Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Oh, yeah. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. um Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. Oops, tripping. Sorry.

Often say Ventura is like the Goldilocks City. It's not too big. It's not too small. The weather is perfect. We want people to come here and enjoy it. Ventura is just a special place. The climate is ideal. We're a south-facing coastal community, so we have great surf. We don't get the winds that the coastal communities usually get. And our weather, if it's outside of 55 degrees to 70 degrees, I'm complaining because it's too cold or it's too hot. So this is really a great place to raise a family and to call home. My name is Bill Ayoub. I'm the city manager of Ventura. And I'm here simply because I love serving this community, the community where I live, the one I was born and raised in, the one that I call home. So I came to join the city's leadership team out of a desire to serve my community. I did 37 years. and public service in law enforcement, and retired briefly and recognized the need for strong leadership in our city. It's a place that I was born and raised in, a place that I, my parents, and my children call home. It's a place where I felt I could make a difference. And having come here, I recognized that I was right. This is a great place to really make a difference and just a terrific community. So Ventura is a full-service city. meaning we have our own police and fire service. We have a water utility. We do public works, parks and recreation, community development, building. There is really anything for anyone interested in public service at the city of Ventura. I would encourage anybody who wants to have a meaningful career serving their community with a wonderful place to live and call home to consider Ventura as their choice for employment. There's a lot of opportunities for people to learn about the city's recruitment. We have information actively posted on our website, cityofventura.ca.gov. We have a strong social media presence on all the major platforms. There's plenty of information out there. You just need to look for it and be open to opportunities when they present themselves. Ventura is an amazing city with opportunities across the spectrum of municipal service. So I really hope that anybody interested in a career in public service considers joining the City of Ventura team.

Thank you.

All right, good evening, everyone. I'd like to call to order the special meeting of the City of Ventura Planning Commission for Thursday, August 20th, 2024. The time is 5.41 p.m. The City of Ventura acknowledges we are gathered on unceded Chumash land. The full City Council adopted Chumash land acknowledgement is available on the city's website. I will be chairing the meeting today as vice chair. Chair Abusa is absent today, so bear with me. Getting used to the new process here. Mr. Clerk, can we please have a roll call?

Thank you, Vice Chair. Commissioner McCarty? Here. Commissioner Winninger?

Here.

Commissioner Lagerquist?

Here.

Commissioner Abbey? Here. Mr. Comden is not here. Vice Chair Zucker? Here. And Chair Boussa is not here. Five members are present. We do have a quorum.

Thank you. We'll now move on to public communications. This is the portion of the meeting for members of the public to address the Planning Commission on matters not on tonight's agenda that are within the jurisdiction of the Planning Commission. Because these matters are not on the posted agenda, the Commission cannot take action on them this evening. Mr. Klick, do we have any speakers for public communications?

Thank you, Vice Chair. We do not.

Thank you. We will move on to our consent calendar. Tonight we have one consent item. One is approval of the draft minutes from the July 22nd Planning Commission meeting. Commissioners, are there any questions, corrections, or requests to pull the item from the consent calendar? Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion to approve as presented.

I'll move to approve the minutes.

I'll second them.

We have a motion and a second. Mr. Clerk, can you please call the vote?

Commissioner McCarty? Yes. Commissioner Winninger?

Yes.

Commissioner Lagerquist?

Yes.

Commissioner Abbey?

This is the meeting I was not on, but I did review the video. Yes.

And Vice Chair Zucker? Yes. Five ayes, motion carries.

Thank you. We'll now be moving into our formal item of the evening. I just want to take a moment to talk about process. So we heard a request via the staff from the public that folks attended a more kind of informal workshop at the DRC and really enjoyed kind of the format of being able to, you know, back and forth, kind of pass around the mic. We're a little bit different from the DRC because we're a decision-making body rather than a deliberate body. So we're not going to be able to do that exact process, but staff had some suggestions about ways that we can make the planning commission process today a little bit more unusual, but a little bit more open to public extra debate and discussion. We are ready to rock and roll, you qualified candidates, you. So we are, I want to get, you know, a commissioner's input here if there's any objections to this. But we're proposing to do five minutes for public comment rather than the usual three minutes. And then if anybody, once the initial round of public comment is done, if anybody would like to kind of respond to one of the previous public comments, you'll have another round of a three minute where you could give a second public comment. And then the commissioners before we close the the kind of public comment period Commissioners will be able to ask a question of any of the public commenters if there's a need for clarification that That will be limited to questions to clarify their public comments, so we wouldn't want new information or new discussion, but just to make sure folks might understand what was being presented or clarify. Are there any objections or questions from the commission? Great. We'll move forward with that process. So we will now move on to formal item two, objective design standards. So the purpose of tonight's item is to conduct an open house and public workshop with the planning commission regarding the city of Ventura's future objective design standards. Tonight is intended to provide an opportunity for the commission and the public to review the draft standards and provide feedback to staff. No final adoption or project entitlement is before the commission this evening. So there'll be a little bit more process. I think there's another workshop at the DRC, maybe some additional, I'll let staff chime in on where the process goes from here. But at this time, I'll invite the staff to present the item.

Great. And I'm going to kick it off from over here. Hi, everybody. For those of you who don't know me or are watching online, my name is Maruha Clancy. I'm the Assistant Community Development Director. And really happy to introduce to you our Objective Design Standards team and Ventura staff. Before you at the table is John Kaliske with JK Architects, Gary Lai with Quicksight Landscaping Consulting, Ami Bhatt with JK Architects and Shanna Farley, our planning manager, supporting us in this effort. So a little background for the Planning Commission. This is the first time we have this item or discussion before you. Staff internally started this process in late 2024 with an existing contract with JK Architects. in response to a few different items, one of which in our housing element, we have five programs out of our 33 programs in our certified housing element that require objective design standards to be created. There are a number of state laws that also require local objective design standards. We also have four actions or goal policies within our general plan that speak to objective design standards. So with all that, we've had direction from our city council to pursue set objective design standards. So here we are today. We started our public outreach process in 2025. We have had four public meetings. We've also created a subgroup with two members of our design review committee and local architects called the WAG or the Working Architect Group to have working sessions, a few hours here and there. to review ideas, concepts, public comment, drafts as they were created, and then our first initial draft was released in mid-July, and that is the one that was attached to your report. So I wanted to just give that introduction to kind of how we got here. Ami with JK Architects will be kicking off the presentation. I will be concluding at the end, and we look forward to receiving your feedback and having some great dialogue with the public. Thank you.

Sorry.

Oh, just this one. Perfect. Okay.

Hello, commissioners. I'm really happy to be here today. Again, my name is Ami Bhatt. I'm the director of urban design at JKA, and we're here to present the public review draft of the objective design standards. These standards apply to multifamily, commercial, and mixed-use developments, and I'd like to really iterate the fact that this is a draft document. We're really looking forward to hearing your feedback today to improve the document and make sure that when it gets to its final form, we're implementing your thoughts, the thoughts of the community, the thoughts of the DRC and city council that we will be speaking to. And the second thing I'd like to point out about the document is that probably close to 80% of it is taken direct language from the existing residential mixed-use overlay. So this isn't really us starting from scratch. That particular section of the code, which went through its own public process to be adopted, is incorporated into these standards quite heavily, as well as our due diligence and looking at all the other existing regulatory documents in Ventura extracting particular themes from those documents, certain comments that may be design guidelines that we've seen repeated and tried to make them objective design standards. This is, we're kind of in the middle of our public review draft process. To date, we have gotten hundreds of comments already. Some of them have been through our Conveo site, which at venturaods.conveo.com is a website where you can go on and click and add your own comments to the public review draft. We've got 113 of them as of this morning. There have been public comment letters that have been sent to the city. They've come from community members, DRC members, and local architects and landscape architects have also to date sent us the document that they've marked up with their notes and comments of that. We've gotten 14 of those. And of course, our in-person discussions, the working architect group meetings that we've had so far, and four design review committee workshops. So this is very much a work in progress, and we are continuing to collect those comments at least for the next month or two on the public review draft before we make revisions. So we were tasked with two different phases of this project. Phase one, where we met with the DRC, I think twice, and created a character statement. And it was pretty much set to understand what Ventura quality and character is as it relates to multifamily mixed use and commercial development. Phase two, which is what we're in now, is how do we translate those expectations for high quality architecture into objective design standards? And to just do a refresh, objective design standards, when we say that, are measurable and quantifiable design requirements for any project that shall be addressed affirmatively by project applicants. So we call them shall statements. So instead of something that should, which is a suggestion, that's a design guideline, dwelling units shall orient their primary entryway towards the public street. The design guideline is actually quite popular in your existing documentations. A lot of that language is written subjectively rather than objectively. So part of the ODS is to take a lot of that subjective language and try to turn it into really a yes-no statement. You should be able to read the standard and really easily say, yes, the project does it, or no, the project does not do it. And what we're really not dealing with as part of the objective design standards are development standards. So things like height, FAR, setbacks, all of those are established by the underlying zone of the project. So, you know, your 10-foot minimum setbacks or your rear-end setbacks, anything related to impacting the actual development of the project is not really a part of this. So we're talking about really a second layer of design that goes on top of those preliminary development standards. So with that, I'm going to go and do a quick overview of the document. There are six sections in it. This, again, is the public review draft from July 14th, the first of which is a chapter description, and then there's an applicability section. I think just at the starting point, we kind of want to list that we're doing these objective design standards due to state requirements, but that they're only applicable to multifamily, mixed use, and commercial projects. So if you're looking at anything that's single family or ADUs, industrial, like remodels, all of that isn't really applicable. And we've got a map here that kind of shows in the colors the areas that this applies to. So you'll notice that none of the single family neighborhoods are highlighted unless they're using SB 9 to build more than the single family that's allowed on the site. The next section that the document goes into is about a scorecard system. This is actually something that's quite unique to Ventura's ODS compared to a lot of the objective design standards we've done for other cities. Not to say that it hasn't been done before, but it really is something that we're trying to do that's a little bit different. It relates to only the building design standards, and we've assigned a minimum point requirement within particular topic areas. And those are roofs, facades, exterior openings. And we're saying that rather than complying with every single standard that's written in the document, we're asking that applicants meet a minimum point threshold. That number changes within each section. That's not to say that roofs is more important than facades, but it's just to say that there's some flexibility in these requirements. The landscape section and the general site design sections, which are the ones after this, do not actually have a point threshold. So this is for building design standards only. And then within that, we also have standards that are just required. So you're not going to get a point for them if you meet it, but we're still saying you have to meet it. so looking at the sections which is in the building design sections i said roofs facades frontage elements exterior openings and additional elements and details so there's a points available you could get up to five points but we're saying you only need three as it relates to roofs and facades we're saying there are only four points required but you can get up to nine should you do all of these things and This has been an interesting challenge for us because we're talking about a single document for multifamily mixed use and commercial. So the points required is kind of based off of us making sure that any project could meet that threshold. So if you're looking at a commercial project, perhaps you're not doing the same thing to roofs as you would for a mixed use project or for frontage elements that, you know, is important for a mixed use project, but maybe is not as important for a commercial project. So we're trying to really balance making sure that we're getting high quality architecture, but also making sure that all three of these different project types can use this document efficiently. In the site design, we have standards for site design and circulation, parking, utilities and services, open space, on-site lighting, and alleys. For this section, there's no scorecard system, so you must comply with all standards. And this section, more than any other section in the document, is almost verbatim from the existing residential mixed-use overlay. So an example of this is curb cut width. So we say the maximum width of a curb cut is 12 feet for single lane vehicle entry or exit and 24 feet for two lane vehicle entry or exit. This is an objective design standard because you can read that and say they either have met this requirement or they have not met this requirement. Because this is a site design standard it is required and you're not going to get any points for it because it is a required standard and We are trying our best throughout the document to visualize as much of these as possible so there tends to be a diagram for many if not all of the standards just to try to make sure that it's clear both verbally and visually and The last section is the landscape design standards section. We have on-site landscaping standards. Again, no scorecard system. But also unique to this document is the tree and plant palette. We have worked with Gary, who will speak in just a moment, to develop a tree and plant palette that is specific to Ventura character as a way to relate back to the onsite landscaping standards and try to create a tree and plant palette that makes sense for this community. So really quickly about a landscape design standard, a canopy tree selection. We're saying canopy trees shall comply with all of the following. One is a minimum 70% of the total number of canopy trees shall be from the tree and plant palette. So that leaves 30% for the applicant to do whatever they like and 70% to be selected from the tree and plant palette. And then we say that no more than 50% of the canopy trees shall comprise of the same species. So that's saying that if you're putting canopy trees on your site, you need at least two. And with that, I'm gonna turn this to Gary and he'll speak a little bit more about the tree and plant palette.

Hello, good evening. I'm really excited to be here. My name is Gary Lai. I'm a practicing landscape architect, 35 years experience. And I've worked for 12 firms over the 35 years, from small five-person firms to a big multinational engineering firm. I currently own my own firm. And I'm also on the faculty for Cal Poly Pomona, the landscape architecture department. And I am the past chair of the board for USGPC California. So as you have my passion for sustainability, I think it's very apparent. And that's what this particular plant palette is trying to do. I'm excited about this plant palette because most plant palettes I work with for cities around Southern California have been a mishmash of Sunset Western Garden, book zones and things from the 1980s all the way through to 2000s that have been added on on top. This is a real opportunity to have a plant palette that reflects both climate science, ecosystem services, and just something new, I think. We've known for a long time that healthy ecosystems equal healthy humans. The 1972 Endangered Species Act, that was the basis of why we had that in 1972. All right, so before we get started, feel free to grab something to eat. If a species goes extinct, it's bad for the ecosystem. It's also bad for us as humans. So this has been reflected in what we've done over the course of 40 or 50 years, but it hasn't been reflected in the way we deal with traditional planting and plant palettes here in Southern California and actually California as a whole. I think one of the reasons for that is that we have such great soil that we can support plants from all over the world. So we support plants from Asia, we support plants from Western Europe, the Mediterranean, China, and Australia. And just for an example of that, in the 1990s, when I was coming in as a young landscape architect, Australian plants were all the rage. We planted Australian plants all over the place, to the point where a lot of our urban centers are more like Sydney than they are Ventura. We really overdid it in the 90s. So that doesn't do us much good nowadays as new science is coming down about having healthy ecosystems and biodiversity in our urban environments. This plant palette is trying to get that back into the city of Ventura for create a more healthier atmosphere, more biodiversity. it is trying to be it at this current draft level it is extremely california native heavy So that was one of the, at least the goals for this draft, to come before you and come before the public to start to talk about our plant palette and how we plant here in the city. So when we put together this plant list, the priorities were ecosystem services and water conservation. That was the number one thing that we looked at. Fire safety was the next overlay that we looked at. We had meetings with the fire marshal for the city and looked at both all the fire safety plant lists from not only Ventura County, but also the adjacent counties, LA and Santa Barbara. We had a, next overlay was talking about availability in nurseries. So I can put as many native plants as I can on this list. If it's not available, it doesn't do anybody any good. So availability was a big factor we put on top of it. And we're right in the middle of the last one where we're talking about desired ornamentals from the public and from landscape architects and architects about what the character of Ventura should be and what kind of ornamentals we should be putting in on this plant list.

Next slide, please.

So just to let you know, the original overlay, we looked at the ecoregion of the city of Ventura. This is a coastal sage scrub plain surrounded by oak woodland. That's the official USGS ecoregion designation for this. So all of these plants come from and can grow in these areas. Most of the plants that are native are endemic to these areas. There are sub-habitats that are part of the, like any city, that are things like Viperian,

LET'S GO AHEAD AND JUMP IN AND GET STARTED.

COASTAL SYSTEMS, WETLANDS AND CHAPEREL. THERE ARE THOSE SUBREGIONS THAT ARE ON THERE. Next slide, please.

Oh yeah, I was running out of slides.

So the suggested implementation for this plant palette, we are recommending that 70% of planting come from this list. It's 95% native at this point, and then 30% would be at the designer's discretion. So based on any... of state laws like M. Wheelow for water conservation, the designer would have to follow those. But anything else, it would be at their discretion. That's about a third of the site. Fire safety is marked on here in the urban wildland interface and the high fire zones. This would be the only place it would apply in terms of it being looked at by the fire marshal. We had City Parks chime in and gave quite a few species as well as added a few species and took out a few species in there, so they have done their overlay. And the last one we are currently in the midst of, getting public comment from the local landscape community, architecture and design community.

That's landscape standards.

and we have some friendly people.

Hello, I'm John Koliski, and like my colleagues, we're pleased to be here. This has been about a year and a half of really interesting work for us that started off really with very, very touchy-feely things. What is Ventura character? And we had a lot of input about that. I think the word that keeps... resonating with us is that we heard at the beginning was good evening Kevin Daly district six and I enjoy the weather too and I wanted to talk about the notion of challenge of what our challenge really is which is that we're creating a document that I don't think the city necessarily would have done if there hadn't been seven or eight years of state legislation the challenge basically is that You have a system, sometimes it works really well, sometimes it doesn't quite as well, that tries to have that conversation and tries to basically get buildings that reflect what this community wants to see. And some of the buildings, moving into the future, aren't going to be able to have this type of discourse associated with it that raises the bar. And so we're in some ways tasked with trying to create a document that in some ways encompasses the richness of discussion that does happen for those projects that basically choose to go through process that in essence state legislation asks them to do. So we recognize that this is not an easy thing. We recognize that, in some ways, quality is subjective.

But at the same time, it seems to be worthwhile because if you were to just move forward without anything, this second layer, as it would describe, you'd be no accountable with. So we're trying to make these as well as we can.

I think that both Ami and Gary have described a little bit about how this is working or how we're proposing it in this draft. And then the question basically becomes what can it work? What would happen?

Would you end up with something different than what any other community

ends up with in terms of typical production housing projects and things of that nature. And so one of the things that we did do, based upon some comments that we heard, was we did go out, take the draft as it exists, and take a look at some, you might say, equivalent projects, and we focused in on one in particular, which happens to be in Thousand Oaks, so it is in Ventura County, and it's an interesting one for me personally because we're doing a project around the corner from there. We're working with the City of Thousand Oaks, but in the past I've done design review for the City of Thousand Oaks and happen to have done design review on this project and know that The developer and the city, you know, worked hard within their context, which is a little bit different obviously than Ventura to do the best project they could. So we took this project, which is on Thousand Oaks Boulevard near Moore Park Road, and we, just for the heck of it, applied these standards that we're looking at tonight to see what would happen. And if we go then to, this is a mixed use project, it's four stories, it's 142 units, so it's got a sense of scale, it has an underground parking garage, it's got a mix of materials. There are a lot of things about it at first glance that for production housing look positive, maybe not perfect, but pretty positive. Thank you very much. So the first thing we did was look at roofs. We have a set of design standards in here which actually do not prohibit a flat roof. But what they do do is they say you nevertheless have to utilize a minimum of one of the other, of another type of roof. We're not saying how much it has to do or how little it does. It has to do in terms of having another roof form or shape or articulation in it. But we are saying that something has to be in here. And if you look at this project, It's got vertical modulation. It's got overhangs. But it's not consistent on all of the sides of the building. And it doesn't have a roof form. So the very first thing that would happen in this project if it was going through the process is staff would have to sit down with the applicant and say, you know, you've done a lot of good things, but in Ventura you still have to do one more thing. Tell us how you're going to do it. And that's really the spirit with which these are being presented. We're not trying to dictate to designers or developers exactly how to do it. but we're trying to sort of give them a first flush of value added in some way that they have to think about as they go through a process that might be a little bit more by right than it would have been in the past. If you go to the next slide. As Ami took you through, she noted that we broke these down into a series of different topic areas. We weren't saying roofs were more important than facades or facades were more important than openings. I think the reason that we focused on these issues was because as a second layer of design, when you start talking about design over and over again, these are the things that people tend to focus on. focus in on on the details. And so we did break it up. But for us at least in this first pass at this draft we didn't really think that one of these areas was necessarily more important than the other. But what we did think was within each area we assign values for some of these that are in some ways looked at independently. Now, can those values change? The answer is yes. If people come back to us and basically say that the most important thing is recessed window, every single window being recessed, That's a Ventura comment. We can describe the advantages and disadvantages of that, but in the end, if people say no, that's the most important thing, we can either give it more points or we can give it zero points and just say it's required. So yes, this is in some ways a subjective set of information that we're presenting to you, but we're not necessarily claiming that it's the only way you can take these values and as we go through all of these hundred and thirteen comments we've gotten to date and letters and stuff it is important to us because we keep asking this question over and over again you know are we getting at something that people in this community care about and that's what the point of the point system in some ways is supposed to do now in this particular case on this particular building uh... It does have a variety of building wall materials. It uses balconies in a somewhat creative way. It's got some differentiation in facade colors. It's hitting the point total. And in this particular case, for facades at least, you'd move on. And there are some other things which are illustrated here, like the building break. that's a requirement you don't get any points for doing it it's in there because in some ways you can't have a building be longer than a certain dimension we have gotten feedback that the 380 feet might be too long and that's fine it was though based on the size of blocks in downtown ventura And it was also based on numbers that existed within your current documents. But if the feedback came that, you know, maybe that's too big, you know, there are ways for us to very, very easily go into these design standards and manipulate what the largest footprint for a semi-by-right or by-right project. would be. Do you want to go to the next slide? In terms of frontage elements, what we were trying to do in this section is say, what are those additional details? These things are always presented as menus. They're, in essence, the next layer of things that you might add. And so in this case, the project does have awnings. Actually, it has some fairly big ones. And so we give it the point you only needed to get one more point in this particular section and so you move on you want to go to the next slide uh... we do have some comments about three distinct window sizes uh... we do concentrate on exterior openings because we know that that's something many ways defines the quality of a building almost more than anything else the quality of the windows so we do have you notice that you can get two points for a better window frame material door materials etc in this particular project at least because they are have different sizes of windows. They have some breaking down of the windows with articulated mullions and things of that sort. They're able to achieve the six points. You want to go to the next one? And then, as Ami pointed out, there are these issues about additional elements and details. In this case, what we're trying to do is we're really trying to develop as big a menu as possible of, in essence, smaller things that occur on buildings and tell people that they need to have a certain amount of that on their building. We could have more on here. We could emphasize more of them and make, like for instance, if everyone was super interested in seeing shading devices on every single building, we'd put three in there and maybe everyone would come in with shading devices on their building. Do you wanna go to the next one? Okay, so what we've heard and next steps. As has been mentioned a couple of times, we've been working on this since April. We started off really listening and trying to understand how people defined Ventura character. We looked at a lot of the documents going back to the 1990s. As much as possible, we tried to incorporate those logics into this work. We have had the privilege of meeting with a very, very wonderful group of, on an ad hoc basis of, we call it the working architect group, but they're people who have their practices really here. We take their input seriously because we see it as coming from the practical, constructible, and even philosophical side of what do practitioners really think about when they're designing buildings. We've had the opportunity to meet several times with the design review committee or commission As Maruja pointed out, we are going to meet another time with the working architect group. We just had a, well, we just met with them in July as part of the public review draft. We met with the DRC a couple of weeks ago, but we know already we're going to be meeting after we've gotten all the comments both from you as well as the city council and have had time to digest the full sum of comments and and do a revision in essence we know we're going back to some of these groups as well so we think it's been over the course of the last year and a half a fairly good conversation that we've really taken seriously and will continue to do you want to go to the next one so what are some of the things that we've heard that we could describe Well, the first one that I want to talk about is the scorecard system. The scorecard system, as Ami pointed out, is not something that we've done in any of the other communities that we've worked in. So it does make it a little bit unique if we were to apply it here in Ventura, but it wouldn't be the first time or the only place that is using a point system to talk about design. I think it was something that came out of our conversations with the working architect group. They were the ones who specifically recommended it. After that recommendation, we did sit down with staff and talk about the advantages and disadvantages of it, and I think we felt that if you were trying to achieve an eclectic approach of quality, and at the same time you were trying to be flexible, and at the same time you were trying to make sure that you were meeting minimum thresholds for quality that the scorecard system kind of worked in our favor because we had already started developing menus, but by giving points to some of those menus, we were making it explicit that you had to do things. I think there have been a lot of comments about, well, can you advance it? Can you make it even more robust? And we can certainly talk about those things, but we do think The basics of it are pretty rich and are working well in terms of making you draw your attention to specific details, specific items, and we think that's what the intent of this is. Another item that we've spent a lot of interest in or has a lot of interest is that we've talked about color. Now, there's a lot of different opinions about color. One of the things that's come up in our conversations, you might describe it as the black and white argument, where there have been people who have noted, and maybe even people who have worked on buildings that have been built in the last few years, that for various reasons have trend towards darker color palettes. And some people have been really excited about that, and other people haven't been as excited about that. you know on one level you could say let's just leave color out of it but then somebody's gonna say yeah but what if you end up with some neon building that could like drive everybody crazy and it is a really difficult issue it's and oh by the way we don't want you to dictate exactly what color you have to use so like for instance if you look at downtown Santa Barbara they have about six colors of white that you're allowed to use and that's not really on the table here either so This is an issue that comes up in a lot of the communities that we've worked on. I'm completely fascinated with it. But we did decide in this particular case that we would tackle it using what's called light reflectance value or LRV. And what that basically does is it describes the amount of light that is reflected off of the building.

Now, there are two different aspects of that which I think are important to note.

It is true that darker buildings absorb more light and more energy, and there are some issues with the energy code that would encourage you perhaps not to do that in order to not have that extra energy coming in the building. But at the same time, you can get fairly dark colors with light reflectance values that are high. And so what we're trying to do is say to Ventura at this point that if you want to push away from darker colors, we would have a tendency to increase that number from 6.5 to 7 or 7.5. If there's not as much concern about darker colors from an aesthetic standpoint, the number starts going the other direction. Now, we chose 6.5 within our office. There was my colleague Daisy Son is here as well. She worked on this for a couple of days where she literally looked at hundreds of colors and looked at what the light reflectance value is. And we know that you can get a darker color with a 6.5, but we also know you can't get an absolute black. But there are some very dark colors that you can get. And then another, so we would love to hear feedback on how we're doing this and how could we possibly do it better, because I'm sure we could. And then of course there are all the issues that Gary has raised, I think Gary has taken pretty seriously a conversation that we heard at a meeting before he was even brought on, but we talked to him about, which was at our very first meeting, there were folks who really said that we should pay a lot more attention to what you might describe as the first landscape of Ventura. And there were others who said, no, that's not really relevant, and others who said that climate change was changing that anyway, and then, of course, trying to balance all that. And I think the stance that we took was that there was so much discussion about the buildings needing to meet this idea of Ventura quality that we kind of pushed towards the sides of saying the landscape in some way should follow that. And I think what Gary has presented is a way of doing that. There's one specific standard in there which he brought up, the 70-30 standard, which he could explain a little bit further where that number comes from. But there's even flexibility within that number. So one way of describing that is if the feeling is, that we're being too rigorous towards a sort of native landscape, if you will.

We can push that percentage down and say make it 65, 35 or something like that, but there's a certain point at which if you keep pushing it down, you're going to lose the ecological benefits of having it be where it is right now.

So we know that's open and we're open to hearing ideas about that, but it is core idea of what we're trying to do.

Want to go to the next one?

We also had a very, I was going to use the word robust, maybe that's not the right word for it, but we had a wonderful conversation on the floor at the DRC workshop. There were a lot of very substantive comments that were given. There was a motion passed, and we thought that I would end my portion of this presentation just by mentioning what those things were, because we do think they're in the mix that are causing us to think. There were some folks who wanted us to provide citations as to where these ODS standards are coming from.

I think as Ami pointed out, we did build this mostly from documents that already exist. And what you might even say further is that Ami mainly, working with Daisy in our office, worked to try to take as many of the shoulds that we thought were in there and turn them into shallows.

And so that's not a perfect exercise, but that's kind of the approach that we took. In terms of incorporating a definition of quality that pertains to quality architecture and design, I think that's a great comment.

We can, I think, provide some type of preamble or something like that that will give people a better idea of where this information is coming from. A lot of cities do that in their zoning codes.

I mean, if it's something that's appropriate for Ventura, we can certainly do that. We need more clarity about what will negate or co-relate to form-based codes. I mean, the fundamental statement is that if these are adopted in the next few months, the existing codes will still exist. And there is language already in here that says if there's a conflict, the existing codes take precedent. And I know Maruja is going to talk a little bit more about that in just a few moments. The more clarity about the process, I know that's gonna be talked about, as I just said, in a couple of moments, instill a test period and then bake in this time for council or the city to understand what's working, what's not working. That's something that we've done in other cities, We've had sunset clauses. We've had you must come back in two years and review this formally or five years or whatever it is. I think those are all important considerations and make a lot of sense. There was some very specific comments about making sure that mechanical equipment and things of that nature were properly screened and maybe we were a little bit weak in this first draft. certainly something very doable doable and then there were some comments which were very interesting to us about were we losing or not getting enough in there about very specific areas of town that have very specific plans for them right now and yet these are sort of overarching and apply everywhere and that is a little bit of a challenge i think that um We think we can keep making these things better, but we are trying to, in some ways, capture a lot in one document. And I think that one of our, as I mentioned at the beginning, this is not easy work because we're also not writing specific objective design standards on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis. So maybe we need to... expand the menus in certain cases, maybe there are some other things we can think about, but definitely that was a comment that we heard, though it's interesting because at least from my personal perspective, we've always heard that comment from the get-go, but we've also heard comments about in the beginning of the project about how eclectic the city is. We wanna allow different things to happen. We're not about telling people that they have to do it this way versus that. So we do think this is a balancing act, but at the same time, we recognize that this is also about change and we need direction on how to successfully deal with that. Do you wanna go to the next one? So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Clancy and let her finish up this presentation.

Great. Thanks, John. So a lot of discussion was had at DRC, like how does this fit into our regulatory framework? With everything that we have going on with form-based codes with state density bonus law And this is an opportunity and kind of step taking a step back You know with all the state laws coming down saying thou shalt build housing This is an opportunity to retain a level of local control and oversight within the context of multifamily development projects and what is before you right now are is what staff is proposing today and of course can flex with additional feedback from our decision makers from the public as we move forward with additional workshops this also is under are presented under the assumption and direction from council that the drc will be dissolved and so we'd be leaning into our objective design standards for purposes of design review so with that What projects would be required to meet the objective design standards? New multifamily projects with two or more units. Anything below five units would be processed administratively. That's already in our code. New commercial projects, new mixed use projects, and commercial facade remodels if we're changing more than 50% of that facade. It would not be required for any industrial projects, single family dwellings, accessory dwelling units, or minor remodels. I know that's a general term and we're going to be looking for your guidance on that as we move forward with the rest of the presentation. Next slide. So looking at the three levels of our review process. Looking at this from a case-by-case basis, frankly, a lot of projects are still gonna have a public hearing, even with the objective design standards. How this expedites the process overall DRC not having another review body to review a project shortens that timeframe through the entitlement process. So for staff level, also known as ministerial, or an administrative review where there is no public hearing, projects that would fall under that would be Senate Bill 35 projects. These are projects that have 50% or more affordable units, as well as other state laws, for example, We have laws regarding transitional and supportive housing. Ventura housing just under way of doing pasture court. That's a fully transitional housing project. That's commencing through plan check. That hasn't had a public hearing. That is an example of what kind of project would not have a public hearing in addition to other high affordability projects. We have as a state law any project that has 20% or more affordable housing on our identified housing element sites have to be processed ministerially. Minor design review including less than five units or 2,000 square feet or less addition to existing commercial would adhere to ODS but would be processed ministerially. For director's hearing, multifamily projects that are five or more units that meet ODS would still go to director's hearing. Projects that are of that same makeup, five or more units that use state density bonus law would still go to a director's hearing. That is our current process. Multifamily projects that with five or more units that meet ODS that have minor variances would still go to the director's hearing. and commercial projects with over a 2,000 square foot addition would go to a director's hearing with the application of ODS. This is a current process. When it would go to planning commission is where projects have major variances and exceptions already that are triggered by way of our existing code that merit your review would still come to you as well as projects that say you know what I don't want to use ODS I'm not using any waivers or concessions to get out of it I'm just going to do what I want to do that would go before planning commission and that's really to encourage people to use the objective design standards how this works in our form-based code areas our planning team under Miss Farley's leadership is extrapolating all of the quote unquote objective requirements from our form-based codes, because ultimately these projects would need to adhere to those development standards out of those codes in conjunction with the ODS. There is a lot of overlap with those where there is consistency, but where there is a conflict, that underlining specific plan standard that is a shall standard and quantifiable would apply. So next slide. So next steps, we have our council workshop has been moved from next Tuesday to October 6th to allow the team more time to review all the great feedback we've gotten, consider your feedback as well, and present an informational presentation like today to our council. We are then going to be meeting with our working architect group on October 9th. That will be the fourth meeting. We'll take all that feedback from this round of public outreach and do some revisions and have another iteration of the draft document. We will have a fifth workshop with the Design Review Committee. This is new news for my friends in the audience at their standing meeting on December 2nd. We will then have another workshop before you in winter of 2027, hopefully early January, maybe a special meeting, TBD, as well as a subsequent workshop with the city council. So all in all, there will be nine workshops that have been done in totality as a result of, or throughout this great effort. After that second workshop with the city council, our team will work on additional refinements, and then it will go through the adoption public hearings also in winter, early winter of 2027, which will be yet another opportunity for public comment before planning commission, as well as city council. Next slide. In addition to these future meetings, there is always the opportunity to participate at the venturaods.conveo.com website at any time of the day or night. There is a copy of the document that you can actually comment on within that format you can also email ods ventura at city of ventura.ca.gov you would also be taken to this project website by going to city of ventura.ca.gov forward slash ods So this is another opportunity not only to look at the draft document, but all the prior work, outreach, links to prior videos that we have done with the DRC and our community members, and other information about state laws that use ODS, et cetera. Next slide. So this concludes the end of our presentation before you, but there are some questions that staff and the team would like you to consider. Of course, you're not limited to these questions, but there's more that you'd like to discuss, some of which are there specific optional standards that should be required, or are there required standards that you think should be optional? Are there any additional standards that should be added? Should we retain the scorecard system? Again, this was requested by a member of the DRC at our WAG meeting, but is there another opportunity to re-look at that? We would like feedback from the Planning Commission on when our objective design standards should apply to a minor remodel. looking for a quantifiable nexus. Is that a 25% change of square footage? Is it a 50% or more change of square footage? And also, in that context, landscaping you know we have our tree protection ordinance that's coming underway but if if someone wants to change a certain percentage of their landscaping what does that look like for ods so just looking to have that dialogue with you are there additional opportunities to further streamlining with the objective design standards should we explore looking at administrative approval for residential projects that have 10 or less units. Right now it's four or less. Should we consider administrative approval for projects with 20% affordability citywide, regardless of it being a housing element site or not? Our thresholds are 15% and 10% dependent if you're for rent or for sale. Should we allow or try to encourage administrative approval for 100% affordable projects anywhere in the city? This is a state law, but with prevailing wage. So is that another opportunity that the city can consider just to encourage 100% affordable projects without that state requirement of prevailing wage? So something just to help guide deliberations. I know we have a number of wonderful people here to comment, but would love to just hear your thoughts and know that we'll be coming back to you too to get further information once we're at that step. Thank you.

Thank you to our staff consultants for the presentation. Before we hear from the public, I'd like to open the item for questions from commissioners. At this point, let's focus primarily on questions for clarification so we can make sure we understand the proposal, and then we'll have time later for discussion and feedback.

Commissioners, any questions? Commissioner Whittaker?

I think this is working actually, so I'll use this if you want.

I want to thank our consultants and Shanna and Maruha for your presentation. Thank you so much. My first question, you may have already said it, and it may be somewhere that I haven't seen and figured out yet, but who determines what the score is on, say, a facade or a frontage element? or the window, it says something here, the window types and sizes, who's making that decision if we don't have a design review committee?

So the intent with the objective design standards is to be understandable for the general public both architects and staff. So on the other side of the table when staff is processing a project there is an architect there is a design team working with them. So the intent is to have a checklist and together in a collaborative process. The assigned planner with the project team and their design professional are going through this exercise to calculate the points to ensure, again, these are quantifiable, measurable things. So it should be and is intended to be easy to use to apply. So ultimately staff with a partnership of the applicant team. I don't know if the team has other thoughts to share upon that.

But, okay, so you're saying, so it's kind of discretionary as far as if the architect says, you know, we have five frontage elements, here you go. Staff can either agree or not agree.

That's correct.

Okay. Then from one of your last slides, I don't need to see it again unless the planning commissioner wants to see it. So most projects that meet the ODS won't actually be seen by us, correct?

not unless they are elevated by the director for a certain reason or appealed enough appeal but the director would go straight to counsel or if someone wanted to depart from the objective design standards altogether okay so in that in that vein

If we got a project that was elevated, you know, I'm just thinking about like the Thompson apartments that were done, was elevated a couple months ago. Could the Planning Commission change the numbers if they did not agree with them on the scorecard?

It would be under your purview to approve the major design review component. So under your discretion, yes.

Okay, thank you. And then can you explain that now I do need you to go back to a slide on 11, and I think it was 13 again too, but either one's fine. I don't understand on the slides that say points available zero. Can somebody explain that to me?

Yeah, I can speak to that. So if a standard is required, it will have zero points associated with it, because by complying with it, you don't get any points to meet your minimum threshold. So if you look at the document, there's some sections. So I think in, well, this is not a great example, but I can show you a different one, where usually the first couple, if that, at the top of every section, it'll say required, and if it's yes, then there will always be zero points associated with it. It's just a way of saying that there's no benefit towards meeting that threshold. If you comply with it, you have to comply with it anyways.

Okay. Okay, so that leaves me, okay, two more questions, sorry. Maybe three. um so by right um like the sb 335 and 330 those don't apply to mixed use right or do they with if they have affordable housing uh typically no they don't it's strictly for housing projects those laws okay so um it's not like the mixed use or the commercial only basically the residential is able to get like warrants and exemptions and waivers and concessions, correct?

Well, there could be commercial projects downtown that have the exceptions or warrants, but the intent while State law is driving the creation of the objective design standards for housing. We are utilizing this opportunity to help also guide development for commercial and mixed use in response to council feedback for the dissolving of the DRC. So it's like a two approach in that sense. Yeah.

Just to be clear, any mixed use project with a housing component that meets the affordability thresholds would qualify for a density bonus and concessions and waivers that go with it.

OK, that's kind of where I was getting at. So if they qualify for density bonus and waivers and concessions, they don't really need to meet the objective design standards, correct?

Correct. I mean, subject to the specific requirements for either a waiver or a concession under the density bonus law, but yes.

Okay, and then I saw on slide 10 talking about there's no scorecard system as comply with standards and parking was one of those. Is there any way to do something that's not by right, not SB 330 or SB 35? Is there any way to do a design standard? I know that sounds oxymoron, but is there any way to do a parking standard to make them

have a minimum of at least 50 percent of their parking or something like that without asking for you know that's rooted more in zoning and development standards not really design standards I mean one way to step into parking would be a planter finger every four spaces or something like that. But we wouldn't be able to look at quantifying or having a parking requirement within the objective design standards. OK. All right.

Thank you. Those are all my questions. Thank you.

Commissioner Abbey is next.

Thank you, Vice Chair Zucker. Let's see. On the comments, I don't know if you can bring this up, but there was on the comments, so there was the draft July, I don't know if it was July 11th, and then there were comments from the public. On page 11, one of those comments that talked about item number three, transitional setbacks abutting a single family zone property with interior, rear, or side property lines. Okay. You were talking about there's objective design standards and there are design standards. Maybe I'm not using the right word, but.

The development standards. Development, okay, sorry. No, you're fine. So I think what you're getting, and if I can jump in, Commissioner Abbey, we can't say, we acknowledge that the underlining zone has lot coverage requirements, setback requirements, height requirements, how the objective standards can help alleviate the casting of shade on a single family residence is upon, I would lean to our architects to speak more of the lingo, but upon the second story or third story, that zone allows that height it's step back x amount of feet or x amount percentage or something that is where these objective design standards can help ameliorate or address the concern of casting shade on a single family dwelling as compared to adjusting that setback requirement of the building itself amy did you want to maybe expand a bit on that or john

Yeah, I think a major part of a transitional setback as it relates to single families, of course, avoiding the tracking the shadow, but it also shapes the design of the building that faces that direction. So by, you know, after a certain height threshold, if you set back, say, the third and fourth stories a little bit further, and then the fifth and sixth stories even further than that, and make sure that you don't have a building that's completely hovering over a single family development, again, without having to change the initial setback that was required. but it also begins to add more character and shape to the building along those sides and we wanna make sure that you're creating a balance between protecting the single family home but also adding character to that facade so it's not completely flat.

Okay, let's see. Okay, so there was a diagram, but the diagram doesn't really give you a sort of a wide component rise vertical versus setback horizontal, and is it from the property line and so forth. I just ran some different numbers just for argument's sake. If you do a 10, 10, 10 ratio, that's one. That's 45 degrees. For example, if you had a rise of 20 and a run or horizontal of 10, that's 2.0. So you have a difference between a 45 degree setback plane versus a 63.4% setback plane. Was there any consideration given for this transitional setback for using a setback plane as opposed to, you know, basically it kind of gets to the problem a little quicker?

Mayor John?

I can do that.

Thanks.

We're creating a setback plane. We're just creating it in a different way and we're not making it definitive. I think that the diagram, which is on page five, we're accepting that not all the rear yards are exactly the same. Depending upon how big your rear yard is, it's going to be slightly different. We could absolutely take into consideration what you're saying and make it a more fixed plane, but I think what we were trying to do was create a scalar element at the lower floors that related to what in essence is a single family home height of two stories and then basically setting the building back from there. We weren't necessarily putting in an absolute plane because the other thing is we don't know at this level what the orientation of it is going to be. We don't know whether it's going to be to the south, to the north, to the east, or to the west, or whatever the existing. Admittedly, this is more, as it's presented right now, a aesthetic breaking down of mass to create a transition to a lower mass. We can make it more nuanced if that's the direction, but we weren't at this point.

Okay, I have several more questions related to this, but I'll give my fellow commissioners another chance.

Thank you. Commissioner McCarty?

Thank you. And thank you for Shanna and the JKA representatives for the presentation. I appreciate it. So I'm trying to get grounded here. And I have a question about the scorecard approach. Ami, you had mentioned it. You called it an interesting challenge for us. And John, in your presentation, you were more explicit Number one, saying or implying that parts of it are in fact subjective and not objective and that this was the first time that JKA had moved forward with a scorecard approach. So is this the first time JKA has done ODS? Oh, no.

No, this is about the 10th time. OK. And what I was saying in terms of subjectivity is the initial assigning of the numbers is by definition subjective. I mean, I'm not going to sit here and say that we know for sure that that should be a three versus a two. But like for instance, when we did work with it, we did sit there and think about it in the sense, and the case that I remember the most, which maybe Ami has to describe is the dilemma of flat roofs. And what do we do? Do we make flat roofs impossible? Do we accept flat roofs? Are there flat roofs in Ventura right now? Which there are, of course. And so the thing was, was what we were trying to do was to assign an initial set of values which admittedly were based on our experience and our conversations over a year or so in this community with the full recognition that the community could come back and say, we think you should set it this way instead of that way. And that's part of the reason why more elaborate systems that have been described to us I think ultimately I'm not sure that they make it any more or less objective, but I think what the key is, once those values have been established and they're fixed, subject to change, if it sunsets or something like that, they are applied objectively. So, I mean, the easiest way to describe this is that if for some reason Ventura wants to see scrolls and little tiny details and filigrees and all that stuff, on your buildings, then we can assign a heck of a lot of points to that and you could design a building that's all about filigrees and get the number of points that you're required to get and you'll have a lot of buildings about filigrees over time. But I think that the scorecard system is a way of having an architect or a designer look at an area and make choices. And by getting points for making those choices, it, in some subtle way, emphasizes some things more than others. But it's not, there is some subjectivity, obviously, in assigning the points.

Okay. You mentioned, John, that you looked at documents going back to the 1990s. And, Ami, you had mentioned that actually 80% of the the ODS is from existing residential mixed use overlay. So it sounds like part of it comes from documentation already in place, and then part of it, for instance, the scorecard, is kind of being invented from scratch. You alluded to other cities. Some cities do scorecards, others don't. So in addition to looking backward temporally in older documents, what comparisons did you do with other municipalities who have ODS in place that seem to be successful? Did you do any comparisons or borrow good ideas from other successful objective design standards in other areas?

Go ahead.

I think one of our major lessons learned is actually sitting right here to the left of us. I think one of the best ideas that we've brought in is to bring a landscape consultant into this process. I think we've learned from a previous city that we worked in that there's value in a tree and plant palette that's incorporated into this process, plus another eye to look at the landscape section in a little bit more detail. So then the second we heard the community at a previous design DRC workshop talk about importance of landscaping i think one of our biggest um things that we've learned from our experience in doing ods was bringing gary to the table so that would be the first thing that comes to mind i think relating to other specific language in the in the ods i think we've talked to other cities that have had very particular requests relating to character so Not everything that we would learn from other cities applies to Ventura. I think we've worked in other cities that also claim to be eclectic, but eclectic is such a vague word, and it means different things to everyone. So a lot of it, especially as it relates to the scorecard system and assigning value, has been through listening to this community and understanding what's important to this community. And the documents leading back to the 90s, it's like if we're hearing stuff from the community about windows and recessed windows and the importance of landscapes we've been going back to those documents being like, what is being said about that already and how can we translate that into this document? So 80% of the residential mixed use overlay, that's already gone through a public process and people have been happy with that. So we are not trying to reinvent that wheel, but there is some information that we've been hearing in this community that's missing in that residential mixed use overlay that we're trying to fill in and that's turning language that's subjective into language that's objective. And yeah, we've, learned a lot from other cities on how to do that, and we've brought that specifically to Ventura.

Okay, good.

I want to add one thing to it, which is we've worked on, I don't know quite how many off the top of my head, but each city that we've worked in starts off with the premise that they're unique. Each one defines that uniqueness differently. And it's not totally about aesthetics. We've worked in communities that have absolutely said they want to have a style of architecture, and we've given that to them. We've worked in communities that have said they were eclectic, but wanted us to define architectural styles in an eclectic and non stylistic way and have architectural groupings rather than explicit architectural styles. We've worked in cities that have told us to go totally towards the climate of the place, meaning we want a desert landscape and we want desert architecture. And the whole conversation has been about what constitutes desert architecture. So I do think the process that we're going through with Ventura, you're going to end up with something that is Venturan, that's about this place, and I think you have to keep working at that in all the documents that you do, and you're not gonna end up with what's in Santa Barbara, which we did look at as precedence. Well, I love Santa Barbara, I think it's great, but it's great for Santa Barbara, and we heard

It's diametrically opposed to what we're looking at here when city council is adamant we want to be eclectic. We're at complete opposite ends of the spectrum.

That's what we've heard, and that's what we've tried to do. Can we keep making it better? I think in the time remaining we can. But I've worked in Santa Barbara and for the city of Santa Barbara in terms of doing consulting work, and it's like you're not going to get over that conversation there.

Yep.

in downtown and other places.

Thank you. Let me just move on quickly, ask a couple more quick questions. Can we go to slide 27, please? First of all, before I ask the question, with regard to the scorecard, who is actually doing the scoring when a project proceeds through the process?

who the applicant will bring in their interpretation of how they did the scoring and then staff will cross check that and if there's a difference of opinion then hopefully a constructive conversation and ideally what I think happens is that the applicant comes in they present in good faith their work if they do run up against staff saying that no this is not in compliance Staff explains that and then hopefully there's a conversation about how to get into compliance. And in a kind of hopefully constructive way that begins to mirror the type of conversation that you want to have that results in better projects.

So that leads into my question which is the bottom line on this slide. In my mind objective design standards are self-described if you either meet the design standards or you don't meet the design standards. So, Maruja, maybe this question is for you. Last line, Planning Commission would see projects not meeting ODS. Why would a project not meeting ODS even go through the process?

That's a very good question. Um, we have had projects come forward where we, as staff recommended denial and they, the applicant requested their time in court for lack of a better term to hear what the decision makers said. And as long as we're being transparent with how we're supporting or not supporting that project. If they feel they have a compelling argument before a decision maker, it's well within their right to proceed through that process. You know, of course we try to get them there by way of it's a simpler process to get to directors. Planning commission takes more time. you know, et cetera, et cetera, but there may be someone that is adamant about not having any vertical modulation and wanting to do no step backs from the side and they're not interested in state density bonus law for whatever reason and that is where they would go to the planning commission for approval or denial.

Okay, so I'm familiar with some of those projects you're alluding to, so that's a good and fair answer. Slide 28, please. City Council workshop being moved to October 6th. Thank you. Reading this agenda and boning up for this meeting, I was in dire fear that we didn't have enough time to.

I got you, Scott.

OK, good, good, good. And finally, let's go to the last slide in the presentation, which we didn't get to, slide 31. Or 30? Well, actually, that's a pretty good representation of slide 31. Slide 31.

Oh, it's the light.

It's the light reflectance value chart. And my comment was going to be, so what you're looking at is actually a light reflectance value of approximately 6.5.

Probably, yes.

So when you say that you set the threshold at 6.5, I was kind of shocked by that because that allows anything up to a charcoal color on the entire side of a building pretty much. So we don't need to talk about this now, but I have a concern about setting the light reflectance value at 6.5 if you're shooting for true light reflectance and lighter colors. So that's just a comment. We can talk more about that later. Thank you.

Sorry about that. Forget I'm chair right now. Commissioner Lagoquist.

Thanks, Vice Chair. And again, thank you all for the presentation. Very helpful, actually. Really appreciate it. And Maruha as well, and staff. um i do have a lot of questions so bear with me i'm going to try to really stick to just questions of staff some clarifications and then get into other things as we do our deliberation um okay so i have more questions about the point system so does the applicant have to meet a total point score or do they have to meet a you know per section point score

It's a per section point.

So they can't meet a lot of points over here and then saying that we're not going to deal with that at all.

The intention was to get a little bit of roof, a little bit of facade, a little bit of everything to balance it out a little bit more. And not that, you know, everyone gets all of these points doing great things to windows and ignores roofs or facade. So it's by section.

Okay, so I'm sorry. One thing I wanted to do before I jumped into that was we talked very briefly on that this came in two parts. One was talking about what Ventura's character was. And the only thing that I heard that came out of that whole conversation was eclectic. I mean, can staff talk a little bit more about what the Ventura character, what came out of that conversation so that we kind of have an idea of steering towards?

Let me see if I can find a vision statement that we had created, and I'd love to read that for the benefit of the commission. So if you give me just two minutes, that'd be great. Yes, absolutely.

I'll go on with my questions. So backing up, I wanted to talk a little bit more about state law. I'm not myself clear on, and Commissioner Winninger asked some really good questions about this, but I'm not completely clear how this works. the if they come in and they're and they're applying state law based on their um their housing then they i mean they're you'll have to remind me there's a number of they get a number of concessions and waivers and some of them are unlimited and so where and but but then it says that they still have to meet ods i mean that makes no sense to me i mean it seems like to me they're going to come in and they're going to say you know we have 50 you know affordable housing so we don't have to do anything

That's a complicated question. I can't really give a quick answer to that. But yes, you're absolutely right. First of all, this process, it seems like it's designed to provide incentives for streamlined review of projects as opposed to mandate specific design control over projects as a precondition for any type of approval. I think that's broadly speaking the goal of this exercise. To the extent that there are any objective design standards imposed on a project, they absolutely could be circumvented by either concessions or waivers, presuming the applicants can meet the requirements for those. The basic framework is you have a limited number of concessions based on the percentage of affordable units that you have, and a theoretically unlimited number of waivers, presuming that the waiver is necessary for the physical construction of the project. which might be a harder threshold to reach with a design standard than it would be for something like a setback which might impact the physical space that you have to work in.

Interesting. Okay, do we have any precedents on this in other cities where a developer has come in and are refusing to meet ODSs and the state is backing the city on that matter?

I am not aware of any cases that specifically deal with that question. I researched this a little bit when the city started exploring an ODS approach a while ago. There's not much out there on it, at least not yet. It's a relatively novel approach. I know that there are several other cities, including I think Los Angeles, that has a point system. I'm not sure that they all do that in exactly the same way, and I definitely am not aware of any case law that addresses it.

Well, OK, and I don't want to get into the deliberation yet. I want, definitely, opinion of the other commissioners on this subject. But I would say that it would be interesting to me to know how city council feels about this. Are they going to be willing to stand up for these ODSs? So that can be a point of discussion. Let's see, what else? Oh, sorry. So I wanted to go back to the, really appreciate the plant palette and that whole discussion. That was really interesting to me and I, you know, Really appreciative of that. I think that's really important. Are we okay with the 2013 USGS establishment of those ecoregions? I mean, we've got a lot of climate change and things changing. I mean, are we still comfortable with that?

Yes. Current studies show that since Ventura is on the northern end of the ecoregion, Our ecoregion goes down all the way from Ventura all the way down to San Diego County. So even with the climate change moving our ecoregions north, I calculated 189.5 years before we can, before it will change the ecoregions. So I think unless we're designing a 189 year old landscape, I think we're okay for a little bit.

I'm impressed that you were prepared to answer that question, so kudos on that. Thank you. So with the 30% designer's discretion, and I can't remember if you mentioned this, so I apologize, but does that allow invasive species in that 30%?

No. The current standards here or ordinances here in this city, most cities and all around California don't allow invasives.

Let's see. Is there any point where an ODS would become a development standard?

No. Okay. I do have a vision for you, but it is, it's beautiful, but it's also kind of lengthy. I can read it. It's four paragraphs. It's up to you.

I would like to hear it. I don't know how the rest of it.

I can read it kind of quickly. We can make like an audible file. Everybody just get.

Oh, no, whenever you're ready.

I don't have to do it right now.

Sure, absolutely. I'm almost done actually. Okay, my last question actually is back on the LRV discussion. I think you mentioned neon green. So how does the LRV avoid us having to figure out how to deal with a developer that comes in and wants to paint a building neon green?

It doesn't completely, but it would subject it, I think, to a secondary color, right?

So really the answer is that it doesn't. So the LRV will prevent the darkest of blacks, but if we create a threshold in the opposite direction, then you will prohibit the whitest of whites. So it's a method to talk about color objectively versus you know color is inherently a very subjective thing and I think because of mixed opinions we've been hearing about black buildings and not it was a starting point to the conversation to how to talk about it objectively but to this point we have not come up with a way objectively to say that neon green is banned or highlighter yellow and those are conversations that we're having with the working architect group and you know we'd appreciate your thoughts on it or I mean, just saying Neon Green is banned. That doesn't, I think we have a visualization of what we think neon green is, but it's subjective stuff.

Well, and this is an extreme example, but, you know, these are the situations that we have to consider. A developer comes in and they have a building color that no one likes, but they're saying, hey, I'm doing, I'm applying state law, so I'm going to paint the building whatever color I want. And so I think that is what we are struggling with and having to deal with. I mean, yeah, I don't think a developer is going to come in and say I want to paint the building neon green but they could come in with some really bright pink which might look really good in the caribbean but not so much in ventura to me it's pretty easy if city council wants eclectic we get eclectic and that is eclectic well i mean that that on that argument you could say well you know eclectic is having a six six-story building here next to a a one-story you know single family home that's eclectic and that's not desirable and so these are the kind of things we have to work through

i'm going to do my chair duty and say this isn't the debate time this is the question time i am done with my questions thank you all very much do you want do you want the vision or a design character or i'm sorry i think commissioner abby had some additional questions before or no

Why don't we answer Commissioner Lagarde's questions and then go to Commissioner Allen.

Okay, I'll try and read it speedily. Speedily, okay. The city of Ventura's urban design and architectural character is crafted by two overarching factors. The first is its natural setting on a north and eastward trending upslope plain bounded by the Pacific Ocean and beaches to the south and west. The Ventura Hills, Ventura River and mountain preserves to the north. The Santa Clara River, its washes and the Oxnard Plain to the south. and to its east and northeast protected and productive agricultural lands. The second key factor shaping Ventura design character is its cumulative 250-year environmental design history. Its first peoples, the Chumash, built half-spherical, often multi-family homes with local resources, including wooden poles covered with interwoven grasses and mats. Two centuries of subsequent mission and post-colonial building established a layered, diverse, and ever-evolving contemporary setting where multiple imported design approaches Styles and architectural trends of the day and characters overlap and are juxtaposed. Venturans value this history of collaged built forms and resulting eclectic context. In each new project, whether new construction, an addition, the renovation of an existing building, or the creation of open space, they seek through their plans, codes, and guidelines to explicitly reference, utilize, and honor the existing context of structures, streetscapes, block faces, and districts. To embed into each building and open space the winds, light tanned sands, blues, sea greens, and grays of the Pacific Ocean, the olives, browns, mustards, and native materials of hillside landforms and riverbeds. Orientation and character eclecticisms of existing sidewalk adjoining structures and activities and shade, native flora, and bursts of bloom seen is to realize Ventura character. This means that new buildings and open spaces are an exacting conversation with the land and climate, history, contemporary building techniques, as well as district neighborhood and block by block sensibilities. The lineation of sidewalk and street experiences initiate the establishment of interior design frameworks. Existing and adjacent buildings and their patterns, scales, proportions, colors, and materials are present in new projects. Where built form contexts are minimal, the site's climate, sunlight, topography, soil, and existing nature are the design starting points. Acceptance of the design flexibility allows for the embrace of innovation and advances in construction techniques, today's programs, and materials. But even as the inventions and lasting contributions of eras past, present, and future are acknowledged, design by design and building by building, there is always the goal to create a city that sees its past and its present as enduringly human scale and related to its land. With these factors incorporated, designs become distinctively Venturan. Talk about the Pacific Ocean.

Thank you, that was very poetic. All right, let's go to Commissioner Abbey.

Okay. So I saw several questions related to what I started out asking about. Let's see, there was questions from Robert Mather, Bob Guthrie. So I'll just kind of ask a series of questions that kind of incorporate their questions in the survey. So we talked about transitional setback abutting a single family zone property with interior rear side property line. So we talked about casting shade and what would be the proper proportions and so forth. I wanted to dig a little deeper. So the first question, and I think I already know the answer, and I think it's already been broached, but can this ODS standard be waived under density bonus law? I just wanted a straightforward answer, if we can get one.

I want to clarify what we're talking about when we say that because it occurs to me as we're having this conversation that I think we're conflating potentially two different things. So there are, as this slide points out, standards that may be required and standards that are optional. The ones that are required don't contribute to the point system as discussed because they're required. There are standards that are optional, contribute toward a point system, hitting X number of points leads to certain benefits in terms of streamlining the development process. Is that a fair assessment? Thank you. Okay, so anything that's mandatory is more or less by definition an objective development standard to which the development must adhere. Absent some countervailing policy, those things could absolutely be waived via a concession or a waiver under the density bonus law. I don't know that that would apply to the point system optional standards just because it wouldn't quite make sense to do that. They're not mandatory, so you wouldn't need a waiver or a concession to not apply them. You could just choose not to apply them. You just wouldn't get the points for it.

They are mandatory, though. They are mandatory, though. The optional standards are mandatory? Well, they're not optional. They are a menu of standards that reach objectivity through a different mechanism. Sure. So it's like we're not saying you still as our our understanding is that you would have to meet a minimum point threshold within this section. And the only way you can do that is to choose certain ones of them and you either have that and you get the points or you don't have it and you don't get the points and you either get the total number of points required in that section or you don't. They are each objective. You don't necessarily have to use each one of them to achieve the number of points, but you do have to achieve the number of points.

The way I would articulate that then in terms of legal requirements is that the point system itself becomes an objective development standard to which the developer is required to adhere and which could be subject to concessions or waivers to reduce or remove the point requirement entirely.

And I completely agree with your statement that the advantage of this is towards the person who's working towards a ministerial project. It creates a mechanism for them to get through the system in a more streamlined way. And then if they choose to not do that for whatever reason, then yes, then all the questions that everybody is asking start to come up like, a bad faith developer could theoretically come in and say, I'm waiving everything. The city would then have to decide how it wants to respond to that because many of these objective standards I don't think have that much to do with the economic feasibility or the development feasibility of the project. They can argue that, but you can argue back. And that's maybe not something you want to do. I fully recognize that.

Yeah, just to, I would caution the commission to just be aware that in general, for density bonus projects, the onus is on the city to prove things, not the developer. So they wouldn't really need to make much in the weight of an argument in general. There could be countervailing arguments. And as I mentioned earlier, I think for certain things that are genuinely aesthetic in nature, you'd have a harder time arguing that a waiver would apply, because waivers are a creature of physical necessity. That would be a harder argument to make. Not necessarily impossible, depending on exactly what you're talking about, but harder. But hypothetically, I could see a developer using a single concession to say, I don't want to apply the point system at all. I'm going to waive the requirement for points, end of conversation.

Mm. Can I ask a follow-up question real fast? So a project such as the SB 330 project that we did at the corner of Victoria and Olivas Park was an SB 330 project. They could've just come, and they came to Planning Commission. They could've just said, we're waiving, we don't wanna do ODS, we're going straight to the Planning Commission because we have a buy right, 100% affordable project, and we're just gonna go to Planning Commission. And we're gonna get, we're gonna do the SB 330 approvals.

So I think there are still going to be times, Commissioner Winninger, when they would have to come to Planning Commission. In this case, they were requesting a map, and that map would have triggered coming before you. So they won't go through an SB 330 fully if they need to go through a map process or a subdivision. So they may still need to come for another reason, but they might avoid it if they can avoid those other reasons.

But they would avoid all the ODS altogether because they're SB 330.

I don't believe because they're SB 330 they would avoid ODS in any way. They would just need to meet the standards that are in place at the time when they go in for the SB 330 application, which ODS, if it's adopted, would be applicable at that time.

But, okay, so they'd have to actually get a concession for that?

Correct. They'd have to do a concession or a waiver from whatever the requirement is they don't want to meet.

Okay. I think I, I'm hoping we all understand that now.

I still have a couple.

Oh, go ahead. Okay. I have two more questions on this same topic, and then I have other questions. I'll wait for another round or another time. But I just want to drill down on this just slightly more. Okay. Could there be an ODS standard regarding transitional setbacks that is written or worded in such a way that it would be acceptable under density bonus law or not conflict with it?

Not conflict with it how? I'm not sure I'm following. If it's anything that's an objective development standard, to apply any requirement to any proposed development, that requirement must be an objective development standard of some sort. If it's an objective development standard, by definition, it could be waived or removed by virtue of a concession.

Okay. Let's see. Then I'll go to my last question on this topic. It was comment number 40 on page 17 of that July 17th draft. Citizen wrote, there were no sections written for ODS regarding building mass and scale. I might be misinterpreting this, but it says no section for building mass and scale, including pedestrian scale. Just wanted to see could pedestrian scale and I don't know if that includes sidewalk width sidewalk widths in relationship to heights of buildings and Whether that's a development standard or as could that be an objective design standard I?

So I'll just comment really quick and then John. So sidewalk widths, street widths, those are all development standards and we have to follow our street standards with public works. And as part of this process, public works and fire, our parks division all reviewed the draft standards to ensure there wasn't any conflict with said standards so I'm just setting the stage as it pertains to sidewalk widths and and the private drive or the private street widths and then I'll pass it back to John as I think he had other thoughts to share there are two answers to that one is that we're not in any way challenging or getting rid of the existing zoning standards you have

a sort of hybrid form-based code type system. All those, we've read all of those codes. They are interested in human scale. I think we've also put in things in this that tried to push that further. So like we have storefront design in here where you have to adhere to this menu, and we could go through page by page and point out. We're not explicitly saying this is about creating human scale, maybe in the preamble to this thing and in the statement that Maruha read, it refers to that in some ways. But it's all based on that. I mean, even the whole conversation that we had in the last meeting where someone said, oh, I'm concerned about 385 feet. Maybe that number should be lower before you have an absolute building break. There was a logic to what we presented, but we're totally open to breaking that down. And then I'd add one other thing. It's a very gray area between a development standard versus a design standard. They're both shall statements in the end. I think what the distinction that we're making is for the most part, there was a set of development standards that the city has. There are actually 23 different documents that we reviewed We accepted those. There were also a lot of guidelines or should statements in those documents and we concentrated on some of those on purpose because we felt those were the statements that were trying to take your existing regimen of Form-based codes and talk about some of those characteristics which are implicit in the question that you asked so it's it It's there, but we didn't necessarily Describe it that way. Okay.

Thank you I've got a question.

I'm good.

My question was already answered great and then a staff one and Staff one is in the queue, but if there's no staff who pushed that, then great. Well, I think I think that it's our questions. I don't have any questions at this time. I know our members of the public have been waiting patiently and I'd like to open the item for public comment. So a reminder that our rules for tonight only are five minutes rather than the normal three minutes. And then we will allow if anyone wants to once all the all the speakers are called, if anyone wants to respond, there'll be another opportunity to to have a three-minute public comment and then we'll allow the commissioners a chance to ask any clarifying questions of public commenters so members of the the public wishes speak in person should uh should come forward when called and those participating by zoom may use the raised hand function and callers may press star 9 to indicate they wish to speak mr clerk do we have any speakers

Thank you, Vice Chair. Yes, we do. Approximately 10 speakers. Our first speaker is Paul Jordan, followed by Scott Spencer.

Members of the Commission, it's a pleasure to be here. My name is Paul Jordan. I'm a practicing landscape architect. I've been practicing in Ventura since 1979. I've also served on the Architectural Review Board and the Tree Advisory Committee. I do have some comments regarding the landscape portion of the ODS. I'm not excited about the plant list like Gary is. Sorry, Gary. I find out of 19 trees, only four are coastal. of the others are more suited for mountains, foothills, riparian, and even Northern California. What it's lacking, I think, is a lot of the evergreen canopy trees that we have throughout Ventura. And some of them are natives, some of them are drought tolerant, some aren't. But we have a tremendous urban forest here in our city and i think the list should be expanded to include a lot of those other trees that are successful here in ventura i think that would be a great addition of the shrubs 94 total which is deceiving because a lot of the species are repeated you might have 10 cianothus listing all the different species, and you only need to list the CNLTA species. Some of those are coastal, more coastal, and some of them aren't. And so I think that should be revised. What I think is missing is a lot of the Mediterranean trees and shrubs that do well here. You know, we have a beautiful botanical garden just up the hill, and they feature plants from Chile, South Africa, the Mediterranean basin, and California, and also... South Africa, a lot of those plants do well, they're drought tolerant, they do very well in the urban landscape. And so those plants, the list should be really expanded to consider those plants also. One of the things I object to is the 70, 30% As a landscape architect, selecting plants is a design issue. I mean, I could do a plant, a plan that has 70% from the list, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's a well-designed landscape. A lot of times with natives, especially with native plants, we like to combine plants from the same community. And if most of the ODS projects are in the coastal scrub zone, we would combine plants of that plant community together, layer them, and they work together, they're compatible, they're great pollinators, and they do very well. But they also mix very well with other Mediterranean plants. So that's a challenge because selecting off a list doesn't necessarily mean you're going to get a well-designed project. It just means you've got a plant collection that meets the list. The other thing I want to make you aware of, we have, for the last 30 years, been required to comply with the state model, Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance, called MELO. There's an assembly bill passed that's going to require, at the next code cycle, that MELO incorporate 10% Natives in the footprint. They tried for 25%, and I guess enough of the nursery lobbies got them down to 10%. But the city of Ventura, you're not bound by that. You could require that landscape architects comply with MELLO, but include a higher percentage of native plants and allow the plant selection to be... be up to the professionals designing the project. We select plants based on the climate zone, the exposure, soil types, making sure they fit within the spaces. Most of these projects have very small five foot, maybe even 10 if we're lucky spaces. So finding plants that will fit is a challenge. And sometimes working off a list can be a hindrance. So leaving the plant selection up to the landscape architect who's in charge of the project is something I would recommend. I'd also recommend that you take a look at the mellow requirements and maybe including a native plant component to that. Other than that, expanding the list is always a good idea. I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Scott Spencer, followed by Rother Mather.

Good evening, everybody. I was going to read my prepared statement, but instead I'm going to try to, I think, answer first the question for the Planning Commission. Are there any additional standards that should be added? I feel that what this document is missing and could use would be a realization of our historic neighborhoods and whole areas that have been designated by the Historic Preservation Committee as historic. So right now, and I read through the entire Historic Preservation Committee document, And the reason I thought something needs to be added to the ODS regarding this is it has everything on how to save a building, remodel a building, remove a building, and leave the integrity of the neighborhood and the surrounding homes or buildings. There's nothing on coming into a historic neighborhood that has nothing and building whatever it is you plan on building, in this case a huge apartment building. So my target is always 211 Thompson because I just think there's so many things wrong about what happened there that it's unfortunate. But I also think if a historic guideline had been in the ODS, when that developer, and I was at the very early meetings, when that developer brought that project to the city, if there had been a guideline for that particular neighborhood, which I think is probably Between the the Chumash site all the way to the mission and the three Homes listed on the historic register all in that three block period. It's probably the most historic chunk of property Maybe in Ventura County right in that very space So I don't feel that enough Well, they had no guideline for what could or should have been built there. So the example would be what was built right across the street from that, which was at 199 Figueroa. That's a three-story big building. It's the office building right across the street on the other corner. And that developer made a choice. He said, I'm going to pay tribute to what exists here, and I'm not going to build something that sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. Instead, with 211, we have this, another one of these modern hybrid, whatever you want to call it, buildings that could be, in my opinion, it could be a library, it could be a pharmacy, it could be, I mean, it's just, it's a very generic style that doesn't fit Ventura. If this historic element had been suggested in the ODS to that developer, maybe, just maybe, they could have built of a very large, but it could have been a craftsman style building. It could have been something that didn't ignore where it was being built. And I think that building did that. So that element I think is important and should be added to this document. The other thing I'm trying to think about is how do you give this I like the point system. How do you give it teeth? How does it have any power when we're under the control of the state dictating to us basically what we can or can't build, and then the developers are going to obviously take advantage? If there can be anything that the city can offer, and I think the city would be, at this time it makes sense to look at everything the city could do. to be able to guide a developer into what we would like to see them build, to follow our guidelines, to follow our height limits. So what are those things? I actually think we should have another meeting almost that discusses that, because that becomes the main issue. If they can throw out the ODS when they meet the state requirements, how much power does the ODS have? looking for ways to give strength. And we would like to see the city feel like it's negotiating from a position of power, because this is an incredible town. And there isn't another town like it. And developers want to be here. They want to build here. And we need to find a way to have them fit in instead of stand out like a sore thumb. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Robert Mather, followed by Mary Ann Beavener.

Good evening, commissioners and city staff. My name is Rob Mather. I live in Midtown. I'm encouraged by the progress state on the objective design standards and I'm pleased to see the collaboration between the consultants team and city staff. But I do worry that the city may not, city council may not understand the full scope of this initiative and underestimates the time and resources needed for its successful development and implementation. So in that context, I'd like to speak to the importance of testing the design standards. So my comments tonight are not specific to the draft ODS per se, but rather the process by which they'll be finalized. In order for it to be successful, really any new product should be thoroughly tested by its developers, its process owners, and other stakeholders. And that rigorous testing and refinement should both precede the product's release date and continue beyond its implementation. My next-door neighbor tests new cars for a living. I'm very jealous. I'm constantly looking to see what's in his driveway. He and his team are out testing new car models months in advance of their release to the public. So that's an example. So the need for testing new products is, in my mind, universal. It applies not just to cars. It applies to new artificial intelligence models. And it certainly applies to, in my mind, to the ODS. The need for testing the ODS, I would say, is even more important given the lifespan of residential and commercial development. It's measured not in months or years, but in decades. So, if we were to think about testing the draft ODS prior to their implementation, what things might we think about? First that comes to mind for me is really testing the entire review and approval process for new development from application through approval, not just the ODS component of it, because that's all subject, it all needs to be integrated. We should test scenarios for different types of development because the ODS apply to not to residential mixed-use and commercial We should test instances where the ministerial process is legally required and instances where the process is voluntarily chosen by developers Testing smaller developments that don't trigger affordable housing requirements, as well as larger developments that involve concessions and waivers under the density bonus law. Test different scenarios in different neighborhoods, where different development codes apply, and certainly, as we've talked earlier, where existing development varies significantly in terms of its style, scale, and character. Tests recently approved projects that went through the current review and approval process. There has been a couple of references to the Thompson core departments that were recently approved both by this commission and the city council. Three waivers, nine concessions. How would the outcome of that approved project be different with the new ODS? So testing using a feedback loop that enables iterative changes and improvements both to the standards themselves prior to their implementation and for a scheduled revision period thereafter. So I guess what I'm saying, commissioners, I would respectfully ask that the motion that you developed this evening for city council's consideration includes a recommendation that robust testing and refinement be incorporated into the ODS development process prior to and for a period after its implementation. Thank you.

Next speaker is Mary Ann Beavener, followed by Bob Guthrie.

Hi, I'm Mary Ann Beavener, Midtown, and I'm requesting that you review and add more objective design review standards for 100% commercial buildings in this draft, especially when the realization is that commercial buildings are often on street corners made of concrete blocks with required parking lots and asphalt. And I did send in written public comments earlier on the 17th, they were published, that had the pictures that I've been taking about the buildings in my neighborhood. So we should want to decrease the urban heat effect, especially in our walkable neighborhoods. A cost effective way to do this is by paint colors, and I don't think that that really affects the economic feasibility of a project. Let's not be environmentally irresponsible in our objective design code. So four things. One, please add a light reflective value color chart with more options in the draft, particularly for 100% commercial buildings. And also, when you put it in the draft, then neighbors have a chance to review it and comment on it. Secondly, another way to mitigate this would be add color breaks at a certain number of feet. I don't know what that should be, 10 feet or 20 feet. Third, massing breaks. Currently, the building would have to be three stories high before there'd be any massing breaks for commercial buildings. So add massing breaks for commercial buildings two stories or higher. And finally, Building wall materials. The section, and I've referenced P6, item 6, only addresses frontage. A lot of these buildings are frontage on two sides, so that needs to be defined. So frontage should be defined as any street-facing building side. And I was really excited to see that we have a graffiti squad until I was ready to call them about the building around the corner and realized that it's a private building, so they can't do anything on that. So thanks for your time.

Our next speaker is Bob Guthrie, followed by Wendy Sautter.

I'm sure what I say tonight, oh, he's not here. Mr. De La Vega would have had lots of comments on, but I'd like you to just consider it from the standpoint I'm trying to address a real problem. And there may be elements of what I have to say that could be used to solve those problems. I also wanted to say that I think the scorecard system is not a development standard that could be overridden with a waiver concession because the state HCD actually mentions the use of a scorecard. Good evening. The draft objective design standards incorporate a scoring system which allows flexibility in design while assuring an acceptable outcome. The scoring system is absolutely necessary, but it currently contains a significant flaw. In the draft ODS, there are a number of mandatory elements, ones deemed essential for good design. These required elements are assigned zero point value under the pretense that they must be included in the final product. However, any density bonus project can and will use waivers and concessions to override many of these essential elements. Of the ones in the draft, the required elements in the draft, I estimate that at least half could be overwritten with concessions and waivers. Therefore, the required elements should carry a high point value, not a zero point value. By law, the use of concessions and waivers is deemed to be in compliance with the standards. However, since this is an expedited review process, the scoring system can likely withhold points if the actual standard isn't physically present in the design. The scorecard should be constructed to provide enough points in each category so that any points lost during the use of waivers or concessions can be made up by including optional design features. For instance, if an applicant used a waiver to reduce the required size of a courtyard, they would lose points. Since a smaller courtyard primarily affects the occupants of the building, the lost points could be recouped by incorporating additional amenities like a spa, water feature, or other resident serving perks. Another example would be the use of a waiver to override the required upper-story step-back on a multi-story project adjacent to a single-family homes. This happened with the recent Thompson apartment project. If properly structured, overriding this standard would result in a very large deduction necessitating design modifications to regain sufficient points. In this case, the design options could be constructed to provide benefits in support of the neighbors. Some optional elements, each with a point value might be eliminating all balconies on the single family adjacent side of the project. Making the windows on the adjacent side smaller and positioned to be offset to the greatest distance from the neighbor's windows. Relocating the rooftop mechanical equipment away from the single family homes. reducing the ceiling heights to a max of eight feet and the plenum heights between floors to 18 inches or less, or modulating the roof line to specifically allow more light onto the adjacent properties. The bottom line is the scorecard is a great idea, but the mechanics of it needs lots of work to assure the points are meaningful, balanced between categories, and sufficiently challenging to assure a good design is always achieved. Thanks.

Our next speaker is Wendy Sautter, followed by Mark Sirota.

Good evening. I'm going to have to wing it because thank you very much for adding more workshops. I really appreciate it. My main focus was to talk about how much more time we needed than just a couple more meetings. Some of this has already been addressed, so forgive me if I repeat them. uh but we do have a lot of different variety of buildings in the city so i'm wondering if one scorecard can really is it really appropriate for a duplex seven unit apartment building a six-story hundred unit building um i think the idea of maybe more than one ods or as you had suggested mr kaliski about menus or something it just seems like one is going to be a real stretch As we already heard, how are we going to retain the uniqueness of Ventura's distinct areas, especially the historical ones? I also was concerned about the pedestrian scale, although I hear it shouldn't be in here, I think it's definitely something that we need to try to consider because as the buildings get taller, the sidewalk should definitely be wider as well. Other things that I was thinking about is that we hear that staff is working on making the DTSP more objective. What would really be helpful is if we could see how those changes are being made Can we get the DTSP and have the red lines and how they're actually addressing it? Because it's hard to envision all of this without seeing what those changes are. We're also working on the local coastal program. So how are these going to be integrated? We are a coastal city. Again, I went back to the aggressive completion of this schedule. There's a lot to talk about and so I hope that if we do need more meetings that a recommendation is, you know, to give us time to actually create something that's going to be good for the city, something we can really use. Let's see. The other thing that the DRC had talked about was clarifying how the ODS integrates with supplements, conflicts with, and is superseded by Downtown, Midtown, Victoria, and other codes. They talked about recommending evaluating ODS differentiation by building size and type and potentially architectural style during the testing, which Rob had talked to, testing I think is incredibly important. How do we know if this is going to work if we don't test it out beforehand? So basically, you know, Ventura is a really special city, as we all know, so I hope we take the time to really make this right. Just some things off the top of my head that I think about, and it's that one of the quote-unquote parks that we got at the coastline, it's basically a swale. So I'm hoping that there's a possibility of putting something that's a real park and not a swale in this. And then how do these things interact with neighborhoods, distinct neighborhoods? Is there a way that we can look at what things are adjacent to other things? So open space and different neighborhoods. So those are just kind of random thoughts that I think about and I worry about. And I really appreciate your time tonight. And I really appreciate very much the fact that we can speak a little longer and we can come back

and ask questions that really means a lot thank you our next speaker is mark sirota uh mark you've been seated time so you'll have 10 minutes our next speaker will be eric berg i won't need 10 minutes thank god for you so um

A lot's been said, so I'm going to be jumping around some, so forgive me. First, I want to just thank all of you for your hard work and also staff. I know doing all of this, it's not an easy task, so I do appreciate it. I'm going to start off with what I had in my intro, and it's something that Maru had kind of said already, but I think it's important. Tonight's topic will have ramifications for decades to come. As you know, despite good intentions, the state's policy for affordable housing has resulted in a decrease of local control for development. Understandably, this is a difficult pill for the community to swallow. What makes objective design standards so important is that it's the one lever that the state has explicitly given to local communities to guide the future of development. By no means is it perfect, but if you're willing to work hard, we are willing to work hard and dedicate the necessary resources and money, we can make sure that the developments that do get built are at least acceptable and reflects to some aspects of Ventura. i want to bring it up because i hear a lot about people say oh well density bonus bonus law and waivers they're just going to throw all the objective design standards out and you can't use them that's not true there and i think i would say there's a lot of i hate to say it i've been doing work and reading up a lot on density bonus law more than i really would like to admit but um There are constraints on what can happen. You get a, and I'm not gonna go into deep, but there's a handful of concessions for most of the projects that come by. They have to be used for things that have to do with economics. Waivers, you can get as many as you want, but they're limited to If it's a standard that stops you from physically building that building, then you can give a waiver at it. So height and setbacks. But there's many, many architectural issues that neither of those can touch. So ODS is important even in the context of density bonus law. I'm going to jump, I had a couple comments about the ministerial process. My summary was to develop the right set of objective standards requires knowing where they will be applied ministerially. I think I know that now, Maruja, you gave a very concise description about where those will be used, and thank you. It's been an open issue. Objective design standards are only useful if they are applied by an objective process. And if that's not the case, all that's been accomplished is moving subjectivity from a public design review committee to city staff. So this came up because I heard some questions at the DRC that seemed to imply a little bit of subjectivity in the process, in the ministerial process. But if I get, and this is kind of a question, and I know I can't get an answer, but if I gave a, is there any reason to think that the outcome of a ministerial process would be different for the same design if it went to the administrative area. It's not ministerial, but it's using objective design standards. I would think the outcomes should be the same. If they're not, then I have to assume that there's subjectivity in the administrative side, the administrative process that wasn't in the ministerial or vice versa. So hopefully my question, you understand my question, and I think it's important because most projects are going to go through the administrative path, but using objective design standards. And I encourage the PC to follow up on that question. I've got a few thoughts about ODS categories. The draft ODS proposes that a single set of objective design standards is adequate for projects that range from a duplex to a six-story building, types that range between residential, mixed-use, and even commercial, buildings located in downtown, the west side, east side, and the coastal zone, as well as different designs like Craftsman and Victorium. I think that's too much for one set of ODS to accommodate. Even one consultant said that it makes a scorecard difficult if it has such a wide range of projects and types and locations that it has to address. So I ask that the staff takes another look at the number of ODS sets that are needed, And I think I also have the public input on it. That was a decision that was made and there wasn't any public input. It just came out and there it was. A couple thoughts on the integration of ODS and that's specific time.

Am I done? We still got time?

I am going over a little bit. Okay. A few thoughts on the integration of the ODS with specific plans. Staff says that projects shall comply with specific plans as applicable in the event of a conflict between an ODS and existing specific plan. The specific plan shall supersede. But it's not clear how that's gonna be implemented. The DTSP contains 598 shall statements. The Midtown Quarter Code sounds 373 shall statements. Which ones are going to be kept? It's a time-consuming effort. And bottom line, without knowing what the existing standards, which ones of the existing standards are going to maintain, it's hard to determine whether the ODS is adequate, because they complement each other. So you have to, you know, what part, which requirements out of the different specific plans are going to be maintained in order to know what's left is covered by the ODS. And without that, I don't know how you make a good decision. And I think the end product should be something similar to a, well let me jump to where successful completion should require the staff that if an applicant comes in with a project that they can be handed a checklist and they know exactly what they do and they know exactly the requirements that they have to meet. I think that would be positive. And I will, I can come back later in the, we've got three minutes later, is that right? To add to that? I'll stop right there. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Eric Berg, followed by Carol Spector.

Good evening, Planning Commission. My name is Eric Berg. I'm a local landscape architect, your newest appointed member of the DRC. So I'm kind of here interviewing my replacement in many ways. I already use AI to do that every day, too. So why just pile on here? I usually like to be a little more prepared, so I'm going to be a little loose tonight. I did submit public comments. I'm going to try not to do on that. I missed the DRC meeting in early August. i was on vacation in hawaii but i sent my comments in while i was on vacation because i knew they needed to get in before that but i want to echo what my colleague mr jordan said a lot on the landscape side while i appreciate the attempt and the goals behind the landscape plant list specifically, I do think there's a huge void here. So just to give you one example, there's 16 shade trees on the list. Of those 16, if a project is in a high fire hazard severity zone, 13 will be ruled out automatically. So we're left with three. The other three are all riparian species, which means a product that is in the fire zone has to plant a water-loving plant. That doesn't necessarily work, right? Additionally, of those 16, if you're familiar with plants at all, two of those are cottonwood species. I would never recommend planting a cottonwood species in urban environment, in our urban environment. One, especially in Ventura, they aren't necessarily native to our Ventura coastal area. So they're more upland riparian species. We don't have a lot of native cottonwoods here. Largely speaking, the tree list in specific needs a lot of work. I would love to see 40 tree species on this, particularly if we're going to be restricted to using 70% from that list. I think you can find them, and I think there are appropriate ones that would make that list tick. The large thing here that I want to be prescriptive about is the need for shade. We talked a little bit about coastal sage scrub, what Ventura was, native plants. Ventura isn't what it was. We live in an urban environment that is 60% to 70% asphalt. Those native plants, whether they're trees, shrubs, whatever, aren't adapted to that climate. they're adapted to the climate that was here before. And so we really need to think about the plants that do well in these environments that can do well. The other side of this is maintenance. We can plant all the native plants we want, but the landscape care industry that comes in and takes care of those plants has to take care of them, doesn't mean they're gonna perform well. They are hard. Oftentimes certain plants are hard to maintain. Those companies don't know how to maintain them. They haven't caught up. Granted, we have to push that a little bit. We can't always be the trailing and use that as the thing. But just because you put a plant on a list doesn't mean it's going to perform well. as was kind of echoed. So that's a little bit on the plant side. And I think I mentioned the trees. I think the same is true to less percentages across the shrubs and other different styles. I wanted to echo that one criteria that isn't as explicit as was mentioned is make sure no invasives. You can specifically say no invasives per the plant IPC plant list on a list. It isn't as enshrined in laws was kind of mentioned. That's an easy one. And then the last thing I kind of wanted to get into was this idea that has been mentioned. The way these design, objective design standards are kind of been thought of as this kind of panacea that's going to solve all of our development problems, when really the issuance was it was for mixed use and residential. That's the reason we're doing this is because state law says you need these in order to administer projects or enforce these criteria. But now we're applying them to commercial only projects, which is fine. They have some standards in there, but they need a lot of work if they're going to do that well. What about a car wash? What about a gas station? What about a project with a drive-through? These are projects that you have to see and hear about that these objective design standards do nothing right now to address. So trying to solve some of those problems that I know you face on day-to-day projects with objective design standards need a lot of work to get there. The other thing I wanted to echo my fellow Midtown Community Council member, Mr. Mather mentioned is testing. I think right now you could be subjecting these draft guidelines to tests of existing projects that you've seen come through, the Thompson project. Take projects that you think aren't great, run them through there. How do they score? How would they be? Would they be better by adopting this? Similarly, take projects that you think are good, that the community thinks are good projects. how would this affect those would this restrict those from being good would be they'd be as good or would they be less good or would they make maybe they'll make them better as designers landscape architects you know we have to compete with many different standards um manuel was mentioned before we just found out yesterday that zone zero was adopted by the state which means that first five feet from your house is going to completely change and that law goes into effect tomorrow immediately. So between that and then other local regulations, it's just this very hard thing to find something that works within. Don't be overly restrictive here. Allow for some wiggle room to ensure good things. And make sure you're being prescriptive about what you want.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Carol Spector, followed by Trevor Gotsman.

First of all, thank you, Maruha. That was really nice to hear the extra workshops and things like that. So, woohoo. And thank you, planning commission, whoever you are. I'm so used to you being up there. Planning commissioners for giving us the flexibility to speak and change the rules a little bit. It's so much appreciated. And to all of you for all the work that you're doing. I actually wasn't even gonna speak, and I realize now that I think Wendy and Mark said everything, so I'm just gonna go really quickly here. Thank you, Commissioner Langerquist. It's about the character. I'm glad you had them read the character statement. I found it, I read it, but I don't see that in the draft. I don't see Ventura's character here anywhere. The values assigned don't seem to reflect what's going on, and that leads me to my point, I guess, is that I think different neighborhoods need different standards. Downtown is not midtown, it's not the East End. And so to keep our neighborhoods, to keep our character, I'd like to see standards that reflect more of those individual neighborhoods. I'll use Scott's example of 211 Thompson. The DTSP mentioned a building has to fit into the character of the neighborhood. When that project came up and was argued by many people, they kept saying, it doesn't fit into the character. But it wasn't specific. It wasn't quantifiable. And so that building was approved. What I would like to see is character somehow quantified in here so that we can say, yes, build a building, yay for affordable housing, but make it look like it fits in. Keep Ventura looking like Ventura. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Trevor Gotsman. Trevor, you should be able to unmute yourself.

Good evening. Council, this is a fantastic discussion we're having, and I made a few notes that I'd really like to share with everybody. This is the Planning Commission. We're planning for the future. But like was said earlier on, the historical district recognition, we have to recognize where we live and what we're doing. So the notes I made were just, first of all, improve public involvement, get the public better involved. And this is a wonderful opportunity because this is an objective design standard we're trying to do. It's very easy to get. You've already got a lot of public involvement, but I think I'm speaking for the man in the street. And so that's the first thing. And then, of course, what Mr. Jordan and Mr. Berg, the landscape and Wendy and everybody just spoke about, the landscape is critical in many ways. And I would really look and refer back to the botanical gardens and things like that and use some of those mixes, things that are Mediterranean. But either way, Rob's methods test And to include residential, not just mixed use and commercial in a way, because the city is a blend of all of that. And so that sort of comes back into what I think Wendy spoke about was the interface between the neighborhoods. So there is that transition where she speaks about the swale rather than a park. and things like that. So these are really important things. And I think the public can be so beneficial because we only hear of it after the fact. And then, so while we're doing the testing, the testing, use the neighborhood, use the neighbors, go door to door if necessary, take people like me who are willing to volunteer our time and effort. And what I'm saying is plan also for better public, access public transport access better for pedal for pedestrian you know i've always felt this is the city where we're going to have the barefoot bathing suit backyard triathlon that everybody can be involved in and if we've got a city that is clean that you can walk barefoot on that is designed in a way for pedestrian to get back to the natural world and connect with nature again. And because that's where we're going, the future, we really have to listen to what's happening in the natural world and keep things simple as best as we're able to. But the best way is to keep us all involved. So that's where I all have to say I hope that this has come through. Thank you.

And our final speaker is Pete Freeman. Pete, you should be able to unmute yourself.

Hello, everyone. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Go ahead, Pete. Thank you. First of all, I'd like to thank the commissioners and staff for changing the rules on tonight and making this more of a conversation than a formal meeting. My biggest concern is that we have one set of ODS for the entire city. If you look at the east side, which I call like California suburban versus midtown, which is you know 40s and 50s homes 1940s and 50s homes versus Pierpont which you have the lanes versus the keys which are very different and then the west side which you're looking at 100 year old neighborhoods I just think one one set doesn't fit everything that we would want to do I can't see a contemporary building really built on the west side fitting in with the uh what's currently there um i know carol spoke to this a little bit but that's it i'm just saying that i think one one set of ods for the entire city is not going to cut it thanks thank you vice chair that concludes public comment on this item

Thank you, everybody. I want to see if we can maybe take a five-minute break before coming back to the continuation of public comment. Would that be all right with the folks? Yes. What's up?

Will we be able to ask some of the speakers questions?

Yes. So after we come back, we will allow folks a chance to respond. Another three minutes, if you'd like to respond to any of the public comments that were made. And then commissioners will be able to ask members of the public any questions to clarify their comments. All right. Let's take a quick break. Come back at 8.

All these.

Street care.

All right, everyone, if you could take your seats, we're gonna get started again. All right. So at this point, we will allow folks to do a three-minute comment if you want to respond to anything that was said in the first round of public comments. I guess if folks submit a comment card, right? Do we have some comment cards?

we don't but i think it would be fine if uh you already spoke yeah just to come up and then state your name for the record before you begin okay mark sirota um i just want to follow up on a couple things that uh and need something from my phone here that a couple people talked about yeah um this has to do with the kind of uh the public process in here getting aspects of architecture into the ODS. And there were a couple opportunities. So there was this little sticky board process early on where there was these 12 images of different architecture and you got to put a smiley face, a scowling face, or a blank face on each of these pictures. Well, if you go back and look at the results, which was posted on the website that the city put together, you clearly see that there are three buildings with a lot of smiley faces. And then there was three or four buildings with a lot of scowling faces and blank faces in between. I would like to know, how did those smiley faces, which are obviously architecture that the community liked, how did that inform the ODS? That's one why, you know, because that's one, we did it for a reason, it ought to inform, somehow it should affect what's going on. The other aspect of it is along the same thoughts, is that I think, Maru, you read that it was the character statement. So, I worked in a place where you had to have traceability and technical requirements from high level requirements, you had to show traceability all the way through the design. So there are a couple key comments in there I'd like to bring up. Here's one. This means that new buildings and open spaces are in exacting conversation with the land climate history, contemporary building techniques, as well as direct neighborhood and block by block sensibilities. Now that's a comment that you can act on. you can develop requirements and standards that reflect that comment. And there are a lot of comments like that. So I would like to know, how does the character statement inform the ODS? Because if it doesn't, it's just carrying dust somewhere, and it had no meaning. There was no reason to do it. It's like, oh, I feel good about this. So it's hard, and that's what makes it tough. It's hard to take those high-level statements and drop them down to something meaningful and real. But it can be done. I guarantee you, it can be done.

Thank you.

Eric Berg, just re-commenting. The second thought on the planting thing, and I just want to commend you because I think the idea of ecological resilience is a good one. But I want to caution again against this idea that natives are going to somehow make our ecology better, right? One species that isn't on the list is the supporter of one of our largest ecological benefits or wins in Venturas, the monarch butterfly. We have eucalyptus, non-native species that support our monarch butterflies, and it's not on the list. So we'll never be able to plant that again to support butterfly habitat. That's just one example. I just want to echo that I really love the idea of ecological resilience as a formative thing. Biodiversity is a metric of that. Doesn't necessarily mean all natives, but maybe certain diversity of species, right? Another thing is if we're really concerned about ecological resilience, biodiversity of these things, New development is a hard thing to measure that. We really need to be thinking about how to preserve the existing things that are working well. Those existing trees, those existing landscapes that are working well. It's hard to have a conversation about ecological resilience in native plants on a project that comes in on a green field site that's newly developed that's destroying Habitat in the first place or ripping out a lot of trees to do it the first place So finding ways to codify the protection of existing if that is something we care about is more important than picking from a list of native plants if that's I just wanted to Echo that so thank you If there was anyone else now is your time

Hi, thank you, Scott Spencer. I just wanted to add an element that I left out, and that is when, back to the 211 Thompson project, when Livable took them to court, over numerous things that they found wrong with the approval of that property. And in fact, they won, and the building's being reduced in size. So that's huge. But that process cost that developer about two years. In that time, material costs have gone up at least 12%. labor costs have also gone up. So that entire project cost has gone up millions of dollars. I think a lot of us would like to see the city flex its muscle a little bit when we're confronted with a project like that, that on numerous levels that were brought up over meetings over a long time by a lot of people, all the problems with that project. So this is kind of about Making sure that doesn't happen again, but that developer had a real cost a loss That they're gonna have to come up with and they probably already had their loans in place and everything else so it's millions of dollars and and I Think we're just I'm trying to think of any way that the city can gain some put some teeth into these into this number system and Maybe raising minimums, I don't know if that's possible. But maybe minimum standards, maybe there could be a new minimum standard that's a little bit higher and gets us a better outcome if in fact they decide to go the absolute minimum across the board, which I'm hearing that they can totally do that.

Thank you.

Wendy Sutter, it's actually a question. We talk about color and light reflectance. Why not just a color palette?

Thank you, Vice Chair. I think that concludes public comments for that. Thank you so much.

So we will now go to our commissioners for any questions from public commenters that you'd like to clarify. I see first in the queue here is Commissioner Winninger.

Thank you Chair, Vice Chair, Acting Chair. I just have a couple questions. Mr. Jordan, I've known Mr. Jordan for a long time. He is somebody that's very well versed in Ventura landscape architecture design. Have you testified before or gone to some workshops before and have you given your suggested plant list and everything to the landscape architect team here?

No, the first time I was aware of it was the last architectural review board. So I did attend that meeting and gave some comments, Holly, on that one.

Would you be willing maybe to submit in writing some of your, I believe, Eric's suggestions about the Mello and the fire standards, which is huge. I'm sure the... Our consultant knows about those too. But I think it would be helpful to have a lot of that technical expertise and technical plant lists and those types of things that are tangible and technical. in a letter form or whatever for a suggestion.

I'd be willing to do that, Holly. I did submit a letter before the last Architectural Review Board, and I am planning on responding in more detail to the plant list, and I can also compare notes with Eric. We would like to see the tree list particularly expanded. to include a lot of the trees that do well in our climate here. And also the shrub list we'd like to see expanded to include a lot of the Mediterranean shrubs. One of the things I would like to ask Gary and his staff, the 70, 30%. I haven't been able to find any documentation, scientific reports that 75 or 70% in data gives you a really good plant community. So I'm kind of curious on how that number came about. So I'd really like to see some documentation on that also.

OK, thank you, Paul. Thank you. Thank you, Eric. Also, I was going to ask the consultant staff and our staff, was the neighborhood doing the ODS by neighborhoods, because we are very much neighborhood centric in Ventura, was that ever considered?

I can speak to that. It came up early on in the process of whether or not we should do neighborhood specific standards. And again, just to iterate, this doesn't apply to single family houses, right? We look at this in the context of duplexes or more. And in the spirit of eclecticism, At the time in that discussion, we had a public discussion about it in that to promote and support Venturos eclecticism to restrict certain standards to specific areas felt contradictory to promoting eclecticism and then creative License and and so that is why we we went with a citywide Acknowledging also that these are going to be applicable to Multifamily not single-family where we the neighborhood kind of concepts were thrown out like Pierpont It's very much single-family. There are some duplexes in Pierpont, but That's we did touch on it on the very early stage, but because wanting to support the opportunity for supporting Ventura's eclecticism and feel and creative opportunity across the city and we elected to do the citywide standards.

Okay, thank you. And then one more comment. I believe it's Mark that had a question for staff about the difference between the ministerial and the administrative. I can't remember exactly what the question was, but could he get that answered? Correct.

Let's hope I remember it. I asked if a project went through, used objective design standards, but went through the ministerial process and also the administrative process, is there any reason the outcome should be different?

The ministerial and administrative process is the same. It's synonymous. We call it staff level. We call it administrative. We call it ministerial. It's effectively process at staff, no public hearing. If I can have slide 31 brought back up, please. I believe it's 31 or 30.

I think 31 was the dark one, the dark web.

Oh, we don't want the dark web, no. We want the 30, maybe 28. It's the one where I have administrative, ministerial, director's hearing, planning commission.

So I meant director's hearing, then.

OK, so director's hearing. As it is today, any project that has five or more units has to have major design review approval. That's subject to director's hearing, regardless.

So I'll ask my question again. Let's say it went through a ministerial process, just for example, a project. And then it goes, let's say that same project, the same standards go through a director's hearing. Should the outcome be any different?

I was going to say probably not, but it also depends, is that project that goes to directors that's over five units or more, is it using state density bonus law? If it's using state density bonus law, it doesn't go through a ministerial process. It has to go to a director's hearing. Because there's waivers and concessions that have to be approved that can't be approved by staff.

So anything that's using, this is new to me, so that's why this is all very confusing. No, it's okay. If it's using state density bonus law, it has to go through a director's hearing.

Yes, as in number two. Multi-family projects, five or more, that use state density bonus law. This is our current process. Nothing that uses state density bonus law in waivers and concessions is processed administratively, also known as ministerial, also known as staff level.

except those require public hearings but except for uh bill 35 anything with if it's senate bill 35 that's 50 or more affordable we are required by the state to process it administratively got it and it it obviously could use uh it could use state density bonus as part of that okay um i guess the same question i really was is the director's hearing, is that going to be a state-bound bonus and all that's in there, I understand all of that. Is that a black and white decision based on objective design standards? Is there any subjectivity associated with that review?

With the major design component, no. There wouldn't be any subjectivity with the objective design standards itself. With state density bonus law, by way of the concessions and waivers, there are those standards that are waived or utilized to a concession. consider those as part of the project approval. And there are, within a regulatory framework, there is a limited subjectivity in that sense. But I don't know if our attorney wants to expand further on my answer here.

I mean, hypothetically, there could be test cases where, I mean, there could be, yes, there are, I guess, hypothetical fact patterns where you might theoretically reach a different result. So, I mean, to use the example you just gave, a ministerial density bonus project, a project required to be ministerially approved that contains density bonus elements under Senate Bill 35, in theory would include some review of the validity of those concessions and waivers. Sure. Denying those is a very high bar for whoever the decision maker is. So it is hypothetically possible that a decision maker at the administrative level would reach a different decision than a director might at an open hearing in theory. But that seems like it's pretty, it would be extraordinarily rare.

Okay, I just was meaning in general.

Okay, I think I got my answer. Thank you.

Thank you. I kind of wanted to know the answer myself, so thank you for that. And I'm done.

We'll go to Commissioner McCarty.

Thank you. Mr. Jordan, I have a quick question for you. We'll only take a second, probably a yes or no answer. So you submitted a letter to the Assistant Community Development Director on this subject. And within that, you proposed a paragraph that you would like to see in the city landscape standards. Yes, I did. OK. I'm making inference from the prior conversation here that you would still like to see that.

Well, I would love to see the mellow requirement enforced. We have to comply with that anyway, and you could make that a very easy standard to review, and you can also incorporate a native plant component in that. I think that would be easier for planning to review. And then if I could go on just for a second. Since all the discussions, I think the plant list could be helpful to landscape architects who aren't local residents. And a lot of the developers use landscape architects out of the state, or out of this county. So the plant list could be helpful if it's expanded as a guide.

Okay, thank you, thank you. So now Gary, I'll put the spotlight on you. And I think again, this is just kind of a follow up to the conversation that was just held. And so Mr. Jordan's proposed wording in our landscape standards, which you may or may not have already seen, goes like this. Let me just read it quickly. The approved tree and plant palette is intended to serve as a guidance document identifying preferred species for use within the city of Ventura. Alternative plant species may be approved when proposed by a licensed landscape architect and demonstrated to be appropriate for the site non-invasive climate adapted and capable of meeting all applicable requirements of the of mellow including water use efficiency irrigation performance and long-term sustainability your your reaction to that i i have no problem with that i mean i think that the uh fire safety issue is also that that the fire marshal reserves the uh

the review of the plants, but a licensed landscape architect can get a waiver from them pretty easy if they are able to cite fire safety differences in what the Ventura County list shows. And I have to say the Ventura County list is pretty restrictive compared to the other, Santa Barbara and LA. So I think something like that cited on the ODS is a good thing, yeah.

Okay, great, thank you. So one more question about the tree and plant palette. And Eric Berg brought up a point which I noted too in my review of this, and I'd like your comment on this, and that is, I'm a layman, but what I noticed was the eucalyptus trees are on the invasive tree or invasive plant list, which means they're totally off the table. So is there some conceivable way to reconcile or to start a talk about reconciling the monarch butterfly, habitats with our inability to ever plant more eucalyptus trees? Or is this a place where an exception can be made? Or do we not want to go down that path?

Well, I mean, so everybody's following the accepted standard, which is Cal IPC, invasive plant, right? That's the accepted standard, and so that's the accepted standard for all of California cities. You could say, as a body of a city, that you would make an exception to that. There's nothing magic about the invasive plant list other than it's a body of experts saying that it's invasive. you know how it how those plants are considered evasives invasives is also can be variable you know the olive tree for example it has been on the maybe invasive for years now and and they're not quite sure how it spreads or how its evasives I mean the real invasives are windblown type plants that, I mean, those are the real invasives. You know, it's one of those things that would have to be worked through, but if you are accepting as a city that you're gonna use Cal IPC as a standard, then anything on Cal IPC is, you know, you're using it as a standard, right?

Okay, good, thank you. Eric, please, if that's okay.

I just want to add that I just pulled up the Cal IPC list and there are only three species of eucalyptus currently listed. Granted, eucalyptus as a genus has gotten broken into many different varieties now, so I was only looking for just eucalyptus, but the one we commonly associate with butterfly habitat I don't believe is on the list. Oh, okay.

That may be some good news then.

And also just keep in mind, I think we're losing 30% is designers. So all these ideas that you want to add all the stuff to the list or not, you do have almost a third of the site that you can do anything within state law of putting in there. So if you want to put in more shade trees, it could be part of your 30%. So we'll talk about it more. OK.

Thank you. I do have some other questions and comments, but I'll later. Save them for later.

Mr. Ashabi?

Thank you. I wanted to ask Mark Sirota to come up with some questions. Thank you, Mr. Sirota. Let's see. I just want to say quickly what I think I heard you say. You said ODS is one way to retain some local control. Projects should reflect what the city wants to see, and that implies in given areas of the city. ODS, you also said ODS is important even in the context of density bonus law. The thing I did want to zero in on, though, is you talked about ODS categories. You said right now we're being presented with a system, a scorecard that's one size fits all. That's your comment. You mentioned different categories, so I want you to think of different categories. These are the ones you mentioned, and if you can think of any other categories we should be looking at. You said we're looking at duplex up to six story. We're looking at residential and mixed use, but now we're adding commercial, and commercial is sort of a different animal than... Okay, you talked about different areas of town, west side, east side, coastal, midtown. And you also mentioned coastal versus non-coastal. And there was a comment, not by you, but there was, Amy Cherry made some comments regarding coastal and some ideas she had in her written comments regarding view corridors. My question to you is, are there other categories or different ways we should be looking at this?

I think, and it's not the, let me go. I think the only one you didn't mention, and I wasn't necessarily pushing it, but it should be thought about, I guess maybe it was, but is style. Craftsman, Victorian, you know, Spanish Mediterranean, Those are just, you know, these are all different ways that you can focus in a set of objective design standards on. Certainly a duplex all the way up to a six-story building has, you know, a different set of, it should have a different set of requirements. And commercial versus non-commercial, likewise.

Okay, all right, thank you. I wanted to ask Bob Guthrie some questions. Bob Guthrie, can you come forward, please, to the mic? Hi, Mr. Guthrie, thank you for coming. I'll just say real quickly, you mentioned scorecard system could not be waived per the state. Housing and Community Development Department. Density bonus, you mentioned half of the standards could be waived. I'm sure that was a generality. You said we need to construct a scorecard to possibly add additional elements via amenities or some other point system that allows identified things that could be tradeoffs. If you give up this, maybe we can get it to a point system. You said something about upper story step back, subtract points. ODS, ELIMINATING BALCONIES FACING NEIGHBORS, REDUCING CEILING HEIGHTS TO EIGHT FEET, MODULATE ROOF TO ALLOW MORE LIGHT ON NEIGHBORING BUILDINGS. DO YOU HAVE ANY ADDITIONAL IDEAS THAT WOULD BE IN THAT SAME VEIN?

I'M SURE, OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD I DON'T. I TRIED TO COME UP WITH, IF I'M PRESENTING You know, here's a program I don't want to just say, you figure it out. I just wanted to show that I think there are some ideas. It's really when you negate those required elements, that is degrading the quality of the design to somebody. either to the citizens, you know, if it's a setback that's required and now it's wavered away, it's putting a building closer to the public realm. I use the example of a courtyard. A courtyard's probably not in the design, objective design standards, but it just is an example You make it smaller because you can waver it away because it being the size that it has to be by code, there's not enough space to put all your density bonus units in. So they make it smaller, but that takes away from the residents. Now, you know, the idea of a courtyard is to provide open space and, you know, to feel like you can get outside and not be enclosed by a massive building. just coming up with, okay, well, you're taking something away, and they can do that by right. It's by state law. What can we give or what can we ask for in exchange? And so you have this menu of things that would serve some benefit to the residents, which lost something in the smaller courtyard. Or in the other example that I used, and, you know, that was the single-family homes behind the Thompson apartment. I mean, they... That building's just terrible for them. And the developer was just not agreeable to really doing anything for them. So I came up with that list in five minutes of things that I thought would make that building better for the single family residences that are right next to them.

OK, thank you. I did want to ask staff. Maruja and Mr. De La Vega, how would the state law view looking at constructing an ODS that would take some of these ideas and is that something that could be helpful or is that something that would be prohibited by state law?

I don't think I heard anything that would be prohibited by state law. I do want to clarify. whatever if there any type of point system would in order to be imposed at all on any project would have to be an objective development standard itself otherwise we cannot mandate it period end of conversation if it is an objective development standard it is subject to being removed or reduced by means of a waiver or concession whatever that looks like so the point total itself is almost certainly could be treated as something that's waivable or reducible by a waiver or concession. Which is not to say that there isn't some value in creating a point system that provides incentives for going above and beyond or something to that effect. I think a point system has a lot of merit in any number of contexts. I think it's probably not as useful a tool as people might want it to be to circumvent the density bonus law.

Okay. I think also, sorry, if I might just chime in, Commissioner Abbey. know pulling a bit back you know these are aesthetic standards right their window recessment their roof pitch their modulation they're very much aesthetic in nature what we're seeing with state density bonus law are waivers and concessions from parking from height from setbacks you know primarily within the zoning standard requirements the development standards so i kind of just wanted to add that into conversation and that it would be ideal I think if a developer just said screw all your you know objective design standards I'm doing whatever I want it would be a very you know hard process for them to go through it ultimately be appealed to council for them to have you know zero attempt at meeting you know the intent behind or meeting any of our objective design standards so I just wanted to help This distinguishes the frosting on the cake, if you will, the sprinkles on it. Really what we're seeing with state density bonus law are primarily height waiver or height concessions, parking, setbacks, stuff like that that's built into the zoning regulations itself.

A couple more comments. As I think I've mentioned a couple of times now, I think a developer would have a very hard time arguing in good faith that they're entitled to a waiver of an entire menu of design standard options, as a waiver, because those require some evidence that they're, excuse me, they're supposed to be supported by the notion that they are physically necessary for construction of the building. Waiving all of those seems like a hard thing to demonstrate. By contrast, concessions could absolutely be done to do that, but concessions are limited. You only get a couple of them. Sometimes you only get one. That's a precious commodity for a developer. It strikes me as implausible that they're going to waste their concessions on not wanting to pick from a menu of options as to what their windows are supposed to look like or what have you.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Well, I think that's it for our .

Thank you. As a follow on to Mr. Guthrie's comments about the scorecard and implementation of the point system, I'd like to ask the JKA team if you have any initial gut reactions Two, the proposal of weighing the required elements very heavily instead of setting them at zero. And for the reasons I think well articulated, the reasons behind perhaps making that change. Your reactions right now?

I thought it was a really interesting comment. I've already talked to Maruha during the break about it. We have to step back, take a deep breath, and try to recalibrate exactly what we're trying to accomplish here to a certain extent. It doesn't necessarily mean that we're gonna radically change what's in front of us, but I do think that Mr. De La Vega's comments are extremely important in terms of the way he just presented how a point system works. And we sort of have to work through that in terms of trying to imagine how people will either use them or take advantage of them in relationship to this process that we're talking about. Because if we're talking about streamlining, which is one of the intents here, then the point system creates, there is an incentive to use the point system as presented because you get through the process. If we're talking about a project that is somehow going through some other type of administrative review or director's review or other type of review process where the developer is, for whatever reasons, wanting to be aggressive about waivers and incentives or concessions, I will admit I am just as Flummoxed in some ways trying to absorb really rapidly. What's the best way but I did like mr. Guthrie's Comments about reversing the logic because it does add an additional layer of flexibility Notwithstanding that it doesn't necessarily achieve exactly what I think the intent of the comments was because it's still subject to some of these other issues, but I think as I said to Maruha during the break, I think we should at least I think it through hard, because that's a very interesting concept.

Good, that's good to hear. In my mind, I'm envisioning perhaps a meeting between your team and Mr. Guthrie to flesh things out, if that is workable. I don't have any more questions. When the time comes, I'll have some recommendations as feedback.

Perfect, thank you. So we'll go in a second to comment, discussion, and feedback, but first I wanted to give the opportunity for staff if there's anything else you wanted to add to address any of the questions or comments made here today.

Do we need to close the public hearing before I do that, Derek, or no? Sorry, Mr. Burke. I think you could leave it open. Okay, cool. Just some comments I heard that I just wanted to respond to for the benefit of the commission and the public. I was able to clarify Mr. Sirota's questions about ministerial versus hearing and that, so that was taken care of. Looking at the objective standards within our downtown specific plan, for example, We're not, and it's for the benefit of the public, we're not doing anything to the specific plan. That's a public process, that's separate. If we touch it, if we revise it, if we do anything to it, that's a whole public process. What staff is doing with all our form-based codes is extrapolating all of those objective requirements that shall be met within it to basically take that set and ensure that they correlate with the objective design standards so that staff knows exactly what we're processing when we have projects in those form-based code areas. The intent and part of JKA's diligence and research over the past year and a half is to ensure that if you meet those shall objective standards of those form-based codes, that you will more than likely be meeting the objective design standards that we're working on today. But if and when one conflicts the specific plan objective standard reigns we are actively looking and practicing internally projects that have been approved as test cases internally i mean that's not beyond us of needing to make sure that our staff is utilizing them and able to work with the 211 project, the Thompson Core project, and other projects to see and help us test it and feedback from the actual users and application of these on real projects to provide feedback. I talked with three of them today that are already within that process. there was great comments about historic, and I wanted to point in our general plan, in our historic element, we actually have a historic preservation element, or ordinance requirement, we also have historic objective design standards pertaining to historic districts and landmarks and areas that will be part of a future zone code update. So not to say that we can't consider that in context of what we're doing here, but there is a subsequent effort that is required by the general plan to look at that and have those as deliverables. We have a historic element of our general plan, which is an optional element. It's very important to the city, even with the refinement of HPC's purview, that we're still adhering to those actions. Thirdly, or maybe fifthly, I'm not sure at this point, everything is a living, breathing document within our city. And of course we will have test trial runs, potential for interpretations within that trial run, to then come back and revisit any refinements to the standards. So it's not set it and forget it. It will be continually a working document that we plan to revisit annually every other year, really at the discretion of once we come to adoption with you guys and the city council of what we feel is a safe incremental look at those standards. So just hope that helps guide conversation, thank you.

I guess, yeah, I guess the public hearing's still open. If you can make it quick, though.

I think my answer that I was asking before is actually on the third bullet, which is multifamily projects five plus meets ODS with minor variances. Presumably, if that was a ministerial review, no variances would be allowed. Where in this case, there's a level of subjectivity in a directives hearing that isn't in the ministerial process, and that's what I was asking.

Correct the minor variance requires a discretionary approval. Yeah.

Great, thank you. Well, with that, I think we'll close the public comment and move to commissioner deliberation. So commissioners, the recommendation before us tonight is provide feedback on the draft objective design standards. And because this is a workshop and feedback item, we're not being asked to adopt standards or take a vote tonight. So I'd like to give each commissioner opportunity to provide comments or recommendations to the staff, and they'll take it on to the next step. If folks want to join the queue here, we'll just go one by one. And I see some people have already jumped in there. So we'll go first to Commissioner Winninger.

Really quick, Vice Chair Zucker. I mean, it would be, while a formal motion isn't required with the receiving file item, we would appreciate if some thumbs up can be given across the board so we know that everybody's on the same page with the direction of where we're going. That would be appreciated.

I'm sorry.

For me, I think if we go person by person and then just look at these, if you don't have something to say about every bullet point, I think that's OK. Give your comments. And then I think we can also go back. I mean, this doesn't have to be your last comment. If somebody else, if Commissioner Abbey says something you really agree with and you want to say, I also support that and want to come back, that's fine.

I appreciate that. I do want to remind everybody, too, it is kind of a workshop. I mean, I know we're on the dais here, but it is a workshop. We're still working this through. So I don't think this is a hard and fast, you know, this, this, this, or what we, you know, want or not want. I did want to say that I always think it's funny with objective design standards because they're kind of subjective and so it's kind of ironic. But with my developer's hat or my planner hat, I really like, again, should we retain the scorecard system? I really like that system because I've actually ran into this problem in Agoura Hills one day and we couldn't put the air conditioners where we were supposed to do because of the objective design standards were so rigid. And we had to use a concession or waiver. I don't know what we used to put in the air conditioning unit. So it was so rigid and, you know, it didn't allow us to do anything else but, you know, ask for a concession or waiver. So but as a in my planning commissioners had, I'm just not settled with the fact that this that I feel like the ranking system is a little left to the discretion of staff and the development team. And so I'm just not really understanding that per se, but I do think one size does not fit all. And so the scorecard system allows for that flexibility, especially as Miro has said, we're gonna be using this In all these different neighborhoods, and so I think that because of one size does not fit all the scorecard system works The other thing is is that I don't really I did like Bob Guthrie's idea about additional standards of I know it's I know open space and size of balconies and patios are a standard for the city of Ventura for multi-family dwelling. But I'm just wondering, that is kind of a design, an open space element or a park element within a multi-family or even a mixed-use development. So it is kind of interesting if we added it to the ODS. So, the other thing is that I would like, I did like the idea about the testing as well, but it sounds like you already are doing that. But I would like to see a couple of commercial projects that we just did, like the CMH. office building and maybe that corner office building that we did on that very tiny lot by Baskin Robbins. I would like to see how it plays out for those couple of commercial projects. And I think everything else has been pretty much flushed out, so I will move on. Thank you.

Commissioner McCarty.

Thank you. The staff recommendation on this project is to provide feedback on the draft ODS. So the comments that follow are gonna be my feedback. On one of the very early slides we were presented tonight, It listed that 113 total comments have been received to date and 14 public comment letters as of August 7th. What has been very, very effective in previous endeavors I've been involved with, such as the General Plan Advisory Committee and review of extensive environmental impact reports, is when the time is taken to actually take every single one of those comments and address them specifically. So actually write down an answer to each of those comments. And that has informed the committees, the public, the overall planning process very, very well. Now I don't know if we have the budget or the time to do that, to address every one of these individually. And if we don't, Here's my recommendation. There are some public comments, public inputs in particular, which I think deserve to be looked at very closely. One of them is Albert Antleman's letter online to the Planning Commission. He's a member of the DRC and he has some excellent points about individual point values on the scorecard and calibration and testing of those point values. Please take a look at Albert Antleman's letter. There was a letter submitted by Livable Ventura on objective design standards. It was an analysis, a consolidated analysis of the August Design Review Committee meeting, which enumerates a good number of issues and questions which I think deserve to be looked at individually, every single one of them. So that would be the second document I think deserves an informed response. And the third is we received input from Eric Berg, a nice comprehensive document on comments on many, many parts of the draft ODS. That's another document which I think deserves to be looked at on a line-by-line basis. to consider each of those recommendations from Eric Berg's letter. And if that can be done, if what I've listed can be done, I think that will inform a good number of these questions that you're looking for specific answers for. So those are my recommendations. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Lagerquist?

Thank you, Vice Chair. I apologize, I'm gonna actually start mine with a couple questions I didn't wanna ask them during the public comment period, so I have a couple more questions. I did want the contractor to respond to Mark's question regarding the smiley faces and how that informed, if you could speak to that really quick, how that informed your decisions.

Well, that was done at the very first workshop And it was a way of, if you will, breaking the ice and trying to get what people were thinking. I think there were some people who looked at those, I mean, the way we looked at it was that we clearly saw that there were certain buildings that were like, that had traditional elements and things of that sort, but we counterbalanced that with other types of comments that we heard that we got through other types of forums. And so it's a little bit of a challenge because I do think that in terms of the people who came to that workshop and put those things on, they, they, we kind of knew they would go towards buildings that were a little bit more traditional, but at the same time, people were telling us, and some of the same people who were putting those happy faces on were saying, well, we really think this is an eclectic place. You should like think about beach character. And, and so, I mean, I guess what I would say is we're trying to get to the essence of the human scale elements, if you will, that make up those types of buildings. And so we've been concentrating on things like modulation, storefront character, details that are represented in those buildings without necessarily saying do it that way. He also mentioned one other thing. What was the character statement?

Right. That was going to be my next question, actually.

Well, we wrote the character statement. So, you know, if somebody says, well, you didn't get that all the way in here yet, that's a fair comment. I think the character statement for us is kind of a north star. It's not necessarily something that we're trying to be able to point line by line and say, well, we did this, we did this, we did this. I do think that while we obviously have to go back and think about some of the landscape stuff based upon the comments we're getting, that part of the reason we wanted to have the landscape architect in here was because so much of the commentary that we got really was what I would describe as environmental design that had to do with the way this land is set up. And we felt that if we just concentrated on the buildings, we were gonna be missing an essential aspect of Ventura character. And I'm not sure how we're gonna reconcile that versus some of the comments, but it's something that's important. And I would still say that the character statement is a useful reminder of what we should be trying to strive towards We'll certainly go back and reread it again and see whether we can get closer. But we were very, how do I put this? We take very seriously the idea of Ventura character and the context that's here and this system of commenting that we're getting. And we look forward to trying to keep pumping this thing full of those things.

OK, thank you. I want to shift to the landscape architecture and the planting plan. So there were a lot of different ideas thrown out how to make it better. I think one that stands out as a recommendation to the city as you guys move forward is definitely expand that the allowed list. And maybe is it possible to add a non-native list that works with the environment here that could be utilized but then would be acceptable and that we can trust is still beneficial to the community and we're not gonna get into any unforeseen consequences, right? Because that's what we're trying to avoid. So that would be something to potentially look at as a non-native list as well, but definitely agree with everybody that an expanded list. I wanted to ask you, do you have an answer to the 70-30 ratio?

Yes, several different articles have come up. One from the American Society of Landscape Architects, Jody Cook is a landscape architect, was talking about the 7-30 split in an article on the ASLA website. There's an article in several universities currently that talk about how if you get below 30% of non-native species, you start to mess with the food web. So you're not really creating that ecosystem. So while it's not a set number, it's like you're trying to get as many natives as you can because remember the goal, the overall goal was that we're trying to get more ecosystem into the urban environment, right? If you start talking about not doing that, then you're not really achieving the goal, which is fine. we just need to refine what the goal is, right? There's a difference between a landscape that do well, and like I said, here in California, we have lots of landscapes that do well, and an ecosystem and a habitat. There's a difference between those two things. And what I heard from the comments and what I continue to hear is that they're, okay, we can add all sorts of stuff that would be great here from an aesthetic, and possibly a resiliency point of view, but it's not gonna meet that goal of getting ecosystem in the landscape. So it depends on what the city's goals are. What was conveyed to me was trying to get that human biodiversity and ecosystem back into the environment to make the citizens of Mature Earth more healthy. That's what was conveyed to me, and that's where we started from.

That's really helpful, thank you. So my comments around that are, I would hesitate to reduce or change the 70-30. I agree with those statements, but maybe the city's goal does need to be redefined. But I think what's being unsaid, and I could be wrong, so I apologize, but I think what's being unsaid is that if we don't protect that then then while while we clearly have really good landscape architects in the room right now and and do care about their work and are going to make good decisions that doesn't mean all of them are and we have developers who are cutting corners and trying to save costs on every segment that they can and so that's what these standards are for to prevent you know, a developer from cutting costs at the sacrifice of our community. And so I think if we can, you know, maintain that 70 30 and keep talking about it and see if we can make that work, I think that would be beneficial. But again, you know, maybe going through having additional input on a longer native list and potentially adding a non-native list. I'm happy to hear other comments, you know, see if we can make that work. So those are my comments on the planting plan. Thank you for that very much. I was interested in creating the neighborhood specific ODSs and I really appreciate Maruja's comments on that and why they didn't go that direction and I kind of want to agree with you on that. between the overlays and the zoning code and everything that controls it enough that these standards can apply citywide, making it a little simpler. Because I was leaning towards, wow, that would be a really good idea, but then, well, yeah, we do have some... differences in character throughout the city, but clearly the massing is not going to apply to the smaller residential buildings and things like that, or commercial buildings. would welcome additional comment on that as well, but I definitely can understand why the city chose the path that they did as far as having a citywide ODS. I wanted to ask, oh yeah, you're being hidden. So the state law, does it or does it not talk about scoring in the state law? And if you don't know, it does not.

It does not talk about scoring.

OK, so it doesn't it doesn't speak to if you have a scoring system, this is how you handle it. No. With state law.

No.

OK, so we're is are we assuming like what? What are you basing the fact that they could come in and use waivers to to like what?

How does that what the state? Well, you're talking specifically about the density bonus law mostly, I think. Well, back up for a second. We'll start with the Housing Accountability Act. The Housing Accountability Act says that we cannot Condition the development of any housing projects on anything other than an objective development standard so for any standard to apply be it a Specific design standard or a point system or anything like that It would have to be an objective development standard or we cannot apply it at all the state density bonus law says that anybody who meets the requirements of the density bonus law which is literally any housing project in the city of over five units because they all have to comply with our affordability requirements, is entitled to a waiver or concession of any objective development standard. So it's just the logic of it. Okay. If you want, could somebody pull up one of the slides where there's a sublist of a menu of options? Like, I don't know, pick one of the ones where there's like a topic and you can do X, Y, or Z and they're worth such and such points. And I can walk you through how I would think this would work in the context of it. Yeah. No, something where there's not one of the mandatory ones. With the scoring. Yeah. Yeah. So perfect, so here's how I expect this would work if I were applying for a project like this under the density bonus law. So you've got a list of, you've got a menu of options. If you like some of those options, you know you're supposed to get to a point total of six. So you're not gonna seek a waiver for building wall materials if you have other options on that list to replace those three points. Where you would seek a waiver or concession is if you're not gonna hit the point total. And so then you would seek a concession not to the specific standards, because that's a menu of options. You would seek a waiver to the point total. That's how I suspect that would end up working. To be clear, this is not something that I think has been addressed by any case. I'm basing this off of the plain language of the Housing Accountability Act and the Density Bonus Law.

OK, that's really helpful. I guess my recommendation would be that we I think the city probably needs to figure out how we're going to handle it. Like, you know, let's have those discussions up front. Let's ask city council how they're going to stand by these these standards. And but but, you know, like How are we going to deal with that if they request a concession on the points? What does that look like? And I think having that before we approve all of those would really help definitely me and the public feel a little more confident. What I'm hearing from the public is the standards are... We're still trying to grasp for a little bit of control in a state that has removed the majority of our control. Again, I'm pro-housing, I'm not saying I'm not, but we still want to have some control of what they look like and continue to build the character of our town. Just trying to answer, and I know we can't do them all, we're not going to be able to figure out every scenario and so forth, but just having those discussions beforehand, before those standards are finalized, I think would be really, really helpful.

Just one more on the same topic. The very fact of making objective design standards makes them far more enforceable by the city than they would be otherwise, because we literally can't enforce something that's subjective. We can at least attempt to enforce something that is objective.

agreed but but what we are hearing as a commission on every project when we don't like something is the city's not going to be willing because the onus is on them which we understand so where is that line or it's it's still going to be on the city right to to fight and so is the city council going to be willing you know you know can we provide an example where they would be willing to be like no we're going to stand up to this or do they or do they feel comfortable enough with that just those kinds of discussions

can i can i sure since we're kind of um the way i see it um is i see a developer coming in and saying they want to get they want a waiver or concession for the traditional setback or the shop front design or the building breaks or the building wall link and since they have to use that waiver or concession they're going to have to meet that the total of six because they're not going to be able to use their waivers and concessions on these other things because they've already used them on the building breaks and the traditional stuff back and all that so i see this as a kind of almost better that we're using these you know they have to come they have to do the building wall materials and the balconies and the facade colors because they have to do that because they want the waivers on the other things because those are the required elements

Well, that's the thing. I mean, so there is an opportunity for a developer to come in and say, Nope, I'm not doing it. And that's just what I'm getting at. I just I just want the city to have these conversations and so that the public and the commission can understand, you know, where that line is, you know, because And I'm definitely not saying that these standards are not worthwhile. I'm 100% for them. I'm so happy they finally made it to us. And I think the processes have been great. But I just think these are hard conversations that we need to have. I think my last comment, so thank you for your time, is the only design standard that stands out to me right now that's scored low is massing. Every project we get that is a sizable building, we get massing comments. And so that, I think, needs to be a much higher score. And those are my comments. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Abbey? Thank you.

All right, this is gonna be a little scatter shot. So I'll just kind of piece different notes I have. 380 foot building length. It's just on the face of it seems way too big, so I would shoot for something more like 150, 160 feet. That's just, I know that's not in context, but that was one of the things that was in there. Okay, let's see. I would definitely reiterate what Commissioner Lagerquist said in her comment just before her final comment. I strongly agree with that. Let's retain as much local control as we can and fight for that. But still, we want to build housing. That's definitely the goal here, and we want to build it. But we care, and a number of comments from citizens have said, we care what the product looks like. So can we do both? Can we have more housing and care about what the product looks like? Let's see. Facade colors, light effective value. I'm not convinced about the standard of 6.5. I saw the examples. It's hard to interpret that. I know that these have to be objective design standards. This is a rhetorical question. You don't have to answer it. My rhetorical question is, are there other factors or ways of getting at that? Or if we're limited to just light effective value, could the consulting team put together what a palette of 6.5 colors might look like samples? What would 7, 7.5, 8? You figure out the continuum. I don't know with the high end. Is it 10? I don't know. Figure out something that gives us a look. as we look at colors, some way to kind of get our handle around that. There were some lighting questions about up lighting, down lighting, and so forth. One comment that comes through repeatedly at Planning Commission is, are these buildings lit in compliance with dark sky? Are they dark sky compliant? So the question is, can that be specifically stated? If so, great. If not, why not? What's the difference between what's already in there versus dark sky compliance? Let's see. Getting at that issue of setbacks and so forth, I won't beat it to death. One comment was, could we modulate the roof to allow more light on neighboring buildings? So could an objective design standard be regarding light on adjacent buildings, or time of day, or how many hours would the shadows be, or if it's a north building, I'll leave that comment there. I'm sorry I didn't flesh that out, but let's see. One question I had was, the question here was, are there any additional standards that should be added? So my question is, is one card scorecard sufficient? Or could we have a basic scorecard that is relevant to all sections of town, but in relation to specific points, like a historical area downtown. Those would be seen, there could be additional questions on specific items in specific parts of town. Let's see. one comment that there was should there be a distinction between coastal and non-coastal and having additional building breaks and view corridors those were comments from amy sherry that i thought were very interesting so i'll mention those Make an ODS that doesn't ignore that historic significance of the surrounding area. Marianne Beverer talked about add light reflective color chart. Let's see. Carol Spector, it's about the character, but I don't see it in the draft. different neighborhoods need different ODS standards regarding character. So are there certain neighborhoods in town that stick out that are obvious, like this is an area of town where maybe there should be these two or three or four additional items that would go on the scorecard, but the rest of it would be citywide standards. Let's see. There was a question from Wendy Sautter, why not just a color palette? Well, I know that's limiting, but that's an interesting thing to consider in regards to objective design standards. That would be very objective. You could have many different samples. Let's see. Okay. I agree with Commissioner McCarty, Albert Edelman's letter had individual points that I thought were worth the team looking at. More livable Ventura letter, Commissioner McCarty mentioned that, their response to the DRC meeting of August, early August. Massing comments? Yeah, that's a big one. So if there's any massing-related issues, flesh out some more questions in regard to that, because that's always a big one, as she mentioned, at the Planning Commission. That's what I have for now. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Commissioners. I'll jump in here with my thoughts. I think, like Commissioner Whittinger, I was struck by, you know, can design ever be objective? You know, there's something kind of inherently subjective about it. It's like having objective fashion standards. You know, it's I don't know, values change over time, tastes change over time, you know, but, you know, ultimately as it gets there, we can change policy, we can change our objective design standards over time, but it is why I'm concerned, it's a little soapbox, but why I'm concerned about the DRC's elimination, you know, I think that provides a venue for the inherent subjectivity of design and being able to kind of think about each thing on a case-by-case basis. I see the way that this is kind of aimed at creating something concrete where the DRC maybe has very little in this day and age hard power, but I think there's a lot of soft power in the DRC where I'm often surprised by how much developers are willing to take their suggestions and say, OK, I'm OK with whatever the aesthetic is. You tell me. And I think we're losing that. Here but but this is this is the direction. We're going in this direction. We've got from council You know and I think the objective design standards will will at least do do something we can to you know have some some level of local local control over You know where we go. I do think it's important in this to not be too prescriptive and objective design standards because I think If you are, you get the exact thing that we're trying to avoid, which is cookie cutter, every single building looks the same. If you've got 1,000 objective design standards, then it actually forces more sameness, which is not what we want. But I really like the scorecard approach because I think it takes a bunch of shoulds in our... I mean, I always think when you have shoulds in your code, it's kind of like ends up being a little bit of filler. They're not very enforceable. It's nice language, but there's not that much you can do with it. And I think the scorecard is a really smart way to take those shoulds and make them real and enforceable. Okay, well, there's a lot of shoulds. You've got to at least do... half of the shoulds in order to kind of qualify. And so I think that's smart under the state law environment that we're working under. So I'll go into a few specific things. Color. I'm personally someone who likes dark colors. I probably have the lowest LRV here of our planning commissioners. So I could do without that limitation, but I think 6.5 seems fine. I see the climate and heat resilience reasons for wanting a lighter color palette. I don't like having a specific set of prescriptive color palettes because I I think that gets us like Santa Barbara or Santa Fe look. I think those cities are beautiful, but it's not Ventura and it's not the direction that we've decided to go in terms of being eclectic. On the note of eclectic, I do think the public comment has raised a lot of really good points about kind of tailoring it to the neighborhood. And I think part of what makes Ventura feel eclectic is the city has grown very gradually over a very long time. And so you have neighborhoods that were built in the Victorian era. You have neighborhoods that were built in the 20s and have the Craftsman and Mission Revival. You've got your mid-century modern, and you've got your super modern neighborhoods, unlike, say, Santa Barbara, where so much of it was built in the 20s, or Oxnard, where so much of it was built in the 50s and 60s. That, to me, is actually what makes Ventura feel eclectic, is that kind of different, each neighborhood feels different architecturally. And I think that's really important to reflect here. And I agree that a lot of what folks have said, that a lot of the criteria in the ODS feels like they could kind of be applied to any city and aren't necessarily Ventura-specific. And so I like the idea of maybe having these kind of overall ODS score and then maybe having another score that's kind of neighborhood specific, where each neighborhood might have a thing. And I get why that's hard. I mean, it's hard to like objectively say this building is Mission Revival, right? Is the objective standard that it has to have red tile roofs? I don't know, right? But I think people smarter than me can probably figure that out of how to score something of does this fit into the mid-century modern character of Midtown? And you've got to get a certain number of points that kind of make that happen. I would leave the... I would leave the details to the consultants or staff with some good input from the public, but I think there's some really good direction here that I hear strongly coming from the community, and I think I really agree with on that, and I think that will make this meet the intent of, I think, what folks were hoping to see from these subjective design standards. I'm glad to hear that the city has been doing that testing. I think a public commenter raised a really good point of you don't need to wait six to nine months to do testing. We can just test these standards based on the projects that have already come to us in the last year or two. And so that's really great. And I think I would love to see at maybe the next public workshop for you know, the staff or consultants to say, here's like five to 10 case studies that we tested, here's where they ranked, here's what it looked like, right? And I think that the public would really like that to be very interactive and very transparent and helpful. And then, yeah, last on trees, yeah, I agree with Commissioner Lagerquist both around expanding the tree list but keeping it at the 70% threshold. I think that's a good balance of making sure that we're kind of hitting the intent of, you know, we are trying to, I mean, 30% is a fair amount of flexibility there, you know, and we are trying to kind of get at least the bulk of landscaping to be, you know, fitting with, with you know our our native plants our local you know ecosystem um but yeah if if we're hearing significant folks from the landscape architect community saying this is too restrictive i think you know expanding that list a little bit working with some of the folks who are giving public comment to you know get some more things on there i would say especially the the shade trees comment i think made a lot of sense if there's only three types of shade trees you can do in the high fire zone that's that's probably the place i would i would most focus So I like the idea of just making the non-invasive piece of that explicit, like just put that straight in there. That's all my comments for now. And I see Commissioner Winninger is back in the queue.

Sorry about that. Just one more thing. A couple of things. I do want to say I do echo what Commissioner Zucker echoed Commissioner Abbey's suggestion that a neighborhood character ODS scaling scale whatever these are called, the scaling system, I think would be really great to have a neighborhood scale. And again, it's gonna be subjective. It's not gonna be really objective, but I think with the developer and the staff working through it, I think there could be a point system there. And then Maria went through the mission statement really fast, but I do remember when we were talking about, we had a similar workshop about the Golden China site. And we talked a lot about how we wanted to make it coastal. We wanted, you know, we wanted like coastal type buildings, you know, more on the wider side, maybe some blue in there type of thing. And I don't think, we don't need to talk about pallets and stuff, but I would like to see something like that in the mission statement. not just the Pacific Ocean, but there are a lot of coastal type architecture and what that looks like. But I think they accomplished a lot of that down by Vons, the new development by Vons and the harbor. harbor and harbor and seaward so I mean I just would like a sentence in there if we could putting that in there and also I just wanted to echo mr. Jordan's suggestion that Commissioner McCarty suggested in his letter doing that a little bit of a, he suggested that the, has a little bit of flexibility with the licensed landscape architect. Thank you.

Okay, so I have a list, a bulleted list that I wanted to go through and just get some concurrence, but I think the biggest one up front and wanting to look at the citywide objective design standards and wanting to, again, and I know this is kind of going into a philosophical world, right? How do we promote the eclecticism while still acknowledging the neighborhood context of specific areas? So I've heard citywide objective design standards is great because it allows opportunity to not only fit into the context of the neighborhood, but to allow creative license for an individual, a new property owner that may have a new vision for that property. So I've heard support for citywide compared to a neighborhood specific ODS, but then perhaps there is an additional by eric carve out for certain parts of town so those to me are kind of conflicting with each other so i want to kind of tease that out more a bit um and so i'm just going to pin that because i feel like there's some other ones that we can all just cool yeah thumbs up right there's support for the scorecard yes Great. Is that it? Okay, so there's overall support for the scorecard. Okay. Support for 70-30 landscaping, but exploring and expanding that list of options. Okay. Support for the reflective light value of 6.5, but let's see some more samples of what 7.5 looks like, of what 8 looks like. Yeah, we can provide samples.

Are you concerned about neon green?

For me, 6.5 is way too low. too many dark, dark colors. I'm on the light side of the spectrum.

So I think what we can do is overall support for the concept of looking at a reflective light value, but exploring the 6.5 threshold and what that looks like.

If we want a beachy, coastal look, 6.5 in my humble opinion is way too low.

Understood, but we also want to build in flexibility for people that may not want a beachy coastal look too. So I want to be able to provide enough breath, right, but then right yeah so i'll tell you okay so we're support for the scorecard support for the landscaping with the additional species support for the concept of looking at a reflective light value sitting with 6.5 but looking at what higher numbers provide yes yes yes Support for the concept of a reflective light value, but look at not only 6.5, but higher numbers to see what that looks like.

Okay, so that is support for reflective values rather than a color palette. Correct.

Okay, thank you. Incorporate a range of building block size requirements. We talked about the 300 feet, which is our standard downtown, but see how that plays out with smaller blocks in the city. Okay, dark sky compliant, okay. Modulation of roofs to consider light on adjacent buildings. So looking at modulation of roofs to prevent casting shade on adjacent buildings that are of lower height.

Are there any, it seems like there was maybe, are there any like legal concerns from staff around that being not a objective design standard or is that okay? So say the last, what was it?

Modulation of roof. So it's not necessarily like adjusting the height itself. It's just like, if I'm at X height, am I affecting the roof line or setting back from that facade to prevent shading onto an adjacent single family residence? So the comment, and we don't have to keep it. The comment was just explore modulation of roofs to consider light and shade on adjacent buildings. okay and to answer your question i think that could be articulated in a way that's sufficiently objective um explore distinction between coastal and non-coastal in light of the vision statement uh you don't want to consider coastal non-coastal okay So someone had mentioned Amy Cherry.

You're saying in light of the mission statement. You're not saying change the mission statement, right? I guess that maybe I would say shouldn't this just be part of the broader maybe conversation around neighborhood tailoring, like that coastal neighborhoods like Pierpont might have their own kind of neighborhood standard?

So maybe just revisit mission statement. Revisit the vision. Revisit the vision statement.

But that doesn't broaden it. That narrows it.

Yeah, and I thought the vision statement was great. I think it's just, is it being implemented in the ODS is the question. But I thought the vision statement was beautifully written, and it didn't seem like anyone had any problems with it. We might have passed this question.

Commissioner, is your mic on?

I don't want to say it again. So how about...

I'm fine with whatever the commission wants to do.

Okay, so we'll revisit that with that first statement.

So if we were to add that statement, then we would have to define coastal.

right what is it what is a coastal look so how about we just pin this the team will look at i think we're feeling you know the feedback of an acknowledging public comment we've received is how how should these objective standards be potentially different or or cognizant of in the coastal area okay

Well, are we still, I mean, I'm confused now. Are we still talking about the mission statement?

No, I think everybody's supportive of the mission statement. I think just to kind of get where Commissioner Winninger was going is.

But wouldn't that be part of the conversation that we're saving for last?

Yes.

Ultimately, so so we can just tailor that for right now. Okay.

So we'll just strike that. Okay. Acknowledging historic area where applicable. But again, for the record, we are looking at that within our larger code update. Revisit the massing scoring. That was a question of concern about.

Yeah, I'm a little confused on that. So looking at this, It makes sense to me that they're zero. So if someone could explain to me why we would want to make them max scoring.

I thought that was your suggestion, to increase the .

No, no, no.

Oh, oh, oh. Sorry. Yes. OK.

I was confused.

Clearly, I was confused.

Right now, it's required, which is kind of the highest score. It doesn't even have a score because it's required, right? Isn't that as high as it can get?

It's a requirement to have the breaks.

So my comment was specific to all. I mean, there's more than one ODS in there that could be related to massing. So I just want to make sure all of the massing is scored. And again, the zero versus a high score, I'm still a little confused because I think if we change the zero, then of course we're going to have to up the overall score that's going to be required for that section, right? we're looking into it for sure yeah okay so that is so regardless that's the intent is explore how massing is scored in general within the ods right and then then the follow-on comment is just to make sure that all of the ods's that have any sort of relationship to massing are considered for whatever that highest score is

Okay. And then there was comments regarding letter public comment letters. If we can provide a response, if time budget available, if not looking at the livable letter, Eric Berg's letter and Al Edelman's point system comment.

Is that responding to every single one of the 150 or whatever public comments?

It's going to be a lift to do each comment. We can definitely do broad brush responses to general themes we have heard in our comments because there are themes. But we can definitely give a more focused look at the specifics within those three letters.

Yeah, I would be supportive of responding to the letters, but I think responding to every single comment online might be overdoing it for my personal vote.

Okay, support, okay, thank you. Now this next one primarily sits with zoning and development standards, but explore opportunities for increased open space area in general within the objective design standards lens, okay. And then this is commercial project testing was another one, looking at commercial standards and testing commercial projects. The Cartwright site was mentioned. And then reviewing, this is an internal one for staff to kind of review the level of enforceability, applicability of ODS within the context of state density bonus law. We're already talking about reaching out to HCD to figure out how in that realm is the best path forward to retain some form of local control with how buildings look is what was verbatimly said. So those are about 10 or 12 ones that we can concur on. Going back to the original support. I would love to have feedback on the other ones too but I want to honor the discussions and then we can go to those other questions so there was support for citywide ODS compared to neighborhood specific neighborhoods sorry neighborhood specific standards the intent behind objective two standards is to help well yes garner some local control but to expedite housing And if we're gonna be doing multiple layers upon layers based on neighborhoods, it's going to potentially could add some confusion, arduous process, and might defeat, in a way, the intent behind wanting these standards. I think there's also an interesting dialogue of how do we promote eclecticism citywide and creative license and opportunity and revisioning and property redevelopment opportunities while also balancing the local feel of different areas. And I get that. And it's a sticky wicket, right? um we did go through this earlier on we did land on citywide we felt that meant the intent behind the the task ahead of us i mean it is again rooted in housing element projects or housing element programs for affordable housing trying to make it easy for projects to go through the process i'm concerned about having additional layers and how are then these areas confirmed you know you know it almost opens pandora's box of what specific areas then are we looking at and who determines those areas and and so then it kind of brings us back to a full full circle where we didn't do neighborhoods because of that um so just sharing my thoughts candidly appreciate you listening um oh sorry

Commissioner Lobb-Quist, go for it.

Thanks. This is an honest question. Please don't take offense to this question. When the meetings originated, when we started the meetings, when the city started the meetings with the public, were the ODSs presented as, was it made clear to the public that these were to actually make the approval process easier.

Yes. Okay. In the realm that we have so many regulating documents, we have 1997 design guidelines, the reform based codes, we have 2002 standards that they're almost on top of each other and some conflict with each other. This is a way to tease out and extrapolate common themes throughout all these documents as iterated by Ms. Bott. to help take out those themes that we've seen through all these other documents that have had public process, that have been in effect for some time, take those nuggets, if you will, synthesize them down to a document to help not only support that vision, expand upon that vision as it is today, but help eliminate that kerfuffle of all these documents that have notoriously labeled us as being difficult to process in.

And then, so the ODSs that are before us, we know that they don't conflict with all those other documents, Because all those documents still stand, right? They're still in, they still have to meet the requirements, but this is a way to do that much more quickly, knowing that these ODSs do not conflict with any of the plans.

The intent behind the year of research is that they complement each other, right? Or they're not gonna conflict. Now, of course, there may be an opportunity, which is why we have a disclaimer. If there is a conflict within a specific plan standard, that specific plan standard reigns over the objective design standards. Over time, staff at the direction of council may retire some of those other documents because they have served their purpose, they have run their course. The 97 design guidelines is a prime example. Some four base codes have lived out their life. The UC Hanson plan, the Sadaquay Village specific plan are coming to their end. ultimately these documents that are still in effect today will eventually be retired or shelved upon you know adoption of our objective design standards that have gleaned off of those documents for standards that are still relevant and supported today in our community okay i'll i'll acquiesce mccarty

I'll just weigh in with my preference. To me, the advantages of citywide ODS are greater than any advantages of neighborhood by neighborhood ODS.

All right. Put myself in the queue next here.

You know, from my perspective,

I think that for a lot of lay people and regular residents, if you ask them what's a beautiful building, they might be more likely to pick a building that has a certain amount of massing and doesn't have setbacks and whatever that was like a gorgeous old Victorian or something like that, but is basically a box, but it has like really beautiful ornamentation over like this building here that's on our screen, right? And so I do think like, Some of the objective design standards that we often use in a planning context doesn't always align with what people are imagining when they're thinking of neighborhood character. And I think a lot of what people in their gut are looking for when they're wanting something that aligns with neighborhood character, when people are upset about developments in their neighborhood, is some of that. That it kind of looks similar to what they're used to in their neighborhood, which you know, again, is why I'm kind of like, I struggle with the whole thing of objective design standards. But I, Like I said, I don't want to be super prescriptive of how to do it, so I'd be really curious to hear from our consultant team, like, if they have ideas of how they've done it in other cities. I mean, I could imagine, rather than creating, like, another... You know, we have, right, A through E of categories, and you could create an F that varies by neighborhood. Or you could incorporate neighborhood elements into each of these, you know, A through F or whatever, right? But I do think there is a... There's a kind of avenue and midtown kind of neighborhoods from the 20s that are a lot of craftsman's and mission revival. There's a kind of downtown that's more like Victorian kind of stuff. And even on the east side, I mean, I think if you plopped a Victorian building in the middle of off of Kimball, people would be like, this is weird. I'm used to ranch style homes here that look like this. And this doesn't kind of fit the character of the neighborhood, even if it's something more historic. So yeah, I would maybe turn to the consultant team and ask them, are there examples you've seen of cities that might have pretty different neighborhood styles, like be able to have objective design standards that might be tailored at the neighborhood level? Quick point of order. We need a vote to continue past 10 PM.

All right.

Anyone like to make a motion?

I so move.

I'll second.

Commissioner McCarty? Yes. Commissioner Winninger?

Yes.

Commissioner Lagerquist? Yes. Commissioner Abbey? Yes. Vice Chair Zucker? Yes. Bye-bye.

So we're following this conversation. I think that Maruja has tried to do a really good job of summarizing sort of the feelings that people have here. I think, I haven't heard anything that isn't able to be responded to. We have to talk about resources, because yes, the more we take into those nuances, the more robust the document's going to become. But in terms of other cities, what other cities have done, I feel like other cities have done what you're doing, but they end up with a different result. I mean, we're working right now in Laguna Beach and they, were extremely concerned about individual neighborhood characters, and when we started the exercise, they thought we were gonna do, what, seven different architectural styles, and after we toured the city with them, they said, oh, our city's eclectic, we don't wanna do that, but we still wanna have architectural styles, so we didn't use architectural styles, we used architectural groups that were based on four styles as opposed to seven, but that was for a set of city-wide standards, for residential neighborhoods or citywide objective design standards. Palos Verdes just threw up their hands and said, this is too complicated for us. Everyone who goes through a ministerial streamlined process, you're just gonna have to choose Spanish or else we're gonna force you into. They didn't say they wouldn't do something else. They just said that If you're going to have the incentive of streamlining, we want you to do Spanish Revival. Palm Desert was desert style, which was based ultimately from my little tiny perspective of remembering visits to Taliesin West in Phoenix, and they were very concerned about high Sonoran desert stuff. Temple City, what would you say Temple City is doing right now?

Temple City is trying very hard to not dictate an architectural style, but they still want to value architectural continuity. They don't want to say that the building has to be Spanish, but they do want to make sure that if you have a clay tile roof, you're using a wooden door and not a metal door. So there's some pairings that we had to work on, but not specifically call it a Spanish building. But I think the biggest city that I think would be comparable to your question is in the city of Calabasas. They have an old town Calabasas. So we did have a separate section of styles City Council Chambers, That relates to old town architecture compared to the rest of the city and that's where the neighborhood specific gets, but we had a completely different chapter with completely different standards that yeah. City Council Chambers, enhance like the idea of a Western architecture in comparison to the rest of the city and said that projects within this particular street have to adhere to that set of standards versus. another set of standards which weren't Spanish per se but very Spanish influence.

And we also made a similar distinction in Temple City where we did say that one of the four groupings wasn't able to be utilized within the residential neighborhoods.

We had a distinction by saying that some of the more contemporary styles weren't allowed for multifamily projects because a lot of their multifamily sites are particularly small. So they wanted to make sure that your smaller residential developments like your quadplexes and triplexes had pitched roofs and didn't seem too modern because that went against it. But if you're doing a mixed use project that tended to be five or six stories and whatever, you were allowed more flat roof flexibility and more window flexibility in terms of making it look a little bit more contemporary.

So I think we can work with these ideas within the context of doing something that's citywide. And I don't know exactly how we're going to do it. And I don't know exactly how much time it will take to do it, but I definitely think it's doable.

Commissioner?

Okay, I hope this is, not to belabor this, but every single project we've ever gotten, or since I've sat here, either the community or even the planning staff, in all due respect, has told us about community character. And Commissioner Zucker is right, you put a Victorian across the street from my suburban home and it's going to be out of character and my neighbors are gonna come out, but they'll probably like it actually. But so I don't know if we need a point per se, but maybe a one point, like an F. But maybe we could talk about it in the ODS that we encourage, um you know a neighbor you know staying with the neighborhood characters of i mean i don't know but um we do have we we have five or six different neighborhoods in the city it's it's it's our general plan just enforced it and um we have the um uh oh sorry but you know the committees i there's an official name for our committees there our neighborhood committees those community councils yeah community councils thank you um so i mean we're we have we're a name we're a city that enforces different types of our neighborhoods now i'm i'm not saying we move to neighborhood ods but i just think we either should just kind of have a blanket statement maybe in somewhere near maybe the mission statement that we should encourage it. But also, I mean, even going back to the Golden China Development Workshop, I mean, we talked a lot about it doesn't fit the community character and staff. also said that so i mean i i think staff if they had a one point character even on and one additional point i think staff could work with the architect to come up with that one point and and that's what's been told to us that the staff and the developer is going to come up with that point system and i think i think it's worth a point that's my two cents thanks so i think a great i think that's a really good um idea and i think what we can do is

take this feedback acknowledging that the importance of community, the community character and fitting in with community character is important. So maybe there is, we can explore another, as you were saying, a point or a consideration within the menu of scorecard of, you know adherence to community character or does it fit within the community character by way of architectural style in an objective way so we can we can noodle on that and I think that we can hearing the intent behind it and also I think we all acknowledge um the objective funny of the objective design standards you know to help streamline housing to help you know make the process smoother easier to understand by both the applicant and staff, but acknowledging the eclecticism and in the context of that, and then I'm tired, but I'm hearing what you guys are saying. So I think we can work with that.

I think that's great. I think it's after 10 o'clock. I don't think we're going to land the plane here tonight from the dais. But I think we know kind of the direction we want to go. And to me, I trust the consultants to work. We have several more workshops to consultants to work with the community and with staff to figure out how to get some of that element in there somewhere. I don't know exactly what the solution is. And I trust a lot of, we got a lot of smart people working for us and a lot of smart people who don't work for us and are volunteering their time to give input. And so I think we can get there. Commissioner Lagerquist.

Thank you. I just want to add, I mean, I feel like the intent of doing this process of making the objective design standards is to make the process easier. But the intent of the ODSs themselves are to preserve the city. And I just want us to remember that. And so I really like this conversation and agree with the approach. But we just want to remember that the whole point of having these objective design standards is to protect the city, the city's appearance and the communities and things like that.

Thank you, totally.

Can I express a thought? So if we were going to go to neighborhood ODS, that would mean we would not only have to define the city's different neighborhoods, we would have to, somebody would have to define the characters of each of those neighborhoods. My own opinion, I would feel offended at somebody else defining the character of my neighborhood. That's my initial gut feeling.

I don't think we have to go all night. But I think we have some of that already. We have neighborhoods laid out in the general plan with clear boundaries. And then often for those neighborhoods, I don't know if everyone has it, but I think Often there's either a specific plan or some kind of description of what are the dominant architectural styles. I think we've got some of that there. I want to keep it moving forward and maybe we should do the thumbs up and thumbs down vote about generally consultants and staff working on trying to add some kind of neighborhood variation into the ODS.

I have four ayes and one no, so we'll bridge that and see what we can come up with.

Thank you.

Yeah, quickly, if we could just go to the, I think it's slide 30. I just wanted to get some feedback on, I think we're good with the first few. And we can also table this for our next discussion, the minor remodel, like what's gonna be that quantitative nexus of when I have a minor remodel, what then triggers objective design standard review. and that and also the concept of landscaping. So I'm gonna pin that for our next discussion because that will involve numbers and let's just wait for another time. I did want to see if though if we had support for potentially looking at additional opportunities to further streamline some projects, particularly residential projects of 10 or less units. Right now it's four or less that would be processed administratively. There is an option on the table to maybe consider with full compliance with ODS, residential projects that have 10 or less could be administrative. Another option we thought of was projects that have 20% affordability, which is over our inclusionary requirement, can be processed administratively regardless of location. Right now that's allowed. per state law on our housing element sites, and then allowing 100% affordable projects to be processed ministerially anywhere in the city, which is also a state law, but that state law requires prevailing wage, and so we rarely see that happen. So we could also table these for a future discussion as well and get council to weigh in.

Yeah, I mean, I think those definitely would require public comment as well.

OK. So we'll consider that moving forward as additional feedback opportunities.

I'll just agree that I think those are substantive issues that just have a lot of elements to them and probably need to be their own whole meeting.

Okay, well, I think I got all of our comments. Really appreciate the dialogue and the discussion here. Appreciate the time, and everybody who's remained in the audience, thank you so much. I think, I do have staff communications very briefly, just to update the commission. Our community development director, Rachel Diamond, is leaving the city. She has got a job at the city of Glendale, um her last day here at the city is next wednesday i don't think she will be at planning commission that night so i will be the interim community development director while we do a recruitment process so we'll all have your director hearing update at the end of next wednesday's meeting at your regularly scheduled meeting so that concludes staff's communication thank you i think we might have missed any planning commission communications we don't have anything

I just want to thank everybody for coming and staying all night. I'm just really, it's really nice to see everybody so committed to the city and also to staff. All your work is, and the consultants, but all your work is not missed. I know you're going to have to show up tomorrow at 8 o'clock in the morning, so thank you.

Great. Thank you to everyone who stayed here for a long night. And with that, let's adjourn this meeting. Time is 10.17.