Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

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careful like to call to order the uh March 19th oh he's not for I'd like to call to order the March 19th meeting of the city of Santa Monica's Planning Commission uh start with a Pledge of Allegiance Pledge algi to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic stands naice call a roll please commissioner Cho here commissioner Fresco here

commissioner Hamilton here commissioner ree here oh and uh chair tolken okay did she call yeah okay uh planning director's report oh God I don't know why I'm not hearing this good evening chair and members of the commission thank you for having me this evening there are a few items I wanted to highlight for you coming up particularly um our April 2nd meeting is cancelled followed by a uh meeting on May 7th where we will have a study session on SI Monica Bard safety study preliminary recommendations will be considered and also the Park and Recreation master plan we are planning a meeting on May 21st this would be an important meeting as we get to the start the discussions related to the airport conversion project looking at different scenarios adult use cannabis recommendations will also be coming to you on May 21st we have an ARB meeting actually that just took place two days ago um the items they considered involved 601 Colorado which was approved 2307 Lincoln which was approved and 1318 4th Street was continued uh we had a landmark commission meeting earlier in the month which included 226 Palisades Avenue The Landmark designation for that site we we've had a lot of meetings as you can see we did have a March 8th Council budget study session and it was a retreat on a Saturday we were there for several hours Council had an opportunity

to look at the 2527 um budget considerations just a preliminary discussion they looked at their priorities as a council uh in addition we did have uh a council meeting which included the um extending a proclamation declaring a local emergency on homelessness where they considered the homeless strategic plan that was quite a bit of a discussion at the council meeting there's also a few items I wanted to put in your radar related to some initiatives you're going to see us launch out of our department really heavily focused on economic development uh Council prioritized their goals for the upcoming year and top three not in no particular order included a a really heavy focus on economic development really looking at ways to help our business Community with furthering business recovery efforts as part of that Council uh formed a um ad hoc subcommittee in addition to that we're also launching a Citywide interdepartmental task force focused on economic development and we're going to actually Ki kick that off next week um this is going to involve quite a bit of look look at a way to um have a new strategy for economic development how are we going to attract businesses fill our vacancies really create an economic engine for the city in addition to looking at a number of economic recovery efforts that we want to launch and I will continue updating all of you because I think anything we do in economic development of course goes hand inand with planning and I think it's important for all of you as planning Commissioners to be well informed of these larger initiatives we're taking on um in city thank you for having me tonight any questions I'm assuming that the April we we don't have an meeting on the 16th of April me yeah that that is looking also

very likely that that meeting might be cancelled um I know Ethan was n on the second and none yeah we were pulling about because I know it's spring break week for a lot of folks as well and we're not seeing you know potentially any items but we will confirm that you know once we make sure that we don't have any items that need to be heard okay thank you um like to make the announcement that um um anybody wants to speak who has to submit a chit to the Secretary of the commission and that should be done before we talk about the particular issue or if somebody wants to speak generally um they can do that as long as it's something that we can talk about and and this commission talk about by law we have to you have to speak about something that's before us or will be before us or or is it our purview so submit your chips now for whatever you want to speak about commissioner do you have any announ announcements um I'm just going to announce it I'm I guess I'm happy that April 2nd got canceled because I was going to be in um Dallas for a HUD Housing and Community Development Innovation Solutions um seminar or conference and maybe I will learn some new innovative solutions and I'll come back and present them to you when I come back and then I also want to just highlight I already talked to Ethan about this but have a bad schedule in late May and June and I'm going to miss a a few meetings and I apologize anybody else no uh we have one public

input Jerry Ruben I don't think it's on Jerry okay turn myself okay is it on now there we go okay there is thank you very very much uh honorable commissioner City staff fellow Santa Monica Jerry Rubin longtime resident I'm a honored member of the Santa Monica Urban Forest task force but I'm just speaking for myself today uh actually had a little uh note that I was going to bring uh written personally by mother nature but I left it home and she wishes you a happy spring equinox starting tomorrow today is the last day of winter and in many ways that's a hopeful sign of all sorts of Rejuvenation our next Urban Forest task force meeting you're all invited if you care about the trees and want to support our good landscape people it's at the Santa Monica main live library on Wednesday March 26 starting at 6:30 p.m. upstairs in the community room and they're doing good work I would like to uh just leave it at that for now and to say thank you for all your good work thank you J sir thank you uh next is the sent calendar I believe and other the Commissioners have any exported disclosures I

do go ahead yes um I received a phone call uh from Jonah brla representing United Here Local 11 regarding item 118 I just talk about let's U the consent calendar is there any anybody wants to pull anything on the commission from I have a question of our City attorney about 7A the all those minutes that are from five years ago uh they were very well written I felt like I was reading a gossip column from the 1940s it was really fun but and some of it sounded familiar but five years ago I mean I can't really right so understood um although it has been past practice uh for Commissioners to only vote on um meetings where they have been in attendance um that is actually not requirement um it's not the purpose of voting on meeting minutes you are basically confirming that you that you trust that City staff has put together meeting minutes that are accurate representation and that's all you're doing so you're voting as a body you're voting as a body for meeting minutes of the body and it's a continuation of the body you don't you are not required to have been on the commission at the time or have been present at the meeting okay but my question is it's this is a vote of trust and not a confirmation of accuracy yes because I couldn't possibly remember what and some of you were not on the commission at the time as well most many of us understood I was here but you know anyway all right just wanted to make sure about that okay Carry

On can we take a a vote on this I'll I'll move the con consent calendar second all those in favor say I I I I all those opposed yes passes 60 okay we can go to it 11 item 11a believe chair uh before we go before we open item 11a um could I ask the City attorney to clarify how we're going to handle my recusal um on 11a D and 11 AE so I'm gonna kick it off to the to the planning manager yeah so before she explains would you please explain your accusal oh sure um so this is formal notice that uh I must recuse myself from a sorry this is not moving properly um from item 11 a d resolution 25007 and a item 11 a e resolution 25008 because I live within 500 ft I mean within 250 ft practically of the subject property and I will have to leave the room for the commission's discussions of those two specific resolutions um since recovering the recusals would this be a good time for me to ask since I live within a th000 ft of um a potential large site some of us I may not be the only one um whether you want to confirm my understanding that I am able to participate in in item 11

AA sorry uh yes uh based on uh your the location of your property and the proximity to Parcels that would be subject to lifting the cap off of the streamlining it appears that the public generally exception applies to you uh 30 approximately almost 38% of the parcels would um within the city would be within 500 ft of a parcel subject to the proposed cap and then sorry 38% of the residents right no it's 33% of the residential property those are two there are two different standards so under one standard it would be almost 38% and under the other standard is 33% both of which exceed the threshold under the fpc's regulations okay um could I request that to the extent this is a request of the commission for the sake of maintaining um uh you know our all of our clearances if when we get into that conversation there's a discussion of a specific site that needs to happen that it be agendized for a separate meeting um and if there are multiple specific sites that need to be agendized that we handle those in sequence so that whoever needs to recuse can recuse but uh I don't want to get it if we get into the certain sites we could talk about but if we get into like a substantive conversation on a particular site it's going to get dicey for me and it may be true for others okay um well thank you and so commissioner lers has stated his recusal and if you could please leave the room um start with yeah yes yes so um just to explain to members of the public that are present due to commissioner landis's conflict item 11 will be heard in two parts we will be conducting essentially a mini public hearing solely on the um the uh uh change to the zoning and loose

maps for 2644 30th Street for which commissioner alas has a conflict so we will be having the staff presentation taking public uh comment and taking questions from the commission the commission will deliberate and vote only on that uh zoning and Loos map amend m m so any public comment at this portion of the hearing should only be related to 2644 30th Street um and then once the commission votes only on that resolution then commissioner landas will be invited back into the chamber and then we will then have the staff presentation for the remainder of item 11a so again we will be conducting 11a in two parts um so at this point um we will start with the staff presentation again only on the zoning ordinance and app amendments for 2644 30th Street so I'm going to start off Rachel Quark environmental planner and then eventually as we move on through this presentation I'll hand it off to Ross Ferman and uh Steve Mami who will wrap up this um presentation for tonight so starting off with 2644 30th Street what's before you is the proposed um zoning map Amendment uh to correct this parcel from its existing zoning of R1 and its existing loose designation of single family housing to NC uh neighborhood commercial for both the zoning and the loose designation um reason why we're proposing this is because this was an inadvertent error as part of the 2010 loose update and the 2015 zoning orance update um what's on the site right now is actually an office building so um what we're proposing is not resoning the entire parcel but just the portion of the parcel that is occupied by this office use so as you can see here the portion in red is being proposed for a zoning of NC this would

be an alignment with the current zoning that is along Ocean Park Boulevard um is also consistent with its current use its current office use which has been there since 1956 um again this would result in a split zoning of R1 on the P Parking portion of the site and then NC on the office portion of the site and that's it chair uh you didn't ask for recusals on this item and I have I'm not recusals exp partes okay and I have some for this item so so just to just to be clear this is a legislative item um it is not quasi judicial your Rules of Order do not require exp pares you you may certainly State something for the record if you wish but just just to be clear for for all of item 11a and item item 11b they islative items and do not require exp party disclosures under your Rules of Order okay do you guys want to know you want to say something waiting with baited breath okay um I spoke to Paula lore she called me about this before our last hearing when it was continued um and I shared with her some sandboard maps of this parcel showing that this property had been an Arena built in 1942 originally for Douglas aircraft workers and then was redeveloped in 19 1956 also by Douglas aircraft and may be the last extent building built by Douglas aircraft in the city that I'm aware of so that was just something I shared with her and because I got nerdy about it and then today uh around two o'clock I received a call from Nikki kolhoff from the Sunset Park neighborhood uh who had basically the opposite position that Paula was I have a question for staff yes step do you have a a bigger blowup of the zoning

map because one of the things you said is it's consistent with the with the zoning pattern along and then what's the green behind is that the parking lot it's actually not a green sorry it's a actually just the Porche that's the actual parcel which is so the portion that is the green is the actual parcel so the NC that you see that's in pink those are the office uses that's fronting along Ocean Park Boulevard so the parcel that's being rezoned is the green one but sorry not the entire parcel but a portion of the parcel like the first third of that yeah so the one in the red is the office building and we just reone that NC the rest of it remain um would remain R1 so what you'll essentially have is you know a portion of it as yellow and then a portion of it as pink if that was too pass I got it thank you I have a question as well no more question I have a question yes uh just to clarify uh the existing parking that is remaining on R1 yes uh that use is not jeopardized in any way by remaining on the R1 is that correct not that I were aware of no and if that portion of the parking lot were to be developed in the future it would have to be built as our one and serve as a buffer with yeah it would have to remain as a parking law or need to be rezoned if it was to be developed as anything else thank you oh wait a second I'm sorry what you just said was um it's par it's right now it's R1 and it's parking you could build residential on there without re without reason okay in accordance R1 standards so basically a single family house or a duplex got it thank you okay I guess there any any other questions from the commission Nina no do

you have a question no public comment so at this point of the hearing we'll now move into public comment we did want to point out that we received um an extra public comment um it was not posted online but it is available at the back of the room for any members of the public who wish to obtain a copy um so we just want to make sure that everyone knows this was passed out at the dis and is also available at the back of the room um if any member of the public wishes to make public comment again only on this change to the zoning and loose map for 2644 30th Street um we will be calling uh the request to speak forms and if we call your name and your comment is not about the change of Zone uh to the zoning map and loose for 2644 30th Street then you can decline to comment and you can make your public comment later again public comment right now is just for 2644 30th Street so chair if you'd like to call the yeah the request to speak Dave Pand Rand what Rand Rand I'm sorry Dave Rand no Jonah brow Eli ques ques Ria espo Maria Espinosa okay next Daniel LLY la

xenor Josephs thank you I believe you received a detailed email about this item from FR of Sunset Park should be posted online it was sent in before noon today and um I handed out uh a document that I found on my computer after that you should have a copy it looks like this and it's from 2015 when the zoning ordinance was updated and it lists some addresses in Sunset Park that were designated incorrectly we felt and on page three it says 26443 the original Google building and a large parking lot behind the retail behind the retail Center in Ocean Park Boulevard Ark GIS R1 drafting District map R1 this lot appears to be all 1 APN however it is R1 with a commercial building on part of it and a parking lot on the rest so our requested action was to please confirm that this is all single family loose designation and R1 districting and we met at that time it was July 2015 we met with the city manager we had a 15-page letter that we presented to him and we thought that this was straightened out and so here it is again that's very disappointing thank you Richard milanesi [Music]

uh uh Mr Don Denny gaale Gale Denny no no Stephen Anderson next item and PA lorine Paulo lar I have a oh I have you have my presentation yeah that's not it oh can I start my time no I'll I'll reset it okay thank you thank you Paula lour with Harding lour kchen coal attorney for the owner of 2644 30th Street we urg the Planning Commission to recommend changing the property's loose and Zoning designation to Neighborhood commercial consistent with its existing commercial use and prior commercial C2 zoning just to be clear this is a separate legal parcel it's not a split Zone but I understand those two Parcels are tied to it um we are only talking

about the part the portion in red 2644 in the red box the surface parking lots are not being proposed for change they're nice areas for kids in the neighborhood to roller skate on right now um the property owner unfortunately realized this zone change when they came to the city relatively recently looking for options for future tenants of the property when they bought the property it was Zone C2 so they were extremely surprised to learn that this had become an R1 Zone and that there were no absolutely no allowable commercial uses on this property this makes it a legal non-conforming use and if the existing tenant leaves say sweet a leaves and they are not able to lease that Suite to a similar commercial use within one year they cannot lease that suite for another commercial use they would have to then file an extremely expensive text Amendment come to the Planning Commission to ask for Relief and the City Council in order to occupy their existing commercial office building with an office user so we went back and did the research um and I sat through these 32 hearings in 20145 where staff attempted based on feedback from the neighbors and the res uh sorry Property Owners to ad the staff attempted to identify all the properties in the city where there was a prior zoning and new zoning in new loose 2010 loose inconsistency staff said to you guys and to this uh the council that they had gone through to compare the maps and identified a complete list of inconsistent Parcels this list was about 115 Parcels long and 19 of the parcels on the list had this exact same

situation where they were zoned commercial industrial in the pre-2010 era or and the then zoning and then they had been given a residential loose designation this is what the list looked like 2644 30th fit this exact same situation where it had been changed in 2010 loose but was not brought forward for the commission and Council to to consider for the remapping in 2015 so the the decision makers did not have the information before voting on the maps thank you staff have Commissioners have any questions just I have one just when you say the commission didn't have the information in front of just expand on that a little bit because I think you kind of got cut off in your sure so a lot of these properties came up and the this list was developed that show that was supposed to show you all and like it said in in the staff report that staff did this comprehensive list so here's an excerpt of theist list that showed when there was an existing zoning um if you can take this first example it was C4 then in the loose the 2010 loose it got changed to medium density housing so then staff made a a recommendation to you in this column loose designation change and then you or you know the then commission and the then Council went through really with a fine tooth comb to say okay this one used was C2 or c for then in 2010 it got changed to residential what do we want to do do we want to change it back to the commercial do we want to change the zoning to residential to be with the loose so that's what I mean is that it wasn't identified on this list when you all want to vote great thank you very much

for the clarity thank you any other questions Christina Navaro we're still on this we got to vote and move this item before we hear the next okay we're we're still on public comment for the item no we well I think we I thought we went through the list I'm apolog oh oh are we are we through the list just going to finish the public comments yeah she's going through the list still I think yeah Christina novaro EXC so this looks like Heather Thompson next Elizabeth Van Don Don and dancon Koff that's it all right good evening um I'll go ahead and start um I'm one of the neighbors across the street um just wanted to let you guys know this is an internal lot it's pretty far into the street or into the block um and it's really not part of a Boulevard this section um it was owned by Douglas and this is this was a Douglas building years ago uh when the housing was developed it was zoned R1 I believe so and um let's see it's kind of it's kind of weird that a neighborhood commercial would align with this neighborhood because it could go higher and that

could impacted and with sorry I'm catching my breath uh with I think commercial it would allow up to 110 foot tall mix use uh development this right next to um housing single family housing and you know even with even if it's and it would have to be very clear it does not cover the parking lot next to it because that even goes deeper into the neighborhood um but um you know kids play in there it's like a neighborhood I hate to say this but it's a neighborhood thing on weekends where kids are riding their bikes and they're learning how to ride their bikes my kids learned how to ride their bikes um and it's kind of a walkthrough also uh for a lot of us to get to the other side of the street people on 30th so we don't have to go go all the way around to Ocean Park or to Pearl that's it I hope you keep it the way it is thank you I think that's all our comments so great yeah so with no further public comment on 2644 30th Street we'll now move to the commission's deliberation um and your motion on this item I have a question for staff go ahead Nina um I'm just noticing this uh new handout we just got which talks about when they uh asked for it to be R1 and that's dated July 31st 2015 and the list that Paula larmour showed us and that's up there that she also sent us in a letter is dated uh prior to that March 18th 2015 so what I'm wondering is what might have happened after the Planning Commission that got it you see what I'm saying I'm just want to know what happened it's all a mystery yeah so essentially what happened is um you know

that what the testimony you've heard is accurate you know that as part of the what appears to have happened is in the in the 2010 uh loose update this uh parcel where the office building is sitting so you know we we understand that there may have been some confusion fortunately it's one APN but it's really a portion of that APN it's really just the office building again for clarity it's not the surface parking lot it's just the office building piece that um in the loose update was changed to single family housing designation um there is no record of that being a deliberate act for for any reason and then that sort of carried through um and as part of the 2015 zoning code update of those of you who recall that you know then there was realize at that time that there was in consistencies between the zoning and the loose designation in this case the zoning at that point was C2 right the former C2 Zone it's commercial Zone its new equivalent is really the NC Zone as we know it now um but the loose designation was single family housing at 2015 and um the record shows that at that point there was an effort to um recognize these inconsistencies and also that you know there were these inadvertent changes where you had commercial existing commercial uses that didn't match the underlying loose zoning you know there there were some parcels that were changed to like residential designations and so there was an attempt to correct that and then what occurred is it it seems that this particular situation was missed you know really couldn't speculate as to why but it appears that it was missed at that point um because that building has always been there and you know there is a history of that C2 zoning so because it was missed in that effort then the reconciliation of like single family Zone then became R1 single family loose designation excuse me then became R1 zoning because it was caught in that whole Mass you

know harmonizing of the loose and the zoning because it wasn't caught on this list the C2 became R1 Zone to match to single family designation and that's what's carried through this day and it wasn't realized until the property uner raised the issue with staff that they are now unable to actually ret tenant this building because it could only be us as consistent with the R1 one zone so basically what happened because I just it sounds like both people are right is that after that happened it was still R1 because it was missed and then the neighbors came forward and said hey this is R1 don't mess with it but it had already happened and you didn't reopen it and so it stayed R1 so everybody is right yes okay that's what I wanted to clarify yeah and and I think you know what we're again it was the property that brought this forward and sort of highlighting this you know that today today today currently now that this is actually causing you know issues with ret tenanting the building yeah what are options in this case well that and and and so what is the the options or the recommendation of staff is to correct this situation where you know you're essentially I think correcting you know what appears to be an oversight of you know a property that has been in office use for decades that clearly has the history of that commercial zoning you know there's no clear legislative record that says the city meant to do this in any way to to change a commercial building into single family zoning so our recommendation is to correct that mapping error that was you know made at this point 15 years ago just I just wanted to get your opinion from what we heard from Miss lore about the non-conforming and how that kind of really ties their hands yeah yeah so so that is accurate that um you know what whatever uses there can continue however we do have rules around the continuation non-performing uses so if it's been

abandoned for a year or if it became vacant for whatever reason and there's not a continuation of whatever that prior use was you know then you would revert to the underlying Zone which is the R1 and therefore you couldn't do anything other than the R1 Zone which is you know by necessity very very limited and its allowed uses is this building currently empty um I don't have that information um I I understand that there are some vacancies I don't know that it's fully vacant if the owner were to elect to do a remodel of the interior of the building and it were to remain vacant for that period of time would that trigger the same difficulty in releasing to a commercial tenant it would yeah okay yes yeah um I have another question yes um when we did uh at some point we were we we've updated so many things for the housing element and there was a correction of zoning related to that that um I believe that there were housing sites that were incompatible can you remind so in that effort that was uh looking at just the designations we were not looking at existing use and matching use with designations these are unfortunately you know with over 23,000 parts Parcels in the city you know sometimes this happens and you know it's it's unfortunately not brought to light until you know a property owner might raise the issue in you know when they come to get a business license you just tell me again you said they you were matching what were we doing for the housing element we were uh we were reconciling inconsistencies between the loose map and the zoning map so let's say it was a you know single family loose designation and like NC Zone you know in the yeah so we were that's what we were doing with different from this I just wanted to Yad

get should we just make a motion yeah I say I make a motion to approve second okay so I I want to speak to that just quickly because this is really controversial issue I mean when I mean the whole a lots back in the in the days have created a lot of controversy with with the community um and the the desires not to have the commercial encroachment into into the residential areas and I'm supportive I'm supportive of that but this seems to be a very unique situation to me where there is an existing commercial building that's operating today and if we don't change the Zone on it it it really takes away its its livelihood unless certain tenants stay there um so for that reason I'm going to support this um but I do it a little reluctantly because I do agree that it is it is putting the zoning further back into that area but it in I see unique circumstances here yes Nina um there is one other option which is uncertain but because uh it is associated with Douglas aircraft and the area where Douglas aircraft was was completely redeveloped further research could reveal that it is in fact the last remaining building that they built in the city and it could qualify for Lar designation which allows indefinite continuation of non-conforming uses i' rather I'd rather move the motion we have in front of us today that's crazy I know I'm just going to put that out there that that is a possibility commissioner Cho um my main comment is the these types of situations are unfortunate but they do they're fairly prevalent when the zoning changes and I think staff's

proposal is a is a pretty balanced solution where IT addresses the immediate non-conformity but it it goes to the extent of not rezoning the entire parcel to leave a area that provides a buffer so I feel quite comfortable with supporting it I agree with that as well I I think that the the parking lot will remain as is um but we are allowing the owner of this property uh more protection to do any kind of model or rehab of the interior and also just guard against the you know the improbable situation where it have to stay vacant for any kind of commercial reason so I think it's I think it's the fair thing to do um and this site has been you know in in in its current form for 70 years and so I think I think we should just remain allow it to remain as is with the with the zoning change great can we get a vote commissioner chako yes commissioner Fresco I just can't decide I'm G to abstain which I don't think I've ever done before commissioner Hamilton yes commissioner Reese yes and chair tolken yes passes 41 and we'll invite commissioner Landers back into the chamber and we'll continue with the rest of item [Music] 11a all right

welcome back to the fun stuff all right so moving on um so just to give a a overview of tonight's agenda um we've already gone through the rezoning of the map for 30th Street now we will be also moving on to 1331 Wilshire Boulevard the rezoning of that parcel as well as amendments to the text of the zoning ordinance um these amendments are being proposed for consistency with state law as well as to implement city council direction pursuant to um their 16 items in addition we're proposing amendments to provide some additional Cur Corrections and clarifications as we have been implementing these um zoning ordinance so the first bucket I'll start off with revisions for consistency with state law the first revision is to the city's definition of a housing project so as uh you may recall um in our uh state law Updates this year 1893 revises a definition of a housing development project pursuant to the haa the housing accountability act so revisions are being made sorry excuse me to section 9.52 which um adds in two new definitions for housing projects this one relates to as I mentioned the um to the 50% of new or converted Square footage is residential and if at least F 500 net new residential units are proposed so uh this one of course um means that if you have a project that is 500 units and it's a 50% commercial and 50% residential it is now a protected project under the definition of an ha under the guise of the haa similarly the next one is uh

concerns adapter reuse so if an to reuse project converts 50 converts um its square footage and at least 5 there's at least 500 net new residential units um and it convert converts at least 100,000 square feet and if it's a 50/50% project meaning it's 50% commercial 50% residential and no portion of it is Hotel then it's a protect then it's a protected project under the haa um also the haa um new definition uh of a housing project includes Farm worker housing another amendment that is being proposed has to do with density bonus law this one just adds in new definitions for a shared housing unit and for a student housing de development also there have been new density bonuses for student housing projects um so that just got updated into our density bonus ordinance um also there's a um there's a new Adu law update um 1211 which um we've talked about increases the number of adus detached adus that is allowed on an existing uh development uh existing multif family site so the proposed number of detached adus Remains the Same or sorry the number of Adu detached adus Remains the Same for proposed development however if there if you have an existing development um state law now allows you up to 88u but it cannot exceed the existing number of a of units on the site so for examp example if you have a 8 unit apartment building the maximum number of detach adus you could build is now eight um even if you have an 11 unit apartment building it is still eight um another revision that is being made is increasing the noticing requirement from 10 days to 20 days when um there is a zoning ordinance amendment that affects the permanent use of a real

property another amendment that is being made is adding Community clinics as a ministerial permitted land use in uh non-residential districts um these are Community clinics providing Reproductive Services um such as like women's health and um things like that another um amendment that is being made is uh to the S sp9 I guess it's now called s sp450 uh law but this is the duplexes and lot splits in single um single unit zoned Parcels um so there's just some minor clarifications that are being made to make clear that if an application is not um approved or denied within 60 days of the completed application it will be deemed approved also it removes the authorization to deny the s sp9 project if uh the building official makes a finding that it would have a specific adverse impact um and also makes clear there was this a left out in the last round of edits um we accidentally left out um the provision that easements may be required um for Public Works um also another a couple of other edits um has not made to the code but in terms of the online Maps there was a change in the definition of a major Transit stop so our online maps have been updated to reflect service intervals of every 20 minutes now and then um there's no uh revisions being made to S SP 684 as you may recall this is the law that allows for subdivisions of 10 units or less um in multif family zones um s SP 1123 extends it to single family Parcels um so I just want to note this one doesn't take effect s SP 1123 doesn't take effect until July 1st and so we are still awaiting hcd guidance so no changes are being made at this

time and then with that I'm going to hand it off to Ross who will go over the edu Ordnance good evening commissioner so I'm going to dive into into a little bit more detail regarding the updates to our ad local Adu ordinance so the revisions that are proposed before you are for consistency with the new state law ab211 as Rachel mentioned uh to align with the reorganization of the government code 66310 to reflect guidance from the new hcd handbook and there are a handful of areas that we have some policy questions for you so to do a compare and contrast so these are the adus that are State mandated versus what we do exist in and what the state now is requiring us to do so currently in our code we only exempt that there are no standards that could preclude a detached Adu from being up to 800 square feet with side and rear setbacks of 4 feet and up to 16 feet in height however new state law and new hcd interpretation is now saying that on single unit dwelling parcels and multi-unit dwelling Parcels these are the adus that the city is required to allow and all of these can happen on one parcel so in single unit dwelling developments you can now get up to three adus as required by state law there is one Adu and one J Adu that can be established through the conversion of existing or proposed space of a single unit dwelling or an accessory structure uh this was a little bit of a change for us uh we always interpreted that the conversion of an accessory structure would count towards the detached option but the state has made clear that conversion of any type whether it's part of the existing house or the detach structure would now count towards the conversion option so those are the first two and the third is one detached new construction with an Adu that has either four has four foot side and rear

setbacks and depending on its size is anywhere between 16 feet and 18 feet in height so state laws requiring regardless of our standards then in a single unit developed parcel we have to permit three adus in multif family as Rachel kind of mentioned in according to the new state law 1211 uh you have two options available to you the first one is already existing and it's the conversion of existing space up to one to 1u or up to 25% of the existing unit count so that is stay the same but the revision is when it comes to the new detached which have four inside four foot side and rear setbacks and it's dependent on the development that is on the parcel if it's a proposed development you can include in that proposal two detached adus or if you're just adding adus to an existing development it is up to eight but you cannot exceed the existing unit count so there's not a huge change in the multif family except for the addition of increased Adu ability on existing developments so to kind of walk you through what this could look like so you would start with an existing or proposed single unit dwelling and then to add your first potential two adus you would convert existing space to a jdu and then you could also convert existing space to an Adu alternatively you can do a similar configuration where you convert space to an existing to a jdu but instead of converting space of the existing single unit dwelling you can convert space of the accessory structure so that is how you establish the first two through the conversion option the next one is you can add a new detached Adu so getting you to three so that is the state law mandated adus the next section is where Santa Monica is going adding bonus adus to incentivize the production of adus within our R1 neighborhoods and

elsewhere in the city to align Bo estate law but to kind of give incentives for us to retain some amount of control over the placement of adus so similarly uh to start with this topic is the number of adus so in the existing implementation we currently already allow four one was through an attached Adu one was through a jdu one was through a detached both accessory structure or new and one if you remember through our housing element program 4C we are now allowing an additional Adu in the R1 zoning District as long as you destricted as a rent rental unit currently the implementation of that program is for a detached Adu which will come into a later policy question on multi-unit Parcels uh we allow for the same conversion of 1 Adu or up to 25% and only two new detach regardless of there's a proposed or existing development so that's what we do currently the proposed implementation would align pretty closely to that and state law but expand upon it a little bit so the first one would be still the 1 Adu and 1 jdu through conversion one detach new and you see in the green that would be the implementation of our housing element program to allow an additional Adu in the R1 zoning district and as I mentioned there will be a policy question after this slide to ask you more details on the implementation uh similar to the multi-unit dwelling Parcels uh we are essentially just proposing to implement state law with no change to the conversion and the detach to align either the two or eight depending on the development so to walk you through these diagrams um so you have an existing or proposed single unit dwelling you then to add your first potential two adus you would establish a jdu within the footprint of the structure of the single unit dwelling you could also do a

conversion Adu within this singular unit dwelling conversely that Adu could also be through a a detach accessory structure then you could add the new detach datu so so far we're pretty much aligning with state law and the last one is allowing that extra R1 Adu either through a detached uh option or potentially an attached option which that leads me to my first policy question as I first show you the comparison as really we're just adding one more is for a new construction attached Adu so state law does not provide allowances for adus or Jus established through an addition to an existing single unit dwelling that does not include any amount of converted area so you can't really expand the existing footprint to add a new Adu according to state law however currently the city does already allow this type so the question is should the city continue to allow this and if so should this new attached Adu be permitted only under that housing element program 4C that allows an extra Adu in the R1 if it is deed restricted as a rental and as a reminder currently implementation of that program is only for a detached option but we felt like this would be a good potential way of including a version of an Adu that we already allow but not increasing the number of adus that we already allow so the options for you are yes essentially continue to do this option and fold it in under that R1 program that is staff's recommendation for ease of implementation and current consistency uh another option would be no don't allow an Adu or jdu to be established through this kind of new addition to an existing house or an alternative would be continue the current implement mation of the R1 program to allow a new detached if it's rent controlled but maybe even allow a

fifth Adu through that addition so staff's recommendation would be yes continue what we are doing and fold it in under the R1 program uh so this is an example of what that could look like if the selection was yes to kind of continue that implementation Jim do you have a Graphic that shows us the difference again between option one and three on that last l i you know I don't have an option three which is the alternative option I think I think what you would essentially do it be the first one on the left but somehow there would be it would be the combination of these two actually it'd be those two detach the purple and the it's red uh but also that second purple one on the right would be the fifth Adu we're not proposing R yes do we have standards for the separation of these adus and the poy lines we do uh that will be in my next slide so stay bear with me for a second which one on the right which one of those are going be deed restricted the purple would be the deed restricted one so you are now giving the option of that additional Adu that goes beyond state law we'd be derestricting it as a rental so whether it's attached or detached the current property owner or Future Property Owners will know that that was always meant to be a rental unit two two purple if you combined that alternative option yes and both of those would be deed restricted we could yes have we gotten any deed restricted at this I'm unaware of anyone utilizing our R1 program from the housing element to do the additional Adu so so if they didn't want to what what we're saying if they did not want a deed

restrict then they would just revert to the option on the left and have it be detached so the red one is the is the allowed under state law the new detach that we can't DED restrict the purple one would be that additional Adu through the housing element program that we already allow that version the detach version we're just basically asking would you would you be allowing us to include the attached version also under that program so they can choose how to implement that additional Adu just to clarify when you say deed restricted you mean deed restricted that it must be used as a rental unit not deed restricted as to the income of the renter correct we looked into that but ultimately for variety of reasons the rental decision what was built into the housing element program and and there would be no bar on the homeowner renting it to their adult child their parent their favorite whatever right exactly long as it's a rental okay themselves as long as it's a rental unit uh so that was our first policy question just to kind of keep the same options of adus but still not expand the amount so to continue in a comparison of the standards um between the existing and proposed for setbacks there has been no change so the existing is if you're converting existing space you get to keep whatever setback there is currently even if it's non-conforming however if there's the new construction so for like the detached options you do have to do a 4 foot side and rear there's no change between current implementation state law or our proposed uh same with height if you were doing an attached version of an Adu you just get to match the existing height of the structure you're attached to if you're a detached

you would only get 24 ft in height and two stories so there's no proposed changes to that implementation uh for floor area currently we exempt all adus and Jus from floor area uh that will lead me into my second policy question and as far as size uh the real the only real changes between the two are the minimum size uh was reduced as uh one we have to have a minimum size that allows an efficiency unit an efficiency unit is 150 square F feet so we had to reduce our 220 minimum size to 150 and the only other change was actually based on council's direction of a two plus bedroom Adu instead of it being dependent on parcel size whether you got a th000 square feet or 12200 Square F feet uh council's Direction I think back in September uh was to allow for all two or more bedroom adus to be up to 12200 so that is the only change and that was based on Council Direction Hina um so we have to have the minimum at 150 square feet for all the adus by state law correct it has to be allow an efficiency unit which is defined as 15 have you ever been in an apartment that that's small I have not I have a bedroom in my house that that's that's that small and you can't fit a queen understood uh we're aligning with state law to we have to allow a minimum I mean a lot of our a lot of our proposed changes for what I'm going to call our locally permitted adus was to take state law and build off of it to maybe allow a little bit more leniency or a little bit more height so we can get back something in return because the other option would be they could always just do the state mandated ones which we are essentially hands off if they meet very few requirements Sean so

um I I just want to say to and Tony that I'm having PTSD flashbacks to the anti-m Manion isation work in R1 and if you are2 I I feel you um there's that's why there's a policy question coming okay so um it's I want to ask a question before we get to the policy question which is when we fought that fight one of the things that we spent a lot of time on was maximum parcel coverage of the main house and part of the idea around the exemption when we were negotiating over whether it was 800 feet or 1,000 sare feet or 12200 sare F feet was the idea that the maximum square footage of the main house right we we didn't want it we were willing for it to add up to like six 55 60% of the parcel but we didn't really wanted to go higher than that with the number of Adu at the time we were thinking about one Adu right and a maybe a jdu but okay so with the number of adus that state law now provides you can cover 100 if you if you don't if you continue to exempt adus and Jus you could end up with a 100% partial coverage couldn't you I don't know about 100% but it could definitely exceed the amount that we had originally had in the R1 that we then reduced during that mansionization effort in 2019 and you are correct the exemption of that Adu at the time was when stay law only allow required us to do one one Adu one detached Adu in the last five years state law has changed dramatically in a lot of areas but especially in regards to adus um so you know they slowly added

one more and another one and then we had the housing element program to meet our gos of affirmatively further fairing housing in the r R1 districts and so now given the amount that the number of adus have increased we are reconfirming the commission and eventually council's position of would you still like to exempt all adus some floor area I say this also though that if we are going to add let's say you voted to not exempt them from floor area to some extent that may push people into the state La versions that exempt them from floor area Ross yes this is kind of craziness because I mean we're we're saying basically that we're going to get sloppy about developing four or five units on this property without we might as well just rip down the existing buildings and start over again I mean it's nonsense Roman Villas it's just Roman Villas you just build a wall around the at the at the property line and then you stick little in buildings inside and call them adus yeah I'll say that you know since state law has started changing you know and allowing more and more adus realistically staff's opinion is someone cannot fit that many adus on their parcel realistically absolutely so I mean yes they could if they did it at 150 sare ft but I don't that is not what we're seeing we typically see people you know get to the maximum size they're allowed um I think in my experience I've never seen more than two adus maybe like a jdu and one Adu that tends to be the maximum people are willing to kind of develop their parcel at least from what we're seeing currently given that most people still want some backyard um so I can't promise

you that four wouldn't happen at some point but it seems it has not happened yet I've not i' not seen three we've never seen anyone take advantage of our housing element program that got them to four but nonetheless because state law allows three and because our housing element requires us to allow an extra one we're at four right so you're you're at you're at 4 Adu Jus and and plus the single family home so it's five units total yes would would there ever be a situation where somebody could uh you know tear down the primary residence re build it as a smaller primary residence in order to fit an additional four units they definitely could I've not seen that in the five years since we've kind of been seeing this Adu change but yes there is a way to get to four sure um that's just not tends that doesn't seem to be the what we are seeing in our R1 districts at the moment from well this law how long has this law been in effect with the four to be honest well the four the fourth one was our doing back when we had certified our housing element in 20 21 2022 sorry wow that wasn't that long ago but um honestly as far as how when did they get to three it it's it is hard to say because some of this has been facilitated by hcds interpretation so for example for a long time we assumed that the conversion Adu was always within the main house hd's new guidance is no conversion is also the detach structure so we always thought you only get one detached Adu no matter how you established it right now hcd is saying that that converted Adu is the conversion path and you still get another detached so a lot of these changes have been facilitated over various state laws various interpretations and this is ultimately

where hcd who has enforcement Authority is now directing jurisdictions and we have seen that kind of across the board of California that this is like a consistent message that hcd is providing various Nina um so these 150 oh these bedrooms um so I we have some requirements that if the a Adu or J you doesn't have a bathroom or a kitchen or whatever that has to be open to the house is there a way we could incorporate at least a threshold that if it's 150 square if it's under 220 Square fet that uh it has to have access to other spaces on the property or so right now jdu are the only Adu that could potentially have internal access between it and the main structure and state law has come in and actually said that if the jedu doesn't provide its own separate bathroom then it's required to have internal access if it does have its own separate bathroom I guess the property owner can choose whether to have an internal connection or not as far far as could we up that size for our local ones because we couldn't change that for the state mandated ones because those are Untouchable essentially the answer is I I yes I believe so but again I caution us we want to locally incentivize our version because for example state law doesn't uh doesn't take into account front yard setback where our local ones if you're willing to not do the front yard setback we'll give you a little bit more height we'll give you a little bit more flexibility so we could still ask for a couple things as well where state law doesn't give us that ability to

do so I'm sorry I'm just still trying I'm still really hung up on this I mean I just have to say I once rented a hotel room and when I and it was a very low price and when I arrived it was about 150 square fet and there was a twin bed and along one wall with like a sink and a toilet and a shower and I could literally sit on the side of the bed and wash my hands and is this the idea of a home that we're providing for people I mean is this really a home or Nina you're you're you're you're beating him up about state law and the fact of the matter is it has a it has a house it the person would end up having a a roof over their head and a bathroom as opposed to living on the street that's what the city's trying that's what the state's trying to accommodate but they're not yeah but that's not what these will be they'll be wck rooms and Wine sellers I would say the times we have seen adus well then don't worry about people living in them if that's what they're going to end up being you're well then we're just blowing up our Zoning for wck rooms and no the state is blowing it up I I've been in apartments of similar size of 150 square ft some a little bigger some a little smaller in the affordable housing space it's very small I'm not going to lie but a well-designed well-conceived uh 150 square foot unit if you have higher ceilings and larger windows and access to the outdoors um can seem can be livable it's not for everybody but it is uh it's doable and especially in other parts of the world like in in uh in in Asia for example Square 50 foot Apartments are not uncommon I I just want to remind the commission we are still in the middle of the staff report and if and and no you you are welcome to ask clarifying

questions I just wanted yeah we haven't gotten to public comment or finished the present I do have a clarifying question uh so just to to clarify related to the 150q foot minimum requirement is that something we would have to do even for the fourth extra unit that is not mandated on the state law no uh given that that is a very much a local Adu option um I would imagine the commission has more control over that one um so I think yeah you could potentially add that extra layer on that one and that's the only one that is required to be deed restricted for rental correct and it's the only one that is not somehow connected to a version via the state mandated ones cross everyone one question okay does do we have to do if you were developing this site you have to go through Architectural Review Board it is not so all adus are ministerially approved so essentially in Santa Monica and throughout the state they s essentially just go straight to plan check there is no design review nor do we have design review in our R1 neighborhoods predominantly in most of our R1 neighborhoods anyways because this is an architect's nightmare I mean if you're trying to do something organized on a it's just you know I think the state is just allowing for the option to include these units as I mentioned we are not seeing over the last handful of years that they could have already been doing four units I've not even seen three but it's it's possible yeah maybe the owners are smarter than we think so any other do you want to finish yeah yeah I have a lot more to go through so that LE me to a policy question and it's more of a reconfirming policy question that to incentivize adus

Santa Monica's Exempted adus and Jus from floor area since 2020 uh however given Council direction to increase the Adu size to 1,200 square feet for those two or more bedroom ones and just given the increase in the number of adus that are are required pursuant to state law should the city continue to exempt all adus some floor area so the options in front of you are yes continue this is our staff's recommendation given it's consistent with current practice uh it continues to incentivize adus and if we remember we do have a goal of getting 47 new units per on average per year in our R1 neighborhoods we need to find ways for people to add more units or we will not uh meet our goal and therefore the state might require us to come up with another program so for those reasons staff is recommending yes however you could say no exempt only the state law required ones or an alternative is maybe you only allow you exempt a certain amount uh a certain number of adus or maybe a certain amount of square footage I caution the square footage one because if an Adu somehow like falls in the middle so some of it's exempt and some of it isn't but uh staff's recommendation is yes continue the current practice Yeah have a quick question about that what's the city's current rate of producing units in R1 right now in I think in 2024 we did over 100 adus in our R1 neighborhood or at least we permitted 100 units I can't guarantee all those were built but right now every year since we've been tracking these especially since our housing elim is certified we have well exceeded our 47 but eventually the ability to continue doing adus will diminish in our R1 neighborhoods as Parcels are already had already done them so that number I would

imagine could shrink in time um but right now we have a healthy buffer so you're talking about our Arena goals right so I would adus weren't really used I mean they do count towards Arena but that 47 unit was really for affirmatively furthering fair housing it was getting more H diverse housing options into our R1 neighborhoods we did this in kind of a two-pronged program approach one was the additional Adu and the other one was expanding the provisions under sp9 at that time to for larger Parcels to do more development than what sp9 had you know the limit that they had established there so it was a two-pronged approach I would say adus at the moment is very much the one that's keeping us on track um hence why the option staff's recommendation is yes as we wouldn't want to jeopardize those numbers but for the city to be compliant hcd is focused on our Arena numbers which is just units RIT large across the city and afford affirmative affirmatively approving for housing or I can't say it right now that is a something we would we we want to have and need to have to hit our goals as a city but are we being held accountable to that by H CD okay so yes they are very much tracking Arena but they're also checking in on implementation of our programs and this was a midcycle check-in that I believe we are this year is the midcycle check-in and if we had reported back that we weren't hitting 47 units I'm going to assume make an assumption here that they would ask us well what are you going to do to meet that goal okay thank you well I have just a question on your policy question if so I'm leaning towards the yes on the first one but if we went to an alternative of exempting some how does that I think you

said you you wouldn't want to divide up a bill yeah you but just for the fun of it let me ask this question so the state allows a minimum of 800 square feet and we're going to 1,200 or something to that effect the 800 square foot is for the new detached but we still have to allow the conversion ones so conversion I think it's the state's mind already kind of has been counted in towards floor area so converting it's not really changing the numbers um but the state there is the only one that the state puts a hard number on is the new detach that is 800 square feet so in Theory we could say anything over 800 squ F feet counts as floor area but then we're shooting ourselves kind of in the correct implementation would be difficult as well okay thank you just a clarifying on that could we uh I mean this is hard to enforce no matter what we do and state law is state law but could we and I'm thinking about the 150 foot ones um could never seen one that small well no no no but but what I'm curious about is exempting the deed restricted one creates if you will an incentive to build the deed restricted one it definitely doesn't cause an impediment to it so is there a pathway where right now we're exempting everything perhaps what we could do is and I would argue for this we exempt 1,00 square feet so that we're sort of consistent with the 1200 number across our code but then beyond that we only exempt the deed restricted one as a local bonus so would you are you saying that you let's say someone established two adus does does each get a 12200 foot exemption or them added together we're

only exempting a cumulative a 1200 exemption this is where I know it gets difficult and when we starting to split you know but some of it's exempt and some of it isn't can I finish the let me just can I just say on that I I remember we had this discussion once about um roof coverings and Mario Fonda Bernardi made the great point at some point that look we're not we don't care about the size of the covering we care about having enough space around it so right so I I guess my response would be that in other words on a tiny lot right I wouldn't want to go above 12200 s ft because suddenly we're creating that overbuilt totally you know um parcel line to parcel line project but if somebody has 10,000 square feet worth of parcel sure have fun so originally we did have not exactly we're talking about kind of that 10,000 foot thresh threshold where for the two plus bedroom Adu if you were under 10,000 you only got 11100 but now and if you were above 10,000 you got a 12200 foot ability to do an Adu council's Direction was to remove that partiel size threshold and allow if you can do it any two-bedroom Adu that is established whether that is through conversion or attachment to get up to that size but that would be one that wouldn't be five or four for the detached yeah for the detached so yeah I have a question what's the height limitation I know you've it's existing building in one place but what if what if I'm building a separate twostory so current ly and what we are still proposing is for a detached one to be no greater than 24 ft in height or and two stories right um and that is what we currently do could have two units in a detach yeah and it could be in the same footprint just one on top of the other the other

exactly so so you could have uh a single 2400 square foot uh two-story home in the backyard and each would qualify as a single Adu you could have a 1,200 on the the ground and a 12200 on top being the two detach that you can do yeah yeah like a whole brand new home it's a whole new uh take on accessible uh accessorary dwelling units yeah any more questions on this policy question so to continue the comparison of Standards so uh the first leads me into another policy question so this is expansion of conversion so uh currently uh if you you can only you can only expand uh if you are converting an Adu from existing space you can only expand that up to 150 square feet into a non-conforming setback but only for Ingress and egress and that is largely state law implementation we however currently uh allow that you can actually expand beyond the 150 square feet as long as that new square footage would comply with the code meaning you do need to make sure you have the 4 foot side and rear setbacks for example uh the policy question is we are not uh proposing any changes for when you're converting space and especially when you're needing to do an addition let's say to a uh front yard setback that has a current garage if you converted that to an Adu state law and us are only allowing that to expand 150 sare F feet because that would be the expansion into a non-conforming location uh we want to confirm that you are still comfortable with allowing us to expand conversion beyond the existing footprint as long as that expansion met the code so that would be like the four foot side and rear setbacks maybe it's the height as

well um that is the current implementation but state law doesn't require us to go 150 so we want to reconfirm with you all that uh that implementation is still uh permitted I'll go to that policy question in a second I'll just go to it now uh so that leads me into the policy question so as I said the state law only requires a jurisdiction to allow an Adu or jdu that is converted from existing floor area to expand the footprint of 150 square feet for Ingress and egress purposes only currently Santa Monica allows you to expand beyond the 150 as long as the new addition complies with all standards so we see that a lot where there's a detached garage they convert it but they want to make it a little bit bigger because a garage typically is only around 400 square ft if it's a two-car garage so that new square footage that they're expanding doesn't get to continue have non-conforming setbacks they have to do conforming setbacks and then we allow you to expand up to the size that a JD or an Adu can be uh so the question is to in to continue to incentivize adus under Santa Monica's local implementation should the city continue to allow this expanded conversion Beyond 15 Square ft uh yes is staff's recommendation which is to continue to do what we already do and no would be no do not allow any expansion Beyond 150 s ft any questions on that one or okay uh if that was ever an issue couldn't the homeowner opt to just tear down the garage and rebuild new uh yes but state law envisions when you do that that you can rebuild so if you want to keep those non-conforming setbacks though you could rebuild to that same footprint so therefore garages for example are allowed to be built on one like with with a zero foot yard foot set back on one side so okay I got it so if you did rebuild you'd have to then bring it to the proper if you wanted to build in a

bigger one then you wouldn't get that any longer yeah okay thank you uh that leads me into a couple design standard ones so currently we require a separation of adus from any primary unit this is both for single family and multif family of six feet number no one really that number we're not sure exactly where that came from if I'm being honest with you but it has been a longstanding separation requirement when we built our Adu ordinance way back in 2017 when state law really started changing from what we considered an accessory structure so that number was largely a carryover uh stay law has questioned whether that number could create an impediment to creation of adus uh so we are proposing to change number to 4 feet to align with the same setbacks that are required on the side and rear we're basically just wrapping that four feet around the whole building that is our proposal we wanted to tie it to a number already in state law but still provide a certain separation I do want to point out though when you do conversions you that is you only have to provide you know for fire and safety code so there are times they can get closer that's typically via the conversion route so this would really only apply to the new construction detached Ross uhuh has has this been clear with the fire department these four feet is enough to satisfy the fire department uh anytime you get kind of less than four especially less than three that's when you stop having windows or you can't have certain amount of openings so four we feel like there still provides a certain level of Separation but it still allows you to utilize all elevations of the building so when we if I may when we did this six years ago what was this six five six years ago it was a long conversation about separate

entrances um we established I remember that the the Planning Commission was in favor of a degree of flexibility but ultimately Council came back with a fairly strict requirement for really separate entrances I know this is on this is around spacing but I just want to make sure um state law has not preempted us on sta requires separate ENT it does now yes it has for a while so I'm not sure when that was well no I think we were actually talk we were talking about um preventing interior access the only pursuing to state law the only Adu that can have interior access is a jdu and state law is very specific about that all other adus whether attached or detached but attached cannot have internal con at all and have to have an existing or sorry have have to have an exterior separate entrance and how do we Define in local ordinance or in state law walkways um imagine like a like how to get to it yeah like a like a like a I don't know like a grape arbor that's you know we do not we would not consider that and it would we consider that a connection or would not no we would only consider a connection if there was literally an internal Connection in between the primary unit and an Adu uh you can provide any external connection any pathway you want whether that is covered or not to that individual external access okay uh so the other designs uh standards uh so this is the um when you are doing an attached Adu let's say an attached Adu on the second floor of a single family house uh we are stating

that the applicable step backs uh should apply uh there's no change in our recommendation uh we want this Adu to feel like it is part of the house um and then the last one that for the design standards that also leads me into I believe my final policy question regarding adus is regarding upper story outdoor space so uh currently for upper story outdoor space if the Adu is located within the R1 uh and it's detached you only get 35 ft of upper story outdoor space so any second floor balcony uh you only get a aggregate of 35 ft let's say if you have two in all other districts we give you 60 square feet uh there are limitations on what elevations those second floor balconies can be located on typically it's let's say if your adus is up in a corner you cannot put them on the elevations that would then face onto another property we wanted to locate them more internally to the parcel so looking over into the backyard potentially and there was a limitation that there was no uh roof deck on top of a second floor so a lot of these so one of our policy questions is uh state law only oh that's wrong one uh So currently upper story out door spaces for detach adus are limited to the limits that I just explained to you uh these Provisions were implemented back when adus were the only development that was allowed to to be within 4ot side and rear setbacks state law has changed whether that be through sp9 or SP sp450 um it also has changed in our multi-unit zones now that we can only require four- foot setbacks when you're let's say for an ownership project of 10 or fewer units so what I'm getting at is there is now a lot of other developments that can be just as close to property lines as adus can but they don't have the same upper story outdoor space

restrictions so we are asking the question uh given adoption of more recent state laws and the other types of developments that can be just the same distance that adus can be from property lines should we now just default to what the underlying zoning District allows for upper story outdoor space I can go into a little bit more detail of what those are but it was more for staff's recommendation is yes to for ease of implementation why are we treating adus differently than let's say other developments on the parcel especially when they can all be potentially the same distance away now um a vote of no would be keep the existing limitations and I guess I should have done an alternative of maybe a combination maybe relax some but keep other restrictions any questions on that one okay uh and lastly uh for parking there's been no change we require zero parking for adus Citywide whether that be through new construction or if you're converting the garage you do not need to replace the now displaced parking that is Citywide so there's no change that we are proposing and impact fees uh we do not collect any impact fees for adus and we are continuing to propose that as well for the new uh amendments to the code so now I move into the next section if if you're okay with that yeah so now we're moving to the section of what changes are in front of you that were based on direction that we have received from city council so here's a table that kind of summarizes all these and we're going to dive into two of them in a little bit more detail uh but the AA streamlining uh if you remember there was a 1 acre cap for when a a housing

project could be eligible for an an AA versus a development review permit City council's Direction on December 17th was to remove that 1acre cap which ultimately deleted the city's uh definition of a streamlined housing project so now essentially a housing project on any size site as long as it meets the definition of a housing project can receive a streamlined administrative approval application I have a lot of questions about this but maybe I can wait till you're done sure uh so that was again this is all council's Direction uh speaking about adus that that increase for 1,200 foot two or more bedroom aduse was a council direction that was provided on October 22nd of 2024 uh Council also directed some modifications to our newly created uh large site incentive program for bergamont area uh districts which Steve will go into a little bit more detail so I'll let him cover that one so that was uh our revisions are to align predominantly with council's Direction uh the next one was permit extensions which on February 11th uh the council directed to allow any project that was issued before January 6 2025 to be given an additional two years to their expiration date uh so we have Incorporated that I do want to note that in that direction there was also extensions uh directed for development agreements and building permits uh ultimately those are not codified into our amendments because if someone wanted to allow for that additional extension in their development agreement we would do that through a minor modification of that agreement and if there was an extent if for the extensions for the building permits will be folded into article 8 But ultimately everything that was approved or issued before January 6

of this year will get an additional two years uh to start their project and lastly uh this is for lot splits and duplexes and in single unit zones uh council's Direction was to remove the owner occupancy requirement to clarify the eligibility of vacant and demolished Parcels so essentially that was to make clear that vacant Parcels are eligible for this provision and even Parcels that have required some amount or all amount of De demolition they also similar to adus uh wanted to guarantee that you could always get at least two units of at least that says that's an extra zero in there of at least sorry of at least 1,200 foot in size so if someone went through this lot split and duplex process whether they lot splitted the existing parcel or not we had to make sure we had no standard that precluded them from getting at least two units so a duplex of each unit being 12200 foot in size which there will lead me to a policy question but lastly before the ne before I ask that policy question they also wanted to ensure that each unit got at least one roof deck currently this is typically we see these in the R1 District we uh limit roof decks to only one per parcel again that was implemented when in the R1 you could only really do one unit now there is potentially a pathway to get a duplex in er1 parcel so council's Direction was to allow each one of those units to get a roof deck I have a Steve question that I want to ask so that he has time to look up the answer if that's okay um uh which is on the bergamont districts and the and the bergamont districts um I just want to make sure that my memory is correct because it wasn't in the staff report either I tried to get this

through Planning Commission or we did a and failed or we put it through and Council ignored it was that tiering in below two acres I think we suggested a tiered approach when we sent it to council the first time and I think you're coming back with pretty much the tiered reproach that we suggested but I just wanted to verify that and I it might mean looking something up so I wanted to ask you Steve before we um get there thanks so before we go to Steve I only have one policy question and it's regarding that uh Council direction of allowing or guaranteeing two units of at least 12200 foot each so when establishing a duplex in the R1 Council gave that direction uh and that is combined with the increase in potential Adu numbers so the question is if standards are required to be modified to provide these new guaranteed sizes or guaranteed unit amounts and again it's just the two units the 1,200 squ feet for the duplexes not there's no guarantee for adus at the moment um which standard should be modified first if someone comes to us and says I your standards are precluding me from getting two units of at least these sizes therefore we need to provide relief from one of our standards or multiple of our standards we wanted to ask the count uh the commission uh which standards should be you know prioritized first so in front of you is staff's recommendation of prioritized uh largely this order was to first and foremost uh address what can be viewed from the public right away so making sure so that is why like for example the the front yard setback is the last one that we are recommending for potential modification is that is the one that you know really has the most impacts from a pedestrian point of

view so the order that we are recommending would be if someone needs more F that would be the first one we give uh maybe reduce the building separation smaller than 4 feet would be the next one uh get rid of the step backs for upper stories maybe reduce parking even more um give smaller side of rear setbacks of less than four feet which could have some impacts with fire and safety but we could at least allow it um and kind of lastly again under the lens of what is experienced from the public right away maybe as a last resort we would allow for an increased Building height currently in the R1 we allow up to 28 ft uh which gives a comfortable two stories um and the final one is a reduction in the front yard setback so our question is for the commission to help staff understand what standard should be modified first to guarantee the sizes and the numbers we have to allow for Council directions I have a I have a question for you Ross uh we're talking about a duplex correct that would mean that you ripped down the existing building and put up two potentially or maybe you are in and expanding so it wouldn't be a Triplex this would always be for the establishment of a duplex so just two units whether they are attached or not in Santa Monica two units whether they're attached or not is considered a duplex for Santa Monica's local definition so this is when a parcel under our provisions of lot splits and duplexes in the R1 neighborhood council's direction is they want to guarantee that these units that could created are of a certain size and sometimes that may I I don't know how often but if and when we might have to modify standards to get an applicant to these guaranteed minimums if you will

okay maybe there needs to be some relief and standards so just for clarification if I live on a 2500 foot parcel um does this mean that the city has to give me 2400 square feet just if I call up and ask yes if like multi so in the Multiverse or Minecraft like where do we where do we we I mean we recognize that you're right I mean sometimes 2,200 foot units could be the whole parcel potentially but that's where we could ask well instead of maybe allowing them to build in the front yard to get that maybe we give an extra floor a a story to get to those Heights but control the footprint still I will say that I think that size in the R1 is maybe not existent I don't quote me on more op one but you you point small given yeah I mean I would say the majority of the lots that we've seen utilize both the state and Santa Monica's local implementation for Lots lot splits and duplexes they're typically in the R1 op On's lot sizes are very small we rarely even see adus in the op one so we more Envision this for the parcels that can kind of handle that type of development um but it could but let's say let's say you have a parcel let's say you have a smaller lot I don't know if this exists but I'm going to make up a case let's say you have a smaller lot with a back alley M um and ultimately it probably makes more sense to create a j to you but but some essentially you want to go you want to you want to put in a second unit um or two of them um could you stack them on the back alley Could you um would you consider giving when you ask the question about height would you consider giving them height on the back as

opposed to height on the front you could the commission could certainly say that when increase in height needs to be provided that new third floor hypothetically needs to be X feet from the front property line you could I mean ultimately though that might still not be enough but yeah you have a little bit of control of when we want to give relief and maybe how much potentially okay thanks I'm gonna hand it over to Steve for a couple slides and then I'll see you in a minute good evening commission okay so uh staff received a direction from Council on revising uh the special program for large Parcels that are located as part of the uh Bap um adopted um changes that we had back in October of last year uh with the intent to provide greater flexibility uh for those housing projects on Parcels that are less than two acres in size um and also those projects electing to participate in the uh special program that we have out there uh in which is um you know has its one acre plus threshold uh and with that would uh allow for AA uh review process so just a really quick uh recap of the program itself uh which includes uh that the projects comply with certain uh uh requirements and certain standards that cannot be waved um this these uh standards include the residential unit mix which is already established within the uh zoning ordinance uh we have a greater ground floor open space meaning a bump from the 12% to up to 14% um for these types of projects and uh also providing either The Pedestrian path or the street in accordance with

the Bap Street Network mapping now specifically uh council's Direction was to make changes to ensure that housing projects are feasible for the these uh sites that are under two acres in size uh and in doing so for the uh pathway or the street requirement uh to provide flexibility when determining whether either a pathway or a street would be most appropriate and it's exactly to be flexible uh where the uh perhaps the bat Street Network map is moved more of a guidance rather than uh showing exactly where things are supposed to be shown uh in addition to that uh to have the open space uh of that pathway or the street um count at 150% towards the 14% ground floor open space requirement uh in which currently that open space does not count at all towards the 14% uh so we are recommending uh changes that would allow flexibility in both the type and the location of that pathway or the street and this would be subject to uh director approval uh however in the terms uh in terms of the open space and the suggested 150% methodology uh we are instead uh recommending an alternate approach of simply not applying the additional two uh% bump that we have uh to make it 14 and really just keeping the open space at the 12% uh which is required for all housing projects uh we did run a few test uh case studies um applying the 150% credit methodology uh which could result in open space that uh could be a little bit lower than the 12% Baseline so we figured instead we should probably be keeping that percentage at 12% as the base minimum um this change still achieves the intent uh which is to uh be flexible and also reduce any open space

uh for these smaller Parcels that are within the program uh included in these changes are findings that the director would need to make which include that the alternate plan uh continues to improve the network connections and the circulation of the Bap uh that the pathways are pedestrian scaled in design and if a new street is selected that it aligns with any future um funding uh that if we're the city was able to obtain uh to actually build a new Street uh we just want to make sure that there aren't going to be any inconsistency uh snags later on if that's the case uh we do believe that these changes uh provide greater overall building and site uh design flexibility for these smaller size Parcels that would be within the program that would be consistent with the council's direction uh but the question about um the commission's uh recommendation uh before it went to council uh the uh Council I'm sorry the commission recommended from one acre to I believe it was 2. 25 threshold of keeping that at the 12 before we jumped up to 14% uh to everybody else so this essentially is kind of coming back very similarly to what the commission had recommended um but anyway so uh that that's kind of um and I think the commission at that point felt like we wanted to make sure that these smaller Parcels that were kind of above the one acre and above were not going to get to hamstrung with providing a lot of open space that the other larger Parcels can really afford because of their size can I ask right about on that because good um thank you for reminding us that it was to 2.25 because I think we were looking at the actual division of the site likelihood and we put the split at 2.25 for a reason is there a reason that Council wanted it at two could we come back to them and suggest that we go up to 2.25 with this idea um yeah I mean the 2.25 was their recommendation or their Direction but

it's ultimately a policy decision so certainly yeah okay I mean I think we picked that I if I remember correctly we actually you you did a survey of the parcels and we were we we actually it was the break was at 2.25 it wasn't at two and we were trying to get those one to 2.25 acre Parcels to opt into this program uh and we didn't want them to not because we wanted the unit mix and we wanted the other benefit certainly that could be part of the commission's recommendation to the council for example okay and then on this just so I understand with the intent of the Bap and I wasn't I'm trying to remember did we I don't remember when we finalized the Bap if I was on the commission then because I'm post loose um where does safety figure in because there was one discussion at Council that didn't go through where we were really pushing for a more open understanding of what is a pedestrian pathway with bailouts and kind of what you know allowing we were allowing over hang in order to get a wider um pedestrian pathway uh how is Staff currently interpreting that because I'm still particularly if we're going to give projects the opportunity to redesign the Bap Street Network um I would have some concerns that we maintain safety and the ability to bail out as a key priority right yeah I think we can accomplish that through kind of the overall design of that pth pathway let's say for example so we have our minimum pathway with to 20 ft um as we're starting to work with any applicant or development team about how that's going to be designed um I think those are very common things of lighting and safety um that the ARB staff can really kind of start to um help kind of making sure we don't have any blind Corners I think that was a concern with

the commission before okay I just really don't want to land on um the Expo bike path but between Cloverfield and 20th all over again yeah okay thanks any questions okay um I'll pass the next section back to Ross okay we're wrapping up so these these are some additional edits so uh similar to the first item you heard that we bifurcated from this uh there was a second parcel that we have identified with a mapping issue uh that really has stemmed either or from both the 2010 loose update or the 20 and the 2015 zoning ordinance update similarly this issue has resulted in non-conforming conditions and impediments to Future development of the parcel including the ability to lease and obtain financing uh so the parcel in question is uh 1331 Wilshire Boulevard uh that is currently zoned as uh mu with the loose update oh sorry mub and R2 so it is split zoned uh similarly it is split zoned in the Loose as mixed use Boulevard and low density housing so what is happening is that split zoning is actually running through not the middle but essentially the middle of the building so part of it part of the existing building is Mu and part of the building is R2 we are uh s recommending that just to expand that mu into the remainder of the parcel so that whole building is of one zone which would be mu so it would be removing the split Zone and changing that R2 portion to mu and similarly for the loose uh to update the loose designation as well to be

consistent uh the next additional revision is conversion parcel coverage to F conversion so in our residential zoning districts so that would be R1 2 3 4 and our Ops we still have parcel coverage that controls the development size and footprint of a building however state law has started to dictate minimum floor areas for certain developments such as adus duplexes in our R1 districts and even multi-unit developments of 10 or fewer in our multi-unit districts and they're doing these through a minimum floor area our problem is partial coverage capture a lot more than what is considered floor area for ex for example when there is a second floor Second Story sorry upper story can Delver the area below that can Delver that could be completely open counts towards porcal coverage but everywhere else in the city it doesn't count towards floor area so we felt it was time to finally take the leap of converting our parcel coverage to F to align with better align with state law to align with all of our other zoning districts to have one implementation for development potential on a parcel uh so the summary of changes was we converted the parcel coverage percentages to F there is no change in size we did not increase the amount of parcel coverage during that conversion because you will see parcel coverage was typically dictated by you got a certain percentage per story so for example on the R2 when you had a 50% parcel coverage that was 50% every floor and there was two floors so we converted that to a 1.0 F so largely as you can see the comparison of the table when you take the partial coverage percentage multiplied by the number of stories that is what produced the F decimal if you will and largely there has been no increase as far as

that conversion is in in regards to that conversion except for R1 not even R1 so R1 sorry yes R1 is the only Zone that parcel coverage was divid Ed between the floor so a 45% parcel coverage mean some of that had to be the ground floor and some of that was the second floor they didn't get a 45% per floor again another confusing part of what parcel coverage was trying to do so a 045 f is a 45% parcel coverage for the R1 District or for example when you're uh if let's say if you had a parcel coverage in the R1 that gave you 50% it would have be 25 on the ground 25 on the second floor still 50% that is why for the F conversion for the R1 you're not seeing the same it's not an increase but the same conversion that you're seeing in all the other zones that had a parcel coverage per floor not a per building yeah so let's have another Ross and Tony flashback um parcel coverage in the R1 right we had this whole thing about boxes and about you could have a second story that was bigger than the first story um none of this is changing typically no there there are some revisions so additional so when that happened we always heard that sometimes partiel coverage was not the biggest impact on the appearance of a building it was the modulation standards the stepb back standards so when we were converting the parcel coverage to F we had to go through the very lengthy confusing l list of what's included and what's excluded and partial coverage and ask line by line you know by giving that up or including that is it still keeping the fundamental aspects of parcel coverage alive so while we did provide a

lot of simplification a lot of more streamlined what counts and what doesn't we ensured that there were still aspects that still counted that towards F that would have always been counted towards partiel coverage so for example any of those aspects that would kind of have an impact on the massing of a second floor I'll use step backs for example uh parcel coverage right now requires a step back which is essentially a modulation of a building kind of an inset to let's say the side that might have three walls and one open wall facing to the neighboring parcel parcel coverage right now allows for that doesn't count towards parcel coverage unless you put a solid roof on it because then you stop feeling the modulation it's not as impactful anymore so that is one of the parcel coverage standards that currently exist that we held on to that we said however in our residential zones if you put a Sol more than 50% solid roof over these type of Step backs that will count against your F okay so there were a couple there is far less if you kind of see the comparison but we really took a large effort to try to ask ourselves what needs to be retained to keep the essence of parcel coverage and what it was always trying to do but not very successfully uh still alive in this conversion and then following up on this and this goes back to your earlier question about um Adu compliance you mentioned additional height you mentioned three stories I'm not trying to open up a conversation about a standard of three stories in r in R1 don't worry but would it be helpful in this table to be able to say if through a modification to comply with state law you find yourself having to offer an applicant three sto a third

story this is the F for that project yeah I think you could definitely do that we kind of do something similarly in our multi-unit zones where state law requires that you give a certain f for uh I think seven or fewer units but we have a provision that says however if state law gets you to 8 to 10 we have to guarantee you at 1.2 5 F so there could be a similar concept of when there are times that we might have to allow a taller building that obviously is going to come with some amount of additional F to accommodate that now third floor so yeah I think we but not so much that we so that we could achieve what I was talking about earlier which is yes limiting them like the setback or really limiting that third story Mass you could say an increase of height that does not exceed x square fet something like that okay so yeah maybe for later we could figure out what that number would be but ultimately the hope is between how we Implement partial coverage today and this conversion you should not experience a difference the numbers haven't really changed and the essence and the you know the theme of what parcel coverage was trying to do we really tried to make sure we took a hard look and kept a couple of the ones that we felt like were really important to keep yes when I was looking at that the conversion I what kind of caught my eye was a 1.0 and the two the R2 Zone and that just seemed kind of small to me but as I do the math it it's not changing it dramatically but I want to ask this question wasn't there a time when you were able to and I can't remember why we made this change you were able to measure out to the center line of the alley in our two zones but then they were so afraid that we would get overdevelopment that the council stepped in and said you're not allowed that to do in R2 zones but you can still do it in other zones in the city that is true and I think the only way that is still you're still able to do that is if you're 100% affordable housing project

we still give you half the alley in the calculation of density but you're right everywhere else or in every other fashion of development that uh half alley is gone so in every other Zone except for the only with certain developments only the only it's gone everywhere unless you're doing 100% affordable yeah okay well that's a we do measure uh rear yard setbacks except for in the R1 from Center Line of alley still so that's one thing that the center line of the alley has kind of kept intact um but everything else is pretty much parcel based calculations like the actual parcel okay I mean in theory that was the parcel that was an easement that was given up for the alley and it's not really a fair taking of land but I guess that's not in front of us today is it yeah I I'm not sure where the that change happened and why but yes you're correct I remember it was it was a fear of overdevelopment and that it allowed too much development it was okay for that council person who lived in the R1 Zone but not for the rest of us in the any questions on thises were part of the 1875 map they weren't taken from the parcels my title report might say something else but that's not in front of us tonight is it that's fine but that's the next additional revision is um aligning our loose and zoning ordinance for consistency so specifically this is within our R2 and R23 and four zoning districts so pursuant to such laws such as AB uh 821 uh there are Provisions that say when there is an inconsistency between the general plan and the zoning ordinance we have to be allowing the greater intensity the greater density between the two uh currently in our multi-unit residential districts there

is an inconsistency between what was envisioned in the loose in 2010 and what was actually implemented in 2015 through the zoning ordinance update the table below kind of shows you a comparison that in the R2 for example we limit you per one unit per 2,000 feet of parcel area but a Max of four so if that calculation got you to six you ended at four but the loose never had a cap like that and actually envisioned to bigger tiers that allowed you a different calculation than one per 2000 and the R2 it allowed one per 1500 so staff looked at this as these are inconsistencies how can we provide better transparency to this so develop people that are looking to add to their parcel redevelop their parcel know essentially what their density can be uh so however we did this uh we assessed the potential impact of increasing these maximum allowable densities to understand whether it may result in displacement in residential units and largely what we found is it resulted in very little potential displacement risk so specifically in the R2 of the I believe 2% of the r sorry 197 Parcels within the R2 uh could add at least one new net unit but only 65 of the 195 which 65 is only 2% of the entire of R2 uh have the most potential to actually redevelop because they are developed as single unit dwellings which have no protection you know they typically aren't the ones under rent control they won't have the issue of the non net loss required by SP sp330 or 8 um so they have the biggest they have the easiest way to redevelop to a multi-unit development in R3 and4 our analysis showed that there really was no additional Parcels that were likely to

redevelop with this increase in density potential because of either the amount of units that were already on site their protected status whether they were rent controlled or maybe deed restricted that would make it very difficult to redevelop anyways uh so staff felt comfortable uh recommending to align our base densities in our R2 and 34 districts which would was always envisioned in the loose which as you can see here in the R2 would be one unit per 1500 ft with no cap in the R3 it's one unit per 22 1,250 ft with no cap and one unit per 900 feet in the R4 with again no cap and that is either taking the tier two that existed in the loose uh for the R3 and four or removing the revising the calculation for the R2 that never has a tier two but in 2015 we elected to uh not fully implement the intensities under the to loose so because of some state law we felt it is time to realign the vision of our our our multi-unit neighborhoods uh and the last section is just a table of necessary cleanups and clarity as you know we do our best to be perfect every time but inevitably we notice errors um you know sentences that meant something that we didn't mean for them to mean uh so this is a table that goes through to provide some clarity um so there was a revision to when subdivisions of 10 or few 10 or fewer units and our multif family clarifies the applicability and requirements between ownership and Rental projects uh we revised the architecture review board that is already limited to three you hearings to Define what is a hearing we wanted to make sure it was when a uh item was actually discussed before the board wasn't one that maybe got

continued due to Quorum issues we want to have real discussion for it to account um adapter reuse we did clarifi we clarified that adapter reuse does not apply to R1 and op1 districts that was always the intent uh it just included just residential districts we forgot to say except R1 and op1 um also it clarifies when you are allowed to do a side and rear addition uh what we really meant by the side and rear sometimes the front of the parcel is not really what the development's front is so we just provided some clarify in that was always kind of delivered we just found that the text didn't read as clearly as we wanted it to be uh for density bonus we made sure that whenever there is a fractional unit uh it always rounds up to the next whole number uh there was confusion of if that applied to when you did base density calculations versus the Project's density calculations and state law makes it clear it is to both so is prevent just clarification um for our air quality assessment zone uh we provided two rision one was when you are not allowed to have outdoor spaces on elevations that maybe face the freeway because of air quality assessment reasons um to provide flexibility of maybe how else you could provide those balconies we have a requirement that says you can't have one so our proposals allow them to take that private square footage and provide as more common space we do that for our 100% affordable housing projects already so we felt like given that this is something that we are imposing on projects we wanted to provide a little design flexibility of how open space could be provided the last one was to provide clarification on what form they needed to fill out to show compliance with our assessment zone uh for the HPP we wanted to make clear that if state law requires a different affordability

allocation that that can always override our local like let's say our 555 split uh if for some reason the replacement units had to be all low we wanted to acknowledge that you can kind of override our local because state law requires that one uh delegation of authority we wanted to make clear uh what the director versus the zoning administrator vers the design can approve uh typically this is around kind of these new ministerial approvals that state law has been requiring more and more uh single room occupancy these were just we had the wrong code section that is all the change was and lastly uh this is maybe assuming that you are okay with the reduction of separation of unit of buildings from the current six to four uh if we're allowing that for Adu separation we wanted to be consistent across the code to allow for separation to mean four feet no matter if it's an ad or a different accessory structure so maybe that would be dependent on your you know Direction regarding the Adu and that is it so staff recommends you know we have a handful of policy questions but staff recommends you know approving the resolutions attached to the power point we are uh here to answer any of your questions I have a question I'm going to put the City attorney on the spot because I we did not really talk about owner occupancy for reasons um so could you we've received a lot of letters around that so I think it would be helpful for the public to understand um why staff has been silent on that matter to the extent that you can explain what the ISS what the issue before us really is and what our range of possible responses might be sure so as um as Mr Ferman explained there was a 16 item earlier this year from January of this year um uh instructing directing the uh

city manager and the City attorney to um commence the process for amending the zoning ordinance to update in accordance with sb450 and some and make additional changes one of which is to remove the owner occupancy requirement for uh the lot split and duplex uh projects located in uh R1 zones uh that is a policy um conversation that the council is having and that is a policy conversation that is before you this evening uh legal questions have been raised in some um uh written corresponden that you have received uh the uh issue uh is actually subject to pending litigation so our office is unable to comment on any sort of legalities related to that at this time uh but again there is a full policy discussion before you that you that you may wish to engage in and are you able to share um your understanding of the legislative purpose of the 16 item uh to the extent that we might be able to understand council's underlighting motive in um opening that conversation I mean I would say that it it kind of speaks for itself okay um the 16 item I'm happy to pull up that language um for you uh at the moment but I I think it was just it was fairly straightforward and and fairly direct just to just to um in order to further the city's affirmatively furthering fair housing and getting the uh diverse I believe that was the policy that Council uh proposed was um to as part of the diverse housing choices in the R1 got it okay um high in the city's highest opportunity areas and then it also directs staff to come back um with pertinent information after after a year after implementation um on how it actually is helping with the affir furthering fair housing goals and

creating more affordable missing middle homes okay and you're aware are you I I believe you are aware but I'm going to ask this as a question that there is pending State legislation related to variety of owner occupancy rules um in the current legislative session yes and we are we are monitoring that as well and would be providing the commission and the council with any updates um along the way okay thank you so much yes just did you say that SP sp450 addresses this or requires this or not I'm sorry I thought I heard you say that no the 16 item um uh just a 16 item it's not an yes the 16 item included language about sp450 as well okay just to clarify one thing that the um apparently hcd has given this is not about the the duplexes and the lot splits is what council's guidance was about there is definitely some discussion at the hcd level about adus and owner occupancy which is pending resolution through State legislation that's currently going under is currently under review because hcd has issued regulations that kind of expand that like have created have liberalized that uh regime okay so anybody else have any questions so what public input public input I need some clarity in terms of what we were asked to vote on but we need to hear from the public first then we can get that let's hear the let's hear from the public first okay well let's I've only got one no you have a yeah we have a whole bunch back to the same file there's a whole bunch somewhere how many do we have yeah we we've got a bunch of we have more than 10 what what does that mean for time limit so yeah we were

about to interject so for the planning commission's Rules of Order when you have more than seven requests to speak public comment is limited to two minutes um per speaker let me let me go back cuum Dave Rand is good evening commission Dave Rand land use attorney here tonight to talk again about the bergamont area plan AA incentive um since we've last uh uh your last hearing on this we've had a chance to testr run this provision on a couple of projects our firm is working now on four projects that are over one acre that are in the bergamont housing project projects that all could potentially utilize this and what we are seeing is what we discussed last time which is that it's not working well for the smaller large sites and commissioner Landers your recollection was correct that 2.25 acre distinction is important because two of our smaller large sites are just a hair over two acres in size and so you did said that uh very deliberately to ensure those projects would have been captured into this AA incentive um one of the things I I I think respectfully that's missing from the uh text of the proposed amendment to the incentive is a the language from the 16 item the council direction that says the with respect to the pathways that the exact pathway location should be flexible as to avoid bisecting parcels and limiting site flexibility the problem we're seeing right now with the streets and the pathways is that they're cutting into the site and no developer is going to build two expensive buildings to take this AA incentive so I

would emplore you to do two things one for the smaller large sites between one acre and 2.25 Acres number one eliminate the streets no one's going to give you a street for this provision that's just a non-starter um we've seen that on one of the project it was it was the end of the AA in set of for that project two with respect to the pathways that could be workable but allow flexibility to have the pathway go around the building ensure that it doesn't bict the site because again no one's going to do that um those two things would make a big deal and those may seem like concessions but you're still getting public open space and you're still getting the mandatory two and three bedrooms so it's still a public benefit thank you very much question for Mr Rand um I have seen versions of what you're talking about I can think of I can think of a particular project in bris laava that um did not use streets but created Pathways that that in circled buildings and were curved and quite Pleasant it actually made for a much more um creative approach Have you shared um examples from around the world or around the country of what you're talking about so that this can be envisioned by staff and counsel yeah unfortunately I'm not nearly as well traveled as you are so my uh my experiences and suggestions are a little bit more pedestrian like from La that'd be fine um I don't I don't have BR laava for this is Santa Monica we like to talk about you know super blocks Barcelona the answer answer is we don't we don't need to go to Bros salava or or Budapest or anywhere else we we can go to the bergamont area we we've got three sites that we've been working to try to work out this pathway Street thing right here in the bergamont area right where this plan incentive program is supposed to apply um they're great great test cases housing developers wanting to use the program um but it's just not it's just not fitting and and this by the way this

was a great idea that your staff had great idea and tons of excitement tons of enthusiasm and during this discussion and at Council there was a lot of talk about well once you test run a few of these and you bring it to staff and see what works what doesn't chances are there could be a subsequent discussion here we are and I'm telling you from experience right streets don't work period Pathways could work if you let them move around the building uh but if you insist on maintaining adherence to the 200 what was it 10 bergamont area plan Street standards which are now frankly largely irrelevant where you're getting streets and Pathways to Nowhere like tying staff's hands to have that it doesn't make any sense sure but my point is I think it's when you're asking for something like that which I tend to support it is helpful to have evidence from existing built communities where this has has contributed to the neighborhood feel and has not detracted from achieving circulation goals and you know the example that I offered uh may be one but there may be others and I guess what I would just is encourage your clients to you know share models no I mean Google it like I'm I'm saying to share models so that people understand what's being asked because I think when you when you hear take away the streets it that sounds I understand what you're saying but that sounds bad well I me fr's word there there's no Street obligation that exists though unless we're talking about this incentive so it's not it's it's and and the problem with the streets that we've seen is they're they're not connecting to The Logical circulation you know system that is act the facts on the ground system in the bergamont area so um all I'm saying is help us help you yeah no no no no well help you the idea is we'll give you

public open space we have plenty of examples all over where that works and works well yeah Mr R we've got Utilities in the streets and stuff that has to be taken care of so that's it's a more complicated issue than say give the streets over to no no no I'm not talking about taking away existing streets these would be creation of new streets yeah yeah different yeah so what you're what you're saying is that keep keep the pathway concept intact have it go around the building I would imagine that the pathways would track relatively close to the parcel lines of the property have we looked at where I where these parcel lines kind of line up and do they actually lead us to uh the street the connection to Olympic that we want to maintain and the other connections within the bergamont are they laid out in a logical way for you know that foot traffic to be meaningful yeah I mean that's a great point I think that would um you would you would need to ensure that if there is going to be a pathway it would have to serve an actual circulation benefit so not just satisfying a requirement to satisfy it but totally agree with that that point um and I I I mean I guess what I would suggest is if there is an opportunity for a pathway at the discretion of Staff because there is a circulation enhancement connection benefit then that project should be allowed to Pro uh to required to provide it so long as it can be done flexibly without cutting the building into and creating a feasibility issue right right or creating tunnels that go through or tunnels right which which are not great to walk through anyway yeah yeah exactly thank you I'm sorry I have one more question for you before we go on on the street bit business what I'm realizing thinking about the example that I was that I

mentioned you need to have driveways in other words those buildings that you want to build with Pathways around them have to be serviced at some level sure right they people who have residents who have cars are going to want to park them somewhere and you've got to be able to make deliveries so when you say like how do we Square this circle we're not going to build let's say we remove the requirement that you build streets how are you going to accomplish that question the commissioner Hamilton like how are you going to what are those are those driveways going to be like driveways on steroids that connect to Nebraska Stanford like what how's that going to play out no are you concerned about the conflict between the driveways and The Pedestrian Pathway to a certain extent and I'm also and I'm also curious because part of the purpose of the grid is to provide access to the buildings on the street served by the grid so if you're not building streets and you're not building tunnels how are you how are you in fact creating those connections you know like all good points all I'm telling you from a practical perspective is if you put the creation of a street on the back of a developer who can go through a different process then agreed then you're going to lose the open space in the three bedrooms and so your question is a larger planning question that smarter Minds than me will do I don't have an answer to that all I can tell you is you know it works better because we've seen it on the larger sites you can have driveways that don't interfere with The Pedestrian pathway you can have a pathway that cuts through the site because you can arrange buildings on a you a super block on Stanford Berkeley uh Olympic and Nebraska and we can do all kinds of things on that because it's four plus acres so all can be accomplished and are we giving you there's no Street in the network but if there was that could be

accomplished that could be and are we giving you the flexibility and we're giving you the flexibility to build an under we're giving you the flexibility to build a large underground podium so that conceivably you could build one parking structure to serve the entire multiple Towers that's right corre because it's it's one can be one development project with this particular intive exactly okay perfect thank you thank you any other questions okay Jonah brow honorable chair tolken and Commissioners my name is Jonah Breslau and I'm here on behalf of un Here Local 11 and our 32,000 members in Southern California and Arizona and we ask that the commission recommend to the council that projects that include hotels are not processed administratively under Section 9.39 uh this change is very important important to ensure that uh that this ordinance is used to accomplish its purposes of creating more housing while not undermining the city's oversight over new hotel development uh even if there are improvements to make to the housing project approval process uh it's the existing development procedures that work well for hotel projects uh Santa Monica has produced many outstanding hotels uh with the current procedures and these involved robust public debate uh and discussion and ultimately came out better uh than they started too often uh attempts to streamline housing are hijacked in the service of high-end commercial development uh for instance

even in Santa Monica we saw at the 1420 through 1422 20th Street project that roughly 19 months after the preliminary application was initially submitted the development submitted revised plans which increased square footage by 20% and added two more stories and included a 40 room Hotel uh and so you know during the Planning Commission hearing the city staff argued that the city had limited Authority and discretion um but uh you know because even though the city's zoning rules uh explicitly did not allow hotel use and we believe the city law should not go beyond state law uh to streamline such projects which could occur uh if there are no changes made moreover disallowing Hotel projects from as accessing the streamlined approval processes would follow the precedent and many recently passed laws um as you saw actually so we we urge you to to recommend to the council that they revise the proposed law to ensure that streamlined approval does not occur for hotel projects thank you um is it Ellie quisan sorry hi my name is Eli kones I'm proud to be United here I live in San Fernando Valley and take me two hours to get to my work I work at Ferman midar for 35 years and I would like to we increases of housing here in Santa Monica not hotels creases so please do not allow hotels

administrate approval process thank you Maria espanosa read three names at a time read the next three names three minutes no no two minutes it's two minutes right chair could you chair could you tell us who's next in line after Miss Espinosa next to the line is Daniel agu and after that Richard melan melany okay so could we have Mr aguar and Mr melany line up behind Miss Miss esposa and we do want to that you're getting four four minutes because there's uh translation okay thanks so much here for

great thank you um so hello my name is Maria Espinosa and I'm a member of unit Here Local 11 our housing laws should be used to encourage housing uh but sometimes attempts to streamline housing are used in the service of high-end commercial development of hotels uh for instance at the project on 20th Street from 1420 to 1422 the developer first submitted a project with six stories and 50 housing units 19 months later they changed it to add two stories and a hotel dedicating all that extra space to a hotel use that is not even allowed by the zoning in this area city law should not go beyond state law to streamline such projects so please make sure housing laws are used to encourage housing not hotels thank you gaale Denny no Mr you had names agar is not here and Men I think you're going too far I think I'm next yeah you are Richard milany yeah yeah thank you uh police uh planning commissioner it's pleasure to see you all I just want to compliment Ross for a presentation was uh quite something thanks my name is Richard milany I live at 1108 Stanford Street I'm a member of Stanford neighbors against City overreach snacko for the attorney uh was suing the city for uh various uh you know impres anyway thanks for serving the city I really appreciate that I know what that's like uh sb9 was enacted to help support residents by preserving their communities not to Aid and Abed aggressive developers I hope you keep

that in mind let's cut to the mustard why would you the Planning Commission want to eliminate the threeyear owner residency requirement why would you want to eliminate that I don't quite get it it is law it's in law now anyway I can't believe we're having this discussion who do you think think you represent here it must be the developers and why are you doing this I don't get it I know the city council kicked this back to you because they don't want to take the responsibility when the heat comes from this community anyway to what end the developer uh whom does it help the developer by eliminating The Residency it helps the developer who do you think it helps the law wasn't set up for developers it was set up for residents sorry I'm a little passionate about this because I live diagonally across from this project at 1101 Stanford Street why does this community also get three days to consider these proposals now why do we get three days is that your standard that you want the community to get only three days notice to come and make comments about these things so look into that please it's important the city is about us not about committees it's about the residents we represent over 75 Stanford area residents we are not going away we are not going away we have a court date time in July time we or lose we're not going away sir that beep was thank you very much and I really appreciate your time we only got five days by the way okay can I just for for a point of clarification this is a process C that is ongoing Tonight is the last night even if we choose tonight to accept the

recommendations this goes on to city council for final approval um so this is not the end of the line for this discussion at all but your decision yes or no goes to the city council is that the way it works that's correct right that's we recommend so we'll be watching and I appreciate it we'll be watching we'll thank we'll be here good evening my name name is Gail Denny I'm also a member of the neighborhood group snackle and we were forced uh to take legal action which we didn't really want to do to the city due to its failure to comply with the law now we're once again fighting to protect the community that we live in we strongly oppose the removal of the owner occupany provision eliminating this requirement would open the door for speculation to developers to buy single homes displacing long-term residents and replacing family neighborhoods with profit-driven market rate developments just like what happened with Stanford delmare who were suing s sp9 was intended to support smallscale developments and help families build intergenerational wealth which is a wonderful thing but Santa Monica ordinance goes beyond state requirements creating loopholes that favor large developers this is not fair such as the out of state uh firm were suing Stanford delare rather than local residents it was meant to support tonight we urge you to oppose item 11a that you can do that or at least modify it to retain the owner occupancy requirements to safeguard our community's future protect our neighborhoods do the right thing and thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight thank you no one go for it just do it

I think one of them's already called up okay uh Stephen Anderson Stephen Anderson Christina Navaro Heather Thompson good evening Planning Commission um thank you for all your service 20-year resident Stephen Anderson um I am the the person that everyone's all mad about here Stanford are you know if you're a homeowner and you're going to hire a contractor you need an LLC to protect yourself so you don't get sued they're trying to use the owner occupancy requirement to say you can't build on a vacant lot right because so these are just ways to try to stop a project I didn't actually want to talk about the lawsuit tonight I just think we've lost thousands of homes in the Palisades duplexes are badly needed housing you know we need more three bedrooms um all of the units that we're building on Wilshire and Lincoln are small units right Studios ones and twos there's just no larger units for families and so this is a smallscale development um to say that you know I'm just an individual I've never done I've never even been to a Planning Commission before in Santa Monica um and the R1 is covered with Thomas James and corporations that are building fancy spec homes right so you know I would just strongly encourage you and implore you to support these lot split um amendments so they can actually be used because I am you know going Bank bankrupt and what's supposed to be a byright pro project um but because of just nuances and just the way things are written I strongly support the Adu revisions and I think um upper story stepb backs need eliminated and you should make just all side setbacks 4 feet right now a house needs 30% across so we have all of these outdated codes that make it really difficult to create badly needed housing you know I'm just uh trying to create something beautiful

where people have indoor outdoor space again it's small scale development and so these are badly needed so the city doesn't um engage in further legal harassment you know which is just taken thousands of our taxpayer dollars when all we're trying to do is create badly needed housing so um very grateful for your consideration tonight happy to answer any questions if you want to I didn't realize this would be about this yeah I just have one question for you sir um are you planning to live there yes okay thank you but the owner occupancy requirement is is is being used as a wedge because it's I don't want to I I there's because of pending litigation I don't want to get into that conversation I just wanted to understand if you were planning to live there and you state that you created an LLC um to protect yourself against contractors cor uh have you just out of curiosity and if you don't want to answer you don't have to have you complied with the um the new law that requires llc's to submit their beneficial ownership to finsen of course yes thank you yes um but to to your question it's just say the owner occum he's trying to say that you can't do vacant lots that it's trying to it's all this type of stuff I I understand where you're coming I just was curious about those things thanks sir thank you yeah we're all there uh good evening Planning Commission my name is Christina Navaro and I am proud to unite Here Local 11 and ion resident for Santa Monica and [Music] um I need to do it

Pro hi my name is Christina Navaro and well that part was in English but um so as she said we're in a housing crisis not a hotel crisis and that is what housing laws like these were intended to address even if there are improvements to make to the housing project approval process it's the existing development procedures that work well for hotel Projects please don't allow hotels to use the administrative approval process thank you good evening Commissioners my name is Heather Thomasson this ordinance to lift the owner occupancy requirement for lot splits will not improve housing affordability it will only benefit developers the owner occupancy requirement in S sp9 and S sp450 was specifically included to prevent developer exploitation without this requirement developers with all cash will outbid regular home buyers split lots and build dense luxury housing that maximizes their profit with no affordability requirement it will result in zero truly affordable new homes this ordinance will drive up land costs making housing even more expensive for everyone especially families seeking single family homes some argue that increasing Supply will lower prices but this oversimplifies economic view ignores that demand for living in Santa Monica is essentially unlimited when

demand is inelastic as it is here increasing luxury Supply doesn't lower overall prices perhaps more importantly contrary to the purpose stated by the council people who proposed this ordinance of bringing city code into compliance with changes arising from sp450 this ordinance contradicts rather than complies with sp450 as noted sp450 states that agencies shall require lot split applicants to sign an affidavit committing to occupy one unit as their principal residence for at least three years this reads as a mandate by the state not an optional provision the proposed new city ordinance directly conflicts with this requirement it is unclear to me how implementing this ordinance could actually be legal but in any case it is misguided at best to suggest that this ordinance is in any way required by updates arising out of s sp450 since SB 450 explicitly affirms the owner occupancy requirement please advise against this ordinance it won't help affordability and please ask the City attorney to examine further whether this ordinance is legal under current state law if it isn't please expect it to be challenged thank you thank you okay Elizabeth Van denber Vandenberg thank you danieln commission Goff it it's so good to see all of you again and some meet some of you my name is Elizabeth venberg and good evening to all the planning Commissioners I'm the chair of the Wilshire Montana neighborhood Coalition commonly known as Wilmont which is a R2 and R3 neighborhood I'm interested in all things to do with R2 R3 and r4s just because why not I'm interested also in anything that impacts my neighborhood

directly and indirectly if you do not the read if you do not read the letter I sent in early today I don't blame you the points I tried to make with respect to the loose and zoning ordinance consistency are I'm going to strike my ab 821 the loose says about the maximum maximum allowable density for an R2 District the only thing I could find in the loose was the following for R2 low density housing Vision maximum allowable density up to 29 units per net residential acre exclusive of city and state density bonuses consistent with the scale of existing development for R3 medium density housing maximum allowable density of 35 units per net residential acre exclusive of city and state density bonuses with nothing being said about consistency with the scale of existing development so in 2010 there was clear knowledge that the city and state dens it bonuses would be a part of this equation the staff report has a simple conclusion for R2 the loose tier 2 density is equal to one unit per 1500 square feet and R3 the loose tier density is equal to one unit per 1,250 Square F feet for transparency purposes I request that the source and or equation that yielded these two numbers be part of the package that goes to city council let's talk about timing tonight the Planning Commission is presented with this item yesterday on Tuesday night I attended a zoom community meeting for the 74574 n17th street project the land use consultant was using the proposed one unit per 1,500 density number for the R2 project thank you Excuse Me Miss vanber H Miss vber never asked a question before so exciting thank you back in so long the

what we haven't seen you here in so long I know it's been a rough but rough five years guys just tell you that yeah I know everybody you back though my only question was it seemed like you had another point you were about to make yeah I I'm just I'm trying to say that um and thank you commissioner ree I appreciate that the the guy who's doing this project this hasn't passed this body or passed the city council and he's using 1500 for an R2 building going up in Noma which of course they're very unhappy about so so I just don't understand how he can use a 1500 number per maximum uh density in an R2 building new build where we haven't you haven't looked at it you haven't agreed to it and the city council hasn't agreed to it so how did he get that number he stated it in open meeting um the other thing I'm not too crazy about is where is Opa in this um I will say that staff report definitely said that it's not here but why is that Opa Op 2 three and four are exactly the same as R2 3 and four why are they missing from this document thank you that that was her I think we're done okay are we done yeah that's that concludes public comment is there any other public comment what was the name did we miss anybody yeah what's her name okay Stevenson what do we hold on we have one missing why don't you come up and we'll let we vote to let her speak anybody yeah everybody in favor of letting her speak if we don't have one of these will you fill it out afterwards

they did it because Daniel left so there was one empty spot that's what I think just that's why we giv to hint so I don't know okay my name is Lup Stevenson I've been working at the firmon Miramar for 25 years living in Santa Monica for 18 and one of those apartments low income apartments when my three kids my three kids they cannot leave the house because the economy is so bad and the rent they very expensive like I say I live in Main and Pacific last two weeks ago was walking my dog and I saw one lady picking up chairs and she asked me can I pick it up and I said yeah take it I just lost my house in Pacific palisay she broke my heart because she told me where she stay she don't have furniture her friend let her stay there that's why she was picking up those chairs so please don't pass more hotels pass low inor Apartments please thank you thank you is there anybody else let's close public per let's close the public hearing close the public hearing close it let's close the public hearing and let's take a short 10minute break let's call for I got that's the close of the public hearing um now we'll move on to the commission's discussion and potential motions I think what we want to do is take a quick break yeah so we're going to take a 10-minute break

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well e can we uh reconvene please here we body I call the commission back to order yeah commission is called back to order Sean we do okay so the chair um just confirming that I'm just not stepping up right here um uh there's no usurpation going on um the chair has asked me to with the concurrence of the vice chair to lead us through um the discussion uh and what we're going to do as we have done in the past uh is we're going to take up the policy questions we're going to do straw Poes on each of the items so that we can get language for staff and um we are then going to

hand it back to chair tolken for a final up or down vote on the package uh we do want to open up um you know I think we we do want to open up discussion I will point out I just will say I've been advis advised by the planning director and the planning manager that um Council has given directed that direction that this go back to Council in April so um we don't have to rewrite res resolutions on the deis what we've been asked to do is I mean if we have language we can propose it but to the extent that we might not have language for something we should come up with a plain language recommendation to councel and that will be included in the staff report as as feedback from the Planning Commission is that is that okay with everyone uh is everyone okay with starting with the policy questions I do then want to Circle back um to everybody to make sure that we're we're not leaving out something that somebody wanted to bring up but for the sake of coming through you know making it through what staff needs us to answer let's start with that so Ross do you want to take us through it sure okay uh okay so I believe we're going to start with the first four policy questions regarding uh adus and Jus I know that's policy question three yeah we reorder in the staff report it was number three but for organization of the presentation we ordered it differently but I can start with number one if it's easier what's your pleasure folks pleasure let's do it Ross's way we'll do it Ross's way great my favorite way love it haven't let us wrong yet so the first policy question that we came across in the presentation was regarding the additional Adu that is allowed under the housing element uh currently it is only implemented as an attached sorry a

detached rental unit uh but we are asking the question that because state law does not allow for uh a a new attached to an existing home so a brand new addition uh to continue to allow that option but to fold it in under that R1 program so whenever you're doing a that that second detached or maybe the attached which would be one of these versions uh that we would allow it but fold it in under the R1 uh housing element program uh to destrict it as a rental unit so the question vote for oh sorry sorry just does everyone in order to avoid representing the item does everyone understand the question before us on policy question three yes okay does does is are is there anything anybody wants to discuss are we ready to sort of indicate a preference ready great so we'll start with commissioner chako and we'll go around the table um please say yes no or alternative yes yes we allow it to be attached I'll say yes I'll say yes yes yes yes great let's keep going uh so this was the second policy question we came across but policy question number one regarding the continued exemption of all adus from floor area everybody understand the what's before us great any questions or additional thoughts let's have thoughts I do to but um let's just see if we have four votes for yes before we go on commissioner chako yes you can say thoughts I have qualifications got it I'll say qualifications I'll say yes yes yes I'm excited to hear about qualification okay so now we'll come

back to commissioner Fresco um let me get my microphone that's for votes for a yes just for staff uh if we're going to exclude them from floor from F uh I wanted to suggest that uh we don't include adus we if it's going to be 150 square foot Adu that we don't exempt it because that way it kind of pushes people if they want to get more units to try to get more quality units in so state law will always exempt that size of Adu since we if they do the state law route but if you're saying under our local program if they provide a 150 foot ad you it's not exempt but 151 I mean is there a you want 220 220 so if it's too small of an Adu count it right okay so so if I may ask a clarifying question but if yeah sorry I I didn't mean to interrupt I just want to ask a clarifying question so this would be only the unit that would be only the Adu that would be added under the city's local program under the housing element because the rest would be regulated by state law and up to the I'd like to I'd like to propose an alternative to the um to your suggestion that I think it's kind of upside down but I I think I have a different suggest I just have one other thing that went with it is the forfoot separation also perturbs me because if you open two doors in that 4 foot space and they're too close to each other they'll hit each other and that's not cool so I prefer six feet for those things and uh I also

have a personal experience with a 4 foot sidey yard that has a door so I'm traumatized by it an additional kind of policy Direction Beyond just the policy question right but if we're going to exempt things and give more we I feel like I guess my goal is I want to get more too so I would like to suggest that since we're offering a freebie under the deed restriction that the freebie be a minimum of 220 for sure that's that would instead of not exempting 150 I think it's easier and cleaner to say that the freebie has to be 220 and up so if it's going to be if it's going to be a rental unit it has to be a rental unit that's a little bit bigger you're thinking more clearly than I I support that support that thank you are we you cool with that yes Josh yeah um no I I don't have a issue with someone who wants to electively build a smaller unit um so I I've like I've said I've been in much smaller units it can be done if that's the only way to shoehorn a unit into a site to create a unit um I wouldn't want to restrict that so so I I'm fine with the existing proposal okay tell me again you're saying that if for the free the free the the city sponsored City sponsor free which has to be a rental we're saying it has to be at least 22 220 I'm getting a face from Jing thing we're doing right now we're going through Mass process re-engineering across the whole city to simplify and be less artisanal and our Cod the EAS just imagine the people doing these adus they are homeowners accessing city services for the first time in our permitting process they just want to

know what can I do and I really would encourage us to think from you know the homeowners perspective of the many many roles that Santa Monica has and not get super detailed unless you know there's a great policy reason for it that's just giving you context as to the work that is going on in the permitting process right now um and especially when you know overall as a city we have tried to incentivize adus so and and I think that's a valid concern obviously but I would say I wonder how that impacts our it's a housing element program and I don't know if it has a negative impact to it or well our housing no impact because I don't think a lot of people are going to build at 150 ft so I don't really worry about that bu 150 ft it the cost per square foot is to high to build to make building at 150 sare Ft worth it right so I don't want to that's why I just want to tweak our I don't want to hurt a program that's already having trouble right prefab is coming in at 600 600 bucks a square foot minimum so um could I said as a compromise could I suggest that we we clearly have support for for the for the staff recommendation could there be included in the report to council that that Commissioners expressed concern about the livability of the small the smallest size and the safety of of the 4-foot you know safety and usability of the 4-foot um separation and let's punt it to council but at least we're on record expressing that concern what I was going to say about the 4 foot separation is that maybe we can just say that uh ESS and Ingress entryways can't be in those alleys they have to be on other elevations that's fair is that or the

doors have to be offset or something doors have to be offet or do the do but even I mean the condition I'm thinking of has it has a door on a 4 foot thing and in this particular case it's also a few feet up it has a foundation and so there's like a step and then there's like a three foot landing and then there's like one foot where you kind I think if we get into the micro artisanal design we will not we will never get out of here tonight and I don't think we can hold ourselves accountable for bad design but six but we can't mandate six feet because the state won't let us votes move the item exactly let's keep going all right uh so the next policy question we just to rec confirm we had four votes for yes continue which I'm G to make mine a fifth vote I don't know if you want to be a sixth vote for I'm no I don't no okay fine so the third policy question we came across but policy question number two was regarding the expansion of adus that are converted from existing space so this was to allow for more than 150 foot expansion that state law requires us to do but as long as that a bigger expansion apply complies with code so four foot side and rear the sizes all of that any any NOS here I'm just just going to ask this question that it's still exempt from F yes yeah and it would be an expansion up to the size that it could be so it's they don't get more it's just more flexibility yeah any objection here no great okay six out of six uh the last one for adus is for upper story outdoor space so again as a summary uh when these limitations I'm sorry Ross I'm just going to like let's just no anybody good with applying underlining zoning standards for consist y bearing in mind

Jing's warning that this is Tom wiers calling the city for the first time and they've probably maybe they've read their District standards maybe they haven't but well I think we need upper story decks if we're going to have all these little houses with four feet in between I'm you know we'd have them yeah well you know I called up on my computer that development on Ocean Park Boulevard that was built in the 40s that everyone thinks Donald Douglas built which he didn't but it was like the city's first example of high density housing they're all separated by six feet and they're these uh 1500 square foot but this is not outo outdoor spaces is it we're talking about upper outdoor spaces no I'm just talk the whole thing I'm just giving you a vision okay we good with this one yes let's keep going so that ends the Adu policy questions um the last policy question is regarding you know given the prioritization of Standards being modified if needed to accomplish or to achieve certain sizes and certain number of units uh so are to I'm gonna ask a question what you're saying is if they come and say we can't do it this list means the first thing you'll offer them is increased F the second thing okay this is staff's recommendation you can obviously add another one remove one maybe reorder but again we did this recommendation thinking of how would this structure be viewed from the street so there that's why there is an kind of a logic to this order my I'm going to ask the question from the perspective of the firsttime homeowner applicant um uh or anybody's applicant increased FD does this mean it could are you g to offer them higher wider higher or wider first like when you so the creased F will be f is going to have to go along with another one of

these standards so therefore okay we're going to give you an extra 100 sare feet to get your F but are you doing that via A reduced setback or a another floor so these aren't just working in a vacuum they will need to kind of build off of each other but this kind of align the direction of the deviation from standards okay commissioner Taco I have a question oh yeah sorry I thought you were voting uh question so on item number two so that's reducing it below 4T mhm if you they could do three feet if that's what they needed to get like the increased f for example so my only recommendation is that we demote item two a little lower how far is maybe do four or five below parking okay yeah is this item number uh policy question five correct okay the the the list in the staff report is different than this list if I'm not mistaken it's still the same policy question we just had ordered them where they showed up in the presentation but this is not about adus this is under the additional uh revisions sorry it's under the um policy questions the FR in the staff report the front yard setback is oh yeah we we originally didn't order them in the staff report but staff kind of took a stab for the presentation for our recommended prioritization so we did reorder them for the presentation sorry I understand what you're asking right so I have a question on the parking portion of that they just changed the rules for for V for the transit to 20 minute headways is there any part of the city that doesn't get covered there there's still some R1 that it doesn't cover okay cuz most Park most people are just going to say 209 2097 I don't have any parking required but this is good amount of the city this is just the small part

okay so I think this is this is a good list and I'm I'm comfortable with commissioner chako's um movement of this building separation down two to the new five or below parking my my one concern coming out of a home where I grew up um is that in Santa Monica is that there was a there was a side setback um that could only work as a driveway as long as the neighbor provided the easement and a a new Pharaoh arose in Egypt a new e a new neighbor moved in and said no why am I going to give that away and so the garage is literally inaccessible from the street and the the folks have to park um in front of their home or on the on the street so wrong with that so I don't want to get into it but um it was yeah it's comp it was nasty and they tried too but um so my concern about the reduced side setback is that I would not want to create that I would not want to allow that to happen again I would want to make sure that we're preserving vehicular access to the backyard I'm not sure how they built on top of the easement but um if I mean it wasn't really an easement it was just like yeah you can do like they never actually resolved it that's why you need the easement yeah so um it was a verbal easement at some point but my point is can we ensure that A reduced side setback does not prohibit like if you know access to parking uh vehicular access re find a way I'm not exactly sure how that would fit completely but if you had a parking requirement and you built a building in front of it you violate your parking requirement and you couldn't get your building

permit yeah so I don't I think you have a very unique situation where some nice nice neighbor said hey I'll let you drive on this half of my property right or this this exet it's pretty rare I mean isn't a prescriptive easement right well I mean what I'm what I'm getting into is we see a lot of we see a lot of older homes in Santa Monica that have very tight setbacks and so um we want to avoid going back to that era sure uh and so I would not want to reduce offer the reduced side setback um I would want to reduce and I would reduce the front set back before I reduce the side setback I think when we very careful there I'll allow you guys to weigh in on that reshuffling I I I'm also flexible to move the reduced front setback higher up on the list um I was comfortable with that I don't travel to Europe but I was in Georgetown recently and uh great have no front setbacks and it's a very Charming neighborhood it's lovely yeah is there like how much are you comfortable with moving it up I mean not not in the order but I mean would could you cut the 30 foot front set back in half I'll leave that up to you guys to figure out but vote on that before we start sure I was just C clarifying like if that was an option yeah I I I don't see the the front yard is necessarily a sacran um type of thing yeah if I might comment on that uh I normally I would agree with you but I think I'd be concerned about consistency because I think it does affect the character of the street if there's just a few odd exceptions potentially also I think that uh open verdant front yards provide a certain kind of pedestrian experience and we're talking about diversity of Housing and diversity of neighborhoods and we need that kind of neighborhood too so we have plenty of neighborhoods

that don't have front yard setbacks or where it's not as important but in our one neighborhoods I think it is important well okay yeah I was go ahead I was just going to say I don't I I would rather take a 30 foot setback and turn it into a 25 foot setback than reduce the side setbacks right I'm not saying I want to bring it all the way up to 5 feet but between 30 and 25 even 20 you can still get a lovely front presentation that is do we still have 30 foot setbacks yeah so in the R1 District honestly it's very artisanal block by block that we have anywhere between 10 which is rare I would say the typical between 20 and 30 sometimes in our Palisades track we have up to 40 ft they are Street by Street kind of I'm not exactly sure the Genesis of why every block has a little bit of a different one um tell you but I won't oh please Ross is there some prohibition on um people Paving their front yards and parking their cars so we do have a maximum Paving limitation in the R1 of typically no more than 50% of it can be paved okay we also did cover that sort of front yard you do your car repairs so in the front backyard no no setback [Laughter] left my my argument for AR for going after the front yard first is from a practical standpoint when you're working around your house just bringing like just a normal trash can down that four feet is difficult so if you reduce it it makes it very hard to actually work around your house yeah so I think having more flexibility in the front makes a little bit more sense I am concerned about character but we're not talking about going to zero right here A minor right expansion so could we bring

reduced front setback up to number three three so it would be really so it' be increased F reduced step backs and then front setep back how about how about this just move the the side and rear setbacks farther down so that it's this list okay oh I'm looking at the wrong list here put them on the bottom um yeah move just move those further down and then move uh reduce front set back to number five behind parking yes okay yeah i' rather prioritize front yard over parking restate increased f is number one reduced building separation is number two reduced step backs is number three wait you separation already mve building separation down down sorry F step backs parking building separation Building height Building height front setback side and rear rear setback side setback okay yes everybody cool with with that just to be a just to be me um why reduce setbacks why are we moving that down cuz redu setbacks in the rear like it's already four feet it's already only four feet yeah but if it's three feet in the rear who who try a parking try putting your trash cans out they'll end up in the alley if there is an alley if there is an alley yeah okay I'm just I'm gonna I'm not going to fight that one now that was a huge end up in the alley anyway yeah I know but with four feet you can at least hold them

there okay cool you got that order because we flipped rear and side so step back parking separation height front rear side cool moving on that is it for policy questions I believe um so now I guess this would be maybe a additional uh commission Direction well we were asked about well I guess we the public has asked us to envey on owner occupancy let's go there now yeah let's go there public here now let's talk about that let's do that all right anybody have thoughts on owner occupancy yeah where's the state law on this so state law requires owner occupancy for lot splits for a years for applicant of three years they intend to live on there for three years council's Direction was to remove that state law requirement okay but so state law right now says you have to have that it includes it in a requirement yes how it's a requirement how can we make it a non-requirement I think the view is that it's more permissive than state law but I will Le this is this goes back to what we were speaking about earlier this is the subject of litigation so if you would like to for policy reasons say one way or the other we would fully encourage the commission to discuss that from a policy perspective got it so I'm gonna I'm going to make a policy observation I do not agree that removing the over owner occupancy requirement will make housing more accessible I don't I think um precisely somebody mentioned the Palisades and the need for duplexes and the Palisades as we rebuild um it's a very controversial conversation but Absol absolutely for people who are underinsured they need they want to live somewhere and they're going to lot spit their partials so that they can figure out a way to make their

mortgage get their value back and cover the gap between what their insurance is paying out and what they owe the bank um I think my impression is that there is a problem in state law with respect to trusts and llc's that are controlled by living human beings and that's the reason that I asked I don't know his name the the guy from Stanford um whether he had complied with the finsen requirement the the legal finsen requirement for beneficial owners to disclose themselves in my view we should retain the owner occupancy requirement and we should explicitly state that someone who wants to exercise that right needs to demonstrate that they are the beneficial owner of the trust the either the beneficiary or beneficial owner of a trust or the Ben official owner of an LLC um and they can document that by showing their filing with finsen which is not being enforced right now but it's still legally required and the city can impose that say if you want the benefit of this law you you you have to show us that you've done that and Define an applicant as either a natural person or a beneficial beneficiary or beneficial owner of a trust or an LLC and I think that squares the circle and um achieves our policy aims for for Lay what you're trying to what you're saying is even though it's owned by a trust you you want somebody to prove that it's an individual individual property owner who's going to end up living on the property in the end right and that they are connected to that trust in some connectable way yeah right so to be clear if I understand the property could be owned by something by an entity that is not a natural person right right so either is a natural person or not a natural person if it's not a natural person you would like this beneficial ownership Concept in injected in there either the beneficiary of a trust or the

beneficial owner of an LLC or similar right is that exactly so you have well I mean typically in sort of house like for homes right you have you have people who put their homes into gror trusts you have people who put their homes into um like revocable trusts right the so and Soo living trust so legally it's owned by a trust but the trust shares a social with the individual how do how does this vent speculation so it prevents it because you're still attaching the property to a human being who's required to live there under state law okay so that's one you have your intentionally defective granter trust which which exists when people uh like the parents want to transfer the property to the kids but the parents still want to live there so they're going to pay rent again you can you can actually identify the the person who you can you can make the connection then you have the irrevocable trust where there's literally a list of people who are the beneficiaries of the trust in the trust and they can show the connection and then on the LLC side if you own 25% or more of an LLC any LLC in the United States for any reason technically you are now required to tell the US Treasury your name and your address and how much of it you own um and this went to the Supreme Court which allowed it to go into effect um so anybody who has 25% or more of an LLC presumably has a document that says they're attached to that LLC it I have a question about um state law is it pertains to what we the other part of the conversation which is the ability to put five units uh a primary residence and then four Adu jdu um is there an owner occupancy requirement for not for adus but there is an owner

occupancy requirement for J adus the owner needs to either live in the jedu or the main house but there's no owner occupancy for adus so what's the maximum number of units you can put on with uh not having owner occupancy I guess then you wouldn't get a jdu so three adus plus the single family house okay so hypothetically I could buy a property in Santa Monica uh ter down and build four units and call one a primary and then I'd have three adus so aside from the title policy and the ownership structure from a neighborhood point of view you still have four units there whether they're renters or owners yeah there's a there's two paths to get to four kind of the aduser yeah so what really what what this what this change is is saying is you you can uh basically it's for the condo isation only I mean you can still put four units one way or the other um I mean you can design it differently understanding maybe you could fit five or six but like let's just keep it to four you can always put four units on a property in Santa Monica whether you own it or not just a matter of whether you've subdivided that piece of land there might be some additional limitations on adus that wouldn't apply to the duplexes like the size limitation potentially but yes you could get to four so so the only real so then the the the only real kind of a creative benefit of this change that council is putting forth is to put more than four units on a parcel and is that right I mean potentially only uh so this owner occupancy removal would just be through the establishment of lot splits and duplexes so it's not exactly tied to the

Adu path if we will um and as far as through the lot split and duplex path if you are a parcel greater than 10,000 square F feet you can get more than four units it's a housing element program that the city enacted to allow for these larger Parcels to essentially do a little bit more so so aside from the home ownership aspect of it the only real policy decision that we need to figure out is do we want on Lots greater than 10,000 units do we want to give the ability for a non owner occupied owner uh site to put more than four units is that really what we're talking about I mean because you're saying if they don't go through this path they could just do it via adus in a different way what what's the marginal benefit of waving this provision in state law I couldn't ascertain all that can says council's Direction was to incentivize the creation of more diverse housing opportunities in our highest occup highest opportunity areas um that would be the benefit in council's there's there's a hcd does a map of of the entire State of California and they divide every single census tract into high and highest resource areas and the entire city of Santa Monica is either highest resource or high resource both are basically the same thing so the entire city is basically a high resource area so What's the diff you know what's the that euphemism for what's that to me calling that we want to put units in the highest resource area when the entire city is highest resource what what do you think the policy goal is there I think it's the affirmatively furthering fair housing getting more units in the R1 the highest

of the high we'll say areas of the city for but yeah but the only thing you really accomplish is is that you're allowing on larger unit uh larger Parcels greater than 10,000 square ft to put more than four units and there's probably how many how many 10,000 sare foot Parcels are there in Santa Monica I don't know off the top of my head but that's not the normal size no yeah if may I I mean I think to to commissioner Hamilton's Point um You're functionally simply enabling speculation on those lots because the incentive if you're going to if you're going to maximize the utility of those lots uh I can pretty much guarantee you that those um the subdivided units are not going to be accessible to the people for whom affirmatively furthering fair housing is intended yeah right yeah I just think from a policy point of view there you know there's a lot of people concerned about this issue and um you know I I see both sides of it I want density I I think that but there's a way to density without upsetting the public because um really what this is about is if you really boil it down is five five units on a 10,000 square foot parcel and as you said before in the four you know in most of our experience so far at least in the four years that we've had this kind of capability we haven't seen a lot of these applications coming through so the the actual like number of units that will incremental number of units that will be created by waving this provision or in state law is really not much at the end of the day so I would rather just vote no on it and and allow the the public to feel

heard if I may I I would also think that given what we've been advised regarding pending litigation I mean I still stand by what I said about the beneficial owner because I do think it's a problem in state law as well um it may be that the council's best move is to take an advocacy position with the state with respect to pending legislation and needed legislative fixes this this issue with for example trusts and llc's ought to be solved at the state level the state ought to clean it up for everybody so there's no real question for anybody in the state of California about what it means to own a property and um it's I'm uncomfortable with putting the city in the position of appearing to go beyond state law in a way that it may not have the flexibility to do um at a time when we've just been asked to make things simpler for staff um and I don't think we can afford extra lawsuits um in general so I'm comfortable with a no but I also think rather than just saying no I would say if the council wants to pursue this conversation I would encourage it to exercise its legislative advocacy um to to to utilize legislative advocacy given the number of bills that are pending on the State Legislative floor right now related to owner occupancy why go down this road when by January 1st 2026 we might actually have um Clarity from above that'd be my argument well well it is north of us so I mean I have a couple of thoughts about this one is I'll just say that I mean this was our best trying to do the lot spits and emphasize lot splits was our abil was our best foot forward at trying to get more density and more diversity yeah where we really what we should have done was rezone some areas for some multif family but but

there that was really a political nonstarter right so when we hear people saying about how either way we go we're going to a affably fair promote Fair housing it it's not really we're not really moving the needle on it as just one comment I want to make um so and I also and I also guess the other part of this is if we're pending litigation I'm not sure that we as a commission should be making a recommendation one way or the other we had the policy discussion we should just abstain on the issue and let the the court case go forward and let the council review this because I'm just afraid that if we put our finger one way or the other it helps one side or the other and I'm not smart enough at this point to know which side I'm I'm just uncomfortable in general with making a policy decision kind of in the dark because our staff and attorney's office can't speak openly about it that's my I you know I mean I lean towards not changing it just in general but I feel like doing it in this climate is a little bit you know we don't know what impact we're having what happens after three years can I condom minimize you know cond make it into a condo track map and sell off you can do condos before the three years um R right so so the way that the state law reads you you are required to sign an affidavit that you intend to live on the property for 3 years after the lot split is complete so that is that is the the way that the state law reads and do you have to be the owner before the

construction like to be have been an owner for three years uh before the started construction or you just have to promise to be an owner three years hence after right it is it is actually is actually literally signing an affidavit to that event to that effect with respect to the intent okay I'm G to I'm GNA I'm going to make a motion on this that that that we take no action on this second did you say table this I didn't say that but that's what I mean that we take no action we're abstaining from an action okay I think just from a procedural perspective I just would like to confirm so uh staff still has the direction from Council to bring forward the um black lines as presented under the 16 item so I just want to clarify that obviously you obviously this position that you're taking would be forwarded to the council in the staff report but I do want to just kind of make that piece clear I I I don't want to um there's a motion in a second but but I don't I I I actually don't want to give up our role here um I think it is unwise to move forward with the owner occupancy changes um in the totality of the situation um I would like to see clarifications around beneficial ownership but um I don't want to take no action I I actually think I'd like to the council has no compunction about you know disagreeing with us and over ruling us but I think if if we have concerns about this

change um we should say so and I would like to say so I I don't think I don't think the time is ripe to make this change I think it adds a legal burden to the city I think it does not accomplish the goals that the council wants to accomplish and I think it um and I I think it those are the two reasons and and um and I think there are other fixes for owner occupancy that are more pressing like beneficial ownership clarification so to the extent that the council wants to express itself I would like it to go via legislative advocacy and not zoning ordinance Redline so we won't take official action but we'll just State our opinion I think I think what has to happen is we have to vote on my my's motion and if it wins then that's we take no action if it loses then we have to come back and make a decision yeah so let's let's do so the choices between taking no action or sending a recommendation a different kind of recommendation to council and we can we'll make a second different motion we'll make a different motion but let's just we'll start from your end well I mean again my biggest concern concern is if there's a lawsuit happening and you're making a determination that's going to help one side or the other and we're going to make a determination that's going to be on one side or the other and I don't think we know enough about the details right now to be getting involved in that in that lawsuit I mean there wasn't anything you said that I that didn't make some sense to me but I just I I'm concerned when I'm what I'm hearing that there's a lawsuit we're talking about state laws and city laws and we can't get impact we can't talk our attorney about it okay do do you think that if uh Council understood the opinion of the Planning Commission that

they may or may not they they might make a different decision about this good luck that's I mean I I understand I think they'll listen I mean I think they have the same concern if they're in a I think they'd be in the same concern if they're I mean let me rephrase that if they're in a l if they're in a legal challenge they're going to defend their there's only one side they can come down on okay I think they would always benefit from hearing from us so unique spot so call for the question call for the question well no we haven't I'm taking the question you're a no action so what's the chair's position I'd like to hear what everybody no but do you want to take no action or do you want to express a different recommendation I would like to at this point given what's been inste I would take no action okay you would not issue any recommendation one way or another no okay I I'm okay issuing a recommendation okay I'm okay issuing a recommendation no action I I would prefer not to take no action so it's so the motion fails because it's three to three okay okay so now we're back to considering a different motion make the motion that we advise the council against pursuing a change to the owner occupancy uh let's keep it simple we're going to advise the council against pursuing changes to owner occupancy rules um on the grounds that uh there's pending legislation and um we are trying to keep things simple for staff uh you know we we don't want to get out in front we're we're we don't want to enter into we we

don't want to enter into the question of whether the city has the authority to override a state shall a shall Clause second is there a second for that I'll second that okay keep it simple don't get into the lawsuit just just say don't make a change now because for those two for those reasons pending legislation to resolve it and um not entering into further legal challenges and I would just say if if the goal is additional units um and to place uh more unit production into R1 zones I think the state has already given us a really sensible way of going about doing that um I am not opposed to what the state has already uh what what tools they've already given um you know but I uh you know so I I don't understand or at least I don't see the efficacy of making that change um and I'll just leave it at that okay I think I'll just add that I guess in agreeing with you Sean that because of the existence of the lawsuit I don't feel that there's sufficient information for me to support a change so in other words in the absence of our ability to discuss it the status quo is preferable yeah yes yes yes okay I just have to say that that's exactly why I voted for the other motion but I would vote for this too okay because of that do we have a consensus

here yeah okay sure all right is that clear to okay great um what's next oh streamlining we pull up streamlining th this is it I have a thing can do the definition of yeah I have a thing I want to say about streamlining um I know we're this is might be the last one I mean unless other people have things um so I don't like the Stream in idea um I know Council has given Direction um and I'm going to say a couple of things number one I think we have a really good program in bergamont I think we should uh we should do the the two point we should do the 12% that staff is recommending but we should go up to 2.25 Acres not two acres so I want to do that the bergamont program not the housing okay sorry I'm putting well they're related to each other so but I will separate them I'm I'm putting I'm going to okay I won't I won't get into the details on bergamont I think we have a good program on bergamont that we should expand to other parts of the city that is my point I think there are other sites in the city which I will not name to avoid issues um where the bergam a bergamont style program could be far more effective in yielding the outcomes that the city wants to achieve therefore I I will vote against wholesale streamlining of the projects above one acre outside bergamont because I think we have not adequately um studied the opportunities to achieve similar goals in other parts of the city and I would like to request of the city council that it

identify areas where a Bergamot like program could be implemented and send it back to us to implement programs in those areas can I ask a question about that so if I understood you right you're advocating for using the um expanded administrative approval as an incentive to achieve some other policy objectives rather than just giving it away I think that's right I think we have a number of large sites and I'll say I'm going to repeat what I said about the airport planning process I said we can't I said two meetings ago or three meetings ago I said we should not do the we should not do the airport without considering the context in which it sits I'm going to keep it vague for reasons um but I think there may or may not be other sites in the city where those kinds of incentives could be accomplished and I think it's premature to streamline everything wholesale because once we do that we can't undo it I have a few questions I know it's late in the day but there a few things I don't quite understand about this proposal so I'd like to ask those first of Staff um just want to make sure I understand in the context of the housing accountability act and its definition of a housing project that we are essentially removing that the city of Santa has its own definition for housing projects that qualify for for expedited R currently we have a definition of streamlined housing project which had like the one acre cap for example where commercial could be located and we the direction would to be remove that but we and default to the state's definition understood um just to clarify

the administrative approval as applied to the projects as defined under the housing accountability act they would only apply to projects that are not seeking to change zoning they're seeking to get approved on the existing zoning based on existing objective standards correct correct um and the definition of those housing projects do include mixed use projects that could include a component of hotels as well of non-residential yeah but they still have to meet that state definition of of a housing project um does the administrative approval process require a community meeting in s Monica does prior to um application submitt there is a community meeting requirement and how does staff deal with Community comments that I received so that community meeting is ran strictly by the applicant and part of their application submitted to us is a summary of all the comments that were received during that uh community meeting or kind of for after it and some an ad justification or a clear or response on how those comments may or may not have been addressed understood um to could could you give me your sense of to what extent um the housing accountability act uh limits the city's discretion in approving or disapproving projects that come through administrative approval so I'm so I'm happy to hop in you actually are um hitting on why the streamlining process started in the first place back in 2020 it's because if if a project meets code the city is prohibited under the housing accountability act from

denying the project or reducing its density so that is that is the origin of um the streamlining process um that the city council uh wanted to take back in early 2020 so related question to what extent can the city whether it's staff or a committee or commission impose conditions on those projects they can propose no condition that would result in the reduction of density that is proposed and and and also because the nature of the streamlined process is you can it would only approve if you meet the objective standards right so it's a ministerial process you can't have a condition by its very nature is des rary potentially right so you cannot apply a condition to a ministerial permit thanks I think that answers all my questions but I do have a comment going back to Sean what you said I in principle support the act of giving away an expanded benefit in return for some something some policy objective but in this instance I honestly don't see a benefit for bringing a project like that to the commission with such limited discretion I think that's my concern but I don't know I'd be glad to hear from the rest of you based on your experience recently of the extent to which you found that beneficial I mean I think we just did in bergamont right we had a whole conversation about how to streamline it in exchange for the housing mix and the the pathways but that was in the context of a zoning change correct right but I'm saying let the city council identify those big opportunity sites and then send them back to us for um I believe there are a number of places in the city that have Zone names so we can do zone

changes for those particular zones yeah again I don't want to get into it because yeah um I'd like to have that agendized separately I also want to say um if I can but other people may want to comment I have one other reason I want to speak to the hotel issue but I'll wait no go ahead okay so I don't um I agree with what the hotel workers are asking for but for a reason different from why they're asking for it um I understand the labor argument here and I support it as a human being as a planning commissioner concerned with the city's Economic Development and our planning director and I were talking during the break when I joined the Planning Commission um we were doing these AR isal approvals of um DRS where we would vest uh we would make sure that there was no ability to create corporate housing in these new housing projects and at the time I noticed that what was missing from the city code was a category of commercial lodging that was longer than a month and shorter than a year at the time we were dealing with a serious crisis a housing crisis which we're still dealing with and I understand why the bans on this kind kind of housing um were placed fast forward through covid where our dependence on hotel-based Revenue as a City cost us dearly um because of the loss of that revenue and now fast forward to 2025 when federal policy around tariffs and immigration is costing us tourism in very real ways I am concerned frankly about creating inadvertently uh continued dependence on hotel-based

uh revenue for the city's economic health and taking hotels out of the streamlining uh recognizing that that is a commercial activity and we're talking about adaptive reuse to a certain extent commercial activity not resident residence building activity is a way for us to say wait do we really need this right now and what I'd much prefer to do is have Council come back and create a commercial lodging midterm lodging because the future of our economic the future of an economic uh uh sustainability for Santa Monica May well not just be in hotels and tourism but also in short-term stays for people who are coming to our city to do business here to engage with the new research centers at UCLA on Pico to engage with other business entities that are not rooted in retail that are not rooted in the hotel and tourism business but are rooted in other places and we have to attend to the housing crisis we have to build real housing for real people but we also have to wind find a way to bring people who don't want to move here but need to spend three months six months doing work here uh as visiting Consultants lecturers professors whatever workers and we want their dollars we want them to spend them here but we've got to figure out a way to make money on that and I'd be much much more interested in adapting reuse and other zoning changes that leg legalize and regulate that form of housing so that we can control it and make it work for us as a city sir I'm I need some help figuring out there's two things that we've just talked about one is bergamont and it's the the the large sites and how to get benefit out of the large sites um but there's this other part where

it's housing accountability act and they revise the pro the the housing definition in in um hous accountability act and that's state law and it's the one that's telling us I mean just want to make sure I'm understanding this it's saying that we should have a new category that at least 50% of a conversion building it can go into residential as long as there's 500 units right that's one that's one thing that we're and that's just state law we're and we can't stop that right we can't stop agreed so then there's the the question of the 30 the two3 I mean I don't know how we stop that from hotels right we can't it's a streamline project if it meets that if sorry I just want a correct correction this is a definition of haa the Streamline housing project is a local definition and so by removing the definition of a streamline housing project it will revert to this basically the new the new normal will be this as the AA process and and if I can help shine a light on what I think hearing the testimony the concern is so it's kind of like the combination of removing the 1 acre cap right in combination with basically aligning with the state law definition creates what I understand is you know potentially like a gap where uh some portions of the non-residential could be Hotel so you see the exclusion for hotel is only in this instance of what we'll call the 50-50 projects with at least 500 net new units but what if you have a 5050 project that has less than 500 net new units for example what if you have a 2/3 1/3 project on a site that is two or three acres right that's a lot of floor area and in that instance that would still meet the state housing definition that the ha does not require those projects to go through a ministerial process that was a city of

Santa Monica policy choice right um but it does does obviously um remove uh really any you know of the city's discretion and approving so you do get the same outcome but you go through a different process so I I think you know in hearing just I just want to clarify for the commission I think that is the concern that was expressed during the testimony is that although you see in the new addition to the state's definition of what's a housing project exclusions for hotel there are what what is being asked I believe was just the straight prohibition of hotels in the non-residential portion of any housing project right and and I'm guess I'm curious how I can do that if state law says that I have that a third of my project can be no yeah so so I think that for example if you wanted to do that we could again the the the ministerial process is a city of Santa Monica policy choice so you could say in order to qualify for that you know you're still a housing project that's defined by state law but in no case can the non residential portion include a hotel right yeah yeah exactly so and that would not be in violation of State yeah it just means with with the hotel just with the change in the definition of haa just means that we cannot Del deny or reduce the density of it but you can require it to go through a public review process through a DRP okay I have a question so that would be something we can write in so we're willing we're willing to forgo the construction of housing so that hotels can exert their squl leverage that's that's discussion that the commission should have I just did to me is what what this is what this is kind of allowing say that again I don't think I

understood if there's a discretionary action it has to have SQL attached to it and that is an attack Point understood and then and so what we're doing is we're saying that that attack point is more important than building the housing than we're getting dinged for in our in our that by the state that we're not building enough housing so I'm just putting that out there that we're we're it's important to us to support hotels in this community but at the same time it's important from the state standpoint that we build housing so that we don't violate the housing law and I'm seeing a little bit of a conflict in there and I suppose an argument that allowing a small component of hotels also makes a housing project more viable potentially I mean but but the whole thing then it comes back to what Sean was talking about earlier I mean the fact of the matter is hotels aren't viable right now well the yeah it's usually the hotels that want the houses that that was a justification for the 20th Street property whether you know that's what they gave us that the hotel made it [Music] viable I have a not to go too far down this rabbit hole but just a point of clarification so I noticed on on on the uh two the properties that went through in consent they had um units that were described as Sr is that like if I mean we all know what an SRO is but I don't think it's like SRO in the same sense of like deeply affordable housing were those SRO units intended to be sort of like corporate units and that would that would that that we had that that is exactly the discussions we were having in 2018 and 2019 and that is exactly a controversy and I don't and I believe that um are

these yeah this we were obligated to extend those yeah um because um yeah there were a whole bunch of these would that accomplish would those SRO units accomplish what you were trying to accomplish which was like corporate housing that would allow for longer term rentals but but you less than a year so these these projects that have been processed cannot be rented furnished so I ju just answer commissioner Hamilton's question the not about those project theoretically yes current law bans it um but just for background as we indicated in the staff report they're subject to a settlement agreement there was a yeah some some projects that were approved that were allowed to have market rate SOS that is no longer the case okay yeah yeah all right okay so what is before us is two questions really it's the question of whether we support this the elimination of the acre threshold and secondarily whether or not we want to do something with hotels um let's take the elimination of the acre threshold so I'm going to move that we not support the elimination of the acre threshold and in requested the council evaluate um large scale opportunity sites comparable to the bergamont area um for incentivize for streamlining incentive opportunities to achieve our community goals and then feel free to streamline the rest but let's do that after we've ruled out the opportunity sites can ask a question on that I guess this is really more a question for staff um how long would that process take couple I mean provided we get Council direction to do that you know and I assume if they were interested they might give us a timeline because they've

been doing that um quite recently so you know whatever that direction comes out of that I mean it would just be prioritization of the work that we have um and we can we can meet deadlines so would that involve doing a specific plan and re not necessarily I mean if the if if this direction was given from Council to pursue something similar to the special incentive program you know we would certainly have to look at and they would imagine you know some size threshold we would take a look at wherever that exists in the city and sort of think through you know the context and and all those sorts of things um bergamont was very contained area you know reliant on an adopted plan um other areas may not have that you know so um hard hard to say you know what those benefits may be you know without having looked at where what geographic area we're looking at yeah for for the bergamont we looked at like unimix and open space so we would need some sort of direction as to what benefits you guys I mean we were driven by the V to achieve the vision you know that was set forth in the in the bergamont I mean I might I might use the bergamont plan as the example and see whether it ports to other sites yeah since uh the advantage is being offered to large sites I think usually that is associated with getting pedestrian I'm I I would second that and I'm supportive of that just from that also the point you mentioned once you give that store away you can't take it back I would just add to that for clarification to council that we did in fact oppose the one acre Threshold at the time and it was the former Council that approved it and that we're now trying to make lemonade well we now see a an opportunity an opportunity There's an opportunity that's what I'm trying to say and I at the time that the council imposed it

there was not a series of precedents from the state that any reversion was going to immediately put us in hcd jail right we did not we at the time we were playing with the threshold we thought okay you make policy you change it you fix it if it's not working but now we have a one-way Street and so I don't want to race down that street and realize that we left all our marbles uh at the other corner right but just pointing out in our recommendation to council that it's a real opportunity that we're taking advantage of this moment yeah I think it's an important part of the message that we're not just being no what I'm trying to say yeah exactly yeah okay okay are we all aligned on that Sam okay uh how about the hotels I think I can support the idea of withholding the expedited review for hotels without compromising the broader intent for advancing housing I'm I still have a question to the extent to which that might affect housing but we could leave that for another day I would agree with that uh if only because it is something that we could back off on and become more permissive about in the future okay anyone else Josh okay I mean this is just to be consistent with state law right we're still consistent with state law we're just we would have to approve this you know the huge one we wouldn't have this kind of discretion but we're talking about the smaller projects that are not

with 500 units right right where we would continue to exercise some discretionary Authority we would not be forced to do what we did the other week yeah it would be explicit from day one that you can't pull that put put a hotel use yeah yeah yeah I I actually think I mean we're in a cycle with the economy hotels may not be you know full at this point I want to hold out hope that things change so I am in support of uh those types of deals on 20th Street that included hotels so I wouldn't want to take that out Okay so we've got three yeses a no yes yes I'm going to I mean I'm going to be a no it's going to we're going to lose but I just think that that the housing is our bigger priority right now frankly and I and I don't want to mess up a housing project it's too important to our community okay um that was sort of where I was going with that that question about that SRO unit type is could could we keep hotels incentivized and but find an alternative path to create more you know those that longer term mid midterm rental space and and have like two lanes that so that's what I'm trying to figure out do you feel like you could communicate this in your recommendation to council because I think both sides of this view need to be forwarded right I mean there's we've Commissioners who are concerned about maintaining the priority on Housing Development and understanding that hotels can drive that but at the same time there are those of us who a don't want to give away the store before we've evaluated the store and B may not believe that continued Reliance on

hotels as a source of Revenue is good for our overall economic health um and that we need other approaches to we need to encourage other forms of that the 33% um uh commercial in a mixed use project should come from other sources of other types of uses in addition to hotels but I mean now we're going to involv with the market now you also let the market Santa Monica no I'm saying these are the views that were expressed in the conversation we had a 42 vote but make sure that all the views that were expressed are included in the report without can I give some history of years ago before I became a planning commissioner we looked at bergamont station development options Hotel was part of that and I think that's a viable and given the research things that may be going on and people coming in that could be you know even more viable than housing all housing actually I'm inclined to to change my position on that more in favor of not excluding hotels at this point so that kind of be this is a good discussion then yeah well one thing I just feel we need to remember is that we are Santa Monica and the reason we're here is because we have a beautiful beach and a beautiful place and we've had many economic downturns since 1875 and it was always the beach and the tourist that brought us back every time and we've had other Industries come and go but the beach is forever so I'm not sure I'm ready to diss hotels you know I we can always add an extra bonus or you

know extra ways to streamline but I'm just not there yet I just think Hotel youth should be uh on the smorgus Borg of options that developers have to be able to make a deal viable yeah I think that's well said I think we we want to promote mixed use and combinations of use that help make projects viable are a good thing absolutely okay so it sounds like the majority of the Commission Now does not want to exempt Hotel from the streamlining council's going to do what council wants to do and you know they're going to hear from lots of people before the meeting but and interesting one thing when I was on the sustainable cilities task force we were looking at economic models in the city and one of the things they looked at was hotels and what it brings in and the value of it and two negatives there was two fairly big negatives which which was resource uses usage I should say and wages and it was kind of like they were so there were such outliers it was it was odd that it was for Santa Monica was was putting so many marbles in that bucket because of those two two things I obviously it brings in big Revenue when it's functioning when it's functioning fun yeah um I still think if the commission's okay we should have a record of this conversation to council because I think we've raised pros and cons that are maybe not that haven't been part of the record before and should inform the council's decision because it's going to hear from stakeholders on this item in the future I still think we need a I still think we need a midterm commercial lodging category in our code so that we can actually um put a box you know like get our hands around how much of that kind of housing we need and try to make some money on it um but hopefully that can be included are we ready to move on okay um are we done have we is there anything

else that anybody wants to cover I don't think so but I'll check one more time okay um I have a question I want a follow-up question with with you on adus because I got a little confused in looking at the document and there was one part where I saw that there was for a multif family was a Max of eight dwelling adus but then there's somewhere else on one of your slides I saw you could do 25% just so might get it understand in my head the eight is when you're building new it's when you're building detach sorry so in multif family you get both options at the same time you can convert existing space up to at least one or 25% of whatever the unit count is and you can build a certain amount of detach units assuming you have the space to do so okay thank you I just wanted to clarify clarify that any other comments so do we chair do you want to take a motion on the package of recommendations or do we need to do that stat we do need you do you do need to vote on the resolutions so there's like the big one and then there is the resolutions about the um zoning and loose map change for the parcel on uh Wilshire Wilshire so chair I'm going to move staff I'm going to move 11 I'm going to remove 11a A B C and C I'm going to move 11 a a B and C as amended by the planning commission's um notes and changes as outlined in the prior discussion second second I got it yes second I think we have a can we do a roll call yeah commissioner Cho yes commissioner Fresco yes commissioner Landress yes

commissioner Hamilton yes commissioner Reese yes chair tolken yes and Sam we're on to 11b all right okay want to call it that was enjoyable I mean we had some good stuff yeah like we actually got to debate some I feel like we got to say some things a real conversation we earned our stipend oh we've got some I have cookies I would give you okay Tony's moving from R1 PTSD to to fenes and edges PTSD zoning ordinance PTSD R1 back defenses well we have station if you'd like one yeah do we want one I would move that we wave the staff pres I second that motion I mean you're not Ross so we don't want to I'm sorry I well Ross you were chopping some wood up there take that in a good way number of ways take that take it in a good way yeah please or at least a joking way good thing I'm not Ross good job though Tony I think what you should what you should take from this is that your staff report was so good that no further explanation was needed was Shir as well so I have to give credit to Shir as well okay great great job well thank you have any question good night everybody do we have any questions of Staff what we or go right to public comment public comment I have questions okay let's go to public comment first

anyways okay let's um Nancy Nancy Coleman [Music] Commissioners staff I am terribly concerned about Hedges I'm concerned about the expansion of Hedges into R2 R3 and R4 but there are two reasons why I'm concerned one I lived through the fire I was as Joshua as commissioner Hamilton was two blocks from the Mand evacuation we watch all of it going up and one of the things that occurred in the houses and as you described in your earlier discussion how the hedges uh how the setbacks on the side set box the state says in calire says we should have at least at least five feet of any growth on the sides and the front in the backs of our houses and we don't have that now we don't have that on one side of our houses in R1 R2 or three or or four and the idea of taking more Hedges and allowing whatever it is that five feet of transparent hedge is who's defining that and who is enforcing it I live on St in uh north of Montana and I see even those Hedges which are were allowed to go higher than

the 42 in they're at 12 14 16 feet they are incendiary and what we saw in the Palisades was inccary Hedges and trees and what we need to do is not go forward with this proposal to increase the height of Hedges but we need to enforce the Hedge height enforce it at 42 in get people and perhaps even relook at the Hedge height of those that were granted either grandfather or permitted to have higher Hedges we're not the same as we were 20 years ago in terms of climate warming the the the wildfires aren't there calire Chief came to the Noma meeting in February and said minimum five feet from the house minimum kinds of things to go on and have a 20f foot Edge we have high Hedges all over town and who is going to enforce that code enforcement doesn't enforce the current Cent law how are they going to do it if you increase it to all the rest of the state I think you ought to put this off until the fire chief the Fire Marshall looks to what calire says in terms of um what's going on you can I before you um former commissioner Coleman um nice to see you uh my former colleague on the Social Services Commission um so forgive me you're still I'm assuming

you're still on the Noma board yes um has NOA and and you've all studied the seped recommendations and I i' you've been on record on this before um I'm curious uh would you support lowering the Hedge height to 24 in as uh the head as the seped recommendation is I would I would I I can't speak for the rest of the board but I would I mean I it's it's terrifying I I try and and talk to people about it I have a neighbor who has 12 feet in the front 12 feet in around the the front set back you couldn't see in it's in you know it could go up in a minute yeah and you wouldn't know if people were in the house to evacuate them if they were thank you very much okay thank you um as somebody who's lost a house in a fire in malib because the people planted too close to the house I can tell you I'm totally in agreement and we have no enforcement there are 15 foot Hedges on on some houses do we have other comment what do we have anybody else waiting to speak yes we have uh K Arnold my name is k Arnold and thank you for listening to me I have a question about Hedges bisecting a property I live on um I live in the Wilmont area and I live at the back of the property I'm not sure if you'd call it an a Adu because there is a fourplex apartment building at the front of the property and then about 20 years

30 years later my apartment which is a ground floor apartment in front of the garages was added in a three-bedroom apartment above mine in over the top of the garages and there's a backyard in the in between the two buildings and there's a front yard and about a year ago the property owner put up first a six foot hedge then after a few days they tore that down and put up a 10ft hedge and it cuts across the property and separates the front building from the back building it cuts off my sunlight somewhat and I'm just wondering what the rules are about that or do I have any means of redress for that that's a yeah we're not this we're not able to this that's not on our agenda tonight we can't technically talk about that I would imagine that you should talk to the city planner about that okay but they are in the room right now oh okay later yes thank you for your time thank you thank you you you're in the you're with the right people I know I know that staff has put a lot of energy into this but I think that we should is that our last we have any other comments we don't have any any other comments can we go to disc can you close the hearing yeah I think we should have some questions table this well let's ask questions first you have questions hear uh commissioner Fresco has questions yeah I have a question about the survey sures did you give any information about

sepad as part of the survey or were they just like cold questions uh they were just questions strictly following council's uh 16 item so it was about the transparency requirement the five feet in height but there was no Preamble of no information that's what I wanted to know because all right that was M thank you could I make a motion uh well can I have a lot of things to say that could affect your motion oh I don't know what your motion is I'm happy to blame motion but I think I think this is with all the respect that the council has directed the staff to do a ton of work and you've done really careful work and I have concerns about the survey but I I just don't think it's this is not an appropriate uh change for us to be making right now so that was going to be my motion yeah well I always like to take advantage of an opportunity you're off yours I won't make my motion now I'll probably agree with you can I ask a quick question first yes well um and I guess this is a question for staff I just wanted to get a brief summary of the motivation behind the change in the districts where it's limited to oh boy well it was in the well we'll let him tell you yeah that's what I was hoping yeah that was specific Council direction to limit it to those uh two or three or four districts could you do do you have a sense of what the objective was well as it stated in the direction uh it was because of some concerns that community members expressed to some of the council members about privacy and safety

issues private and privacy and safety okay got it can also yeah anyway no I was can can we even though you don't have enforcement total enforcement of this somehow get the hedges out of this so that we're not talking about flammable materials well the the council Direction included hedges in their Direction so that's why that's included in the proposed text amendments I mean can we wait till calfire has some Direction I mean this this is a big issue that's certainly the I have another three houses on on Point Doom that are going to go up next time we have a big fire because people plant up to the house the hedges are not actually this is doesn't regulate plants that are up against the house this particular provision so that's actually a this is about property line Hedges I I should note that um Outreach was also done to office of emergency management and the fire department um as well um and you know they did not express any concerns um regarding this recommendation they have have a two and six just a point of clarification on S so I see your your sentence here that Santa Monica fire has approved or recommended this um did they look at just the height or did they consider the flammability issue they were just considering the height okay and to be fair wasn't a a recommendation they just expressed they didn't really have any concerns about the five foot height limit thank you did they put this in writing no this was over a call okay Nina if you have questions

comments I have lots of comments I'll be quick I can talk fast all right so uh I do not want to change the heights of the hedges in R2 R3 R4 but I would like to add staff's Provisions for retaining walls that basically limits them to 42 in uh and then if the retaining wall is higher than that then it has to be visually transparent railing not a hedge because Hedges are of course not transparent uh you can't get the kind of transparency from a hedge that you can from a fence um I because I'm assertive about Hedges um would like to add another provision for commercial District Hedges which I lifted from what we said about hedges in the bergamont plan which I thought was an excellent program and uh I don't know how to share that I think I sent it to Tony last time I I'm sorry commissioner Fresco can I just pause um that is not in the scope of the ROI we can only talk about R2 R3 R4 I mean that is yeah that's so we didn't yeah see when we talked about this I suggested that we open up the whole thing but then we didn't do the ROI did we yeah the the the scope of the inquiry here will is really R2 R three r four zones only well in that case it's very simple that we just add the retaining wall thing and call it a day and uh I don't think it's safe uh I don't I think that people think they're safe I think that um people need a lot of Education communities that uh have

that there are lots of communities that have lots of information and brochures and things to educate people so they move past this false sense of security that they have behind their Hedges um I think that our city could do we people say we have a crime problem and they talk about all of these things and the stat statistic that came up from staff was that 44% of front yards are not open and that might have a lot to do with why we have problems uh in Ocean Park in the 70s they had the highest crime rate one of the highest juvenile crime rates in the country and they got a big Federal blck Grant they started communitas and the Ocean Park Community organization and a system of neighborhood watch groups and public education on securing windows and doors and all that kind of stuff and now look at Ocean Park and that should be our approach so you know we talk a lot about how it's not safe in Santa Monica we need more police and more police but what we need is hedge enforcement and Community Education on public safety and neighborhood watch and I think that would be a really great thing for us to recommend that city council consider instead of doing this unsafe thing that by the way if you need privacy you get drapes if you want to have a birthday party outside we have tons of great parks in the city if uh you want to be protected from noise a hedge isn't going to do it you should ask a sound engineer it doesn't help if you want more light you definitely don't need Edge so it's just not going to do the things that people think it's going to do and I

think we really need to send that message to Council in a really clear way and not just say no we don't want to do it so that's my motion I guess is to make those suggestions along with uh recommending the existing ordinance with the retaining well provision from what I I I see fences and hedges are used interchangeably um so you want say that again in this the staff report and the recommendation the fences and hedges are kind of used interchangeably so you want to create a separate like hedge only no I didn't say that I didn't I'm I don't think we should change anything 42 Ines in the front uh I mean the walls and the hedges are already separated in the back8 feet 12 feet leave it like that but you were you but you were recommending the retaining wall issue which was to allow it to go up right but no Hedges on top of a retaining wall that's already over 42 inches it would be a a railing any structure huh you said hedge but did you mean hedge in fence you want 75% transparency I want a railing you're only going 42 inch sorry never mind never mind no I'm talking about on top of a retaining wall That's taller than 42 I want a railing not not a hedge or offence right and that's fine and I'm supportive of that okay good so do you so I'm sorry just for clarity so um just looking at the language that you know is in front of you is you would like you you you are supportive or recommending the retaining walls required by the building code shall not count towards the maximum height limit right retaining walls required by the building Cod shall be exempt from the

visual transparency requirements and so then you're okay then with a um decorative fence above that retaining wall like up to what whatever the current standards are but it has to be visually transparent like it can't be you're saying on that retaining wall no fence sorry no no wall or hedge above that retaining wall so on page eight I'm saying a railing not a wall not a hedge or a fence That's Tony can you put up here a railing because there's for retaining walls required by the building code above 42 in a guard rail is per permitted only a guard rail is on top of the retaining wall only the max minimum extent necessary right and they have to be 50% visually transparent yeah so I think you're striking three like little four three she's striking three she's moving four to three and she's making it 75% visually transparent not 50% okay and also just to be clear as well this would still only apply to the R2 R3 R4 districts given the scope of the ROI that was presented if that's all we can do then that's all that it applies to but we are cutting B1 B2 B3 we're cutting everything other than the retaining walls right we're not changing fench and headsight rules so B B4 becomes B1 right this is do you want to see yeah no no I understand I'm what I'm looking at is there because there the way since we're not changing the code and it doesn't currently separate it just says

residential districts so if we're just going to add the retaining well provision in residential districts um I mean does it have to only apply to it does because of because of our hands are okay okay so you have a motion there yes if if you would like to give a recommendation outside of the motion for further study of broader applicability of this you may but but um based on the ROI it's just right well we would like the retaining wall recommendation that is if it's over 42 Ines any required guard rail is a 75% transparent railing uh and we would recommend that that apply to all residential districts are you cool with this last language here notwithstanding the height fences walls and hedges within 3 ft of the retaining wall it should be measured from the top of the building code retaining wall the height of the the measurement of the height over the retaining wall and the existing natural grade should not be adjusted yeah yeah okay just making sure yeah okay I'll second that motion could do you want us to do the direction as a separate motion yeah if it's part of your recommendation I mean you technically you're you are adopting the if I understand you are adopting the um resolution sorry it's been a long night adopting the resolution with the modifications and also giving the separate recommendation to the council that the whole um that these rules apply to the whole city which would require the process to start all over again under the zoning ordinance right but to

be clear what's in front of us on the screen we're dropping B1 B2 B3 and and b41 2 and 3 I'm sorry b43 we're keeping b41 we're keeping b42 and we're keeping B44 except it's going to be 75% visually transparent yes thank you okay so there's a motion and a yeah I had a same how could I had the same question no no the the guard rail the guard rail guard rail uh well I didn't bring them I think well it's can be any kind of thing that they can design but it just can't approach a fence you just can't so you don't fall off the side of the retaining wall if if I may um I think there might be an issue with striking uh three because then it leaves a gap as to how we deal with retaining walls that are less than 42 in in height and if there's a fence on top I think to be consistent with the idea of not raising the height limit but allowing for the retaining wall changes I think in number three we should just change the 5 feet to 42 in or retaining walls required by the building coat of 42 in or less in height fences freestanding walls and hedges up to 42 in in height are permitted on top of the retaining wall yes any combination of retaining wall fence you can drop the second sentence cuz there's no we can but I think it it allows for uh a combination of retaining wall and fence or wall up to 42 inch height in height looking at both structures to be

solid to be consistent with any fence or wall that can be solid up to 42 in in height to begin with and then just requires anything on top of that to be visual transpar transparent if that Mak sense I think it makes sense but I'm going to go I just got I've retaining wall That's 42 42 in all I get on top of that is a guard is that correct if it's up to 42 inches in height you can have a fence Waller hedge up to 42 inches on top of that right okay so I don't think I really want to support that because if I'm walking around the street and there's a 42 in the sidewalk here there's a 42 in retaining wall for the property now they're going to get 42 in on top yeah we don't want right that's what we don't want right yeah the way it was worded was to basically not penalize anyone for having a retaining wall but I understand your point um but it was to kind of reset where the height is taken from so well what well the retaining wall is the retaining wall and we're not not worried about the retaining wall if it's over 42 in then they just get a guard rail if it's 40 if it's 40 in they get two inches of fence and then they get a guard rail okay so in that case if you were to strike three I would suggest in number four we take out the reference of above 42 inches in height and just keep it to any retain walls only a guard rails is permitted on top yeah I have I have a question so just as as it's currently written if I wanted to put like a 5 foot high chain link fence across the front of my property is that allowed as written yes yeah okay as long as it's needs the visual transparency above

42 in just a good oldfashioned chain link fence okay but not as we've amended it right correct as written that was my so then let me S I'm gonna suggest a slight tweak to four uh keep the language for retaining walls required by the building code above but swap those numbers for retaining walls required by the building Cod above 24 in in height only a guard rail is permitted on top of the retaining wall that is consistent with seped seped says Go 24 Go 24 in so let don't don't um don't let let people have their 24in guard uh retaining wall and if it's below that let them do what they want up to 42 in but if they're at 24 in or or or more then you only get a guardrail is that okay that makes sense you're not going to take away their 42 inches right we're saying at 24 inches or above the guard the the the retaining wall might be bigger than that if they're required to put in a guard rail it has to be transparent anything any retaining wall bigger than 24 in the only thing that goes on top of it is a transparent guardrail that that would be you say 24 no the way Tony no I mean 24 like a the way Tony said it before was stick with 42 and also if that would be less permissive than what the code currently allows yeah okay 24 in is a trip Hazard more than anything if there's a retaining wall then you put in a guard rail oh I see what you're saying of any yes okay fine so then how would you rewrite for Tony can you remember what you said it was good yes I mean isn't what you want just a

guard rail on top of any retaining wall at 75% transparency we're not going to rewrite this we just we know what you want yeah okay okay I was just trying to keep I was just trying to be more permissive and instead of saying any retaining wall I was going to say that was going to require that of the retaining walls that are bigger ger than 24 in that's all okay I thought that was more permissive not less well it's too complicated and I and it sounds like yeah okay fine fine yep but we understand I think what you're what you're getting at in general we're not really in favor of we tried to say that a few months ago nobody heard us right we ready to vote are yeah so so what's the consensus we're voting we have a motion five we still got the five not we're just going to keep the existing and we're just doing some work on retaining walls sorry folks thank you Shar thank you Tony all all those in favor we don't need a ro I'm sorry do we need a road roll call it's a recommendation it is a but it's a resolution it's a text Amendment okay no no no one oppos great thank you lovely Tony I'm sure your presentation would have been great okay okay let's let's adjourn before 11 so that we don't have to take a vote to adjourn before after 11 okay it was exciting because after 11 we have to take a special motion us do that it's legislatively still 109 special moed we're done all right