in the South Coast. The blue columns indicate the total issued building permits to date, and the orange columns show the South Coast RENA allocation.

And in 2025, the South Coast produced four fifty two of the total eight twenty seven units. However, this is only the third sorry. As you can see, the county so far is falling short on producing units for every income category displayed. However, this is only the third year of the planning period, so the County still has time to continue making progress to meet its RENA goal. With the various efforts the County has recently taken, including rezones and ordinance amendments to streamline the permitting process, we do anticipate seeing an uptick in housing production through the next few years into the end of the cycle.

So as long as the County continues permitting an insufficient number of permits relative to its RINA, it remains subject to SB four twenty three, which we will discuss in a later slide. I now will be handing off the rest of the presentation to Allie.

Thank you. So moving on to the North County, staff issued building permits for a 160 new housing units in 2025. These building permits consisted of 123 ADUs, 32 single family dwellings, and five manufactured homes. This table shows the number of building permits that the county issued for new housing units within the unincorporated North County in 2025. The highlighted row shows that of the 160 new units approved, a 101 were in the low income category, two units were in moderate, and 57 units were identified as above moderate affordability.

And finally, the last row of the table shows the county's progress towards its RINA. As you can see, the county has met its Rina for low income housing units in this cycle. This graph shows that the North County is on track with above production but is falling short on its very low and moderate income arena progress. However, as I mentioned in the previous slide, the county has already exceeded its low income arena in the North County. Now I will discuss the implications of not meeting the county's Rena.

As a refresher, Senate Bill four twenty three, previously SB 35, establishes a mandatory streamlined approval process for qualifying developments. SB four twenty three only applies to jurisdictions that have not met their pro rata share of RENA or have not submitted APRs. HCD releases SB four twenty three determinations annually, which take into account permit data from the previous year's APR. Because the county's slow progress of meeting low and very low income RINA, the county is subject to 50% affordability which means developers must meet the 50% affordability requirements to qualify for SB four twenty three streamlining. The county did not receive any s b four twenty three applications for 2025.

The preparation of this APR is an administrative activity that does not authorize new development or otherwise result in physical changes to the environment. Therefore, the preparation and submittal of this report is not a project and is not subject to CEQA. To conclude, staff recommends that your commission take the following actions. To receive and file the 2025 comprehensive plan annual progress report, authorize staff to provide annual progress report to the board of supervisors, the governor's office of land use and climate innovation, state HCD, and the city of Santa Barbara. And lastly, determine that the preparation and submittal of this report is an activity that is not subject to CEQA.

This concludes staff presentation and we are available to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Nice job. This is your first. Right? Good for you. That was very clear. I realize this is a very stressful board to appear in front of. Now we're ready for questions from commissioners. Commissioner Park?

I've got to illustrate why he thinks it's stressful. And you'll find it's not from harsh questions, it's just questions that you'll find confusing and irrelevant, but that's just life, isn't it? Now, to very basically simplify our housing element process, which I'm sure Mr. Tuttle still has nightmares about every night, as do I. The biggest action was in Goleta.

And the most controversial were the four rezones that were looked at that were in the nature of a thousand units or more. And we kind of played in musical chairs and had three that we rezoned. And my understanding from that process was that if we didn't show progress in building these out, it would sort of reopen it before 2031. And I see that San Marcos Gardens, for example, you're already counting it, and that's gonna get built. Some of the others, I think the progress is slow, and it may reopen the ability of the fourth one to come back in, which is of concern to people.

Whether they some like that idea that the fourth one comes in, some might not like it. But I never understood when was the trigger date? I mean, when do these things have to be built by? Is this what you were just reporting on? And is the consequence SB four twenty three?

Or is there something else? That sounds like a Mr. Tuttle question, doesn't it?

Thank you, Commissioner Park, through the chair. Yeah, to refer to the rest of the staff, I think I probably have the most background on this one. So I'll field it. I think what you're referring to is the no net loss, which is a little different than our progress towards meeting our arena. And I'm sure Danielle could probably expand on what I say.

But so our progress towards meeting Arena, all the county is responsible ultimately responsible for is showing that we have capacity. We are not developers. We can't force someone to develop their land. Our role is in ensuring that there is capacity to meet our arena if development were to move forward. So that is separate from meeting Rina and and our progress towards meeting Rina.

So the implications, as was discussed by staff in terms of kind of slow progress towards meeting Rina or maybe insufficient progress towards meeting Rina is that the county remains subject to the streamlining provisions of SB four twenty three, which is a project that meets certain criteria, can be processed ministerially, and is not subject to your typical review. So that's that's ultimately the implication of if we're kinda not moving fast enough or projects aren't going as quickly as we anticipated or maybe some projects don't advance at all and they choose not to develop. Separate from that is is the issue of capacity. Do we have sufficient capacity to meet our arena if everyone were to try to build out their projects? And that's the the no net loss issue and where we could potentially find ourselves having to rezone additional properties if we run out of capacity.

And so what happens is each time a project gets approved, we have to look at the landscape and determine that by approving this project, where are we as a county and looking at our remaining capacity? Do we still have sufficient capacity in order to meet our arena? Because typically, what we've seen this last year, and we've done this assessment, I don't know, probably 10 times or so, is projects aren't building out at the levels of affordability that we had anticipated or projected. We knew going in that we had fairly generous or rosy pictures. We were assuming 50% lower income affordability and a certain percentage of moderate, which isn't bearing out with some of these projects.

So each time we approve a project, we have to look at how many affordability or affordable units are we getting relative to what we had assumed for that site. And when it's less, we have to look at do we still have remaining capacity elsewhere, with our other sites to still meet our theoretically, to still meet our arena based on our, site's inventory. And through that process, if we ever get to a point where we are approving a project and we look at the remaining undeveloped sites and determine that we don't have sufficient capacity to meet our arena any longer, that's when no net loss is triggered and where we have to potentially rezone or likely rezone additional sites. To date, we have not triggered no net loss. And in fact, if you recall, when we did the rezone process, we purposefully established a buffer.

We had a 15% buffer, and then we actually ended up rezoning a little beyond that 15%. So we gave ourselves a little buffer knowing that we'd be in this situation. And we we set ourselves set for ourselves a trigger of 5%. So if we get anywhere within 5% of our remaining capacity, then we are to initiate further rezones. And, yeah, so far, both the North County and South Coast, we haven't hit that 5% mark.

And we still have sufficient capacity to avoid a no net loss situation. That could change. So it's something we monitor and we track with each approval of a housing project. We have to do that assessment to kind of see where we're at and make sure we retain some buffer to ensure sufficient capacity moving forward. So that was a very long winded answer, but hopefully that's the information

you're It was very good. But a good answer leads to more good questions. And note some irony in this, is that I recall at the time that the proposals that I was most skeptical of with respect to affordability were for the county owned property, because we had certain assumptions there that were pretty darn high. And I wondered how we were ever going to get there, but we'll see. Whereas the developers came in in this sort of beauty contest for the Board of Supervisory and for us, they were pretty explicit in what they were willing to do.

Presumably they'll do that. But I'm still confused a little bit because know, as a developer comes forward with a program, what they're actually gonna build and you pull permits, okay, now that helps you determine whether you've got capacity still, okay? But what about the developer that just isn't proceeding? It's just going slow. How can you deal with judging capacity at that point?

I mean, if we go eight years and we're at the next housing element time and we've got projects that never materialized. They got rezoned but never materialized. And then we've got other projects that would like to take advantage of that. When does that happen during the cycle?

The capacity trying to dig deep back into your brain, if you recall when we were going through the housing update in the regional process, we identified what our sites inventory is and how we determine capacity. And capacity was determined based on a combination of things. It was vacant sites and sort of the development potential of vacant sites. So how many units under zoning could those vacant sites provide theoretically. It was pending projects, so applications that were already in the pipeline at the time we were going through that exercise.

It was an assumed number of the ADUs. We were assuming based on historic trends a certain number of ADUs. And then that's it. Right? Yeah. So our capacity was vacant sites, pending projects, and ADUs. And then we looked at that capacity as part of our sites inventory, compared it against our arena, realized we were we had a shortfall. We didn't have sufficient capacity to meet our arena. And so we then rezoned, I believe it was 18 sites in the South County and a number of sites in the North County, to build up that capacity. And then we also identified those nine county owned sites.

So those rezones and county owned sites together expanded our capacity for how many sites we could theoretically accommodate to give us that surplus and that buffer. So a project site's capacity remains up until the point of an approval. Once you've approved a project, you've essentially locked it in as to what the development potential is of that site. So just, theoretically, if we had assumed or were were counting on 100 units, for a particular project, and they were were in the process but they had not yet received any type of entitlement or approval, that 100 unit capacity still exists, and we can still sort of rely on that. But the moment at which we approve that, some entitlement on that lot, that capacity gets used up because it no longer has any development potential outside of what was approved.

So if we only approved, say, 80 units when we were expecting to get 100 units, then we've sort of lost a theoretical amount of units through remaining capacity. It's all very complicated. There's a lot of math that goes in because we have to compare what did we assume for the site and what was ultimately approved and then look at the difference between what was approved versus what was assumed and factor that into our remaining capacity. But, yeah, the pace at which a project is proceeding, again, the capacity exists up until the point that it doesn't through an approval. So a project could sit vacant through the entire eight year cycle or unapproved through the entire eight year cycle.

And that capacity still exists. So as long as that capacity remains, we're in good shape. The cynic could say, we've done all this work, and we don't get a single project through the entitlement process. We still don't trigger no net loss because that capacity remains. We we would be continue to be subject to the streamlining provisions because we haven't made progress towards meeting our arena. But we don't have to take further action in terms of rezoning additional sites because that capacity to meet our arena theoretically exists.

I have more specific follow-up questions. I'm not going to do them today. I'd like to meet privately and we could talk probably more freely about specific projects and where they're going and so forth. But I think we've illustrated the concepts here and I fully support this. And I'm ready to move on for questions.

I just point out a very big picture for somebody in my position, my fellow planning commissioners. We get inquiries from the public and they learned kind of one plan that they thought they heard from the rezones and then they want to know, well, that going forward, will that be what it's like or will something else come in and will we have to learn something different? And if all the information we had to learn and process a few years ago, which we're all kind of experiencing a PTSD over probably, I don't know, Think of how bad it is for the public to try to understand all that. So that's why I ask these questions. But I much appreciate it, but I'm ready to turn it over to the other commissioners.

Commissioner?

Yes, thank you, and good morning. I see all these numbers as to building housing units, and I don't know if you have any information or not regarding this, but this is all tied to affordable housing my mind. And at least I thought that was the dictates of this whole effort. Do we have any information as to what all these units are going to lend towards actual affordable housing? In other words, are we just going to be maintaining?

Are we building units that are just going to be at the same price or higher prices than what we see in the market? Because I imagine that this effort is to build more houses so that there's more availability, and therefore, there's more availability, there's the impact of decreasing the rents, decreasing the purchase prices of these units. Do we have any of those numbers involved here? Or is that something that you're just concentrating on the units being built and the future of these units being built?

Commissioner Martinez, to the chair, are you asking if we've seen a change in, like, the market?

Yes. Yes, indeed.

Yeah, that's an excellent question. So as Ms. Moore indicated, projects come in two forms. There's projects that provide a certain percentage of their units as deed restricted. So those are like capital A affordable because they're locked in under a deed restriction to only be able to rent or do a sale at price restricted level.

And then those that aren't deed restricted fall into the market category. And then when you're in the market, then it's what is the market providing? Is the market providing anything that falls within the affordability range or is it all above moderate? In the South Coast, I would say, by and large, 90 plus percent of the market is gonna fall into that above moderate category because they're the market is so expensive. In the North County, it's a little different, and it kind of varies by region.

I think it's too early ultimately, short answer is it's a little too early to tell whether or not this infusion of more housing has or will change the market in terms of by increasing the supply based on general economics, will the prices actually come down. That's certainly the hope. But I think at this point, it's a little too early to tell on that.

Okay. No, I appreciate that. But I look forward to, in the future, I mean, we should be able to at least look at whether this is having an impact on this affordability or not. But that's what I'm hearing. I appreciate that.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Commissioner Ford.

Thank you so much. Really appreciated the presentation and, also, of course, the report. I just have a few questions more more or less related to history, process, and context. But in slide number five, regarding the housing element program, What is the difference between in progress and continuous?

To commissioner Ford, for the chair, in progress means that it's likely to be an action that's over the eight year period. It's not an annual action. So that means we have begun work on that action. So it could have started this year or next year. If it starts next year, then we will mark it as in progress for it. Continuous, a lot of them are ongoing throughout the cycle at multiple periods of time. So let me check. No,

that's fine. They just seem to me very similar.

I think, just to expand on that, I think one of the differences with something that's in progress is it will be completed at some point during the housing cycle. There's sort of a product or deliverable or an outcome.

But possibly not with continuous.

With continuous, it's just sort of an ongoing will continue through the housing cycle. There's no real endpoint. It will

just The keep

other thing I was wondering about is just in terms of the next step. So let's say that the supervisors accept and approve the report. For next year then, do all the ones that are noted as completed fall off the report for the following year? Do the items fall off?

To commissioner, forward through the chair. So your question is if they Like, in

this year's, it says completed

Yes.

Then we will not see it again on a report other than the data?

In the next year's report, it will be marked still as completed, and new ones that are completed in 2026 will be added to that existing list. So we currently have 58 as completed. So next year's perhaps it will be 65. And there'll be 58 that we already have as completed plus the seven new completed ones in 2026.

Okay.

So it will be an ongoing list that will get higher as time goes on.

Thanks. And also, it's obviously clear a report like this can be a pain to create, but the data, of course, is super helpful. I just wonder, other than it being helpful to plan and review and assess, analyze, is there, what's the next step after this? Does this do you get a grade from the state? Or do you get comments? Or is it one of these things that goes in a cabinet virtual or real?

To Commissioner Ford, through the chair, our next step will be taking it to the Board of Supervisors. And in the meantime, we are going to submit it to the state and provide them our full Excel table that shows all the reporting data and proof that we have gone to the Planning Commission and got that authority. In previous years of the APR working on it, the state has not provided substantial comments and feedback to us post the middle of it. They they have more had a role to make sure our forms are completed correctly and everything is able to be uploaded. But

So no significant feedback. Correct. Okay.

Commissioner Ford, through the chair, I would add that we are starting to see actually the HCD staff look at it with a bit more critical eye than I think they have been years past. You know, there's a lot With this current housing cycle in general, the state is holding jurisdictions' feet to the fire much more than they had in prior housing cycles in terms of as was indicated, we have 25 programs, 99 actions. They are tracking our progress in meeting those, and they are following up with questions if we're not doing a good job of reporting on our progress or if we've missed a target date for one of our items that we said we're gonna do and we hadn't done it. They are tracking that. So so there is not only repercussions for failing to submit the APR timely, but there could be consequences if we aren't making progress in terms of showing how we're following through on the action items that we said we would do and within the time frames we said we'd do them.

So I do think it doesn't just whereas maybe in years past, it would just kind of collect dust on a shelf somewhere or in a computer somewhere, I do think they are they are looking at it with, more more scrutiny these days.

I would imagine so. I think the public is more engaged also. And it doesn't seem like it's in the report, but maybe I missed it. And is there any kind of priority list or or red flag where you just go by the data and keep plugging away at getting things done that you can? Or do you establish, like, a priority set of actions based on the data?

Commissioner Ford, through the chair. The prioritization of our action items was done largely through the adoption of the housing element update because for many of them, we did establish target dates for completion. And those target dates, some were by the 2026 by the 2027 or maybe it was by the end of the housing cycle of 2031. So that has had the effect of establishing some priorities. There's others within there that don't necessarily have a completion date, where then it is left up to us as a jurisdiction in coordination, both our department and other departments who have a role to play, like our community services department in establishing priorities.

Priorities.

Thanks.

Commissioner Cooney? I have one question that has arisen during the discussion, which I find very helpful. We have these long gaps where we don't get to hear from you and you're all plugging away day by day trying to meet the objectives. But what is left out, I think, is the impact on a given neighborhood about the work that's being done and the cycle that's being recognized, what do we say to our friends and neighbors that are concerned that a new housing structure has been granted and from a realistic standpoint, is there anything that people can do? For example, let's say one of the parcels selected is in a high fire area and the neighbors in that high fire area are concerned about adding to the potential fire.

How do those things, those conflicts, get handled by staff?

Commissioner Cooney, through the chair. So this was a lot of the topic of discussions, significant discussion and and scrutiny through the rezone process, if you recall.

Mhmm.

And and selecting the sites for rezone and for development. There was a lot of concern throughout the community, both North County and South Coast, as to the rezone sites and the implications that development of those sites would have on the surrounding neighbors or neighborhoods. We, during that process, took great care to focus where we could to the greatest extent feasible our rezone efforts on infill development. Outside of constrained sites, we yeah, the bulk of the rezone sites were infill sort of within or surrounded by their residential or commercial development. The couple of sites that are a bit more on the fringe, both in the Galita area as well as Carpinteria and then some in the the North County.

Were deemed necessary in order meet our RENA requirements. Development of those sites will continue to be, as applications come in, they'll continue to be analyzed and evaluated to ensure that they meet all the requirements for public health and safety. They don't get a free pass just because they're rezone site from complying with fire department development standards and ensuring sufficient ingress and egress and all those things that people would be concerned about. But as to sort of the bottom line of the housing coming in, that's somewhat predetermined at this point through the rezone process and and through a lot of the state laws that have been imposed on jurisdictions there that identify and sort of have reacted to the housing shortages and housing crisis that most of California finds itself in. So as hard as it is for neighbors and no one necessarily wants to see housing project get developed next door.

There is is the need. And I think you ask any young person trying to find affordable housing in this community whether there's enough housing supply, and the answer will be a resounding no. So I think it's just it doesn't make it easy, but the need is real. And so I hope people can sort of see past some of the challenges and inconveniences that might come with the housing and appreciate that the need is there, and it's important to the long term viability of this community.

Well said, but helpful. We live in neighborhoods where these issues do rise to the surface and it sometimes is not at the time it should be when the property is identified as potentially involved. But they see the construction trucks moving up and down their street and say, What's going on? And then this conflict, I guess, of principles rises to the surface and so it's helpful for us who are involved in the process to be well educated such as today. Thank you.

Okay, I have a couple of questions. First, I'd like to consider your data that you report in terms of achievement of your arena goals. Specifically, let's look at slide six and slide 10. We don't have to, we can pick one or the other. You show your allocation, then you show your achievement of your arena and that's indicated by building permits.

Is that correct? Okay. Now, you show these building permits that have been generated. You also show that there's two twenty six building permits been issued for ADUs. Are they included in that total? Are they outside of the system?

To Chair Read, yes, they would be included in

this I

don't remember dealing with ADUs as a part of the housing element that we worked on in 2024. Were they part of something county approved and encouraged to meet RENA goals, or did they happen independent of the county's housing element efforts?

To Chair read, yes, the ADUs were incorporated as of the housing element process and there are estimates that were put into our capacity to account for ADU projections.

Okay, so county's confident that the ADUs that were built were as a result of our efforts in the housing element? I mean, do you separate things that were building permits that were pulled as a result of county efforts on housing element and building permits that were obtained by private people who did it on their own had nothing to do with our efforts on the housing element. Is there any way of defining those differences? I'm just looking at the tables and the achievement and wondering if we can guarantee that those permits were done, that are used to signify achievement percentages, were a direct result of county's actions on the current housing element, not due to independent action of just citizens out there. And were some of them residual from the prior housing element?

I'm just wondering, would have would they have taken place without our current efforts? And, hey, I know we all spent a lot of sweat and blood on this housing element. Now we're looking at results, how do we know that they're actually a result of this or would have happened anyway?

Mr. Chair, commissioners, with regard to ADUs, so as part of the housing element update, to figure out what would be a reasonable projection of ADU production, We did look at, like, the five year trend. So the five prior years, so this would have been, like, 2018 through to or 2017 through 2022 or so to see sort of what the annual average or what the trends were showing in terms of ADU production. And and we just carried over that that sort of annual production into our housing element forecast. So as was indicated, we've now, at least this past year, we issued permits for many more than we had in prior years or many more than what we had anticipated.

I can't say that that that was due to any particular efforts from the county. I think it's largely just due to the growing attractiveness of ADUs and the the various reasons why private properties end end up proposing them, some for in laws, some for rental income. The state has sort of taken the lead with regard to a lot of the ADU work in terms of removing any as permit many permit barriers as possible. So no, I can't say it's due to the work we've done that we're seeing all the ADUs being permitted. All we But ultimately, all we care about is that they're being permitted, and we can count them towards me or Reno.

We don't necessarily care what their, reasons were for, for doing it.

I'm sorry. I'm just trying to get a view of are those numbers of success we report really due to county's efforts? I come from sales and marketing, supervised a great many salespeople over many years. And when they have high numbers, they'll always take credit whether or not they stumbled into it or it happened by accident. But I'm just trying to figure if we can really validate those numbers and by being able to do that, we can develop more insight into is what we're doing actually effective.

So that's the basis for that. Second item I have, I'm looking at table two in the staff report. One of the items that's in progress says, it's item six, pursue a 100 affordable housing units to meet the needs of farm workers. It's in progress. Any information at all on where that is, how that's going and who's responsible for it? Because it's obviously a tremendous need in the 4th District and significant need in the 3rd and even in parts of the 1st.

And the 5th.

Mr. Chair, commissioners, so that program was part of responsibility of CSD's office in in coordination with with our department. I think it's listed as in progress because it wasn't it it's through the the entire eight year housing cycle. The the goal is a 100 ag employee dwellings. I would say so far, we have not made much progress on that. I can't say why, but we have not seen a lot of farm worker housing coming through other than maybe a few single family type residential development.

Yeah. Well, we deal with that one from time to time,

so let's hope staff and everyone can not let that one fall through the cracks. Commissioner Park? Yes. Probably as Mr. Reed remembers, at the very end of the ag forum I asked a question. I'm sure everybody was groaning. Why is he asking a question? We all want to leave. But it was just to that point that with our ag employee dwelling unit ordinance, it hasn't generated any building permits to actually build under that ordinance. And the question I posed to the panel members was, why?

It seemed like a good idea at the time. And for what it's worth, they gave some very good answers that were very practical and it was just good information to have. And that's the kind of thing we should probably share. I mean, not right now, but it's always useful to know is something going to work or is it not going to work? I'll give an example of something you showed up there, kind of addresses Commissioner Reed's question about ADUs.

One of the programs that you have in progress, and I think it said it was going to be completed right about now, March 2026, was the four ADU plan sets in development. And as probably people know, when you ask contractors, homeowners, okay, what's it like to build these ADUs? They're right, it should be easy to do. And they say, no, no, no, we go in and we gotta get this permit and that permit. It takes forever we just beat it to death.

Well, the state has seen that this is an issue. They've also seen some jurisdictions, LA's one, where they have these pre approved ADU plans. And that's why this is being produced, because state law, as of about a year or two ago, said every county, every jurisdiction has to develop these pre approved ADU plans so you can walk in and say, here's a plan. It's been approved with all architectural, everything. Let's go.

And they even get a shorter review period. This just illustrates that point that is this coming from something the county's doing, the state's doing, would have happened anyway? It's kind of a mixture. And think what you're going to see is your ADU numbers, once you develop these and people see that they're out there, they're going to go up. They're going to go up markedly because it'll be so much easier to do it. And

I would add to that that with regard to the farmworker housing and ag employee dwellings, we do have it. You know, one of our programs, one of our actions is to and and one of the board priorities is to take another look at sort of another crack at our ordinance is to see if there's other ways in which we can remove barriers to to ag housing and further streamlining streamlining it. So that is one effort we'll be working on. And with regard to the preapproved ADUs, one thing we'll be exploring is whether or not that those could be serve a purpose or be used for ag employee housing as well if the circumstances fit. So but, yeah, there's there's no silver bullet.

And and, obviously, since we can only kinda set the table, we we can't force someone to come to the table. We're somewhat limited in terms of our ability to meet some of those targets.

Okay. Just to reflect on I thought Commissioner Ford's fine question is how do you establish priorities for all these various initiatives you have in there? I just I'd like to really ask you and urge you to establish great priority to the farm worker housing element because in North County, Santa Maria, Guadalupe, Alompoc, the the lack of adequate farm workers' housing has really upset the entire housing ladder for the community at large because all of what would formerly have been considered first time buyers' homes and even first step of move up homes are now almost fully occupied by farm worker housing. So so actually having an effective program in increasing the availability of farm worker housing would be a great benefit, not only for the farm workers, for the growers, but for the community at large. So I really urge you to keep the spotlight on that one.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. One other thing I might add is, you know, we recently were successful in getting the rezone sites in the coastal zone approved by the Coastal Commission. In the Carpinteria Valley, there were three properties selected for rezones. And one of the convincing arguments for why it was appropriate to convert agriculturally zoned land and rezone that to residential was for that very issue of farm worker housing.

As everyone is aware, Carpenteria Valley has a large agricultural workforce. High percentage of those workers do travel from out of the area and don't live in the area. And so there was a lot of support for building additional housing in the Carpentaria Valley on those three sites to potentially provide for some additional farm worker housing. And and two of the sites that are currently, that were rezoned from agriculture to residential are owned by an agricultural family. And they do have a a strong desire to make sure that at least some of that housing that gets developed on those sites be available for farm workers.

Thank you. And last question. Okay, I understand the recommendations are to receive and file this, forward it to the board of supervisors. This would be a good one for county council. Does our decision to receive and file it, does it constitute an endorsement of any of the elements or things in this plan? What's driving my question is, it lists page 15 staff report utility scale solar ordinance amendments, which is agendized for our next hearing.

Does So, Chair and commissioners, I'll lean in. Okay. The recommended action is just to receive and file. So you're not taking any individual action on anything in the report. The action is just to say that we received this, we've heard it, and that's the end of that.

Okay. I just to clarify that. So thank you very much.

Indicating that, yes, you received it, and you're directing staff to take it to the board and file it as appropriately.

Thank you for the clarification. With that, do you have any public comment?

Seeing no one left in the audience and no attendees online, I believe it is safe to say we have no public comment on this item.

How about comments, deliberations, questions from commissioners? Commissioner Cooney. Just observing our process today, there is a difference between an action on a permit that's being sought versus this which is working of our system and our staff. And I think it would be appropriate to have a motion that we have received it and it should proceed normally to the board. Is that a motion? That's a motion.

Okay. Do we have a second?

I can second that.

Commissioner Ford seconds.

So, just to clarify, it's okay to reference staff recommendation that's on

the screen.

That And

two and three.

If Is that

the, motion maker and

second can agree to that.

Of your motion, Commissioner Cooney?

Yes, it is. Thank you.

Okay. So, a vote. Could we do a roll call?

Absolutely. Commissioner Cooney. Aye. Commissioner Ford. Aye. Commissioner Park. Aye. Commissioner Martinez.

Aye. Chair

Reid. Aye. Motion passes five to zero.

Thank you.

So we are adjourned. Thank you.