Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the March 25th hearing of the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission. Please join us as we begin with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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. Okay. Mr. Vilobos, will you please make the TV coverage announcement?

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning to the commission, everyone. Uh, planning commission hearings are televised live on county Santa Barbara television CSBTV channel 20 at 9:00 a.m. in the south coast law, Sanz Valley, Samria, and Orca areas. Rebroadcast of planning commission hearings are on Fridays at 5:00 p.m. on CSPTV 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, please? Uh, Commissioner Cooney here. Commissioner Ford here. Commissioner Park here. Uh, and Chair Reid here and Commissioner Martinez will be joining us in just a couple of minutes. Okay. Could we uh please have the projection report, Mr. Wilson?

Good morning, chair and commissioners. Um, I'll begin with the agenda status report if that's okay, Mr. Chair. Yeah. And then we'll move into the projection report.

On our standard agenda today, we have two items. The first item is the land use permit and conditions permit for the Chick-fil-A at in the eastern Galia Valley community area. And then we have the Rose comprehensive plan amendment and zoning map update or zoning map amendment. That's number two on the agenda. And staff and the applicants are ready on both those items today for the standard agenda. I'll move the projection report. Mr. here. Our next scheduled meeting was going to be April 1st, but we canceled that at a prior meeting, so we will not be meeting next week. Um, our next hearing after that will be on April 8th, and that will be in Santa Maria. The item projected for that agenda date is the phase one of the oil and gas prohibition ordinance amendments. Again, that'll be in Santa Maria on April 8th. Following the April 8th hearing, we will return to Santa Barbara on April 29th for two items. Um a development plan in the Simland area and then a the Los Alamos Investments housing development project and that's on April 29th and that will be here in Santa Barbara. And then in May 6, we'll be here in Santa Barbara again for the continued item of that utility scale solar amendment project. on May 13th, there are no items projected at this time. And then moving further down the projection report into May, May 27th, we have two items projected and that will be here in Santa Barbara. Um there's a tenative map and then the Stanford Farms trust appeal of the Cherald partial map and there is no items projected in June at this time. So that concludes the protection report, Mr. Chair.

Okay. Well, thank you. And with respect to the May 13th hearing, I'm going to have to be out of the area and will not be available. Uh so I would like uh us to consider cancelling that hearing. Uh do we any comments from commissioners? So could we have a motion to council? So moved. Second. Second. All in favor? I

thank you. Okay, so now public comment. This brings us to general public comment. This is for public comment to allow testimony or comment on any items not on today's agenda. So, at this time, do we have any uh persons uh wishing to make public comment? either in person or online. Uh seeing no one rise. Um I see no hands raised uh from our uh Zoom attendees.

Okay. So that will conclude general public comment uh for this hearing. Next, planning commissionersformational reports. uh any reports from individual commissioners on interest items of interest such as planning issues, seminars, meetings, or literature. Commissioner Park, I knew we could count on you.

Well, good. I like to be reliable. um we report on courses and things we've taken and and nowadays that's not just going to a seminar somewhere a boondoggle type thing. It's what we might watch on our television sets as part of our our video education. So I've been taking mandatory continual continuing legal education courses on planning to keep my bar license active. took two last week that I thought I'll never need these, but I' i've just got to kill two hours to finish it off. And one was on section 15183 and one was on VMTs. And I guess they are more relevant than I thought. Uh but the VMT ones in a general sense had a fascinating idea. Uh a speaker from the Western Riverside Council of Governments. um they have noticed like all of us that VMTs are confusing to figure out that u many projects get them just because they have traffic and it's hard to figure out how to mitigate VMTs this is under SQUA um uh within a project so this new program they have down at WR COG is that uh if you are generating VMTs, you come to them, they act like a broker or a banker, and they have projects that reduce VMTs. So, you help fund those projects, and that's how you mitigate your VMTS. Um, that's kind of interesting. You you might think, well, okay, if I've got VMTs to deal with, uh, and I help fund a a bicycle path, that's one way of reducing VMnts. But one of their uh programs for reducing VMTS is affordable housing because they find

that uh some affordable housing projects because they concentrate um housing and because they put them in urban areas and because it allows people that would otherwise commute hours and hours to get to work uh that it does reduce VMTs. And it struck me that here in Santa Barbara County, and I always complain about this, is that we don't have any funding for moderate income housing. We do for low-income housing, but not for moderate. And it's a danger to all of us because at some point, policemen, fire, uh firemen, uh teachers, nurses, etc. will not be able to live in Santa Barbara County. And what will it be like to live here without them? uh and we generate a lot of EMTs as they as they come from all directions and this is a potential source of funding for uh uh moderate income housing coming out of EMT mitigation. On one of my long non Brown Act horseback rides with Commissioner I mean Supervisor Hartman yesterday we talked about this. She's quite excited and I'm looking at you, director plan, because she wants you and I to put together a little talk on this. Uh, and and um so let's let's chat a little bit after this. Um, so I I think that's exciting. I hope it made sense to at least one or two people in the room. Okay, thank you. Uh, now we go to the minutes. Uh we're we're going to consider approval for the minutes of March 11th. Uh with

staff submitted changes to item one. Have you all reviewed these corrections to item one? Yes, Mr. Chair. Mr. Cooney, I mean Commissioner Cooney, I will uh move approval of the minutes as corrected. We have a second. Yes. Second. Commissioner Ford seconded. All in favor of approving the minutes of the March 11th hearing. I I

I which brings us to the director's report. So, Miss Plowman, proceed, please. Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the commission.

Good to see you back. Nice to see all of you. Um, I will work with Commissioner Park on this idea. I think it's a very interesting idea. It's true that we have virtually no source of funds for supporting moderate income housing and we're always looking for ways to try and stimulate it. In fact, we have programs in our housing element that um direct the department to investigate opportunities to um promote and support moderate housing. So, yeah, I'm happy to meet to discuss that and I've already talked to my staff about researching it. Uh the Riverside program, um I don't have much to report on board items because there haven't been any board actions since we last met. But what I can talk to you about is what's coming up at the board. Um, we have our three-year work program for the long range planning division at the board on the 7th of April. As part of the budget constraints that the county is facing, all departments were asked to make some adjustments to their budgets and tighten the belt a bit. And one of the things that we have proposed to reduce our general fund reliance is to keep two vacant positions in the long range planning division. Um we are also asking through the budget process for the restoration of one of those positions. that in our work program, we explain to the board what type of work can be accomplished with the two lost positions and one lost position. So, they get to see the difference if they restore one of our positions. Um, currently we have 15 full-time employees in that division. We're hoping to have 14 and we may end

up with 13. And what that does is uh simply slows the work that we have um to accomplish and we have a number of state mandates that we're required to complete and then also board directed items which are really important to them. So that's on the 7th. We won't know about the the restoration of the position um until the budget is completed, but we will initiate that discussion with them on um the 13th of April when we have budget workshops. So, the board's budget workshops run the week of the 13th. Um and the planning and development department is up on Monday the 13th. And so if you're interested in monitoring that that it would be probably late morning that the department would be presenting um in the workshop. Uh, I also wanted to let you know that as part of the budget workshops, the CEO is asked uh Chris Chwin who's the um head of our um IT department to present along with myself and Chris Snedden on the progress with Asella which is our online permitting system. Both of our departments have um fully in incorporated a cella into our systems in terms of online services. Uh we also have the fire department that has a cella and environmental health environmental health has aella. Um and of course the CEO's office has it for cannabis. So if you're interested in that, that's going to be on the 15th of April. We'll be participating in that presentation. Um, we have a local preference program going to the board on the 21st of April and we're going along with uh community services department, their

housing division because we're taking to the board a concept of creating local preference guidelines for capital A affordable housing that would be included in the rules and regulations that our county HCD uh implements with these um affordable projects. uh that would got that would basically set it up so that people who were living and um were working in Santa Barbara like the south coast but living in the north coast would sort of had the highest priority so we could try and get people to live and work in the same vicinity and that is a long-term objective for a lot of reasons but one of them is VMT as as Mr. Park suggested earlier today. Um, and then for market rate, it's trickier. We all would very much like to make sure that all the new housing that gets built as part of our housing element on the south coast goes to people that are working here, right? So that we can house our community. Um there are laws in place that prevent any kind of potential discrimination and so we have to be very careful how we navigate this. But the concept that we have developed is um and it doesn't have a a lot of teeth but we think it's the best we can do and that is um it's a requirement for a marketing plan that shows how these developers are going to be targeting the locals early in the process. and all of the publications that they're going to be listing their developments in, the businesses they contact, the work they do with the chamber. Uh, and so that is how we're trying to get at it and that's what's going to be going to the board on the 21st. Um, and we hope that it does make a

difference. Most of the developers will tell you that they prefer having locals because they're more stable people who are working in the community. Um and so we're we're suggesting to them also in our program that when all else is created equal you know in terms of two candidates please prioritize the local person so that we can

yeah I if I might I know you're kind of emphasizing south coast in terms of the market rate but a tremendous need in the north county uh Santaia Orchid Hills areas uh because we're looking at one big new development. Now, we've had others in the past and uh if there could be some local preference, that would be great since most of them seem to be uh it in a large proportion uh purchased by people selling highly appreciated homes uh in Southern California and moving up, leaving uh many locals uh out of the loop. So, anything that could be done for the north county would be deeply appreciated.

I I appreciate those comments and I think that'll be an issue that the board will discuss whether they want to expand it beyond the south coast. Yeah, I know I'm not agendaized for this. So, the council's looking over at me. Commissioner Park, do you have a question?

Um, one of the things that I remember from the housing element I thought was uh really a nice piece were the various programs. is it 25 programs or something like that in the housing and one of them was um employee housing for all employers on site you know not just a dwellings and I think that that is an important workaround on this local preference because if we require a large employer as a condition of something they want to do to provide employee housing and and they basically uh uh buy a piece of it that some developer is building as for their employees. I think that gets around the local preference constitutional issues and is a also a good way to to fund.

Yeah, I uh Commissioner Park, that's an excellent point. We do have a partic we do have one project on the south coast where a local uh company is going to be buying I think it's around 150 units and then selling them at a subsidized price to their uh employees. It's the way they they can attract and retain critical staff.

And I do agree with uh Commissioner Reid that it's it's very much a North uh North County issue because I I I deal with folks on on when I'm volunteering on seniors uh that that discuss those housing issues and it's exactly as he's described it. And also when we talk to employers up there about expansion and in providing more jobs in the north county other than than some a jobs uh they all say the same thing. I can't really get the workforce I need because there isn't the housing housing. Yeah. Yeah. The problem is spreading. Um and then uh the other thing I Oh,

Commissioner question is there. Sorry. Commissioner Ford, please.

Thanks. Uh this is a of deep importance to me, but I'm wondering in your definition of locals, does it just include human beings over 18 years old who have a job here or do young people who go to schools here uh and have programs that um they can only get for example in a certain area, Santa Barbara for example, do they qualify as a local? Well, it's uh it's an interesting question. I I would have to look at it. We have it's it's tiered, right? So, there's the higher priority people that are like actually have a job and a profession and they're working in the community and then it then, you know, you go down from there. You know, you might be um the next the next category I think is somebody who is has a job offer here. they're going to be moving to the area, that kind of thing. So, we haven't really focused on students. Uh students have been an issue, kind of a problem actually, uh from UCSB taking up a lot of the housing in the Galita area. So, our primary f focus is really more on our local employees.

Okay. Yeah.

Thanks. Um and then so the the on the um 7th of May we are going to be going to the board with a briefing and this is going to be an item that will come to the PC eventually but it is uh making sure that we are identifying the right areas where we want to create new ministerial permits. And this has been a a long-term goal of the board of supervisor to simplify our permitting process. Right now we are an anomaly. Uh most jurisdictions allow a lot of different types of development with truly ministerial permits like for a single family home so that you don't do noticing and appeals and all of those things. So we are going to be moving in that direction per the board direction and that is a package that will come before the planning commission but uh Mr. Tuttle and his team are going to bring forward the concepts that we're looking at on May 7th so we make sure that we're going in the right direction before we develop the complete package. Um so if you're interested in that I would pay attention to that hearing.

What date is that? The 7th of May. And that's all I have. That'll be very interesting to watch. Hopefully that will happen and not create a feeding frenzy for appellent lawyers. Uh, one last thing since we're here. We have a workshop tonight in Santa Maria regarding a new development. Do we want to make an announcement on that? Sure. There is a scoping hearing for the Solomon Hills project. It's a scoping hearing for the environmental impact report and it's going to be in the hearing room at the Beravia government center. That is correct. Yeah. What time? 5:30.

5:30. An item there's been a great deal of interest on, so I know it's been published, but if anybody's watching this uh who hadn't known thus far, might be a good way to spend a a bit of time this evening. Thank you for reminding me of that. Appreciate it. You're welcome. So, do we have Brown Act issues if we attend? If two of you attend, you won't have Brown Act issues, but Yeah, I'm attending. Yeah. We don't ask questions at this either, though, do we? Vincent, are you going? Excuse me. Is it tonight? Yeah, tonight. All right.

Okay. Just one question. At this scoping hearing, are we allowed to ask questions? Are we only there to observe? Chair and commissioners, my recommendation would be to observe only. This item um at some point is projected to come before this body. So, I'd recommend not engaging or asking any questions observe only if you decide to attend. Okay. Thank you. If I could have a quick question, is this something that is available by YouTube, Zoom, or anything of the sort? Yes. From the county planning site or Yes. Yeah. Okay. I think um but let me double check. I don't think there's c the TV but I think but it will be recorded. It's recorded and I think people can attend by

but it won't be live. In other words, don't try and see it tonight. It just it'll be come afterwards. It won't be on CSBTV but people can participate by Zoom. Okay. If they want to provide comment or just observe. Okay. And that information is on our site. Okay. Thank you. Because I mean that's why I'm figuring I'll be working and I'll be looking from Zoom. Thanks. Okay. So, are you finished? I'm done. Wrapped up. Okay. So, Mr. Vilovos, could you please read the first item into the record?

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh the following item is uh on the following is a hearing on the request of Turnpike Quad's property owner to consider uh the following case numbers 22 CUP7 and as well as 26 LUP 53 and to determine that the that no additional environmental review is required for the project pursuant to section 15183 of the state guidelines the implementation of the California Environmental Quality Act. So staff are we ready to proceed? Please do. Um, M, excuse me, exparte. Sorry. Yeah, exactly. U, shall I Commissioner Cooney, shall I, uh, proceed with exparte?

Yes.

Um, I I had four meetings I'd like to report. Um, one was on March 16th, uh, a Zoom meeting and, uh, there were two people, uh, from the Brownstein firm, Sarah Bronstad and Beth Collins. Um, I had a separate Zoom meeting on the 23rd with Mario Gorman. And finally on the 6th of March, um I had a conversation with a neighbor of the project, uh who is Kathy Olri. Well, I'll go right now. I had uh last Thursday a site visit uh with Brian Robinson, Beth Collins, and Sarah Bronstat. Commissioner Ford, thank you. I also have met with Beth Collins, Brian Robinson, Sarah Bronstat, and two community members, Mary uh Mario Gorman and Lisa Kenyon.

Commissioner Park. Um, I met with uh Commissioner Ford and Sarah Bronstat and Beth Collins and Brian Robinson at the site a couple of weeks ago. I think it was uh met at Starbucks with Mario Gorman uh this week. Had a conversation at a sort of a social gathering with uh John Price and his son Jason Price. Um, uh, John basically owns the project next door and Jason's office is above Starbucks. And if I've left anybody out, I apologize. Okay, so now please proceed here. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Willow Brown. I will be presenting the Chick-fil-A at Caya Rial project. The property outlined in blue on this map is located at 4765 Caya Rial in the Eastern Galita Valley Community Plan Area Second Supervisorial District. The property is a 1.42 acre lot zoned retail commercial. Access is provided off of Caya Rial. Surrounding uses consist of Highway 101 to the south, Caya Rial and commercial development including the Ramato Hotel to the north, residential development and vacant land to the east, and commercial development including the existing Starbucks drive-thru to the west. The project is a request for a land use permit to allow for the demolition of the existing restaurant on site and construction of a new 2,647 ft quickservice restaurant. The project also includes a conditional use permit to allow for a dual lane drive-thru with two covered canopy areas. The project is a commercial use on a commercially zoned

lot which has been developed with the restaurant use for over 50 years. Restaurants are a permitted use in the retail commercial zone and the conditional use permit is solely required for the drive-through use. This is a photo simulation of the project as viewed from Caya Royale. This is the proposed site plan. The project site will be accessed from one driveway off Ka Ral in the northeast corner of the project site. The project also includes access improvements including restriping the eastbound approach along Ka Ral to provide an exclusive eastbound right turn lane both for the project site and for the existing Starbucks drive-thru to the west. Site access was reviewed and approved by the fire department and county public works transportation. This slide shows elevations of the proposed restaurant. The proposed restaurant will have a maximum height of 22 feet 4 and 3/4 in, which is significantly under the 35 ft zone district height limit and is similar in height to the existing restaurant on site to be demolished. As previously stated, the project is for a restaurant which is a permitted use in the retail commercial zone on a site that has been developed with a restaurant use for over 50 years. The drive-thru is an allowed use in the zone with approval of a conditional use permit. As outlined in the staff report, staff analyzed consistency with impacts to areas such as visual resources, traffic and circulation, air quality, hazardous materials, and noise and found that the project is consistent with all applicable comprehensive plan policies. The project also complies with all LUDC LUDC standards as it is consistent with the purpose of the retail commercial district, meet setbacks, exceeds parking requirements, and complies with all standards related to drive-through facilities. The project is exempt from SQA pursuant to SQA guidelines section 15183.

SQA guidelines section 15183 is applicable to the project because the project is for a commercial use on a commercially zoned site which was anticipated by the Eastern Galita Valley Community Plan EIR. All impacts anticipated from the project can be mitigated by Eastern Galita Valley Community Plan policies and standard conditions. Although the project is exempt from further environmental review, the 15183 exemption still allows for analysis of issue areas to determine if there is a possibility for a more significant impact than anticipated by the EIR. The 15183 analysis discuss several issue areas, including impacts to traffic and air quality. The current metric the county uses to evaluate a project's transportation impacts under SQA is vehicle miles traveled or VMT. The county presumes that projects meeting the VMT screening criteria in the county's environmental thresholds and guidelines manual would have less than significant impacts to transportation and would not require further VMT analysis. The project is considered a locally serving retail project and is below the threshold of 50,000 square ft as shown in this table and is therefore screened out of VMT analysis. However, the traffic study submitted for the project also analyzed traffic and circulation impacts based on level of service and queuing which I will now summarize. The traffic study was peer-reviewed and reviewed by public works transportation and found to meet county requirements. The Eastern Galita Valley Community Plan contains policies regarding maintaining a minimum level of service for roadways and intersections in the community plan area and considers a level of service standard C acceptable. Impacts from the project to level of service were analyzed for the intersections and roadways in the vicinity of the project site. The analysis confirmed that the intersections and roadways will still operate at a minimum level of service standard C with implementation of the

project and the project will not have a significant impact to level of service. The project will not result in queuing onto the roadway and will not interfere with circulation on site. The project anticipates a maximum queue in the drive-thru of 31 vehicles. The queue can be accommodated entirely within the drive-through lanes which have a maximum capacity of 32 vehicles as shown on this site plan. With regards to air quality, short-term and long-term impacts from the project were reviewed. The main proponent of long-term air quality impacts is mobile emissions. An air quality technical me memorandum was submitted for the project analyzing air quality impacts and impacts from mobile emissions were estimated based on the anticipated vehicle trips as outlined in the traffic study. Under the most conservative approach, which did not take into account that some trips are passed by trips and did not reduce trips from the pre from the previous restaurant use on site, the emissions were determined not to exceed county thresholds or result in a significant air quality impact. The air quality memorandum was reviewed and approved by the air pollution control district. In addition to the air quality impacts reviewed under SQA, the LUDC requires that projects proposing drive-through facilities show that the project will not have a greater air quality impact than the same use without the drive-thru. The air quality memo shows that the cars idling in the drive-thru would give off less emissions than cars parking and restarting for walk-in service. This table shows the anticipated emissions for the drive-thru compared to the same number of walking customers at the maximum anticipated queue of 31 vehicles. The project is consistent with the LUDC requirement as the driveth through facility will have a lesser air quality impact than if the restaurant only provided walk-in service.

In summary, the project is consistent with all applicable policies of the comprehensive plan, including the Eastern Galita Valley Community Plan. The project is consistent with all standards in the LUDC, including standards related to drive-through facilities, and the project will not result in a significant environmental impact. Staff recommends that your commission make required findings for approval of the project, determine the project is exempt pursuant to SQA guidelines section 15183, and approve the project subject to the conditions of approval. This concludes staff's presentation. Staff and the applicant are available for any questions. We also have Will Robertson from Public Works Transportation online to answer any questions related to transportation review. All right, questions from commissioners. Commissioner Ford,

thanks. Um, I appreciate, greatly appreciate all the reports from both sides. Super comprehensive. Just wondering about uh the traffic report. Who actually enforces the jams that we have all seen or experienced, talked about or heard about? the ones right in the middle of the uh intersection. Um I'm sorry, Commissioner Ford. The traffic jams like cars lined up in the street. Will Robertson, are you on if are you able to answer that question for us?

Mr. Chair, Commissioner Ford, Will Robertson, uh county transportation staff. So just for clarity when you're asking who enforces the did you say backups or congestion are you meaning from the existing land uses or

just in general? Um I mean I don't I don't know about other existing land uses that have documented um traffic jams like this particular one. So who enforces it? So, the reason I ask is because there's going to be a lot of discussion about the Starbucks to the west and the queuing that occurs with that Starbucks. Um, technically the enforcement arm would be the highway patrol. Okay.

And then it would be dependent on whether or not the vehicles are actually violating the vehicle code. So it is just because vehicles back out onto a roadway is not necessarily a violation of the vehicle codes. So um as a lot of people are aware enforcement of something like that in the city of Santa Barbara with the Chick-fil-A there was um quite nerve-wracking because nobody quite knew what to do. Uh so I I I'm going to go back to my statement. the the official enforcement arm would be the highway patrol, but depending on conditions of approval of the project, you know, it it could be planning and development or uh transportation staff. Thanks.

Is that all? Okay, Commissioner Martinez.

Yes. Good morning. Um my question is in regards to um your slide number eight in regards to these calculations are does the does the traffic study or whoever does these things do they just use an accepted general standard in other words this we got a small project so therefore we plug in the number for 110 trips or fewer trips a day is that the way it's worked or is there a look at the reality? And the reason I'm asking this question is because I mean we know I mean we just can't ignore the reality of when you drive by Chick-fil-A. I mean it's going to have way more cars than I hate to say than Carl's Jr. or even McDonald's sometimes, but I I think their their best anal or comparison is to innown. Um so that's why I'm asking this question. Is this just an accepted standard that says, "Okay, you're 50, you're so many square feet, the lot's this much, this is the number that gets plugged in." Is that what happens or do we consider other factors?

Um, Mr. Chair, Commissioner Martinez, the um VMT screening criteria from our um thresholds and guidelines manual. This is considered locally serving retail. So, the threshold for VMT specifically is 50,000 square ft. Um but the project was also analyzed based on level of service impacts for the surrounding roadways and inter intersections as well as um a queueing analysis done to ensure that cars would not be backing into the roadway. Okay. That that went right over my head. So So when you when you So this 110 is this what we're saying is 110 trips or fewer per day per for this site.

Um Mr. Chair Commissioner Martinez, the sorry, the small projects row is not applicable to this project. That was just um also in the table, but this is only related to the locally serving retail um category. And um yes, for specifically for um SQA like vehicle miles traveled, that type of transportation review, um we do screen it out based on the square footage. So in this instance um can you tell me how many doing the traffic analysis how many trips were anticipated or is forecasted for the site which obviously is going to be Monday through Saturday since they're not open Sundays. Do do we arrive at a forecasted number for that?

Mr. Chair, Commissioner Martinez, um I believe the vehicle trips estimated um was 971 okay trips per day. Um and that reduced some trips based on um pass by trips. So just people passing by and stopping out of convenience. Um but did not reduce based on the existing IHOP.

Okay. Commissioner Martinez, if I could just add something to staff's comments. I think it's important to understand that this is a SQA threshold um that triggers a certain level of mitigation required but it doesn't mean that we it a project is under that threshold and we don't study it like this had additional traffic analysis even though it came in under this threshold. Okay. And and because that's where I was looking in regards to let me get to the slide here. is my nifty um an odor abatement plan on number 11 proposed in compliance with what is an odor abatement plan for a car.

Mr. Chair, Commissioner Martinez, um there's an Eastern Galita Valley Community Plan policy um requiring odor abatement plans for um any project that could produce odor, including fast food restaurants. And so the applicant submitted, I believe it was attachment F to the staff report, but I would have to double check that um an odor abatement plan. So, they have a contact um for odor complaints and um processes to look at the existing equipment that they're proposing um for like it's like hoods when they're cooking the chicken and um yeah, it's just to comply with the policy and that was reviewed by the air pollution control district and found to be adequate.

Okay. So, so, and the reason I asked this because I imagine some people just from the from the general public may say, well, an odor abatement plan has to do with the carts. It doesn't have to do with the car. It has to do with the product being processed or cooked there on site and the That's correct. Okay. Thank you,

Commissioner Park. Oh, thank you. I I want to echo uh I believe it was Commissioner Ford's comments that uh it's a good staff report. It's a very complicated matter to to put in writing and discuss. Um and I I want to also refer to your section 15183 analysis and I I hope everybody read that. it's it's sort of at the bottom of the page when you're looking online and and that's what is it 20 pages or something like that and it's it's even more complicated and sophisticated to get to. So kudos to you for that. And also I want to thank you for the time you spent with me over the telephone going through these issues because that's very helpful for me and I think it's it's good for everybody. I I'd point out to everyone we we noticed Miss Brown and I as we're discussing this that of course we have to be referring to the traffic study that the applicant submitted and to their air pollution study, but they weren't even part of the public record. I had no access to them, neither anybody in the public. And so, uh, after we got off the phone, Miss Brown put them in the public record and they're all there. So, everybody's had them, you know, from last week to to look at. Uh, I have a few questions that that relate to traffic and and things like that. Uh, the first thing is let me ask you to explain to everyone the changes to the right-hand turn lane that will serve both uh Starbucks and uh and Chick-fil-A because it that seems important to me. Um, is it possible to put slide 10 up on the screen? Um,

yes. Uh, Will Robertson may have additional information on this as well, but um, currently there is not, if you notice the right-hand turn that turns into the Starbucks site and then further down onto the entrance for Chick-fil-A. um that doesn't currently exist. Um they're proposing to implement that so that cars turning right and not wanting to go to Starbucks or Chick-fil-A can just keep going straight um and turn directly into that other lane. And there's now that um bike lane in between the right-hand turn lane and the through lane. Um so that cars turning into Starbucks or Chick-fil-A would not have to turn in front of the bike riders. Um but if Will Robertson is wanting to expand on that. Um

Mr. Chair, Commissioner Park. So, the Chick-fil-A team actually um was really nice and listened to public works in the county as far as the operational issues that uh occasionally occur with the the Starbucks project to the to the west. And what we came up with was since there is only one travel lane that goes through the intersection from the in and outside, we decided that we would just drop the number two lane, the lane closest to Starbucks, and make that just a right into the project, the Starbucks project. What that does is it allows us to push the bike lane out away from the curb, which gives better visibility for the cyclists. It also allows us to eliminate the merge that currently happens right after the Starbucks driveway heading east. And the merge was problematic because it's just another decision point for drivers to make as well as navigating the queue that um may occur at the Starbucks as well as conflicting with the original proposed driveway second driveway that Starbucks was I mean I'm sorry Chick-fil-A was going to have um on their western edge of their property. So this allows us now to have one seamless lane. It allows us to create a right turn pocket dedicated direct uh exclusively for the Starbucks uh project. It allows a dedicated right turn pocket uh dedicated solely to the Chick-fil-A building and it should help um again with the visibility of the cyclists in the area providing a safer uh path of travel. So all in all, transportation staff is really happy with the proposed changes and um this is the striping changes are fully supported.

Thank you, Mr. Robertson. I think that that that helps a lot. Uh I I now like to turn to u uh our our zoning standards and one that's particularly important and I'd like to ask you to go to page 21 of your staff report, Miss Brown. Um, preliminarily, uh, Commissioner Ford and I had a really good site visit. We walked the site, looked at plans, and, uh, uh, Ms. Collins was, uh, very candid with us in pointing out that, uh, we would essentially need to make a finding that's embodied there in section 3542130 of the LUDC. that's in your staff report to the effect that uh the drive-thru has to uh well, no, I've got that wrong. The drive-thru facility shall have no greater adverse impact upon air quality than the same use without the drive-thru facility. Uh and that's why we thought that the uh air pollution report was so important because it because it deals with it and it needed to be in in in the record. Um, but when I look at the uh findings, I don't see any finding that refers to this. The the most I see that might refer to it is that the project uh meets the the the standards of review required for zoning, but there's nothing more specific. I I I would think we should have a specific finding in there, should we not? And even if you think we shouldn't, can we can we at least address whether it would hurt anything? There' be anything wrong with it?

Yeah, that is fine. I think it's uh Commissioner Park, we're happy to add language specific that is written out. This is a standard, a development standard, which doesn't necessarily equate to a direct finding, but a cup is so broad that we can easily work in this language. um in terms of compatibility or or one of those findings, I think it is appropriate to roll that in there. Yeah, I I I think it is because it it it goes to the very core of this case. Sure. And uh and you know, the fact that it's a development standard, that means it it it survives as a standard all throughout the life of the project. Right.

Correct. So if if 12 years from now somebody comes and says, "Hey, you don't you don't meet this development standard because for some reason we can demonstrate that uh there's there's a uh more pollution than would otherwise occur then that that could cause a reexamination of the cup." That would Yeah, that could be an issue, Commissioner. Yeah, that's a kind of a brutal section there. Okay.

Okay. Now, the um I think it's something we're going to have to talk about is is is is do we have evidence that's convincing that that that this does not cause more pollution? But I think that's what what the applicant will get into. Let me turn to the the um to VMTS VMT analysis sequent analysis that relates to this same issue of of of possible pollution but it's a whole different subject right

um Mr. Commissioner Park. Yes, the air quality um does take into account mobile emissions, but uh that is separate from ve vehicles vehicle miles traveled. Yes. So even if we don't uh uh have to do environmental analysis here and and we'll get to that in a moment, we still have to meet this development standard that there be no additional pollution over what would happen if you didn't have a drive-thru. That's correct.

Right. So if if if we determine as you did that the this doesn't meet the screening threshold and we don't need environmental analysis doesn't mean we ignore this issue. We ignore it as it's posed here. Well let's go to uh your slide. I think it was number eight. I think that's the one that had the screening thresholds. Yeah. Oops. Was it eight? Yeah, there it is. The one that says locally serving retail. Um and and we know that locally serving retail under the OPR guidelines and in in in this law in general uh that that's just generally presumed to have local impacts and and and no need to an analyze. But if it's regional and it's presumed to be regional if it's larger than 50,000 square feet, that's when you analyze it. Um, you and I discussed at length what does a 50,000 square feet measure? Does it measure the whole project? You know, all the driveways and things that are needed here or is it just the building? And uh uh I I think you were going to go back and talk with the rest of the department and and find out what the position is. So, what is the department's position here? Does 50,000 square feet include the whole site which is 61,000 feet or is it just the building?

Mr. Chair, Commissioner Park, it is just the building square footage. Okay. And Mr. Robertson, are you still on the line? Maybe not. Yes. Yes. Mr. Chair, Commissioner Park. Yes, I am. Yeah. Can you weigh in? Is is is that your understanding as well about that that the 50,000 square feet includes just the building and not the u uh the whole project or I don't know if that's a subject that you you deal with. So it it's it's going to be up to P&D. It's their policies, but if we were talking about transportation impacts, we only look at the gross leasable area of the project, not the not the overall site

I'm I'm going to add in something here. Uh I I spent quite a few hours researching this to find if a definition and uh and I I looked everywhere and and I couldn't find one. I mean I looked at our own uh screening guidelines which basically follow the OPR ones. I I would note that if um if you go to the OPR technical guide and uh in a way that's we have access to that um on uh um I looked this up on August 12, 2020. That's when we had our hearing to adopt the new VMT guidelines to replace the uh level of service guidelines. And there's a lot of discussion of these thresholds and what they mean and why they're there. And then the the OPR guidelines, OPR is the Office of Public Research. It's it's the governor's office. Um there's no clear answer, but in the OPR guidelines, it it refers to an example for this particular screening standard and it refers to a 50,000 ft store. And so that makes you think, well, they're referring to a building, and we know that there's probably not a 50,000 square foot uh building that's part of a drive-thru restaurant in the world. Uh but there are 50,000 square foot stores. It like a Costco or a Home Depot and so forth. So, uh, you know, if this is the policy of the of the, uh, or this is the understanding of PND and how it's been practiced in the past, uh, so be it.

Commissioners, yes, we agree with that. And I think one other piece of evidence I'd like to throw in there is uh well I verified with W Robinson yesterday that the IT manual for trip generation that they use to count trips um also is square footage um not the size of the site. So it's square footage of the building. I I frankly think with the the the lack of clarity here that that the law has, it leaves sort of a hole in understanding because it would mean that you'll never analyze a a drive-thru for VMTS which seems anomalous. Um but we'll talk about that later. I have I have some suggestions but but here I think it's important takeaway is even if we don't have VMT analysis here because it doesn't meet the screening threshold we still have that development standard to address in the in the LUDC by the way I know we've had other projects we've heard about the In-N-Out we know that there was the initial approval of the Starbucks project and then didn't we do something to modify the Starbucks one a few years ago. I can't seem to find it, but I thought there was a expansion or a change in the drive-thru that we addressed. It was part of a approval of a of a new building use, like an office use instead of the little restaurant that used to be in that building, and it came before us a few years ago.

That is ringing a bell. There was an amendment to the DVP to change um one of the suites from an office to a cafe or something like that. So in this this this um this development standard uh in the LUDC, did we have to make a determination under that for that Starbucks amendment a few years ago for the Are you talking about the drive-thru? Um yeah, when the original Starbucks went in, I would assume that hopefully the drive-thru standard was part of that analysis. Do you do you know?

Yep. I I can't find anything about it. And and I'm curious because we were basically asked to make that that finding. And we even go back to uh 2016 there was some controversy over when an orchid was a Starbucks. Is is is that anything that anyone can can give us information on in in when they address the same question? Or maybe it's never in the staff report. Nobody thinks about it. They never talk about it. I don't know. Okay, I'm done. Thanks. Well, I will I have a few now. First, I appreciate Commissioner Park's question about uh the findings because I had a similar com, you know, a comment during the business that we'd be expected to find that it reduced uh emissions or VMTS. I could likewise not find it in the findings. So I appreciate the clarification. Uh first question. Uh I want to look at your slide, the traffic and circulation slide. That's must be 10. Okay. If we look at that slide, uh if we look at where the driveway is placed, the entry and exit driveway is placed for this. Uh when you look at the new the right hand turn lane turns right goes over to touch to be near the curb where that that air 90° arrow is. The first one you have two 90 degree arrows at the beginning of that the right hand and then the second one is at the beginning

of the driveway. What's the approximate distance between those two? Do we do you have an idea a measurement? Um chair Reed, sorry. You're saying from the end of the right turn lane to Yeah, you have those two 90° arrows that go to the right in the right hand lane. And the second one turn is just uh where the driveway is for the proposed chick. I just wonder how many cars would fit there. How long that is? Is that 100 ft? Um Chair Reed, I believe it is approximately 150 ft, but the applicant will verify.

Okay. Okay. Okay. And then also I'm interested in the distance between that driveway and the beginning of the queue. Uh because that would also to me uh be a place where uh cars could back up in addition to the queue. So they'd be waiting on site rather than in the road. So we go from 32 to maybe in the 50s. So I I my reason for that is just to consider its impact on reducing the surge in traffic and the prospect that would back up out into the street. Okay. Secondly, uh has any analysis been made as to what the peak traffic timing is? What's what's the business peak for Starbucks? When's the peak traffic occur at Starbucks? just in the morning hours all day long or three times a day. I would expect just in the morning. Is that

um Chair Reed? I haven't looked at that specifically, but I would expect that it would be in the morning. Okay. And what are the peak traffic times? I know they've introduced breakfast sandwiches, but what are the peak traffic times for Chick-fil-A? Um Cherry Reed, it's the lunch hour, I believe, 11 to 1. So it would be probably temporarily separated from the peak time at Starbucks. Yes.

I guess. Okay. Maybe we'll have evidence to support that. All right. Now, with respect to the cars in the queue, uh, you know, we had the study and the estimates in terms of emissions and things. Did that study take into the account that this being Santa Barbara County? probably a significant number of those vehicles in that line are either going to be electric or plug-in hybrids running off their batteries. Was that taken into the estimate of air quality? Um, Chair Reed, I don't believe so. Um,

so the anticipated impact on air quality would likely be less even than what's shown in those estimates. Um, I'll have the applicant expand on that, but theoretically,

just just another thought. Uh, one other question right at this point, this traffic mitigation fee, they're potentially getting charged for $863,000. Uh they look at 41 peak hour trips at 21,000 newly generated peak hour trips. Newly generated compared to when IHOP was there or compared to the vacant lot it is now. Um, chair Reed, the overall traffic uh did not take into account a reduction for IHOP, but for the fees, the existing IHOP um when it was operational was taken into account and that was reduced um when the trees were when the trips were calculated.

Okay. So, does applicant receive any benefit or consideration from donating a million dollars to the county almost? um they call it a mitigation fee. So normally when you mitigate that's to so that that that's an allowance for the impact they're expected to create. Um yeah, the fees were just calculated um in compliance with our adopted fees. Okay. I'm just trying to determine is that actually a benefit to applicant or is it like a shakeddown?

It's meant to be a benefit to um roads in the area based on um implementation of new projects. All right, those are I think the bulk of my questions for now. Thank you. So, applicant, are you prepared? I'll give you 15 minutes. Does that seem adequate? Okay.

Yes, 15 minutes is perfect. Thank you, uh, Chair Reid. Uh, chair Reed, commissioners, I'm Beth Collins from Brownstein. Uh, really glad to be here today. Uh, representing the applicant Chick-fil-A. Um, we have here, thank you, David. We have here the applicant team led by Carlos Aras here in the front row from Chick-fil-A. Um, and then we also have architect, landscape architect, planners, traffic and civil engineers, arborists, um, all here. uh for your excellent questions. I've already gotten some previews of them. Uh so next, the project site. This is the project site uh right next to the 101 offramp at uh Turnpike in Ka Rial. Uh here's a historic picture which I thought was quite interesting. This is when they were putting in the 101 offramps. You can see that very graded in uh a lot of grading done in the area. There were three gas stations put in in ' 69. In 72, that's when the hotel went in with the restaurant across the street. It was a Howard Johnson's. Um, they had great fried clams, I hear. Uh, and that restaurant at the bottom is now our project site. Uh the site history, IHOP was there for 30 years uh until they moved to a better, smaller location over by Costco in Galita, leaving the site empty. So that left the landlords looking for new tenants. Um you received a letter from Tom Patton, who is the local owner manager. He owns the he's part of an ownership group that owns the hotel as well as this site. Um, and he was detailing the saga really of looking for an appropriate tenant for this site. And what you learn from that

letter, and I've learned from conversations with him, is there were some challenges getting new tenants. Why? Well, any restaurants going into this space wanted about half the space. This is a really large, very antiquated restaurant. um needed a lot of upgrades and um it was going to be a heavy lift. There were definitely no high-end dining restaurants coming knocking at their doors. Um plus they have this massive parking lot with no real um landscaping. Uh so what what they were finding is that car washes were very interested in utilizing this site, which makes sense. It's a bunch of paving, but they did not. their local owners and operators. They really had um feeling that it should be a restaurant and they wanted to improve this corridor um since they are locals. Uh and so then came along Chick-fil-A and Chick-fil-A this is a really perfect site and for this use uh it's got flat parking lot, lots of parking, no escher or environmentally sensitive habitat, no native trees at all. There are four huge on-site trees that will remain for screening. There are also a bunch of mature vegetation from the 101 offramps. So, I'll just show you a picture here. This is a a view from the 101. You can see barely peeking through the trees the orange that's the IHOP. On the right is the hotel. So, great screening from the 101. You will not be able to see this new building. Um, other location advantages. Uh, this is really close to the 101. It is an area that is adjacent to a bunch of transit oriented businesses. We have hotels, we have restaurants, we have gas stations. Um,

we also have existing bus stops right on Ka Rail. This is a great part about this location uh for Chick-fil-A and for the other businesses in the area. Other advantages for this site, uh, as Commissioner Park kind of preiently, uh, stated during the housing element process, we have a lot of new housing going into this area and no new commercial. So, we have right across the street, the MTD project is proposed with hundreds of units. We have San Marcos, we have Tatum, we have San Marcos High School right below the site on the other side of the 101. So there is a need for restaurant and commercial in this corridor. So traffic obviously a huge issue. These are just some of the traffic experts that have weighed in on this project. We have two um from the applicant here Scott Shell from AT as well as LLG. We have county experts. We have Calrans who weighed in and that resulted in some significant off-site improvements. There are already questions and some discussion of this, but I'll just unpack it. Um, so this is the offsite striping improvements that are really going to improve this corridor. I managed to get to the very end of the show slideshow. I'm not sure how I did that. Operator error. Okay, let me Sorry, guys. Okay. Oh, wait for it. Oh my god. Sorry. Okay. Traffic experts now. Improvements. Yes. Okay. So, this is the existing corridor on Kyrial and you have the existing bike path really slammed up against the sidewalk. I actually ride on this bike

path quite a lot. Uh, and so you just heard staff talk about that. the fact that the arrows for merge are all the way down the block. There's only one through lane that exists right now on Ka Rail. So there's a zoom in right in front of the Starbucks site. Remember it's Starbucks and other businesses that are there. When someone comes along and wants to turn right, they are and they may stop on the to let allow someone walk across on the sidewalk, they block the bike lane. That is not good for bicyclists. We have to veer out into traffic. Um, so also there's a bus stop there. Same thing. The bus stops right in front of the bus stop, in front of the existing bike path. Our improvements, we are sheltering the bikes, putting them right next to the through lane. So when someone turns right into Starbucks, they're no longer running into the bicycles and the bus gets to go in that slashed area so that people can get on the bus without the bicyclists being interfered with. and through traffic can proceed. And then you look down here. This is existing conditions. And this is what's going to be as someone slows down to go into the Chick-fil-A site. They can look and make sure they don't hit a bicyclist. The bicyclists get to proceed through. And then they can turn right onto the site again, waiting for someone on the sidewalk or whatever and not interfere with the cyclists or the through traffic on Kai Rail. So there are some examples of this in our area on turnpike and Hollister. We also have North Patterson and and Cathedral Oaks where you have this protected bike lane from the right turn. So big improvements. You heard that from Will Robertson. Um but we also have other advantages of this site. These are the onsite improvements. Uh it's going to really improve the site circulation and the visual corridor. So, one, the

long weird shape of this site gives a a chance for a ton of landscaping right along the corridor. So, we are going to have that. Plus, as Will mentioned, we're closing one of the existing curb cuts. So, that's more landscaping for Kai Rail to enjoy, more parking on the Chick-fil-A site. Uh, so that's going to be a big benefit. We're having a bunch 56 new native trees, 24 to 48 in boxed trees. And then let's talk about flow and parking. Um, as someone slows down and goes onto the site, they're deciding, are we parking or are we going in the drive-thru? If they're parking, we are overparked. We have 25 spaces required, but we're providing 52. Additionally, we're putting the um drive-thru will be dual lane. None of the other drive-throughs in this area are dual lane. And it's nestled pushed up against the 101 offramp off of Caya Royale behind the building. So, it's a perfect shape and design really to create great flow on this site. Now, to the queue. Commissioner Martinez, you asked, are there any sightsp specific analysis or or or Chick-fil-A specific analyses? And the answer is yes. In the traffic report, nine different uh similar Chick-fil-As were studied to determine what is the max Q that we're going to see on this site. Armageddon max Q. It was 31 cars and our Q holds 32. You see that little empty space underneath the employee spaces? So, this is max condition. And we have promised there was a questions about enforcement. We have promised in our U project description if it hits that and it

starts getting into the parking lot, we will have team members direct people to park. Remember, we're overparked and we will be telling people to park. So, we do not expect the queue to interfere with the parking lot. And you notice that we put the employee spaces at the place where it would be um less likely to it wouldn't so customers wouldn't interfere with the queue, right? They're not the employees are over on the top left because they don't change as much of course as customers. So we have a 32 car. We're not going to back up into the parking lot. And um but the max condition, which is this is not the normal condition. The normal condition is this. Actually, this is 85% of the time is going to be to the green cars and 50% of the time it's going to be just the blue cars pushed up against the 101 uh off-ramp. Another way that you can tell with kind of your own experience that this will work is we have two-lane drive-thru, 632 feet from that pink line all the way to the window. where you pick up your food. To kind of give context, drive-throughs in the area, the two other restaurants, one is 205 ft and one is 251 ft. So, we are more than twice, and that's just even before you get to the parking lot. And as Commissioner Reid was ahead of me, we have 382 feet on the parking lot. But again, we're going to be directing people to park. In addition, there is another it's actually more than 150. Sorry, I confirmed it's 192 on Kyle Rail, but we are not relying at all on Kaio. We are not going to need it. We have more than a sufficient room on this site because

of its shape and because of its design. So, VMT, a lot of discussion of VMT. We need to prove that air quality is better. Well, I'm I'm going to be able to prove the air quality is actually better with this drive-thru. And why? It's really unusual, but because we have existing customers and huge brand loyalty with Chick-fil-A. The average Chickfil-A customer at State Street, which is only 2.6 miles from our proposed, is 13.9 miles. The big data analysis, it's the end of our traffic report. It shows most people are or the average trip length is 13.9 milesi because this is a funible product. They will drive to the closest location. So it will reduce trip length and this was inadvertently confirmed actually the last month we put up customer support cards in the existing state street restaurant. We asked people to fill out we didn't give them anything for filling it out. We actually had 400 over 425 people put in cards and this was not on purpose but we we discovered 78% of those people actually are customers at the state street store that live in Isa Vista and Galita. So they are going to be driving less so air quality will actually be improved by this restaurant. Finally, visual. Uh, we have the current condition where the IHOP is pushed up against the restaurant. You can see all the old newspaper boxes across, you know, on the street. Um, blocking the sidewalk. It's actually a big fence right now. Um, this is what we're going to have. Huge amount of landscaping. B was very complimentary about all of the landscaping that's going to be provided. 56 new native trees. Also, which is kind of

interesting, the slope of the site helps. So, the sign because so looking at this, the 101 offramps on the right. It's higher. Kaya Rial is on the bottom because height is measured from Kaya Royale. Our sign's actually going to go down 8 feet from the existing IHOP sign. It's going to be nestled down much lower. And you can see because of the existing ve vegetation, there's huge amount of screening of the proposed building. And frankly the sign um this minimizes impacts from both view impacts potential from the 101 and K realel because it's the opposite. You're looking up. If that person's driving down Ka Rel to the right, they're mostly going to see the landscaping. You can see their eye there. That landscaping blocks that car that's in the parking lot. Uh so it's really going to improve the visual character of this corridor. Here's some other This is with the front trees grayed out so you can see the building. Here's with the trees. Here's another view. Another view. Here are some customer I'll just end with this. Um, one was was right across in Fort Ranch. He put in a comment. He can't wait or she can't wait. Christina can't wait. Um, we have one in Galita. Um, very excited to have the new restaurant. one really excited about the fact that elderly, disabled, and young mothers can use this drive-thru. And then another um excited about having uh Chick-fil-A close to public transport. So, thank you. We're here for questions. Um we also have traffic experts here who can talk. We did actually survey Starbucks peak times um to answer your questions. So, our traffic expert is here and can kind of talk to that. We have an air quality expert here. We can unpack the 50,000 VMT um screening. We

can also unpack if you want more information about why I think this actually the evidence demonstrates that this improves air quality. So you can certainly make all your findings. So with that, thank you so much. Thank you. Any questions from commissioners? I do. I do. Commissioner Park. I fled. There you go. I ran away. Sorry. I'm back. I shouldn't take that personally, right? No, no, no. It's not you. Good. Good. Um, there you are. I'm here. Sorry. I was You were hiding. Yeah.

First you fled, now you're hiding. But you're back. Okay. So, I'm going to throw you a softball. Okay. Thank you. uh you you mentioned the the increased demand that would occur from from buildout of that MTD property and you know and that's aside from all the homes that are behind uh via realale and uh and really all the people that that would love to have food on the north side of the freeway instead of crossing over to the south side. Uh, do you also anticipate demand from all those employees that are working hard at the county campus with all its buildings near?

Yes, we expect that the local and and San Marcos, but you're right, the county I I failed to uh mention all the county employees that are right there. You're right. I'm sure they would enjoy a restaurant nearby. And and there are some of us who think that some of that land will be converted to housing at some point. Is that right? I hope for. I hope so. Okay. Um, when you spoke about the uh study of the maximum max maximum queuing and it would probably be I think it was 31 was the number correct. Um, do we have u actual evidence with the experience at In and Out? Do they exceed that 31? I mean it's I know it's not chicken, it's burgers, but it's

probably similar. That's a great question. We I didn't study the inn-out queue beyond measuring the distance of it. Yeah. Um and I can tell you we have more than twice the distance, but instead uh kind of to Commissioner Martinez's point, we studied Chick-fil-A restaurants, which were similar, and we studied nine of them, and we learned that none of those nine had ever a max Q over 31. So that's why we designed our our queue is actually 31 with space for 32.

Well, you know, whether the queue is on the in the project or out on the street or up a tree, I don't know. Uh it it's it's still there. So if if if if you had I'm just going to make up a number 50 queuing at at In-N-Out, that might be relevant to what we could sometimes expect at Chick-fil-A. Is that correct? Um, sure. Uh, I can tell you that we can handle the 50 on our site with our parking and we are probably going to make the in-n-out queue better because instead of standing in that big old line, they're going to probably come over to our site to, you know, minimize the weight.

And that brings me further to the potential for queuing on Ka Royale. And I I know you don't want that. you've got a design that you believe will accommodate it, so it won't ever be necessary. But if but if it was uh one, you've got all that queuing in the right-hand turn lane uh to get into uh the restaurant that doesn't really serve any other use other than turning into the restaurant. So that's potential increase. What about that slashed area? If if cars are backing all the way up to turnpike, uh can they use the slashed area as well? I mean, it's not just for parking buses, is it?

I would recommend against that. I don't know if they're going to put any pylons or anything there to avoid that. Uh, I guess you're if there aren't pylons there, then in theory to avoid, of course, blocking Kyell, but again, this is our max Q is 31. That is more that's more than twice the space of any of the existing drive-throughs. Plus, we have the 382. Plus there's 92 just on Ky Rail. Plus we have a condition of approval you will put on us that we have to direct people once they hit just the 32 to park. So people just have to park and walk in and get their food. So we do not foresee any inner action with Ky Rail and I think you heard the same from Will Robertson. Uh that leads to my next question and it it goes to that crucial finding that um by having a drive-thru here, we're not increasing the air pollution over what would exist if we didn't have the drive-thru. And and in support of that, you argue that the there are people in Galita who now drive all the way to Santa Barbara. Um and uh you know, an extra what was it 2.6 miles coming back. So, I guess we double that, right? Anyway, uh and that uh they wouldn't drive as far. They they they go to the Galita restaurant. Do you have any information on whether those people that drive from Galita to Santa Barbara to use the drive-thru there would still come to the Galita house or Galita restaurant if it wasn't a drive-thru?

That's I know that Chick-fil-A has some restaurants in Southern California that aren't drive-throughs. That's a brilliant point. I think it's actually the fact that it is fungeible drive-thru. The drive-thru helps demonstrate if they're going to Santa Barbara to drive through, they're going to go to Galita to drive through also. Correct. Yeah. And so what I'm wondering is if if if we didn't allow a drive-thru and just said have a have a Chick-fil-A, uh are is that going to make a big difference? There going to be a lot of glue people that say, "No, I'm not going to come there unless I can do a drive-thru. I won't go and park. Maybe people see me in my jammies and I can't do it. So, I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to drive in. Whatever they think.

Maybe I will say and you asked in my experience. My son went to M San Marcos. That bell rang at lunch. He and all his buddies would jump into the a car and they would 11minute drive to the State Street Chick-fil-A. I do not I'm sorry. I was going to say I don't know why they're so obsessed. I apologize. But they were obsessed with Chick-fil-A and they'd jam down there 11 minutes, have their food, jam back to campus. I know those guys wouldn't have they would just go there to the the Chick-fil-A here and pile out of the car, right? Probably.

But do do we have any evidence from the Chick-fil-A site as to how many people are coming to the Chick-fil-A restaurants that have drive-throughs that wouldn't go there if if they didn't have a drive-thru? Do we have any information anywhere on this state street store if it had a drive-thru? Um I don't think we have that evidence. No. Okay. Well, thanks. We have no other questions. Okay. Commissioner Ford.

Uh thanks. Uh I'd like to follow up on just what you were talking about. uh with regard to the um site it size uh site size is is that what determine the decision to go to uh a drive-thru because I too have have seen that there are lots of Chick-fil-As that are just restaurants and walk-in. So, can you give me any historical information about why the decision for a drive-thru almost with the understanding it's going to be controversial? Well, oh, Carlos is ready. Let's have Carlos answer that. Great. Thanks.

Good morning, commissioners. Um, and first off, so for the record, my name is Carlos here representing Chick-fil-A. I I do want to start off by saying a very big thank you for allowing us to be here today and also a big thank you for all of the staff uh that we've been working with diligently for however many years and uh members of the SAR board of architectural review board. We're excited to be here. I think to answer your question specifically um this might be um tackling two of those questions. Every site is different based on all kinds of factors geographically, demographics, density. The the best and maybe most straightforward answer is it it varies on site. But our experience has been while we don't have the data to um predict very accurately what uh the ratios will be between drive-thru and dining customers. What we do know is that what works best on a self-maintained site like this is when we have a balanced site. When we have a balanced site that incorporates both both dining customers and a drive-thru component, it allows for the most optimal safest circulation both on-site and off-site. We acknowledge that there are customers that want one of one of them, right? We're going to get drive-through customers and we're also going to get non-drive customers. And so we we don't it uh it is not conducive for us to have an isolated site with just a drive with without a drive-thru. Uh the drive-through is a a critical component to the business. There are projects that don't have them, but those also usually have a sea of parking in between them. Think uh think a shopping center, right?

Um but this is not that. And so we want to make sure that we have uh the ability to service our customers um serve our customers well. um so that their experience is great, but also we want that site circulating in a manner that is safe for everybody. It's in our interest to make sure the site is circulating safely on site, not only for our customers, but for our neighbors, for the overall community. We understand and have been very well aware of all the traffic concerns, and there's been a lot of questions on that. And so Beth did a great job explaining some of those nuances and some of the benefits, not only on site, but on the public rideway. We're excited about this size um of the parcel. It's a great size. It offers a lot of parking and the overall shape of it is really conducive for the drive-thru lane because it provides um an abnormally long runway, if you will, in front of the drive-thru so that we are mitigating as much as possible against potentially reaching the public rideway. So, hypothetically, we've we we do believe that we've accommodated for that both on-site and off-site. Hope that

Thanks. Maybe you can answer my other question, which is about um a a little bit related to Beth's uh anecdote about her son. Um how old is he, Beth? Now, 20.

Yep. You know what what we've noticed across this whole city is the impact that electric bikes have had on parking and on traffic and on driving just in general. And I am um thinking a lot about that time when the bell rings and uh hundreds of kids leave San Marcus High School to go to lunch and now many hundreds have electric bikes. You just drive by the school and you'll see. It's it's actually amazing to me because when I was a principal, there was no one riding bikes. But um so what what was the reason for just having 10 spaces on on the property when you know that electric bikes are all the rage and these kids will be coming.

So we we do have the flexibility to add more if if we need to and if that becomes a problem. um we have plenty of space for that on site. Um if I think really a benefit that we've been focusing on is in the public rideway. Again, Beth Beth did a great job outlining a few of the benefits that will happen when we go and restripe along El Camino uh or sorry KA Royale. One of those is reducing the safety potential by properly or maybe better delineating that bike uh that biking movement. So, that's a benefit we're excited about. Um it allows them to get onto our property safe uh safely. Um but if needed, we can certainly accommodate more racks.

It would be really helpful to me if you would just show them a map as to what a how a bike biker would enter and park. Can we bring up the site plan? Um, I also note that Travis Collins is the operator of the State Street store and he's also I've had this very discussion with him about accommodating bikes on his State Street store site. And so if you can see here, a bike would come along on the green. Well, this is maybe not the best. Maybe go back to here. Okay, so the bike lane is there. You can see it, right? You can turn onto the site either before the cars turn on right where the pedestrians are in the middle, right? They can walk through there or they go like a car, right? And then there's the bike parking on the right hand side on the bottom. Um that's where the bike uh parking areas are. But you can see that there is other space around there for electronic bike parking. Um, but the truth is is that they could designate some other spaces on site as Carlos was suggesting if they do have because I agree with you. I've even noticed well my son graduated three years ago and it's changed even in these three years. But that kind of highlights an issue which is called it's just an operator need is flexible like they will need some flexibility when there things change um with your business and a lot of people you know do change things when COVID came people changed the way pickups were right at different stores you had the touchless pickup um a lot of operators uh need that flexibility and certainly Chick-fil-A among all wants to avoid impacts I I represented them during the State Street store situation with the city of Santa Barbara.

They were actually trying to get revised revisions done to their site because they saw the popularity. It was just slow in the planning process and that's what led the city was getting so much pressure. We ended up in that enforcement nuisance um stance. Um but that was corrected and part of that settlement was processing some changes, tweaks to the site plan. Um to kind of highlight your point. Understood. I lived in the area too and um it's really clear that uh Chick-fil-A among all other businesses in the area was tremendously responsive. So I appreciate you bringing that up.

I have a question. Um,

I'll ask Carlos. Um, you're the guy that ultimately deals with problem issues. And early on in the process um it was indicated that uh there could be a situation or we would react to a situation where there are too many cars in the queue and uh and that uh those customers would be um asked to park um use one of the parking spaces to relieve the the uh entire parking lot. Um, and there was mentioned that these would be your employees, your staff members who otherwise were working inside helping customers have their food. So, uh, I'm curious about that. Um, how did that work in the State Street operation so that um customers didn't leave angrily uh as opposed to parking um or otherwise uh leave their job?

Sure. So, uh, Commissioner, the the 10 spalls that I believe the 10 stalls that I believe, um, were shown on the screen for team member parking stalls, we we uh generally try to have our team members driving to our site that work at the projects in the stores, park in the areas where um there's high high uh does not have high turnover, right? In other words, we just we we're trying to isolate and to keep that potential for high turnover separate from the drive-thru or the busyiness of the site. So, that's really the idea. Um the best showed some of the normalized rates where it's really not the busiest time does not go all the way back. It's not like that for a whole hour for the whole lunch hour. It's really only um about half that during non- peak hours, right? And so our team members would be able to easily pull in and out of those stalls that are up near the drive-through entrance. Works really great. It's pretty common for us to do that at other restaurants. Um so again, we're just trying to isolate the potential conflict for busyness during our peak hours. Well, um I understand that and uh it's a kind of a failsafe measure uh if things do um turn out to be too crowded, but uh part of you I'm sure would like it to be crowded. So,

yeah. So, sorry. Go ahead. No, I I think the other the other thing that may be worth uh noting is um just a lot of the um a lot of the efficiencies Chick-fil-A does have a high focus on innovation in general. I can talk about maybe a couple things that maybe point to a couple things that have been true innovation changers for us that benefits how we do things operationally. Ensure there's a lot of initiatives that we do to make uh things circulate well and efficiently through the site. One of those, one of those big ones recently is the second lane. So, two lanes that go all the way around the drive-through lane from entering the drive-through lane to exiting after you pick up your food. It allows for cars to bypass if needed. Um, so cars aren't waiting for if you order a big meal as car number one and you order 60 sandwiches, and we hope they do. Uh, car number two and three and four, our team members can start delivering to cars two, three, and four, and then they can go around. And so we have apps that, um, actually also drastically help us plan accordingly, which helps us be a lot more efficient. And so what that means is we know they're coming. We know that we can start the process a little bit early and then we can make the food right when you get on site instead of having to wait for someone to make take the order or place an order and then make the payment. So, it just skips a couple of the steps whether you're in the drive-thru lane or whether you're choosing to come inside to the store or whether you're parking. Um, we can deliver the food out to you. So, we we just have a lot of great options to be able to fit the need based on the customer behavior. If we believe that we're going to have a big uh influx, if you will, of youth, high schoolers, if you will, or people that are highly um

integrated with our app, it it only bodess better for us because we can also allocate one of the lanes specifically for that use. So again, it just makes that outside lane go a lot faster. You're not having to wait to place your order. You're not having to make the payment. You're just scanning. is showing up and then you're you're just taking the order through the drive-through lane. So, plenty of options. When we when we look at these diagrams, we we really we're operating on um hypotheticals and we want to be sensitive to the fact that we have a lot of traffic questions out there. And so, we're not going to, again, I point to the benefit of the shape of the site. We've accommodated a potential hypothetical and another hypothetical. One for if we were to overflow, which we're not hoping or anticipating, we can accommodate that whether we um whether we take orders further upstream, whether we park them or have them circulate. Uh and then we have the additional hypothetical runway, if you will, if we need that. And then on top of that, we have the um improvements in the public rideway. So, lots of benefits. um as part of the project that we're committed to doing.

I I'm going to interrupt only because I'm reminded that uh attorneys learn early on that you never ask a question you don't know the answer to. And uh so uh you went farther deeper than I expected. Um and I appreciate the time, but um I think we're ready to move on with the project. I apologize. We get very excited about it. Thank you. I just have a any more questions. No, I do. I have one or two. Yeah. And I did for Mr. Arias. You go first.

I'm going to go first. Mine are probably quicker than yours. Okay. Has to do with traffic. The peak times analysis. Did my what are your you know I said before I suppose my estimate is that the peak times are quite different to your traffic analysis support that your peak times versus Starbucks times are there our hour morning your noon and end of day correct

that's supported by the data now you know people keep comparing this to In-N-Out now my gut feeling is with in-n-out people getting that line the dwell time in the line in and out is much longer than the dwell time at Chick-fil-A. Is that is there any data having to do with that? Yes, there's actually a lot of data on that and one of it relates to the app issue. Uh uh you can't order by apps on a on an In-N-Out. I don't know if you do Starbucks Starbucks. Part of the reason the Starbucks queue isn't backing up as much as it had done historically, but um with Chick-fil-A, they have that innovative app where you can order. They'll be able to order from San Marcos,

right? So, they won't have to pay. They won't have to do any of those other steps. They just have a QR code. They'll And the even one of the lanes could be dedicated to just pickup. Scan the QR code, give them the the food, they're gone. Ebikes with the app, ebikes, same. The ebike pack, park, walk in, grab your food, gone. And they're really on the on the site for a minute.

One last question. I I thought your VMT data, particularly the spheres of all the fans you have in Isa Vista, was pretty compelling. But uh my other question about uh the the when the GHG estimate was made for cars in line, were EVs actually considered or not considered? So no, it's a conservative estimate. It does not give credit for VMTs or for I'm sorry, EVs, uh electric vehicles. Correct. Okay. Well, thank you. Commissioner Park, a

question for you, Mr. Arias on the on design. Uh, you know, one of the advantages being on the planning commission is is we all have different backgrounds. So, when I brown Act, buddy with somebody like uh uh Miss Ford, I I learn about children's issues. And one thing we've discussed is is is families uh navigating the the site. And and I think of elderly people like me with mobility problems like I've had uh navigating. And if we could go back to the to the site plan that was up there before, it appears anybody that parks in those uh 50 spaces except for the employees uh any customers, they will then have to cross where the uh traffic goes into the queuing and and possibly they'll be going through queuing if it's if it's if it's very long. Um it it would it be possible to relocate the parking essentially where where your queuing road is now and and put your your road where the where the um parking is since swapping it so people wouldn't have to cross the the uh access road uh to get into the restaurant.

Moving the queue next to Yeah. just take take the uh the roadway that's internal and and putting it where your parking space is and you're having your parking spaces be internal because you know most most uh uh uh drive-throughs I've been to and I generally don't drive through. I I'll I'll stop and go in. I'm old and I like to visit BS with the baristas, you know, and uh um uh you know I don't have to cross a roadway. I just walk in.

Well, um, understood. And, uh, we're happy to have you as a guest in the drive-through lane or as a park and dining in. Uh, could we show the site plan one more time? I'm sorry. I just want to point to a couple things. I really, we um, again, we want a wellbalanced site. And a couple things I would point to is we do have options for parking uh at the southwest corner um with some sidewalk access basically with uh right between there's a trash enclosure and our building and then there's additional stalls to the left of that that is essentially removed from the drive aisle if you will. Our goal is to maximize the parking. Parking is important for us to maintain a well balanced site. And I think the other potential challenge with relocating any of the parking stalls or modifying any of the parking stalls along Kaya Rial is there's a landscaping there's a significant landscaping setback if I'm not mistaken. And so I I think it's we basically maximized uh the land the distance between the sidewalk that you can see on the screen now. It's almost like a passed out area. the gray, that's all landscaping and it's for that reason. Um, we actually would love more parking and the potential for more ability to stack, but we have to comply with the design standards. You know, maybe my question wasn't clear because I was referring to the existing space you've set aside for automobiles, not the landscaping, and simply swapping the the roadway part for the spaces. So, for the parking spaces. So, I imagine it would be the same distance you already have. They'd just be in different locations. So LG just reminded me cars have limits on turn radiuses and so if you were to make that that would be a very sharp turn there

and that throat which is pretty narrow to be able to then turn into in essence drive through all those spaces. It's too tight of a turn. The one on the east. Correct. Thanks. Okay. I've got a request that we take a break prior to public comment. So, I'd like to take a 10-minut break.

I turned it off. Welcome back to the March 25th hearing of the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission. Now, we will begin with public comment. We have three speakers in the room. Uh you can have three minutes a piece. We will begin with Lisa Canyon.

Miss, can you please uh speakers please state your name and uh residence?

Sure. My name is Lisa Kenyon. I live in the unincorporated area of Santa Barbara, two blocks behind In-N-Out Burger. Everybody knows where that is. Um, on the top, thank you for having us today. On the top of my whiteboard that's attached to my refrigerator, which I look at every morning are the following words. Do the good. Excuse me. Do the good you have the power to do today. I hope I do good for my neighbors today in talking with you. As I mentioned, I just live a couple blocks behind In-N-Out Burger. Carlos, just as a point of reference, the QR code survey you guys have, it's not Golita. We're in the unincorporated part of the county. Um, I ask that you add an extra set of uh lenses to your glasses or to your eyeballs. And I hope you'll uh have taken the opportunity to read all the letters that are in the current comment uh folder, including the ones from Paul, the two Mary's, Tom, and mine. There were also 23 additional letters uh along the same lines with the concern about traffic and the impact on the neighborhood in the esbar um folders uh that were not obvious for right the right reasons not brought over here. But I just want to make sure you understand there were a lot of people that have been ex concerned about the neighborhood going way back into uh 2022. A very beloved man used to sing a wonderful song. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. I'm not going to sing the song. I'll break your eardrums. But instead, I'm simply gonna ask, won't you be our neighbor? My fellow neighbors and I have been engaged in the process, like I said, since the first ESBAR. Um, and they're all along the same lines. Uh, I have to admit, we were quite disappointed. In fact, at the third ESBAR meeting, a voice came over the loudspeaker telling me that I was not allowed to talk about any traffic issues. I basically got a

smackdown. Not cool for public comment time. But today we're here. Uh while each of the current letters and the past letters are unique with the people I'm talk was mentioning, um each one contains the primary concerns about the existing three drive-throughs and the proposed fourth one. I'll ditto the letter writers who eloquently described how in their minds the traffic report and the air quality report results warrant further review. By the way, there has been no change to the uh Starbucks drive-thru. As I went by there this morning, there were six cars on the street. Uh and to answer your question, uh Commissioner Park, the only change that was made after that appeal hearing from my perspective is they put a sign up. It's yellow with red lettering that says ille it's illegal to park here in the Q line for the drive-thru. Hasn't made a difference. Has not made a difference. Um, all of us expressed the importance of not looking at this project in a silo or in a vacuum. It's not just about the old IHOP property. The neighborhood has been dealing with uh vehicle queuing at not one, not two, but the three drive-throughs for years. It is difficult for me to comprehend how the planning department has concluded that this project will not be detrimental to the comfort, convenience, general welfare, health, and safety of the neighborhood. A picture is worth a thousand words. So I ask you to take a look at some of these pictures. I went a little cray cray after the meeting where the manager of the Ramada said there's no problem with queuing at at Starbucks back in 21. I have over a hundred photos. This is just a selection.

Thank Thank you. You're you're running your time is up by about 30 seconds. If you got one or sentence or two to wrap it up. Um, how about if we just show the the Starbucks video if we could, David? My bottom line is don't please don't compound the problem by adding another drive-thru or at least get an independent evaluation. This is uh in and out. This is uh that was El Sweno uh which is not included in here. I know it's outside the one mile, but from all of our residents, we're concerned about people trying to make that turn, especially if they're from out of town. Thank you. Did you shoot that video yourself? Uh, that one I did. Yes. Looks like you're holding the camera and driving at the same time.

I am. I have. You know that's a moving violation. You know what? Well, you're trying to demonstrate a safety. You're committing a moving violation. You know what? You kind of surprised me that you're bringing that up because you guys are not you guys are not looking at the whole thing and you have not believed us when it comes to what the problem is. Well, we've never addressed it before. So that comment I don't think is Let's bring up Esbar. Next we will have Kristen Miller. It's not hilarious. Audience, you're supposed to be respectful, but if you have any comments about other speakers, reserve them.

Proceed. Miss Miller.

Good morning, Chair Reed and commissioners. I'm Kristen Miller, president and CEO of the Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce, representing businesses from Galita to Carperia and 75,000 jobs in the region. I'm here today to in support of the proposed Chick-fil-A project at Kyrial and Turnpike. From the chamber's perspective, this project reflects several things we consistently look for in a healthy local economy. It activates a long vacant commercial site. It brings private investment into an established corridor. It creates jobs. It expands access to goods and services for local residents, workers, and families. And it has the potential to generate meaningful ongoing economic activity and taxable sales. Just as importantly, this kind of project that helps reinforce the vitality of an existing commercial area. A successful business like Chick-fil-A on this currently underutilized site will support the surrounding district and continue to to us and contribute to a stronger overall business environment. There's very real demand for drive-thru locations on the South Coast, and the environmental emissions studies support this use. A county location here would be better would better serve the county's economic vitality goals while keeping commercial activity close to where people already live and travel. Lastly, a timely approval of this project is key to improving the reputation of the county's business climate and uh story. From an economic and business community standpoint, this is the type of investment we should welcome. For all of these reasons, we respectfully urge your approval. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Uh, next and final speaker, Drew Wakefield. Final in person speaker. In person, correct?

Commissioners, thank you very much for allowing me to come and speak. My name is Drew Wakefield. I am third generation Peabody Lock Lina Santa Barbara High School. Once at dawn, always at dawn. I currently live over by Hollister School. I'm in the area all the time. And this is 100% what our community wants and desires. I also have Wakefield 805 radio, AM1290, FM96.9 streaming live around the world at Wakefield805.com. You can smile because this is about community, right? This is about opening up an opportunity for a great, wonderful, incredible business that's going to serve delicious, affordable food for our community. San Marcus High School students, Loalino students will probably come over and so many people are going to be able they're going to walk to Chick-fil-A in that neighborhood. A lot of seniors, there's bus uh coming to and from. It's going to be easy. Cars, the uh electric bikes out of here. Who knows? Maybe even people will go back in the days and they might ride horses over to Chick-fil-A. The bottom line is simply this. This is a successful, very successful, extremely successful business that our community desires. If we do not want success, let's go down State Street. Let's look at what S State Street has given us. No success, which means what? Less tax dollars. Chick-fil-A, Santa Barbara that I know very well because they are in the community. They sponsor, they give, they donate to the schools, to the universities. They hire young people, high school students. They hire city college, university, Westbond students, go Warriors. They hire young young mothers. They hire people not just to hire them just to deliver you food. They bring your food. They deliver it to you. And then what do they say when you say thank you? It's my pleasure. Why? Because it's their pleasure to work for Chick-fil-A where they're going to be taught. They're going to be mentored. They're going to have opportunities to

expand their growth to go just from an actual worker, maybe into a supervisor role, maybe into a manager role, and then hopefully someday like the owner of Chick-fil-A, Santa Barbara, Travis Collins, a Biola University grad that's going to be able to move into being an actual owner. What a great, wonderful, incredible company it is to have in our community that most of everybody in our community really wants. Now, it always gets down to time, energy, resources. Which does what for business? It means money. For the county to have more money, here's what I would recommend. A couple quick things. I am looking at the time. We should just go ahead and pass this immediately today. Put shovels in the ground, clean up that area, and as soon as possible, we should all go join each other and eat more chicken. Thank you very much.

Thank you. and no charge for the commercial for your radio show. Uh now, Mr. Vilovas, could we go to the online again? For those of you online, raise your hand if you'd like to speak. Uh right now, I see one hand raised. Um Mary O Gorman. Okay. Um the proverbial can you hear me? Um yes.

Hello. Okay, good. Um, wow. So, you have a letter from me, several pages. My intent today was just to raise a couple issues that I either hadn't focused on enough. Um, but I have to say I'm a little shaken up because once again, I feel like I'm at a hearing for I don't know what, like a fast food freeway or I mean, we're talking about a neighborhood. You guys are here for conditional use permit to find that the project won't be detrimental to the comfort, convenience, welfare, and safety of the neighborhood, not whether Isa Vista kids can come over here at night. They're already clogging when they go to In-N-Out. That anyways, it's just this sort of um is a microcosm of what what our neighbors feel these days. I the project is not uh shouldn't be exempt from VMT. Um, the lot is about 60 to 65,000 square feet. The lot, as we heard add infinitum today, is is directly related to the drive-thru. There's drive-through lanes. Um, we're creating a new lane on a public street just for them. So, vehicle miles traveled would seem to be something you would want to know more about. And then, you know, I think the biggest thing is really the inadequacy of the environmental review. um previous to um drive-throughs there. Uh I look back at 1995 last night in the archives. Um In-N-Out Burger had an M andD done. Starbucks had an M andD done. And to quote from the Starbucks uh report um that as a result of this project, significant but miticable effects on the environment are anticipated in certain C categories. air quality hazardous materials and uh so

understandably more extensive environmental review is done. um planner sites uh sites part of the exemption based on um Eastern Galita Valley Community Plan. And as someone who was integrally involved in that plan, um I can tell you that uh having drive-throughs and especially, you know, four of them was was not what was was contemplated. And so for all intents and purposes, that plan sadly is in large part moot. 2015 Eastern Galita Valley Plan anticipated, I think it was several hundred housing units, not 4 to 5,000 as we have now. There was one policy in that plan that I think is is pertinent and that is that it was changed from highway commercial to C2 precisely because of a desire to move away from freeway serving uses and to uh allow for quote community oriented commercial development and services. That's all we'd like to see. And we'd also like to not be gaslit as much as we have been for 5 years. whether it's by county staff or decisions. Please, is there somebody that can help us? The cities of Galita and Santa Barbara prohibit new drive-throughs. That's why everyone in Galita wants one here. Do we need to annex to Galita to get any kind of just responsiveness to our concerns? We're not making this up. We don't like coming here and and having to address issues that we've been talking about for years. I'm on a HOA board here. People who are very intelligent have asked me, "What do you mean they're going to put another drive-thru in? How can they do that? How, you know, so um we don't have staff. We haven't had five years of conversations with county uh transportation planners that it sounds like uh the applicant has had. That's great. One visit out here, you know, to

talk with neighbors would have been nice. And um again, I do not see how you can fi make a finding that this uh is not detrimental to the comfort, convenience, welfare, health, and safety of the neighborhood. Okay. So, thank you very much. And um whatever. Uh thanks. Now for applicant, any rebuttal? Five minutes. Um, Mr. Chair, uh, I did have another hand up.

Oh, there's another hand up. Okay, sorry. Okay, final speaker. This is the final uh Suzanne Stirs. Um, and uh, I don't see anyone else with their hand up.

Hi there. Thank you for the time. Um I'm a resident of uh North San Marcos Road and um I just you know would ask that you consider also the new development that's going in on the other side of um the freeway. There's a bunch of additional units that are going to be built in the near future. Um, and so just the impact that all of that development will have on the existing infrastructure and to be adding an additional drive-thru um in the community is just going to have um increased impact to our daily life. Um there's already safety concerns with driving through that area. I don't have anything against Chick-fil-A. Um I think it's, you know, provides a good service. I just think in this um situation, I don't think it would be the best for uh the residents of the area and I feel like um you know there's uh some condos in the area and it feels like it's just the easiest place um to put it and maybe disproportionately affecting lower income residents. And so I ask that you consider the impact that this development will have on the residents of the um area and just that there might be um a better use of that space for the community. Thank you very much.

All right. Thank you. And I I apologize. I wasn't intending to try to cut you or anyone else off. So with that, uh if we can, uh go to applicant for rebuttal. You have five minutes. Chair Reed, commissioners. Um, okay. A couple of things. VMT screening. Uh, so the standard is that if you're 50,000 square feet of local serving uses, like a local retail Costco, you get screened out. So, your parking lot is not counted as just a square footage of your building. We are a 2,600 square 2600 square foot building. So far below that threshold. But even if you included that little area of the driveway, we're still below 50,000 square ft. But that's not the standard. As you heard from staff and everyone else, the standard we fall well below. Um cumulative impacts of all of the other residential projects were considered in the traffic report. So, um, the traffic report considers all those housing element projects and the other projects in the queue. Um, I really took to heart the comments of the neighbors. Um it's clear that they're really upset and um I do believe after having studied this with the traffic reports um and talking with not one but two traffic experts um about this and really considering this for years. This project will improve the Cay Royale corridor, the safety, the circulation and the visual character of it. The striping is going to improve the bicycle safety and we'll clarify the traffic flow and of the cars. Additionally, um for the neighbors, our traffic during the break, our traffic expert went and

measured the queue for In and Out. Just for your information, it is a total of 34 cars. 32 cars is the length of our queue to that pink line, right? So 34 cars is what you saw in that photo plus the ones in the street. All right. So we for all the reasons that I explained, we have more than sufficient room on our site. Plus, frankly, we have better operation. Um and uh we will not have impacts to the street. We're also going to really improve the visual character with all of the landscaping. Um and the drive-thru is critical. Like I don't want to I don't want to get confused. I heard some of the comments. And I want to make sure everyone understands this site works because the drive-thru helps make it work. What you heard from Carlos is you would need a sea of parking for like a shopping center for this to work with uh if it was just a standalone restaurant. The drive-thru helps us manage the flow and avoid any impacts to Chick-fil-A or to Kai Royale from this project. Um and it doesn't work without it. Um, so I'm going to let Carlos end here with the last little bit. Um, but it is my very uh I am very sympathetic to the neighbors. I do think that they that there may be some issues at other sites. I think that this project improves things on the strip. I we've done what we can um both for the Starbucks, but then also for this other site. And I do think it will reduce the queue when people see a completely operational site in one place, right? They're not going to be in a standing line on the other side of the street. So with that, I'll leave uh to Carlos to close us out. Thank you, Beth. Um just a couple notes to close out and

and maybe address the concern from from the neighbors. I don't see her here anymore, but Lisa Canyon and Mario Gorman um acknowledge fully that you are a neighbor and you are a nearby resident. Um we consider ourselves to be a neighbor as well and we want to be a good neighbor. Um we have a unique operator model that um is one that allows our operator or basically expects our operators to be highly involved in the community. So they're involved in the community. They're a neighbor as well and nobody wants this site, this project to work well and to work safely more than us. We have a vested interest in making sure that it works well. Obviously, from a business standpoint, but also from the community. We don't want neighbors complaining. We don't want the county getting emails and complaints from the neighbors. That's the last thing we want um to the last thing we want to put on our operators to run the store. We want them focusing on providing a great service to the community. providing good food, great hospitality, and a safe site. Um, we're going to work the hardest at making sure that this plan works. And um, I I guess I guess I just want to end with the fact that um, we believe that we are going above and beyond in being a good neighbor by helping improve the actual conditions that are in the road. Now, we're not just coming in here saying, "We'll see what happens." We put a lot of thought into it. We understand some of the concerns and have been working diligently with the county and so we truly believe in this project. We believe that we're going above and beyond by making a um making physical improvements in the public rightway.

All right. Thank you. So at this time we will close the public hearing. It's time for commissioners uh comments, questions, deliberations. Can we start with questions of staff? Excuse me. Can we start with questions of staff before we go into deliberations? Okay, go ahead. Yeah. I'm just curious because I'm I'm trying to set our our ordinance in in context and I know that Carpia, Monocto, Galita, well, I don't know about Galita. U Santa Barbara don't allow drive-throughs. Does the city of Galita allow drive-throughs?

Um, Mr. Mr. Chair, Commissioner Park, I I'm not sure. I would have to look into that. Did you know? Can I ask Miss Collins to answer that question? Uh, I we just don't know off the top of our head. We can certainly try and look into it. I happen to know this. Chair, can we have leave to open it so she can speak to this? Go ahead and answer. I I Yes, you are allowed in the city of Galita to have a drive-thru with a conditional use permit like the county. Thank you. Okay, that was my question for staff. All right, we're ready for any deliberations.

I'll go Commissioner Martinez. Um, first um um I I heard the nervousness of the of the neighbors and um want to compliment them and even taking the chance of even standing up here and saying what your your thoughts are and that's what this process is about and I hope you never feel excluded from it. That's why I'm on here to hear from those people and from everybody. But we have the applicants and we and everybody has their turn and we have the timing up here. But um I just want to say that aloud first. I I and I agree with um Chairman Reid that you know the outburst from from the from the gallery doesn't doesn't reflect upon our impressions upon what you're saying to us. Um, and looking at this, I I thought the the the neighbor who came up with a picture of the way Starbucks is looking and that there does seem to be at least in the picture itself that was presented that despite their cue, which I'm interpreting as the way that the cars come in and go through and get their drive-thru drinks and so forth, that there is going to be some kind of a situation there and in regards to the traffic itself. And this is what comes to mind. If I'm getting off and I'm getting off the freeway and I go on the turnpike and there's already a backup on Starbucks, how am I going to know that I can go around? The only way I can know that is from experience. And uh there's nothing that tells me that that otherwise. And I'm saying that because I still go through that problem when I'm trying to figure out which exit is in and out on when I come to these meetings or if I'm trying to figure it out. And I counts as one of those people that's going up and down the corridor 101 looking at my app to say, "Okay, well, where is the next Chick-fil-A?" Um, so I do think that there's going to be a concern there um about this traffic, but that concern is kind of lightened by the

fact that as you as I'm looking at the satellite view of where this location is, it's it it's not hitting the necessarily the at least from what I'm seeing and I can be corrected. I may be corrected right here and now that it doesn't hit the neighborhoods directly. It hits a lot of the community like the the county parts portions and so forth. Um, and I will say this to Chick-fil-A that I think to me and I am an attorney so you can hold that against me too. I do believe in local council because she can stand up here and say I'm part of this community. My kid went to school there. It matters to me. It does matter. somebody from Los Angeles comes up and says, "Well, this is where it's from." It it doesn't matter to me. I mean, well, it does matter to me, but in the negative, um, and you've given your word up here saying you're going to try and work with it. I appreciate the fact that you can't think of every single hypothetical. I was thinking when everybody was talking about, well, the kids are going to drive up in their in their ebikes and and use the app to get their food. Well, I can only imagine that you're going to have the Uber drivers coming in picking up stuff. I mean it there's just so many variances that are coming in and who ever thought of that 10 years ago and um it's always going to be changing. Um but I see the effort here and and I and I see the the design. I was actually impressed by the design of of how it looked and ran through this. Um and I could see I can envision how it how it would actually the traffic would come in even if you got backed up in the queue. I I don't think that somebody's going to really listen to some 16-year-old or 17-year-old said, "Sir, you're gonna have to park right there with your family who's starving and and go inside and get your food." I I, you know, I I reflect back to Disneyland when I worked there and telling people, "You got to do you can't get into this restaurant now. You can go to the next one." And they no wasn't going to work. I was a deer in a

headlight. Um, so my end impression is this is that I Chick-fil-A. Um, well, your reputation precedes you. You are part of the community. You try and be part of the community and you giving your word here with local council about trying to address these traffic problems and not ignoring them. That's that's what's to me. And um but of course, you know, I come from drive-thru heaven over there in Santa Maria where we have Chicken Row at Better Avia and I see what happens. I I I and I and I see how popular Chick-fil-A is and and it and of the cause of of situations, but I do think the one variance that is not going to be able to be addressed on hand is if you get off Turnpike and there's already a backup at Starbucks, how do you numb? And that's a challenge I think that really needs to be thought of and and addressed. um through this process because I know that it goes to the county from here and um I I would I'm just saying that I would vote for it to proceed on to the to the board of supervisors and hopefully you can address that concern when it comes to the board of supervisors. Thank you,

Commissioner Park. You know, there's a a lot I like about this project. It's it it it is to me kind of an ideal match of parcel to to user. I mean, I I I can't imagine a better parcel for you to use, but I also can't imagine another use of that parcel. I can't even imagine a car wash there. I don't know. And that's important. There's certainly a demand for this. We've we've heard all that. Um, so I like the design. I'm not as concerned about the compatibility uh issue and it's of course a finding we have to make with cups because I think a lot of the traffic issues have been addressed through the design. But um the important point to me is really not what do I like? Do I like the color? Do I like chicken? Do I like this? It's what's our job at the planning commission and it's to follow the law. Okay. And the law is not always very clear. We can see on VMTs it's it's not really clear at all. And and I I I frankly reach a different conclusion than the applicant and staff on uh the screening thresholds, but I'm not going to argue it because I don't have any better evidence than you do. And um you know the board can deal with that issue. But uh the law we have to look at here that's important is is the development standards 3542130 and and and that applies whether we do VMT analysis or not that they're separate issues and and we have to find that the development standard is met that the drive-through facility shall have no greater adverse impact upon air quality than the same use without the drive-through facility. and and when I read this packet, there

was not one centilla of evidence that that that was true. That's because the public record didn't even have your traffic study in it or the uh uh or the air pollution report. And I don't know whose concern that is or not. Everybody should have been concerned and everybody should have got it in there and and I I forced it in there and there you are. uh uh you'll thank me for that, but you won't thank me for what I say next, which is I still don't think you've met the standard of evidence I have to uh uh convince me that uh this will have no greater impact being a drive-through facility upon air quality than the same use without the drive-through facility. We just don't have much in front of us. We have some speculation that's in in argument. We do have uh uh maybe two sentences that address this in the air pollution report and they refer to a trade magazine which has a study which has not been presented to us. It's not in the record. So I I don't know uh what anybody has for by way of science even if it does exist. Uh, and you know, we can all come up with anecdotes about why it might do this, might, why it might not, might, you know, uh, and some of it's confusing. Uh, we bought my wife a Honda two years ago, and the gosh darn thing turns off every time I take my foot off the brake and come to a stop and then it comes back on again. So, you know, if it's in line, do we say, "Oh, that's a good thing." Because, you know, these manufacturers and the federal government have determined that that should happen with cars. So they wouldn't pollute as much. But you know, if it's in line cue to at Chick-fil-A, is that a good thing that it turns off, okay, and doesn't create emissions, or is it a bad thing? Because your own report says it's a bad thing for cars to park and and and and to have their

engines turn on and off. We we just don't know. I can't make that finding. Uh good people here at staff, great people on the applicant team. What I want to do is continue this and give you some time to give us some some real evidence that I can make this finding. And uh if other commissioners would agree with me, I would move to continue this matter for the time that they could do that because I think eventually I'm going to vote for this project. I'm not going to vote for it today.

Commissioner Ford said that with a tone.

No. Uh let's see. I uh I'm very conflicted here. Um as I think probably all of us are because um it's clear that Chick-fil-A has done an amazing job of uh working hard to try to eliminate the street spielback spillback. The site lay layout seems very creative and responsive the queue design etc. I do remain concerned about the air quality also and I would support additional environmental review. Um I also feel just conflicted because Chick-fil-A is extremely reputable, popular, and as I said, responsive. And so it would seem to me that they would be willing to be responsive to ensuring that this is a win-win uh and leaving no stone un untouched or unturned over and and give us greater uh confidence that this will not be an issue regarding environmental quality. Additionally, my own preference is that uh this restaurant restaurant would be a walk-in park in only. Um but that's my opinion. Uh just don't want to feel that we left any stone unturned. That's it.

Commissioner Cooney. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um this has gone a direction I didn't anticipate. Um, but uh it's been my practice consistently over the time I've sat on the commission to pay attention to the um commissioners uh choices from the uh the people they represent. And uh my fellow commissioner Park does not um make motions to further consider things uh if he feels otherwise. I've seen him do that many times. So, um, while I feel this project has a lot of potential, uh, it would be to our benefit to do as much as we can as a commission here to review that and make sure there isn't an obvious uh, correction that we overlooked. So, uh rather than saying I vote for or against, I would say I I would agree with um commissioners who propose that we continue this for further study. How I look at this project, I look at the site, I think the site's ideal uh for this project. I'm very impressed with what Chick-fil-A has done with the site uh to make maximum use of its advantages due to its layout, its configuration. I've been similarly impressed with their efforts uh to mitigate the traffic

problems in the area. And foundational to that is that Starbucks on the corner. I don't see how anyone can look at that map of that Starbucks location and not have foreseen that it would be a a considerable problem. Uh I'm reassured though that the entrance for this site is relatively far remove from Starbucks. Uh so I don't think it would contribute to that. I am similarly, you know, impressed with the efforts I have seen on behalf of Chick-fil-A in accommodating community needs uh particularly with their efforts uh to improve traffic flow and uh situation at their State Street store. And I'm confident uh in the event uh they needed to make modifications to the plan uh at this location uh they would continue to operate to that standard. So my feeling is the only thing I would really be willing to support would be to approve this application today. I would not support continuing it. uh I think if we seek continuence uh again and again based on something we find we will find that no project is perfect and we will be continuing them at infan item. So again my feeling is I'm prepared to support approving this today. I would not be in support of continuing. So, any further comment or is someone prepared to offer a motion?

Yes, I I will because I want to give the applicant a chance to get approval and and I can't vote for it today because I don't think you met this standard and so I want to give you time to be able to do it. Um I I can pick a number out of the out of the hat 90 days, 60 days. I don't know what the applicant wants. Um, and commissioners, if you could just help um staff and myself, when you're asking for more environmental review, are you wanting additional studies? No, I I'm I'm I got to mince words here. When I think of environmental review, I think of formal environmental review under

SQA. And and I I think it is staff's position and the applicant's position and I'm not going to argue it, okay, that the our thresholds, our screening thresholds uh cause us to reach the termination that there need not be additional in that there need not be environmental review in the way of a a SQA review like an M&D or an environmental impact statement. Okay, I am referring to the uh LUDC and the section that has a development standard that a drive-through facility shall have no greater adverse impact upon air quality than the same use without the drive-through facility. And and Ms. Collins remarked to me that this is a uh a finding. You know, we can say, well, it's a it's a finding that that's that we've met that development standard. I guess that's a more technical way of saying it, but I'm not prepared to do that. But I'm prepared to give them time so that they can develop the evidence and anybody else who wants to develop contrary evidence can and then that we shall receive that evidence at a hearing and make that determination because that gives them a chance to get a 5. Right now it's not going to be a 50. So I would make a a a motion to continue this to a date that is um do we have Um, the applicant is asking for about 60 days so we can look at the May 27th hearing if that works.

Yeah. So, can I use that in my motion? Is that right? May 27th.

27. Yep. Okay. The motion is to continue this matter to May 27 so that we can receive additional evidence from uh uh the applicant and others regarding whether this drive-through facility will have no greater adverse impact upon air quality than the same use without the drive-through facility.

Do we have a second? Uh second um with gratitude for the clarification from all parties and also just um just to underscore the responsiveness of Chick-fil-A. Uh I really want this restaurant to go through, but I want I want this to be a win-win. Second. Let's do a roll call. I mean, just do a roll call. Commissioner Cooney. I agree with that. I Commissioner Ford I. Commissioner Park. I Commissioner Martinez.

Nay. And Chair Reed. No.

Motion passes. Three to two. So chair chair read and commissioners on the next item I know it's getting close to lunch hour um I know there's desire to break for lunch um I'm hearing from staff that that item should be relatively straightforward and simple if the commission wanted to I I I shouldn't say that I've now jinxed it so we'll be here all day um if if we wanted to just go through that and then end and then go to lunch afterwards um staff is willing to do that otherwise We can take a lunch break and come back.

Commissioner Cooney, that would be my preference as well to finish. I say I would just I would rather finish now. Me, too. Yeah, I I think it's a good idea. I don't think need a few minutes to prepare or they're ready. We're ready now.

Okay. So, Mr. Vilobos, would you read the item into the record? Certainly. Uh hearing on his uh hearing on the request to consider case number 23 GPA 6 as well as 23 RZN6 and to adopt the mitigated negative negative declaration case number 25 NGD6 pursuant to state guidelines for implementation of the California Environmental Quality Act and adopt the mitigation monitoring program. Good morning, commissioners. I will now be presenting the Rose Comprehensive Plan amendment and zoning map amendment. The property outlined in blue on this map is located at 1251 Orchid Drive in the Eastern Galita Valley Community Plan Area, Second Supervisorial District. The property is a 2.33 acre lot zoned to Agriculture 1 with a minimum parcel size of 10 acres. The property is currently developed with an orchid nursery. Access is provided off of Orchid Drive, a private residential culde-sac. The property is surrounded by lot zoned single family residential and developed with residences to the north, east, and south, and a lot zoned for agriculture to the west. The project is a request for a comprehensive plan amendment and zoning map amendment to change the land use designation and zoning of the subject parcel from agriculture 1 to single family residential. No development is proposed at this time. The project site has not always been zoned for agriculture. When the first permits were issued for the site in 1962, the site was zoned single family residential. The ordinance at the time allowed for nurseries and green houses for propagation and cultivation of plants in the single family residential zone. The site was then developed with

an orchid nursery in 1993 when the Galita community plan was adopted. The site was reszoned to agriculture 1 when the orchid operation was was existing on site. Amending the zoning and land use designation for the site from agriculture 1 to single family residential is compatible with the neighborhood. This slide depicts the surrounding zones with residential zones shown in blue, agricultural zones shown in green, and the subject lot shown in red. As previously stated, the subject property is surrounded by residential uses on three sides. The agricultural lots to the west are all significantly larger than the subject lot and are accessed directly off Shoreline Drive, a heavier trafficked public road. A more intense agricultural operation on the subject lot would not be compatible with the surrounding neighborhood. The request to reszone to residential uses is consistent with the comprehensive plan including the coastal land use plan and the eastern Galita Valley community plan and article 2. There is no development proposed and future development will be subject to all applicable policies of the comprehensive plan and article 2. The request is consistent with the purpose and intent of the single family residential zone district and the lot will comply with the minimum lot size for the zone. There are several policies in the comprehensive plan regarding the protection of agricultural land. However, the subject parcel is not considered viable for agriculture. The existing orchid operation is no longer profitable and a larger agriculture operation would not be compatible with the surrounding residential neighborhood. The property is surrounded by residences on three sides and accessed off a residential culde-sac. The proposed residential zoning will complete a logical residential neighborhood and allow for a clear urban rural boundary line. A mitigated negative declaration was prepared for the project to study its anticipated environmental effects. No

significant and unavoidable impacts were found to occur. Significant but mitigable impacts are found in the areas of greenhouse gas emissions, cultural resources, hazardous materials, and public facilities. Mitigation measures to reduce these impacts to less than significant levels are included in the mitigation monitoring program as attachment D. And significant impacts were found for the remaining resource areas. Staff recommends that your commission recommend that the board of supervisors make the required findings for approval of the project. recommend that the board of supervisors adopt the final M &D and mitigation monitoring program for the project and adopt resolutions recommending that the board of supervisors amend the land use designation and zoning for the lot from agriculture 1 to single family residential. This concludes staff's presentation. Staff and the applicant are available for questions.

Uh I have a question myself. Were we supposed to do exparte on this type of application? Yes. Okay, let's do it at this time. exarty site visits. No, I I'm sorry. I I didn't meet with anyone. Just drove by yesterday. Yeah, I actually drove by last Thursday. I'm familiar with the site having gone by that area for many years. My grandmother was an orchid person, so we always visited the area. So, now questions. I do.

Commissioner Park. Um, I don't quite get why there's two cases and two types of zoning, but they all come to 20,000 square foot lots. Anyway, could you explain that for me? Um, Mr. Chair Commissioner Park, the general plan amendment case is for changing the land use designation which um is in the comprehensive plan and the zoning map amendment the RZN case is to change the zone which is established by the ordinance. So article 2 in this case.

So even though they have different designations, the the 20R1 and the and the and the res the same. Yes, it would be the same minimum lot size. Well, it always makes sense in planning. I'm Thanks. No further questions.

Uh with no other questions, we can go to applicant. Is that on? Thank you, Chair Reed. Steve Fort with Seth Land use Consulting and uh with me today is uh owner and applicant Loris Rose. I I'll start out by thanking uh Miss Brown uh for helping us get to this point today. And um I want to thank David for helping me prepare for the hearing today. Had a little mix up with my presentation. And thanks to you folks for pushing through today during the hearing and getting us in before your lunch break. Um Oh, I have the clicker. Okay. key considerations. Uh the property is only 2.33 acres. Um future egg is limited by the viability of what's going on there right now which is disappearing the size of the parcel access to the parcel and HOA restrictions. The current the lot size is non-conforming to the current A10 designation. We're 2.3 acres that requires a 10 acre minimum. Um the current orchid operation is no longer or is diminishing in viability and and it is really no longer competitive with bigger operations that are going on around the world. It's not viable for long-term a use. It's actually map. It does have prime soils as does that whole Orchid Drive neighborhood, but it it's uh it's actually mapped on the county's GIS and by the state as urban and built up lands and not prime farmland. The best use of the property really is residential going forward and it results in a logical and viable neighborhood and a and a stable limit to urban development in that area. The request is consistent with county policies and the Coastal Act, as we'll talk about a

little bit more. And I do want to acknowledge uh in the coastal zone requesting an a reszone out of a we realize that that's going to get scrutinized and looked at very closely. Um uh but in this case it's a 2.3 acre parcel that's really its life has been reached at this point and that's why we're we're asking for this request and and going back to the point about we realize it's a it can be a sensitive topic. We have been in touch with Coastal Commission staff in Ventura. I know Mi Miss Brown's been in touch with them, shared information with them. We had a Zoom call with them to help bring them along. Um, so just FYI, we have been in touch with the coastal staff in Ventura. I'm going to kind of skip over the maps. U, I think Miss Brown addressed those. Um I I did just want to point out again that this is this is mapped as urban and builtup lands u by the county and and using the state as a source for that data. Just a little bit on the history you know the operation was developed in the sometime between 57 and 65. It's really been never really been a neighborhood where a intensive agriculture in ground agriculture in this block of the neighborhood was ever really foreseen. The neighborhood really grew up around it. If you study the uh the uh the aerial photographs through the years, this one here is from 1976, I believe. Um I have some information about when the lots were created. Um, Miss Brown talked about the the initial permitting and zoning. Um, I I think the point here is it's always been limited to a small above ground operation and the residential development just continued to grow around it since it was developed between 1957 and 1965.

just to go over some of the constraints on future egg here. Again, orchid business changes um impacted by larger growing operations and there there's less viability for smallcale operations and private collections. It's really become cost prohibitive at the site and it's not financially sustainable anymore. The only access point is driving down that uh that stub of Orchid Drive through the residence uh through the residential area. So any delivery trucks, employees, shoppers are going through that resol residential area to get to the the existing business. Um, you probably saw the public comment letter from the Moore Mesa Homeowners Association. I I realize the county doesn't usually put too much credence into what's going on between private agreements and CCNRs, but they do exist and that the property is limited by the CCNRs of the neighborhood. um they they can only do above ground horicultural activities. And my experience talking with Miss Rose, it kind of sounds like she's been a good neighbor. The neighborhood has grown up around them. They've kind of tolerated her. They've been friendly. They have a good relationship. Um but the CCNRs do u limit that it's it's got to be above it's basically has to be the operation they're running right now to continue there and be consistent with the CCNRs. Um, they wouldn't allow any inground cultivating. Um, I'm going to keep going here. Not too much on egg policy consistency. I think Miss Brown hit that. Um, but we are consistent with the egg conversion thresholds and the point scoring system that the county uses to to determine sort of an initial screening of whether there might be an impact to a resources. we're consistent with the zone we're trying to get into, the 20R1 zone, um in in terms of size and being an

appropriate use for the property um going forward. Again, it's not considered prime farmland. It really isn't appropriate for long-term a use. Um couple of other things, there's no environmental or or coastal resources affected, and it does create that logical boundary. It's adjacent to existing residential uses. Coastal act consistency which is some of the conversations we had with coastal staff. It does create you know they limit conversions out of a to situations where a stable boundary uh would be created which is certainly the case here. We're basically changing the zoning to to join the neighborhood around it. Um and the the viability of the existing a use is severely limited won't be growing and again we're we're creating that stable boundary uh sound neighborhood um uh in in somewhat of a limit to urban development there. And again, the the the new residential development, which is kind of the flip side of how the Coastal Commission looks at this, um it'll be located within and contiguous to um existing residentially developed areas. And the key thing too is it's not growth inducing there. There is water and sewer in the neighborhood right now. Um again, I'm probably starting to repeat myself, but one key thing too is we're not setting a precedent here. I don't believe and I think you'll agree and I think staff agrees is that it's a 2.3 acre parcel that's outlived its a life. It's surrounded by the residential property. Um we're consistent and compatible with the neighborhood and we feel strongly the the highest and best

use of this moving forward is a residential u type of use. Um, we we we we feel like we're consistent with the findings on article 2 that we're in the general interest uh the interest of general community welfare, consistent with the comp plan, the coastal plan uh and the coastal act and we're consistent with good zoning and planning practices. Um, and with that, I would just say thanks and hope you follow the recommendations of staff to recommend us to the board of supervisors um for approval. Thanks. and we're here available for questions as necessary. Any question? Commissioner Park?

Yes. Um, when we get to deliberations, I I I want to make a few comments that uh support your point that this does not create precedent. And and and I'll explain why because I had some involvement with the orchid industry and I'm just curious, Miss Rose was involved in the industry. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. And she's the she's the owner of the Cal Orchid that's on site now formed with her her uh husband who passed away unfortunately while we were processing this and your involvement started when I mean if you pick a year if you remember that

my sorry okay

so my name is Loris Rose I've lived here since I was five. Um, I lived brought up in Hope Ranch and rode my horse all over Moresa. Always had a respect for nature. And although I pursued English literature as my major, this love for plants overrode it. And I got a job at a small place up in the Riviera picking Simbidian flowers for King Cheryl when I was just like 20 22. and loved that aroma of the Simbidium flowers and my father. Anyway, I love plants, loved orchids most and so um I found an ad in the newspaper for the orchid estate and I um went to work for them and my mother had been shopping there and I enjoy the atmosphere and kind of controlled rural um containment for these beautiful orchids. met my husband there and um in 1987 we purchased the nursery across the street, Orchids by Row. Bob Bro, who owned that parcel actually owned that whole street. So when you and and your family were shopping there, Mr. Reid, um uh you may have gone down that little road to Orcas by Row, Mr. row um because he owned that whole street and all the parcels just kept selling those parcels and the houses kept building until they got to the end. And he wanted to preserve that spot which is our nursery Cal Orchid for his son to be able to grow simidiums and maintain a modest income for himself. Um so that's why that was there and it has that ubiquitous name of Orchid Drive Extension.

It is. It's a narrow street. The neighbors love us. I've been the president of that homeowners association before and served on the architectural committee and and um I throw the parties every year for the summer social. We get along very well. It's a tight-knit community. Did you have any specific questions to ask me? Well, I welcome you to make appointments anytime. Oh, yeah. And if you want to me have a site selection or site a site review, I'm there six and a half days a week. So happy to show you around all the nooks and crannies of the orchid world.

Yeah, I was Are you Commissioner Park? Are you okay? I was I'm glad to have We're here to get into deliberations.

Okay. Well, we get there in a minute. Just I'm not quite ready yet. No, I was I was very glad. I thought they had a excellent bio of you in newsshock a week or two ago. Uh hope the uh rose show turn I mean the orchid show turned out well. Yeah. My connection with the area when I was very young my grandmother was very into some bidiums and we used to go at those pblos when they closed. When they closed, we switched to Santa Barbara Orchid Estate. And actually, one of the employees there, a little Japanese guy when I was probably seven, eight years old, taught me a lot about propagate, separating and propagating simidiums. I still have a stagghorn fern. I I've been dividing and growing since I was a little kid over these many decades. But nonetheless, so we do have some commonality there. I appreciated the story and I also appreciate your predicament in trying to practice any sort of egg when you're kind of surrounded by what is a really beautiful neighborhood up there. So that's my piece. Now if we are all ready we could do we have public comment. Uh for those of you joining online uh raise your hand if you'd like to speak. No hands raised. No public comment. So we will at this point close the public hearing. Are there and we're ready to move to any more questions of staff? No. Are we ready to proceed to Yeah. Deliberations?

Sure. If we are, I will take, you know, the hardest part about being chair is I have to wait until everybody else is done to say something. But I'm going to depart from that tradition and I would like to recommend uh that we adopt staff's recommended actions on the screen on the screen. I'm not going to make you listen to me read them. I would So we're not going to have deliberations first. We will have deliberations, but I'm prepared to make a motion. I got it. I'll just give you a heads up on that. Any deliberate Oh, Commissioner Park. I should have I apologize.

Commissioner Park, please proceed. So, as I read the staff report, I had a warm and fuzzy feeling that I knew more about this than I remembered. And uh Bob and John Row were great friends of mine. The young attorney that handled that transaction young then was me. And uh I know the site very well. I I and I hope it came out for you. I I you know, the fact that you've you hung with it all this time must mean that that that worked out to be a good purchase. So I hope so because I was tough on you. I know that. Um but the reason I wanted to speak here is there's a lot of precedent for this. I mean I know that you know five years ago if you talked about converting a to residential, you know, everybody go up in arms. And now of course now that we need more housing that's changed a little bit but you know from representing the rose and I also represented the whole Santa Barbara International Orchid Show. I I did the legal work to create it. And so I got to know all these growers. And a very big piece of the orchid industry then were people like like the Rose who were essentially hobbyists themselves. And Bob Row loved to create new varieties and things and they would they enjoyed it because they were hobbyists. A big part of their market were other hobbyists. Okay. And then they would also sell to the uh to the to the flower industry, which really wasn't cut flowers, but nowadays it is. And it's big-time outfits from South America and other places. And the uh kind of growers that were like you and Bob Row and John Row kind of disappeared. Uh, and the reason I say it's not a precedent is because there were

properties kind of this size with green houses that dotted Kalita and dotted Carperia. They're all over and they've all gone out of business and they've all converted to housing or something's happened. So, there's nothing alarming here. I just think it's amazing you held out this long and um so I just hope everybody realizes this and I totally support your your application and and I do want to come by and visit. I'll even bring lunch. All right. On the Monday, Commissioner Ford.

Uh thanks very much. I don't have much to say. I can't say that uh when I reviewed this I had a warm and fuzzy feeling but uh I actually felt uh had bittersweet feelings because um we've all seen what has happened to agriculture and to flower growing and particularly orchid growing uh in California over the past number of years. I think slide number five tells the story. Uh this is a smart change. Um, and so I support it too and we'll be happy to second a motion should it come.

Any other Commissioner Cooney? Uh, I could talk longer so um uh I'm interested by the history and um the endurance and u the presentation. Uh so I'll support a motion to approve this change. Okay. Well, getting back I I will make that motion. I Sorry. Second. I just wanted to see if Mr. Martinez wanted to speak, but he doesn't. So, second the motion.

Okay. Mr. Cooney, could we I Mr. Voboo, sorry. Could we please take a roll call? Commissioner Cooney. I. Commissioner Ford. I. Commissioner Park. I Commissioner Martinez I chair Reed I motion passes five to zero. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

With that we will be adjourned until April 8th.