City Council Joint Session Jan 12, 2023

Jan 12

City Council Meeting Summary

Time	Item	Item Summary	Motion Summary	Comment Summary
00:00:00	None: None	Mayor Blaustein stated 'Hording in progress'.	No Motion	0 Total: 0 In Favor 0 Against 0 Neutral

00:00:01	1: CALL TO ORDER IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBERS AT CITY HALL, 420 LITHO STREET - 5:30 PM	Mayor Blaustein calls to order the special joint meeting of the Planning Commission and City Council on January 12, 2023. The City Clerk notes the meeting is being held pursuant to government code section 5493E and will be conducted telephonically via Zoom due to the declared state of emergency, while also being broadcast on the city's website and cable TV (00:00:23). The council chambers are open to the public (00:00:32).	No Motion	0 Total: 0 In Favor 0 Against 0 Neutral

00:00:55	2: ROLL CALL	The City Clerk conducted a roll call for both the City Council and the Planning Commission to establish quorum. For the City Council, Joan Cox, Jill James Hoffman, Janelle Coleman, Ian Sobieski, and Melissa Blossom were present. For the Planning Commission, Natasha Saad, Jeffrey Luxenberg, Andrew Junius, and Christina Feller were present, while Richard Graff was absent. Councilmember Kelman noted that the video for Mayor Blaustein and Councilmember Cox was not visible, which was subsequently addressed. (00:01:48) Mayor Blaustein acknowledged the notification from Councilmember Kelman and indicated the meeting would proceed. (00:02:10)	No Motion	1 Total: 0 In Favor 0 Against 1 Neutral
00:01:48 Councilmember Kelman was Neutral: Councilmember Kelman pointed out that the video feed for Mayor Blaustein and Councilmember Cox was not active.
00:02:19	3: CONSENT CALENDAR	Mayor Blaustein introduced the consent calendar, noting that items listed are considered routine and non-controversial and require unanimous council support (00:02:19). The consent calendar includes item 3A, which involves adopting two resolutions to implement changes resulting from Measure L and authorizing the city manager to execute agreements for cities use tax with the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (00:02:51). The Mayor opened the floor for council comments but there were none (00:02:51).	Motion to approve the consent calendar item made by Councilmember Kellman, seconded by Councilmember Hoffman (00:03:32). Motion passed 5-0 (00:04:00).	0 Total: 0 In Favor 0 Against 0 Neutral

00:04:15	4: BUSINESS ITEMS	Mayor Blaustein introduces the purpose of the joint meeting between the Planning Commission and City Council. The meeting aims to update members and the public on the city's efforts regarding specific issues and to provide an opportunity for questions and discussion about the process moving forward. The Planning Commission is present as the city's advisory body. (00:04:15)	No Motion	0 Total: 0 In Favor 0 Against 0 Neutral

00:04:31	4.A: 6th Cycle Housing Element	Beth Thompson from De Novo Associates provided an update on the 6th Cycle Housing Element. The Housing Element is currently with the State Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) for review and comments are expected on January 26th. Beth Thompson and Brandon Phipps met with HCD and Chelsea Lee today and went over some preliminary comments. The Notice of Preparation (NOP) for the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) is currently out for public and agency review, with comments due by January 20th. The draft EIR is anticipated to be out for public review in March with a 45-day review period. The final EIR and adoption draft housing element will be prepared following the close of the draft EIR public review period (00:06:13). The housing element includes a housing plan, quantified objectives, and a background report with appendices. The housing plan addresses goals, policies, and implementation programs. There are four goals: preserving housing and neighborhood assets, supporting housing diversity, reducing constraints to housing development, and affirmatively furthering fair and equal housing opportunities. There are 31 implementation programs, with Program 4 addressing the rezoning of housing sites, which will be informed by the EIR process (00:08:21). Beth touched on Programs 6, 10, 12, 16, 17, 19, 22, 30 and 31. A key point was that Sausalito is behind schedule and the statutory deadline to have the housing element adopted is January 31st (00:22:24). Several council members raised concerns and asked questions, specifically about consequences for missing the deadline (00:23:01) , why they are not on track (00:24:22), and what the process looks like to submit on the 31st (00:30:31). Councilmembers Kelman and Cox will lead effort to respond to the comments and revise as needed (01:19:18).	No Motion	2 Total: 0 In Favor 1 Against 1 Neutral
01:04:47 Peter McGuire was Against: Expressed general frustration with the Housing Element process, stating it's a mess and disturbing that there's so much confusion at this stage. He represents 20 property owners on Marion Avenue and South Street, and opposes 66 Maradins in the current housing element. He also says there is a large number of opposition letters and that At this point in the process, housing sites are not recommended for a removal from the draft housing element based upon community opposition, is inaccurate. 01:09:10 Sandra Bushmaker was Neutral: Expressed confusion and a lack of clarity on the consequences of missing deadlines, particularly the January 31st date and voiced that she'd like to see effort on the city's part and staff's time to adopt a housing element to avoid these consequences.
01:23:50	4.B: Status of Objective Design & Development Standards (ODDS)	Bob Brown provided a status update on the Objective Design & Development Standards (ODDS). He explained that new state laws limit local discretion on new housing proposals with two or more units, requiring cities to rely on objective standards. He noted that Sausalito adopted an interim set of objective standards in July 2021 and the Planning Commission subcommittee has been working to customize a form-based code toolkit. The housing element update has delayed the ODDS work, as the ODDS must be further modified to allow larger or taller building parameters for those housing sites. The ODDS will only apply to construction projects where two or more new housing units are being built, primarily in multifamily and commercially zoned properties. The draft standards do not apply to single-family zones or SB9 projects, but could be modified to do so. The goal of the ODDS is to reduce the visual scale of buildings, limit the visibility of parking, and foster pedestrian-oriented street frontages. Next steps include finalizing the draft and bringing it to the Planning Commission and Council for hearings, with further revisions to address housing opportunity sites after the housing element is adopted. Councilmember Kelman asked for clarification on development restrictions on steep slopes. Bob Brown clarified that it does have standards based upon the amount that you know, the percentage of slope that restricts development further in terms of, of how much the site you can develop. Councilmember Kelman also asked about SB9 and if the ODDS could be applied to single family, a part of it could be applied to SB9 projects as well. Vice Mayor Sobieski discussed reducing the visual scale of buildings. She asked is there a way of having objective design criteria that capture that very pivotal nuance for making a beautiful community that feels delightful for the people that live in it? Bob Brown responded that it will deal with all the nuances of each individual site? No, it's much more generalized than that. We're losing that gradation of subjectivity. Councilmember Cox asked about ADUs and the waterfront. She also said that if for some reason our housing element is found to be non-compliant, we won't have a housing element, which means we lose our zoning authority, which means having the odds in place is critically important. City Attorney Roodin said that there is a timing issue with the planning commission rendering their recommendation at a public hearing on the same day.	The council reached a consensus to agendize the ODDS for the 24th with the draft and a potential calendar for adoption of the ODDS, to look at gradients and the inclusion as well of ADA and also a consideration for SB9 with regards to the ODDS and a more broad adoption of the ODDS. (02:26:27)	4 Total: 0 In Favor 2 Against 2 Neutral
02:04:22 Michael Lennox was Against: Expressed strong concerns about the ODDS, finding it horrifying and throwing out findings for design review. He believed objective standards should apply to any two-unit project, including single-family homes with ADUs. Lennox voiced concern about the lack of view and privacy protection, asserting he could block views with new constructions under the current guidelines. He critiqued the small committee size and lack of involvement from design professionals, calling for a way to control and protect views. He noted that soil ordinance standards scare him. 02:07:01 Vicki Nichols was Neutral: Inquired whether input from the HPC has been implemented, specifically regarding form-based architecture in the historic district, and confirming that their previous concerns regarding architectural standards for the downtown historic district have been addressed. She agreed that the codes are complicated. 02:09:53 Jenny Silva was Against: Reminded everyone that providing objective standards for single-family homes is in the housing element. She expressed concern that the ODDS will increase the cost of development, conflicting with housing element goals, and that it will functionally downzone the code, which Sausalito cannot do. She also mentioned potential Brown Act violations in a too-compressed timeline. 02:12:05 Sybil Routier was Neutral: Asked whether the design of the ODDS included accessibility features for the buildings. She noted that front step issues are a big issue for folks. Brown said no.
02:27:17	4.C: Presentation on SB 9, Local Implementation Ordinance (Ordinance No. 1288), Interaction with ODDS and Housing Element, and Direction to Staff	Principal Planner Neil Toft presented on SB 9, Local Implementation Ordinance No. 1288, and its interaction with ODDS and the Housing Element. The presentation covered the intent of SB9 to target single-family zoning as an obstacle to the state's housing supply by allowing up to two dwelling units on single-family lots and minor lot splits, processed ministerially. Sausalito has adopted ordinance 1288 that details effective control over SB9 lot splits and SB9 units. The city estimates SB9 could apply to up to 945 parcels (02:32:55). The city must allow lot sizes as small as 1,200 square feet and requires at least 20 feet of street frontage (02:33:53). The city may permit ADUs and JDUs in conjunction with SB9 development (02:31:17) and requires one off-street parking space for each unit, with an exception for parcels within a half-mile walking distance of the ferry (02:31:30). HCD requires detailed evaluations of SB9 sites and property owner surveys to project meeting arena needs through SB9. In conclusion the council could continue with business as usual, applying the current standards, or consider more restrictive or objective design standards. Chair Luxembourg noted bus stops on Bridgeway and Second Street, and up at Spencer qualify as transit and do not have to provide parking (02:38:49). Commissioner Feller asked to verify the number of SB9 qualifying lots (02:39:36). Commissioner Sayed noted a survey that had gone out for projected SB 9 units (02:43:22). Vice Chair Juniors asked about the number of SB9 applications the city has received, and City Manager Zapata replied that it was greater than one and less than 10, and Neil Toft said there are two active applications in (02:44:43). Councilmember Kelman asked about ways to continue to support the objectives and make sure that SB9 is utilized within the spirit in which it was intended, of affordable units, not just market rate (02:48:15). She also asked how the lack of environmental planning and secretive view includes hazards and public safety reconciled with some of the other policy objectives (02:48:43). Councilmember Cox confirmed the ordinance that requires offsite parking close to transit if necessary to protect health and safety because some of the roads are so narrow (02:52:00). Mayor Blaustein asked how different the design standards in ordinance 1288 are from the new ODDS (02:53:11).	No Motion	2 Total: 1 In Favor 0 Against 1 Neutral
02:55:25 Michael Lennox was Neutral: Michael Lennox, a local architect, expressed concerns about the implementation of SB 9 and the ODDS program. He is concerned that there is no noticing to neighbors (02:56:03) and they can't appeal a decision made by staff (02:56:32) because it's mandated and the appeal process is negated. On the good side, you downside houses to 1,200 square feet (02:57:00). The goal that the committee had adopted to protect privacy isn't going to work (02:57:22). Recommends engaging with some design professionals in that further analysis (02:57:52). 02:58:11 Sybil Routier was In Favor: Sybil Routier mentioned conversations with Senator McGuire about senior housing and state support for that in South Toledo (02:58:25). She reiterated his interest in supporting the concept that we were discussing and his willingness to help us with funding (02:58:54). She noted that senior housing is one of the things that we lack sufficiency of affordable senior housing in our community (02:59:18).
03:11:43	5: ADJOURNMENT	Mayor Blaustein adjourned the meeting at 8:43 PM (03:11:43). Chair Luxembourg confirmed the adjournment (03:11:49).	No Motion	0 Total: 0 In Favor 0 Against 0 Neutral

City Council Meeting Transcript

Adrian Brinton

Planning Commission Jan 25, 2023

Time	Speaker	Text
00:00:00.03	Mayor Blaustein	Hording in progress.
00:00:01.53	Unknown	Great.
00:00:01.82	Jenny Silva	Bye.
00:00:01.90	Jenny Silva	you.
00:00:04.35	Unknown	Okay.
00:00:04.43	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, if you're ready, I think we should get going so we can be as...
00:00:08.13	Mayor Blaustein	Yes, please.
00:00:15.19	city clerk	Good evening, Mayor Blaustein, Councilmembers and Planning Commission. The meeting is being held pursuant to government code section 5493E.
00:00:23.32	city clerk	And in light of the declared state of emergency, the special joint meeting for January 12th, 2023
00:00:28.11	city clerk	will be conducted telephonically through Zoom and broadcasted live
00:00:32.03	city clerk	on the city's website and on cable TV channel Tony. And I must also add that we do have council chamber open for the public.
00:00:40.67	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you very much city clerk good evening Council members planning commissioners and members of the public, I am now calling to order the special planning Commission city council joint meeting on January 12 2023 city clerk would you please call the role.
00:00:55.72	city clerk	I'll start with the city council first, council member Joan Cox.
00:00:58.99	Mayor Blaustein	you
00:00:59.03	Councilmember Hoffman	here.
00:00:59.87	city clerk	Council member Jill James Hoffman.
00:01:02.03	Councilmember Hoffman	Here.
00:01:03.13	city clerk	Council member Janelle Coleman.
00:01:04.49	Councilmember Hoffman	Here.
00:01:05.47	city clerk	Vice Mayor Ian Sobieski.
00:01:07.46	city clerk	Here,
00:01:08.34	city clerk	And Mayor Melissa Blossom?
00:01:10.79	Sandra Bushmaker	Here.
00:01:11.36	city clerk	And I'll call on the Planning Commission.
00:01:14.23	city clerk	Uh,
00:01:15.55	city clerk	Commissioner Natasha Saad.
00:01:17.98	city clerk	you
00:01:18.01	Kristen Taiki	here.
00:01:19.14	city clerk	Commissioner Jeffrey Luxenberg.
00:01:21.30	city clerk	here.
00:01:22.36	city clerk	Commissioner Andrew Junius.
00:01:25.20	city clerk	present.
00:01:25.42	Vice Chair Juniors	President Obama.
00:01:26.47	city clerk	Commissioner Richard Graff.
00:01:28.89	Commissioner Feller	Thank you.
00:01:28.91	city clerk	Yeah.
00:01:28.96	Commissioner Feller	I'm not sure.
00:01:31.92	city clerk	COMMISSIONER RICHARD GRAFF, IF I'M SAYING THAT CORRECTLY OR
00:01:35.27	Commissioner Feller	He's absent.
00:01:36.50	Chair Luxembourg	is, uh,
00:01:36.81	Commissioner Feller	Thank you.
00:01:36.81	city clerk	Thank you.
00:01:36.86	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you.
00:01:36.93	city clerk	that's what we're doing.
00:01:37.03	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you.
00:01:37.05	city clerk	Thank you.
00:01:39.02	city clerk	I'll make another episode show up.
00:01:41.43	city clerk	And for right now he's absent and commissioner, uh, Christina Feller.
00:01:46.21	Mayor Blaustein	I see that Councilmember Kelman has her hand raised.
00:01:48.98	Councilmember Kelman	Yes, Mayor, I just want you to know that your video is not on, so we cannot see you and Councilmember Cox. I don't know if you were aware of that.
00:01:57.23	Councilmember Kelman	Thank you for letting us know.
00:01:58.86	Jenny Silva	Is there an issue with our video?
00:02:06.16	Mayor Blaustein	In the effort of moving things along while they correct that.
00:02:10.53	Mayor Blaustein	There we go. Fantastic. Thank you for alerting us to that Councilmember Kelman. So our first item on the agenda is a consent calendar item, which will apply only to members of the city council.
00:02:19.67	Mayor Blaustein	Matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and non-controversial.
00:02:23.60	Mayor Blaustein	require no discussion are expected to have unanimous council support
00:02:27.06	Mayor Blaustein	and may be enacted by the council in one motion.
00:02:29.49	Mayor Blaustein	There will be no separate discussion of consent calendar items.
00:02:32.60	Mayor Blaustein	However, before this council votes on a motion to adopt the consent calendar items, council members, city staff, or members of the public may request that specific items be removed from the consent calendar for separate action. Items removed from the consent calendar will be discussed later on the agenda and public comment will be heard on any item that was removed from the consent calendar. Do any members of the city council have...
00:02:51.51	Mayor Blaustein	comments on the consent calendar item this evening, which is 3A, adopting two resolutions to implement the changes resulting from the recently approved
00:02:59.28	Mayor Blaustein	Measure L and authorizing the city manager to execute agreements for cities use tax with the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration.
00:03:08.49	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, seeing none, I will now open it up to public comment. City Clerk, could you please remind members of the public how we receive public comment?
00:03:16.03	city clerk	You can use on Zoom, you can use the raise hand
00:03:19.00	Unknown	Thank you.
00:03:19.04	city clerk	or if you're on phone, you can press star nine,
00:03:19.24	Unknown	Thank you.
00:03:22.53	city clerk	And if you do have a comment, you can raise your hand now.
00:03:26.97	city clerk	And I am not seeing any comments.
00:03:30.16	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, we'll close public comment at this time.
00:03:32.79	Mayor Blaustein	Can I have a motion to approve the consent calendar item?
00:03:35.59	Mayor Blaustein	So I moved.
00:03:36.98	Mayor Blaustein	Second.
00:03:38.60	city clerk	And for clarification, who moved it?
00:03:41.33	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
00:03:41.35	Councilmember Hoffman	Councilmember Kellman?
00:03:43.83	Councilmember Hoffman	Second, this is Council Member Hoffman.
00:03:43.86	city clerk	Second.
00:03:45.89	city clerk	Thank you very much. Now for the roll call vote, we'll start with council member Cox. Yes. Council member Hoffman.
00:03:52.96	city clerk	Yes.
00:03:52.99	Councilmember Hoffman	Yes.
00:03:53.73	city clerk	Councilmember Cummins.
00:03:55.49	city clerk	Yes.
00:03:56.31	city clerk	Vice Mayor Sobieski.
00:03:57.72	city clerk	and Mayor Blostham
00:04:00.16	Mayor Blaustein	Yes.
00:04:01.83	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, motion passes 5-0 and we can move forward. Tonight we have three agenda items to discuss, the housing element status, objective development standards, and a presentation on SB9. This meeting is unique in that it's a joint meeting between the Planning Commission and the City Council.
00:04:15.64	Mayor Blaustein	The purpose of this joint meeting is to hear from staff and provide an opportunity for
00:04:19.52	Mayor Blaustein	Members of the Public Planning Commission and City Council to ask questions regarding the status of the city's efforts on these issues.
00:04:25.27	Mayor Blaustein	and the process going forward. And the Planning Commission is joining the City Council tonight as the city's advisory body.
00:04:30.76	Mayor Blaustein	So,
00:04:31.53	Mayor Blaustein	Let's move ahead with the very first agenda item this evening, which is the six cycle housing element and our report will be coming from De Novo associates and Beth Thompson.
00:04:41.08	Beth Thompson	Good evening Mayor, members of the Council and Chair and members of the Commission. It's exciting to be with all of you tonight to talk about the housing element update. And so I'll just quickly go through.
00:04:53.22	Beth Thompson	And can everyone see my screen?
00:04:55.53	Beth Thompson	Yes, fantastic. I'll just quickly go through the status and the schedule. So the housing element is currently with the State Department of Housing and Community Development, HCD, for review. And we expect their comments on January 26th of this month.
00:05:09.69	Vicki Nichols	the smell.
00:05:12.32	Beth Thompson	Brandon Phipps and I met today with HCD, the city's representative, Chelsea Lee, and went over some of her preliminary comments. She hasn't completed her review yet, so we don't yet have an idea of what the final comments will be like, but we do anticipate comments on the deadline, so we don't anticipate getting their comments back early.
00:05:29.28	Beth Thompson	But we will meet with HCD again right before we get the comments so that they can clarify what the intent of their comments is so that we can then go through and quickly respond to them.
00:05:38.63	Beth Thompson	And then also to let the community
00:05:40.45	Beth Thompson	The Notice of Preparation or NOP for the Environmental Impact Report is currently out for public and agency review and comments are due to the city.
00:05:49.97	Beth Thompson	on January 20th. So if people have comments regarding the scope of the environmental impact report, written comments have to be submitted to the city by January 20th.
00:05:59.06	Beth Thompson	um,
00:05:59.91	Beth Thompson	Following the close of the notice of preparation, the draft EIR will be prepared and distributed to the community, and that's currently underway. And we anticipate that that will be out for a public review in March, and it does have a 45-day review period.
00:06:13.63	Beth Thompson	So following the close of the draft EIR public review period, we will then prepare the final EIR that responds to comments on the draft EIR and will also be preparing an adoption draft housing element during the public review period for the draft EIR and that will address all of the state's comments. So we expect to have that package of the adoption draft housing element and the final EIR ready for planning commission review.
00:06:36.63	Beth Thompson	late spring this year and for city council review as well. So that's a quick overview of where we are with the housing element update and the next steps in the process.
00:06:48.81	Beth Thompson	I'll just give a quick overview of what the housing element contains. And then I'm just, I'm going to touch on some of the programs that will need to be implemented for the housing element.
00:06:57.62	Beth Thompson	So the housing element includes three main components, the housing plan, which addresses the goals, policies and implementation programs that the city will carry forth during the
00:07:06.07	Beth Thompson	eight year cycle. So the housing plan is really the meat of the housing element in terms of the commitments that the city is making to address Sausalito's housing needs. It also includes quantified objectives, which are numeric objectives for the city to meet as well.
00:07:21.26	Beth Thompson	There's also a background report and appendices to the housing element.
00:07:24.54	Beth Thompson	The background report includes a brief introduction, a housing needs assessment, a housing constraints analysis, an inventory of the city's housing sites, which are also identified in more detail in the appendices to the housing element.
00:07:37.66	Beth Thompson	It includes an analysis of affirmatively furthering fair housing issues. It evaluates the city's progress in implementing its fifth cycle housing element, which addressed 2015 through 2023. And it also addresses some other requirements under state law.
00:07:51.94	Beth Thompson	And as I mentioned, the meat of the housing element is the housing plan and that it really reflects the commitments for the city going forward. The background report is just that. A lot of background data that assesses existing conditions, but it doesn't really speak to the future as much. The housing plan revolves around three or four goals. Goal H1, preserving housing and neighborhood assets. Goal H2, supporting housing diversity opportunities and assistance.
00:08:16.49	Beth Thompson	Goal H3 to reduce constraints to housing development, rehabilitation, and preservation.
00:08:21.12	Beth Thompson	and Goal H-4 to affirmatively further fair and equal housing opportunities. And there are a number of policies as well as 31 implementation programs that address the city's housing goals and needs. And I'm just going to touch on about 10 of those programs tonight. And I'd also like to note that Program 4 is the specific program that addresses the rezoning of various housing sites. And that's not part of tonight's item. We anticipate the Housing Billion.
00:08:45.43	Beth Thompson	Sites will be informed by the environmental impact report process, and we'll come back to the Planning Commission and City Council at a subsequent meeting.
00:08:55.02	Beth Thompson	So starting with program six, which addresses accessory dwelling units, ADUs and junior accessory dwelling units, a number of the city's units to be accommodated in the housing element are addressed through ADUs. So we have included program six to encourage development of ADUs and JDUs, and it includes a number of measures to update the city's current ADU standards to be consistent with state law that will occur this year.
00:09:19.54	Beth Thompson	to provide technical resources to assist property owners with ADU and JADU development. That will also occur this year.
00:09:26.17	Beth Thompson	Technical resources are basically informational materials to help property owners understand how they can develop an ADU on their property, whether it's an attached unit, attached to their existing home, a separate unit, or a junior accessory dwelling unit.
00:09:40.70	Beth Thompson	It also includes some components to pursue state funding to assist lower and moderate income homeowners with constructing ADUs to continue conducting property owner outreach and education. And then also a mid-cycle check-in, so about halfway through the housing element implementation period, checking in on the city's progress towards accommodating ADUs to ensure that the city's on track to meet the number of ADUs identified and to be accommodated in the inventory of sites.
00:10:05.24	Beth Thompson	So that'll be a big milestone when you're checking in on that item.
00:10:10.79	Beth Thompson	Program 10 addresses affordable housing development assistance, and this program provides incentives and assistance for affordable housing development. It includes a number of
00:10:19.95	Beth Thompson	components, basically establishing financial and regulatory incentives for affordable housing and housing for special needs populations. And those financial incentives mainly focus on the city developing an affordable housing fund, which is program 11, and then also seeking various state funding sources. There are a number of grant programs available through the state available to assist in the production of affordable housing.
00:10:44.49	Beth Thompson	Program 10 also includes annual outreach to affordable housing providers and developers to ensure that the development community is aware of the city's sites that are available for affordable housing development. And that they're also aware of the incentives and resources that the city is identifying to assist with development of those affordable units. And then program 10 also works with program 12 to explore opportunities for regional partnerships to leverage funding and assets for affordable housing.
00:11:10.83	Beth Thompson	And that program, which I'll jump into, works for the city to establish a network of affordable housing providers this year. So working with other regional governments, working with local nonprofits just to identify a network of
00:11:23.71	Beth Thompson	affordable housing providers that are interested in being active in Sausalito, and then annually contacting those housing providers to ensure that they have information regarding
00:11:32.26	Beth Thompson	the city's affordable housing resources and the city's incentives, as I mentioned with program 10 as well.
00:11:38.69	Beth Thompson	And the city will further assist these
00:11:40.97	Beth Thompson	affordable housing providers through when you have projects that the city is supportive of, providing letters of support, processing those with priority processing of those projects and providing concessions and incentives, as well as assisting those developers with identifying funding resources.
00:11:59.43	Beth Thompson	Program 16 is pretty lengthy, so I won't go through it in detail, but it includes a number of changes to the zoning ordinance to ensure that the city supports a variety of housing types. There are very specific housing types that have to be accommodated by state law. So it addresses all of those specific housing types. And it also removes constraints to housing through addressing the processing of development projects and ensuring that the city is processing projects consistent with the requirements of state law.
00:12:26.55	Beth Thompson	Similar to Program 16,
00:12:28.49	Beth Thompson	Program 17 will update the zoning ordinance to implement the state's density bonus requirements. And as we've discussed before,
00:12:36.13	Beth Thompson	The state mandates that projects that include a certain affordable component
00:12:40.37	Beth Thompson	do receive a density bonus. And so this would ensure that the city's density bonus requirements are consistent with those density bonuses and incentives that are allowed and required under state law.
00:12:52.75	Beth Thompson	And then the city will also just promote those requirements. So once the zoning ordinance is updated,
00:12:57.38	Beth Thompson	promoting that those requirements are now available to the development community.
00:13:02.96	Beth Thompson	Program 19 will update the city's development review procedures. And this is actually will come up again in your subsequent items tonight.
00:13:10.71	Beth Thompson	But basically to facilitate residential development and to ensure that the city's review process is not excessive,
00:13:16.92	Beth Thompson	The city will adopt procedures to address streamlining requirements of state law. This includes SB 35.
00:13:22.79	Beth Thompson	as well as ensuring that the city has standards in place for objective design and zoning standards for projects under SB 330.
00:13:30.98	Beth Thompson	This includes adopting odds, the objective design and development standards,
00:13:34.99	Beth Thompson	for multi-unit projects and mixed use development by November of this year.
00:13:39.21	Beth Thompson	And then also subsequently adopting odds for single family projects by 2025 to ensure that you just have a full range of projects that can be developed all have objective design criteria so that
00:13:51.83	Beth Thompson	projects will have certainty when they're submitting to the city. They'll have certainty regarding the standards that will be required of the project.
00:13:59.43	Beth Thompson	Program 19 also includes establishing a permit tracking database
00:14:03.29	Beth Thompson	to ensure that the city's permit processing timelines conform to state law. So that'll assist the city in just understanding when
00:14:09.60	Beth Thompson	Applications are submitted, what the review timing is, and all of those requirements.
00:14:15.22	Beth Thompson	Program 22, much like Program 16, is another meaty program.
00:14:19.36	Beth Thompson	And this addresses affirmatively furthering fair housing. And Program 22 includes components of previous programs and focuses on how those programs assist the city in meeting fair housing requirements.
00:14:32.22	Beth Thompson	So to further fair housing, the city will take a number of steps that will encourage housing mobility enhancements. So encouraging just choice in housing, making it easier for people to move from one home to another.
00:14:43.83	Beth Thompson	by promoting program six with accessory dwelling units and junior accessory dwelling units. And then also promoting program 14, which provides for rental assistance through the countywide housing choice voucher program.
00:14:57.21	Beth Thompson	Program 22 also promotes new housing choices and affordability in higher opportunity areas through Programs 10.
00:15:04.09	Beth Thompson	Programs 22, which focuses on workforce and affordable housing opportunities and high opportunity areas. And that also includes advertising housing availability of the broader region to also include outreach to Marin City and specifically the racial and economically disadvantaged area identified within.
00:15:21.83	Beth Thompson	Marin City.
00:15:21.86	Vicki Nichols	Marin City.
00:15:23.11	Beth Thompson	Program 22 also includes place-based strategies,
00:15:25.84	Beth Thompson	for community preservation and revitalization that focus on Programs 9.
00:15:29.83	Beth Thompson	the Live Aboard Housing Program and 21, which provides for fair housing education and outreach. And then lastly, Program 22,
00:15:37.77	Beth Thompson	seeks to protect residents from displacement
00:15:40.64	Beth Thompson	by providing tenant protection strategies, preservation of existing affordable housing,
00:15:45.07	Beth Thompson	and also prioritizing assistance to displaced lower and moderate income residents.
00:15:52.71	Beth Thompson	And then I'll also just touch on two more programs. Program 30 is not something that you'll be implementing right away, but it really focuses on ensuring that in your next housing cycle, the seventh cycle, that the Association of Bay Area Governments, or ABIG, considers local constraints unique to Sausalito. So when you received your sixth cycle allocation, ABIG didn't receive a detailed assessment of constraints in Sausalito. So when you appealed the RENA, there wasn't really a basis for
00:16:22.19	Beth Thompson	but then reducing the count based on known constraints. So if you're...
00:16:26.59	Beth Thompson	involved in the process earlier on that will assist ABIG in understanding constraints in Sausalito and the limited capacity available in the city. So Program 30 is really looking to the seventh cycle to
00:16:37.43	Beth Thompson	to seek to ensure that the regional housing need allocation arena is more reflective of the city's actual capacity.
00:16:45.26	Beth Thompson	And then Program 31 focuses on providing training and education for the city staff, just to ensure that the city staff is equipped to implement the housing element. There are a lot of nuances and requirements in state law when you're implementing the housing element. So I'll just assist the city staff in ensuring that they are
00:16:59.94	Beth Thompson	And,
00:17:00.63	Beth Thompson	able to address comments, questions, just in a manner that's consistent with the requirements of state law.
00:17:07.38	Beth Thompson	And so...
00:17:08.51	Beth Thompson	With that, that's the overview of the status, what's in the housing element, and some of the key components of the housing plan.
00:17:15.52	Beth Thompson	Happy to answer any questions about the housing element.
00:17:19.35	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you very much, Beth. At this time, just to encourage order and make things more clear, we're gonna take questions from the Planning Commission first as our advisory body.
00:17:28.17	Mayor Blaustein	So if a member of the planning commission has a question for
00:17:31.43	Mayor Blaustein	Beth and DeNovo, could you please raise your hand in the Zoom?
00:17:34.13	Mayor Blaustein	Function.
00:17:35.49	Mayor Blaustein	Commissioner Feller, I saw you raise your hand first.
00:17:38.65	Commissioner Feller	I did. Thank you very much, Mayor Christine. And Beth, thank you for your presentation. Just a quick question. We can't hear you.
00:17:44.84	Unknown	We can't hear you.
00:17:46.97	Commissioner Feller	related to the EIR.
00:17:48.67	Commissioner Feller	And that is, how are the density bonuses considered in the EIR? Are they included in there? Is the percentage or how is that handled?
00:17:58.87	Beth Thompson	So the density bonuses are not addressed in the EIR. And we had discussed this a bit
00:18:03.73	Beth Thompson	previously, but the EIR looks at the maximum capacity of each site based on the existing zoning or the proposed zoning. So it doesn't look at a density bonus just because we don't know specifically where density bonuses will be requested and we don't anticipate that every site in Sausalito will be subject to a density bonus.
00:18:23.20	Commissioner Feller	Okay, and just a follow on question to that, if I may, and that is not long ago, the general plan executed citywide EIR, are there any bits or pieces from that that could be
00:18:36.01	Commissioner Feller	useful or beneficial to where we are currently
00:18:39.62	Commissioner Feller	with the EIR and our deadline of January 31st and not March 2023.
00:18:46.94	Commissioner Feller	Um,
00:18:47.37	Beth Thompson	Thank you.
00:18:47.38	Commissioner Feller	Thank you.
00:18:48.66	Beth Thompson	The general plan does address development in the city. However, the city's regional housing need allocation that the housing element addresses is much higher than the development that was anticipated under the general plan. So the general plan update didn't provide adequate capacity. So we can't really point to that as providing full coverage for the housing element, which is why the EIR is being prepared for the housing element.
00:19:11.08	Commissioner Feller	Great. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor Blaustein.
00:19:14.40	Mayor Blaustein	Any other members of the planning commission have questions for DeNova group? Yes, commissioner said,
00:19:18.28	Commissioner Sayed	Thank you.
00:19:20.24	Commissioner Sayed	Thank you, Mayor Blaustein. I had a rather specific question when I was re-reviewing the content.
00:19:26.45	Commissioner Sayed	Um,
00:19:27.26	Commissioner Sayed	In Program 6 and in a few other areas within
00:19:31.58	Commissioner Sayed	the housing element, we are mentioning that if funds are available,
00:19:37.20	Commissioner Sayed	and we receive financial assistance that we would then pass that on to qualified property owners, but we're never very specific in
00:19:46.33	Commissioner Sayed	what or how we would
00:19:49.18	Commissioner Sayed	dictate that. I'm just wondering if that opens us up to anything or if we need to be more specific, if there's any guidance,
00:19:55.71	Commissioner Sayed	how other jurisdictions might be achieving that, or is it okay to leave it that general?
00:20:00.96	Beth Thompson	I think it's fine to leave it that general. When you do successfully obtain funds, you would then develop an implementation manual for each funding source. So jurisdictions that receive access to grant funds would then have specific standards and requirements for applicants to be eligible to use those funds and specific standards.
00:20:19.54	Beth Thompson	activities that could be funded through those funds. So it would be very, it would be specifically based on the funding sources that are actually accessed.
00:20:27.20	Commissioner Sayed	Okay.
00:20:27.91	Commissioner Sayed	Okay, thank you.
00:20:29.31	Commissioner Sayed	That was my only question for right now. Thank you, Mayor Blasdine.
00:20:32.29	Commissioner Sayed	Commissioner Luxenberg.
00:20:36.60	Mayor Blaustein	We can't hear you.
00:20:37.83	Mayor Blaustein	You are still muted.
00:20:41.22	Chair Luxembourg	I apologize for that.
00:20:42.64	Chair Luxembourg	But thank you for your presentation. So this is basically a status report of where I saw on the calendar there.
00:20:50.35	Chair Luxembourg	that you're gonna be looking for input from the Planning Commission. And so at our next meeting on the 25th, we'll talk about the schedule to do that, and then planning to hold a public hearing on the substance of the housing elements, so we can do that. So for the public certification and the councils, we do plan to hold a hearing and finalize the pieces that the Planning Commission has to do with this part.
00:21:15.76	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you.
00:21:20.02	Mayor Blaustein	And in response to Commissioner Luxenberg statement, we are planning to, and I would like to ask the staff to calendar a meeting on January 30th, given the January 31st deadline of the housing element, which will be a joint meeting of the planning commission
00:21:31.51	Mayor Blaustein	and the city council.
00:21:32.81	Mayor Blaustein	Commissioner Luxenberg, your hand is still raised. Before I move to the city council, do you have
00:21:37.04	Chair Luxembourg	No, I'm not used to raising the hands in the electronic thing, so I just need to figure out how to turn that off. Hold on a second.
00:21:37.18	Mayor Blaustein	them.
00:21:44.81	Unknown	Thank you.
00:21:44.82	Mayor Blaustein	You're doing great. Thank you. I appreciate it.
00:21:46.80	Chair Luxembourg	No, it's off now. So thank you very much.
00:21:49.84	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, so now that the planning commission is weighed in, I will move to members of the City Council and Councilmember Sobieski had his hand raised first.
00:21:58.53	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Hi, Beth, thank you for the presentation. Did you put that slide of the calendar, the very first slide you had back up?
00:22:04.60	Vice Mayor Sobieski	You just heard reference made to the January 31st deadline, but I didn't actually see
00:22:04.94	Unknown	Sure.
00:22:10.66	Vice Mayor Sobieski	that in your calendar as a critical point.
00:22:14.98	Vice Mayor Sobieski	the first line I see comments to on the 26th and then sort of a
00:22:20.04	Vice Mayor Sobieski	not a deadline. So what's the story with the January 31st deadline?
00:22:24.70	Beth Thompson	So the January 31st deadline is the statutory deadline to have your housing element adopted. The city is running behind schedule. The EIR is currently being prepared, but it will not be ready for adoption at that time. We also won't get the state's comments until January 26th. So it's not just a deadline to adopt your housing element, but it's a deadline to adopt a housing element that substantially complies with state law.
00:22:48.09	Beth Thompson	And we do anticipate a fair number of comments from HCD.
00:22:52.86	Beth Thompson	So,
00:22:54.10	Beth Thompson	Given the need for the EIR and to respond to the comments from HCD, we're anticipating that the adoption will be later than the deadline.
00:23:01.77	Vice Mayor Sobieski	are you gonna speak to the consequences of missing the deadline?
00:23:05.27	Beth Thompson	And I believe the city attorney is on the line for that discussion.
00:23:09.77	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Well, I mean, you're the housing expert. So is the city attorney the
00:23:13.16	Vice Mayor Sobieski	The right person to speak to that or is that you?
00:23:13.35	Beth Thompson	All right, personally.
00:23:15.34	Beth Thompson	Well, they might be the better person to speak to the legal consequences of missing the deadline when when you don't have a housing element that's adopted by the deadline, you are open to having projects come in. There's a portion of state law called the builder's remedy that allows
00:23:29.43	Beth Thompson	eligible projects, they have to include a certain percentage of affordable units to be applied for
00:23:34.83	Beth Thompson	And those are typically not reviewed under general plan and zoning requirements. They do still have to comply with CEQA and there are a number of requirements that can be applied to those projects. But that would be the process for those projects. Apart from that,
00:23:49.04	Beth Thompson	The state doesn't have a specific list of penalties for not having adopted your housing element on time. The city, the state does have a housing element task force, which can
00:23:59.62	Beth Thompson	require jurisdictions to adopt a housing element or take additional measures. They have a specific amount of notice they need to give a city and
00:24:06.54	Beth Thompson	Many other communities, cities and counties throughout the Bay Area are in a similar position as Sausalito. And so far, we haven't seen any aggressive actions from the Housing Element Task Force.
00:24:19.82	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Beth, why is it that we are not
00:24:22.22	Vice Mayor Sobieski	getting our EIR and the whole housing element done on time.
00:24:27.06	Vice Mayor Sobieski	on time.
00:24:29.07	Beth Thompson	The city's process to identify sites was very lengthy. So there was a lengthy process to identify sites. And also at the beginning of the year last year, the review timeline for housing elements changed. So housing elements used to have to go through one review period prior to being submitted or prior to being adopted. And now, which was a 60-day review period, and then last January it became 20.
00:24:52.20	Beth Thompson	a 30-day review period for the public review, followed by a 10 business day break,
00:24:57.65	Beth Thompson	and then submittal to the state for a 90-day review period. So there was a 70-day extension to the review period. So there have been some
00:25:05.96	Beth Thompson	Um,
00:25:06.77	Beth Thompson	measures that have definitely affected the timeline.
00:25:10.61	Vice Mayor Sobieski	So I don't know, to me, that's bearing the lead a little. It sounded like some pretty severe consequences for missing the deadline.
00:25:17.01	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Is there not a slide or someone to inform us about that?
00:25:20.94	Mayor Blaustein	We are fortunate to have a municipal attorney on our city council who's worked on these issues and can speak to that if we would allow her quickly.
00:25:24.47	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Thank you.
00:25:25.84	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Great.
00:25:28.40	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Bye.
00:25:29.02	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Whoever can answer the question, I'd love to understand that better.
00:25:33.70	Mayor Blaustein	Councilmember Cox.
00:25:34.47	Councilmember Cox	Thank you.
00:25:35.37	Councilmember Cox	I believe Sergio is on the line as well. Two consequences I'm aware of is that one, our...
00:25:43.76	Councilmember Cox	the time that we have to implement programs 16 and 19
00:25:48.77	Councilmember Cox	and other changes such as changes to the zoning ordinance amendments is reduced from three years to one year and for us. In order to implement our zoning ordinance, it will require a vote of the people to address the fair traffic initiative, something that is virtually impossible for us to accomplish in one year.
00:26:08.80	Councilmember Cox	Another consequence I'm aware of is that
00:26:11.48	Councilmember Cox	We lose our eligibility for block grant funding, something that Sausalito heavily relies on.
00:26:19.50	Councilmember Cox	these are severe consequences. These are not the only consequences. And I see the city attorney is on the line.
00:26:26.26	Mayor Blaustein	Yeah.
00:26:26.99	Mayor Blaustein	Sergio, could you speak to some of the legal implications of not passing the housing element at the statutory deadline of January 31st?
00:26:33.50	Sergio Roodin	Yeah, so besides those two items, which Council Member Cox raised, and she's correct about them,
00:26:42.82	Sergio Roodin	Um,
00:26:44.71	Sergio Roodin	If the housing is adopted more than one year after the due date, it cannot be found in substantial compliance until the upzoning is adopted. So that is...
00:26:53.35	Sergio Roodin	there's another later deadline that you need to make sure you don't miss.
00:26:59.19	Sergio Roodin	So basically, if you don't have a compliant housing element, the attorney general, any developer, housing advocacy group,
00:27:06.88	Sergio Roodin	can seek a writ against the city, compelling them to adopt a housing element that's in substantial compliance with housing element law.
00:27:13.68	Sergio Roodin	Um,
00:27:15.10	Sergio Roodin	Additionally, there is a process by which the Attorney General can file suit and get a writ from the court and including
00:27:22.51	Sergio Roodin	a deadline for compliance and monetary penalties if you fail to adopt on time.
00:27:27.74	Sergio Roodin	Um,
00:27:29.12	Sergio Roodin	That typically takes a while and the court order is going to give you some timeframe by which you have to adopt a compliant element. But there is the possibility of monetary penalties while you're out of compliance,
00:27:41.19	Sergio Roodin	Um,
00:27:43.35	Sergio Roodin	So additionally, courts can order a variety of remedies while you don't have a compliant housing element, including
00:27:49.58	Sergio Roodin	Strangely enough, the ability to suspend
00:27:52.29	Sergio Roodin	the authority to suspend the city's ability to issue building permits or approve any zoning changes while you don't have a compliant housing element.
00:28:00.07	Sergio Roodin	or process any subdivision maps. Additionally, plaintiffs can typically be entitled to approval of their projects while you are
00:28:10.60	Sergio Roodin	not having a compliant housing element. So there is litigation risk from developers.
00:28:16.20	Sergio Roodin	that is increased at that time.
00:28:18.45	Sergio Roodin	So those are some of the additional potential risks of not having compliant housing element.
00:28:23.88	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Sergio. Councilmember Sobieski, are you finished with your questions?
00:28:27.17	Vice Mayor Sobieski	I have some other questions that are less important than the one I asked and the implications of it. I guess I would love to understand how it is. I thought we approved the sites back in August, so I'm still a little
00:28:39.47	Vice Mayor Sobieski	I got a gob smacked really.
00:28:41.52	Vice Mayor Sobieski	as to why
00:28:42.75	Vice Mayor Sobieski	we are not on track to have the ER back in time
00:28:46.60	Vice Mayor Sobieski	to meet this January 31st deadline. So I don't feel like I got I would like that answered from somebody.
00:28:51.68	Vice Mayor Sobieski	about how it is that we got off track. I mean, the difference is.
00:28:53.99	Mayor Blaustein	I think we all like this.
00:28:57.16	Mayor Blaustein	Beth, would you like to respond to that now? Or can I take questions from Councilmember Hoffman? Her hand has been raised as well.
00:29:02.19	Beth Thompson	But that would be fine.
00:29:05.48	Mayor Blaustein	I can come back to that question.
00:29:07.47	Mayor Blaustein	Do you have an answer for the question?
00:29:09.63	Beth Thompson	Well, sure, yes, of course.
00:29:11.88	Beth Thompson	How is the housing element running late? As I had mentioned, the city went through a lengthy process to identify sites.
00:29:16.77	Councilmember Cox	Why did the EIR scoping just happen last week?
00:29:22.27	Beth Thompson	Oh.
00:29:22.44	Councilmember Cox	Bye.
00:29:22.96	Beth Thompson	The city has had a lot of turnover in staff, and unfortunately, it took two and a half months to get the scoping notice published.
00:29:32.88	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, let's go to Councilmember Hoffman.
00:29:34.32	Councilmember Hoffman	Thank you.
00:29:36.17	Councilmember Hoffman	So,
00:29:38.84	Councilmember Hoffman	continuing on in this vein of the consequences of not adopting by January 31st and the challenges with regard to
00:29:48.49	Councilmember Hoffman	you know, not the fact that that element, I know that's not the right word, that portion of the because element has its own meaning.
00:29:57.45	Councilmember Hoffman	But that portion of our submission won't be done. I think my question to Beth is, I think the preference from the council is going to be to adopt by the statutory deadline.
00:30:10.82	Councilmember Hoffman	not to be out of compliance by the statute of deadlines, understanding that we may have that portion of it. We may still be waiting on the EIR.
00:30:19.12	Councilmember Hoffman	Well, actually we'll have we should have it back. It will be during the public comment.
00:30:23.83	Councilmember Hoffman	portion of the EIR.
00:30:26.45	Councilmember Hoffman	I think my question to Beth is,
00:30:29.45	Councilmember Hoffman	and you probably don't have an answer tonight,
00:30:31.29	Councilmember Hoffman	But what we're looking for from our consultant is how do we adopt and note with HCD that that portion is not going to be back yet?
00:30:40.16	Councilmember Hoffman	or completed because I think the preference for the council is going to be to take action no later than January 31st to adopt
00:30:48.57	Councilmember Hoffman	our housing element.
00:30:49.65	Councilmember Hoffman	So be it if some element is missing.
00:30:52.62	Beth Thompson	And so, HCD is not concerned about your EIR. They're concerned about whether or not the housing element is adopted. The concern about the EIR is whether or not you are then at risk for litigation regarding adopting your housing element without substantially complying with CEQA. Now, that being said, a number of jurisdictions throughout the state look at the housing element as being a policy only document. And so, they do adopt the housing element with an exemption.
00:31:16.90	Beth Thompson	noting that the EIR will be prepared to address the rezoning of sites. In Sausalito, it was planned that the housing element and the rezoning of sites would occur concurrently so that the housing element and the housing element EIR would also be prepared concurrently adopted at the same time. So that's the reason we've had this timing. I can definitely strategize with city staff and the city attorney regarding other approaches.
00:31:41.37	Councilmember Hoffman	I feel like that's going to be the
00:31:43.82	Councilmember Hoffman	We're not done yet with the meeting tonight.
00:31:47.92	Councilmember Hoffman	I know.
00:31:47.97	Mayor Blaustein	Are you finished with your questions, Councilmember Hoffman?
00:31:51.14	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, I'm gonna go to Councilmember Kelman.
00:31:54.23	Councilmember Kelman	Thank you to staff and thank you Beth for being here tonight and providing us with this guidance and information.
00:32:00.58	Councilmember Kelman	So on the same thread, just to inform everybody, I went back to try to understand where the schedule had shifted.
00:32:07.51	Councilmember Kelman	and having been a member of the Housing Element Committee since its inception. And it looks like there's a change in when we are planning or when we plan to have a final draft over to HCD as of the May 23rd meeting. And so Beth, you mentioned earlier that there were some factors, the review cycle change. I'm wondering if that date, something happened on that date. I mean, I think this whole council is trying to understand
00:32:33.68	Councilmember Kelman	how and why did that schedule shift? Because I look back at all the schedules up until May 23rd, and we always had something in December. It's always December. And then all of a sudden on the 23rd of May,
00:32:43.23	Councilmember Kelman	It changes to January.
00:32:45.06	Councilmember Kelman	Was there a specific reason that that shifted?
00:32:48.60	Beth Thompson	I would have to go back and look through the specific meeting notes, but I anticipate that that's when we realized that we weren't narrowing down the sites. We had anticipated we would identify sites very early on in the process. We would have a limited number of sites and we would start the EIR review of those sites pretty early. And identifying the sites took longer than expected, then also getting that draft housing element to the HEAC.
00:33:09.42	Beth Thompson	consequently took longer because it required all of the sites to be
00:33:14.07	Beth Thompson	finalized.
00:33:16.09	Councilmember Kelman	Okay. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to belabor the point, but I don't recall the advice of that, hey, this is the risk you run. So I'll have to go back and look at my notes. I want to change course just for a second, talk about the community block grants. So one of the issues, obviously, with not adopting by the 31st is that we then don't have access to the community block grants. My understanding is that the community block grant,
00:33:41.18	Councilmember Kelman	is one of the most important local funds for affordable housing, anti-poverty programs, infrastructure development.
00:33:49.49	Councilmember Kelman	UM,
00:33:50.53	Councilmember Kelman	How much of that play into your thinking? And has it played into your thinking as we've developed the housing element? Have the block grants been at all part of the strategy? And this is sort of towards Commissioner Sayed's question as well, what type of financing is there?
00:34:05.13	Beth Thompson	So the Community Development Block Grant funds or CDBG funds are allocated to small cities through the state's small city and small jurisdiction program. However, the city of Sausalito participates as a,
00:34:16.42	Beth Thompson	as part of the urban county. So you actually received CDBG funds through Marin County and through that larger
00:34:23.24	Beth Thompson	block of cities, and so I don't believe you're at risk of losing any CDBG funds because they are not administered by the state they're administered by head to the urban county so you don't participate in the state's competitive process. So I don't think that you would be significantly impacted by that we do anticipate that the CDBG funds would be used for
00:34:43.69	Beth Thompson	a variety of things. They do fund the city's fair housing
00:34:48.60	Beth Thompson	programs. So fair housing and that's actually funded again through the through the county. So a lot of that is funded through the county and then a number of the city's community service
00:34:57.76	Beth Thompson	Programs that benefit the lower income population are funded through the CDBG funds as well.
00:35:03.48	Beth Thompson	Okay.
00:35:04.02	Councilmember Kelman	I'm sure we'll revisit that, but with the permission of my colleagues, I'd like to ask Director Phipps to flag that as something to nail down and to say with some certainty the impact to us of not having access to those grants. Okay, two more questions here. So this one relates to the EIR and the fact that the EIR scoping meeting just began.
00:35:23.61	Councilmember Kelman	Say for example, we had additional sites to add. More people stepped up and received notice and said, hey, this is a great idea. We wanna add our product.
00:35:33.76	Councilmember Kelman	you know, our person's on here as well.
00:35:35.65	Councilmember Kelman	Is now the time to do that because of the status of the EIR?
00:35:40.25	Beth Thompson	The EIR is underway and being prepared. So if we were to change sites significantly, we would then have to go and redo a lot of the analysis in the EIR. So this probably isn't the best time to add sites. The best time to add sites was back when the site list was being developed. What the city can do though is,
00:35:47.93	Vicki Nichols	EIR.
00:35:57.55	Beth Thompson	you can adopt the housing element, have the EIR, and then you can go back and you can revise your sites. So the state definitely allows for amendments to the housing element during the cycle. So if there's a desire to change sites, you identify sites that are more feasible, more desirable,
00:36:12.20	Beth Thompson	you can definitely revise those sites and then prepare either an addendum to the EIR or a subsequent document that just addresses those modifications to the housing elements.
00:36:22.73	Councilmember Kelman	Okay, yeah, I guess the reason for my question is because it doesn't seem like we're very far along, even though we have finally issued the public notice, it's really so nascent, as opposed to being primarily
00:36:32.30	Councilmember Kelman	Almost done kind of thing. But let me shift to my last question. So you had a program 19, you had analysis of the odds. And thank you for bringing that up.
00:36:42.03	Councilmember Kelman	I read that slide and heard your comments to suggest that we better get a move on it when it comes to the objective design standards and need to adopt those.
00:36:51.91	Councilmember Kelman	Um,
00:36:52.68	Councilmember Kelman	Did I hear that correctly? And if so, I will also ask Director Phipps to flag that as something to come back to us.
00:37:00.21	Beth Thompson	And yes, we are anticipating that one set of the odds would be adopted this year and then subsequent odds would be adopted in 2025.
00:37:08.48	Beth Thompson	Okay. Yes.
00:37:09.74	Beth Thompson	Thank you, Beth. Very soon.
00:37:10.75	Councilmember Cox	Thank you.
00:37:11.01	Beth Thompson	Yeah.
00:37:11.29	Mayor Blaustein	you
00:37:11.93	Mayor Blaustein	Council member Cox, do you have some questions for Beth?
00:37:14.67	Councilmember Cox	Yes, thank you so much. Thank you for your report. Beth, I noticed that the PowerPoint presentation is not attached to our staff report. It would be helpful to receive those in advance of our meetings in the future. Is it possible to get a copy of the PowerPoint presentation because it had a lot of information?
00:37:32.30	Beth Thompson	it.
00:37:32.44	Unknown	Thank you.
00:37:32.57	Councilmember Cox	Thank you.
00:37:32.61	Beth Thompson	Absolutely. And that I think will just get posted to the agenda and to the city's website so we can make sure that that's available.
00:37:39.78	Councilmember Cox	Um, and, uh,
00:37:42.06	Councilmember Cox	Council member Kelman asked you about the slipping of the schedule when you decided on May 23 to extend the schedule to adopt the housing element in January, which now we're not going to do that either. Did you notify the city council of the consequences of not timely adopting a housing element.
00:38:02.78	Beth Thompson	Bye.
00:38:04.53	Beth Thompson	I would have to look back at our meetings that we had with city council because we did check in with city council a couple of times. I will tell you,
00:38:10.07	Councilmember Cox	I will tell you I've attended every housing element committee meeting and every city council meeting and I never heard
00:38:15.98	Councilmember Cox	any mention of loss of block grant funding
00:38:19.60	Councilmember Cox	any mention of Builder's Remedy. So I just would like to find out when and how
00:38:27.18	Councilmember Cox	you notified the city council of the consequences of the schedule being extended.
00:38:34.07	Beth Thompson	And we also likely did notify staff and
00:38:38.23	Beth Thompson	That would be frequently in most communities we work with staff would then itemize that for city council discussion.
00:38:44.48	Councilmember Cox	All right, but you've had several meetings with the city council most recently in August. So if the site's inventory was delaying,
00:38:51.67	Councilmember Cox	the finalization of the housing element and the resultant environmental review, I would hope that you would notify the decision makers directly of that fact.
00:39:03.39	Councilmember Cox	My next question is, I understand that HCD will be providing comments and that we must...
00:39:12.07	Councilmember Cox	After receipt of those comments demonstrate substantial compliance with housing law,
00:39:17.25	Councilmember Cox	um,
00:39:18.14	Councilmember Cox	Is there and then HCD gets to review the housing element again. What is the deadline for final adoption after receipt of HCD comments? I know we're missing the January deadline, but is there also a May 31 deadline?
00:39:34.33	Beth Thompson	There is not a May 31 deadline per se.
00:39:39.56	Beth Thompson	So,
00:39:42.59	Beth Thompson	Once the housing element, once you receive HCD comments, some jurisdictions send their draft housing element, they revise the housing element to address comments, and they send their revised draft back to HCD for a subsequent comment period.
00:39:55.15	Beth Thompson	Sausalito does not need to do that. You can do that. And a lot of jurisdictions do that to ensure that they fully address the comments. But you are also able to adopt the housing element and submit an adopted housing element to the state for review. And then if it's not
00:40:08.31	Beth Thompson	doesn't meet their requirements, you can then go through and revise the housing element again. It just won't be in substantial compliance.
00:40:15.72	Beth Thompson	or at least that it won't be found to be in substantial compliance by the state. The city may believe it to be in substantial compliance and adopt it with a resolution, you know, with based on the findings that the city council makes.
00:40:26.77	Councilmember Cox	So as a follow on to that, were the city council to move forward
00:40:30.91	Councilmember Cox	with adoption on the 31st, making those findings that it could between the date it receives HCD's comments and the date it adopts.
00:40:39.78	Councilmember Cox	And
00:40:40.36	Councilmember Cox	the city council could subsequently amend the housing element.
00:40:44.36	Councilmember Cox	Correct?
00:40:45.45	Councilmember Cox	Crouch.
00:40:46.38	Councilmember Cox	And should the city council subsequently amend the housing element,
00:40:50.36	Councilmember Cox	those amendments would relate back to the initial date of adoption. And so the date of adoption would still be
00:40:57.69	Councilmember Cox	January 31 not the date that the amended housing element was adopted is that right
00:41:03.12	Beth Thompson	Thank you.
00:41:03.39	Beth Thompson	Thank you.
00:41:03.48	Councilmember Cox	And...
00:41:03.59	Beth Thompson	Yeah.
00:41:03.86	Beth Thompson	Not.
00:41:04.15	Beth Thompson	I don't believe state law addresses that nuance. I have always understood it to be the date that the element was adopted.
00:41:11.58	Beth Thompson	The element that HCD found to be in substantial compliance was adopted. So if your January 31st element isn't found to be in substantial compliance, HCD is not going to count that as the final date. They're going to wait for you to readopt it to be in substantial compliance.
00:41:25.79	Councilmember Cox	That's not my understanding. So I'm gonna ask the city attorney to weigh in on that at some point, not necessarily right now.
00:41:31.62	Beth Thompson	That would be great.
00:41:33.13	Councilmember Cox	And then
00:41:34.05	Councilmember Cox	If HCD requires revisions, if they find some of our opportunity sites unacceptable, would that not also require environmental review if we have to substitute new sites for the ones found unacceptable?
00:41:49.60	Beth Thompson	That could also, yes, require additional review. And so some jurisdictions also have programs that are, we have a limited number of sites in the housing element. So you do have some buffer. Some jurisdictions have a much broader list of sites. So there's a lot more capacity to kind of pick and choose with their sites.
00:42:07.28	Beth Thompson	So we could definitely add some more sites and through the EIR process, we built, we
00:42:12.36	Beth Thompson	we will be identifying some alternatives, including increasing densities on sites and then also some additional sites that have some potential.
00:42:19.87	Councilmember Cox	So if we adopt a housing element with the exemption that you mentioned,
00:42:24.63	Councilmember Cox	um,
00:42:25.74	Councilmember Cox	and then adopt our EIR in connection with our zoning.
00:42:31.23	Councilmember Cox	Can we not postpone the EIR to accompany the zoning changes as opposed to accompanying the adoption of the housing element?
00:42:42.64	Councilmember Cox	Bye.
00:42:42.65	Beth Thompson	Oh,
00:42:42.80	Councilmember Cox	Thank you.
00:42:43.21	Beth Thompson	Yes, if you're adopting the housing out with an exemption, you would just by virtue of that action be postponing the EIR to something else.
00:42:51.26	Beth Thompson	So that's an option for us.
00:42:53.79	Beth Thompson	I would want the city attorney to weigh in on that since the city had planned to adopt the housing element with an EIR. As I mentioned, jurisdictions throughout the state do adopt their housing element with an exemption, but there are jurisdictions who have sites that are
00:43:07.98	Beth Thompson	already looked at in their general plan for higher densities. And then some of them do have rezoning programs, but they still adopt with an exemption. So there's kind of a range of opportunities out there.
00:43:17.74	Councilmember Cox	Okay, so again, I don't expect the city attorney to respond to that this evening, but thank you for that.
00:43:24.11	Councilmember Cox	potential alternative. And my last question is, I think you said that you had a conversation with HCD and got a portent of some of the comments.
00:43:32.52	Councilmember Cox	Can you share with us what you learned from them about their preliminary comments?
00:43:39.27	Beth Thompson	Yeah, absolutely. So they hadn't reviewed the inventory in detail yet, and they had not yet reviewed...
00:43:46.22	Beth Thompson	the housing plan,
00:43:48.57	Beth Thompson	all the way through. So they started reviewing the housing element and they did identify some concerns regarding just the availability of infrastructure in the city. The housing element discusses that there are some areas with aging infrastructure and so they want some additional information to
00:44:03.31	Beth Thompson	to identify the
00:44:06.20	Beth Thompson	Availability of infrastructure and then also, more importantly, to ensure that the housing element has a program to ensure that the city has a plan in place to provide adequate infrastructure to the sites and identifying some funding sources that the state has available to assist with infrastructure improvements.
00:44:23.45	Beth Thompson	They also added for some analysis of the specific findings for a use permit for group homes that serve seven or more people and recommended that some changes be made to ensure that those are
00:44:36.41	Beth Thompson	fairly and equitably accommodated and not without any undue constraints. And then they asked for additional detail regarding the city's reasonable accommodation process, specifically whether or not any of the findings are subjective or constrain the process.
00:44:49.97	Beth Thompson	They recommended that regarding the program four, which addresses the need for the program that addresses the rezoning requirements,
00:44:59.39	Beth Thompson	that the city look at the city of Newport Beach's programs. They also have a program that addresses a special election and also recommended that we look at the city of Yorba Linda's programs as well. And we did consult the city of Yorba Linda's program. I am not sure that Newport Beach was adopted at the time we were drafting those programs, but we did look at Yorba Linda's program.
00:45:18.44	Beth Thompson	The housing element definitely reflects some of the information in that.
00:45:21.97	Beth Thompson	And she also asked for some additional information regarding potential flooding and sea level rise impacts regarding some of the existing housing.
00:45:30.05	Beth Thompson	along the shoreline and
00:45:31.99	Beth Thompson	whether or not there would be any undue impacts to any of the protected classes addressed in the affirmatively furthering fair housing analysis.
00:45:40.36	Beth Thompson	And,
00:45:41.00	Beth Thompson	Director Phipps specifically mentioned Galilee Harbor, that we could discuss some impacts to Galilee Harbor since there are no lower income community along the shoreline.
00:45:50.93	Councilmember Cox	Will you please summarize those comments and send them to the city council so that we can start to undertake.
00:45:57.79	Councilmember Cox	our thought about how we will address those in our findings.
00:46:02.45	Councilmember Cox	Absolutely.
00:46:03.41	Councilmember Cox	Okay, that's the extent of my questions. Thank you so much.
00:46:06.87	Unknown	Thank you.
00:46:07.60	Councilmember Cox	Thank you.
00:46:07.61	Mayor Blaustein	And,
00:46:07.89	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
00:46:08.44	Mayor Blaustein	I.
00:46:09.47	Mayor Blaustein	I just want to say thank you for the presentation. And also thank you to HIAC who put in a lot of time here. I appreciate what you're saying about the difficulty of finding sites and how long that takes. However, I think it's pretty clear from all the members on the council that we're not going to accept not submitting for this statutory deadline of the 31st. And I've already said we're going to have a meeting on January 30th. I'm prepared to call for a special meeting every day for the next 18 days if that's what it takes. So if you could just outline what absolutely must happen with the Planning Commission and the City Council between now and the 30th so that we can agendize this appropriately and pursue one of the options perhaps that Councilmember Cox just pointed out, that would be helpful.
00:46:54.21	Beth Thompson	And I'll coordinate with staff to identify what needs to happen because I want to make sure that we give you the correct information.
00:47:02.88	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, by when do you think you can have that available, given that we have 18 days until the January 30th meeting and, and we are very committed to submitting our housing element in advance of the statutory deadline.
00:47:14.22	Beth Thompson	I think we can figure that out next week.
00:47:18.49	Mayor Blaustein	Council member Kelman, you have your hand raised.
00:47:21.90	Councilmember Kelman	Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, sorry to go again. I just, Council Member Cox, raised a couple of important issues I want to circle back on. One is just sort of,
00:47:30.02	Councilmember Kelman	uh,
00:47:30.79	Councilmember Kelman	A fact question, the feedback we got from HCD around Galilee as an example, does HCD's feedback at all comment on
00:47:40.12	Councilmember Kelman	properties that are within our sphere of influence, but not within the city boundaries. So I mentioned that because you may or may not know that Main Dock,
00:47:48.05	Councilmember Kelman	which is within our sphere of influence by an unincorporated marine county, is also a means-based community. And so I just want to get clarity on whether or not each of these comments
00:47:57.96	Councilmember Kelman	include properties within our sphere of influence. And then I have a second question about EIR.
00:48:02.55	Beth Thompson	No, they don't include properties within your sphere.
00:48:05.42	Councilmember Kelman	Okay, thank you for that. And then the second, I guess, we talked a lot about the EIR, what we can and can't rely on. I've always sort of been confused about Plan Bay Area 2050's EIR.
00:48:14.18	Councilmember Kelman	because it focuses specifically on transportation and housing and affordability.
00:48:20.83	Councilmember Kelman	To what extent can we rely on that existing work and tear off of that? And I can't tell if it's a programmatic EIR or if it's a regional EIR. So any insight on that?
00:48:32.69	Beth Thompson	So you definitely can look at the Plan Bay Area 2050 EIR for cumulative impacts because it addresses the cumulative effect of implementing Plan Bay Area, which specifically includes the regional housing need allocation for the sixth cycle.
00:48:46.26	Beth Thompson	In terms of site-specific analysis for the community of Sausalito, Planned Bay Area is definitely
00:48:51.78	Beth Thompson	um,
00:48:53.24	Beth Thompson	It doesn't look at specific communities and specific impacts to communities, so it doesn't address the impact to Sausalito of accommodating or of adopting its housing element to accommodate state law.
00:49:05.95	Councilmember Kelman	Okay, so even though it has broad policy statements around the type of
00:49:09.63	Councilmember Kelman	properties or parcels we want to prioritize our housing elements because it's not specific on a parcel basis. It's not as applicable as as we would hope.
00:49:18.78	Beth Thompson	Not, but you know, we will definitely, as one of the potential measures to get you to the 31st, I'm sure Steph and I will be taking a look at that as well. That's it. That's what I do.
00:49:26.76	Kristen Taiki	That's it. That's my idea.
00:49:28.19	Beth Thompson	Yeah.
00:49:29.30	Beth Thompson	that it's.
00:49:30.08	Beth Thompson	That's a good one. I know when they adopted the 2050 ER, it's like, okay, this should just cover every jurisdiction's housing element. That would be so nice. That's right.
00:49:38.37	Beth Thompson	OK, thanks for that. Thanks for picking up on that.
00:49:41.74	Mayor Blaustein	Are there any further questions from the city council before I return to the planning commission for their final questions and take public comment.
00:49:48.61	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, so, oh, Council Member Sobieski, please.
00:49:51.12	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Well, I do have a question. It's a little bit off this very
00:49:55.93	Vice Mayor Sobieski	the most important issue, which is what we've all been asking about. Since this is our Q&A,
00:49:59.97	Vice Mayor Sobieski	I will ask you Beth,
00:50:02.28	Vice Mayor Sobieski	At that August meeting,
00:50:06.11	Vice Mayor Sobieski	running the consulting firm said that you would be able to follow up on the city council direction which was given at that meeting.
00:50:13.01	Vice Mayor Sobieski	which was for HIAC to look at the sensible Sausalito sites that had been identified by members of the community, and also the MarinShip Fair Share Plan that was developed by community venture partners.
00:50:26.28	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Um,
00:50:27.32	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Was that
00:50:28.57	Vice Mayor Sobieski	followed up on what did those sites and that Marineship Fresh Air Plan get a presentation at HIAC.
00:50:35.34	Beth Thompson	No, they did not. They were not agendized for HIAC. So the HIAC kind of stayed on their course. But there was an opportunity to have done that, but that was not possible.
00:50:47.12	Beth Thompson	Then.
00:50:48.13	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Okay, that was the unanimous direction of five members of the city council. Why was that not done?
00:50:52.90	Beth Thompson	And I will have to go back and look at the specific direction because I had thought that that was related to work outside of the housing element and not specifically to there was a lot of discussion about developing kind of a sustainable approach to
00:50:55.01	Vice Mayor Sobieski	interaction.
00:51:03.77	Beth Thompson	to the city's longer term housing needs. And I believe that was part of that discussion, but I'll have to go back and look at that.
00:51:09.98	Vice Mayor Sobieski	where you said that you would do it and it would be, you'd be able to do it within the total budget that we're paying.
00:51:15.28	Vice Mayor Sobieski	your consulting firm. Right.
00:51:17.09	Beth Thompson	I did say that and we were not directed by staff to do that. So we did not do that.
00:51:23.95	Vice Mayor Sobieski	but you were at the meeting where we voted unanimously to do it, right?
00:51:28.02	Beth Thompson	Thank you.
00:51:28.04	Mayor Blaustein	I was at that meeting.
00:51:30.57	Mayor Blaustein	I'm gonna go to the city attorney.
00:51:33.83	Mayor Blaustein	Surgeon.
00:51:37.71	Mayor Blaustein	We can't hear you, you're still muted.
00:51:41.55	Sergio Roodin	Thank you. I wanted to chime in on a couple of questions that were posed to the city attorney's office with respect to the May 31st deadline and whether or not there was such a deadline.
00:51:53.05	Sergio Roodin	first um
00:51:54.95	Sergio Roodin	In order to have three years to adopt the program of rezoning required to provide all adequate sites, the ABAC's Technical Assistance Memorandum and my review of the statute cited in it suggests that you have to adopt a compliant housing element by...
00:52:15.66	Sergio Roodin	April 1st, 2023.
00:52:17.92	Sergio Roodin	The reason for that is because HCD has to find that it is in compliance by no later than May 31st, i.e. 120 days after your statutory deadline.
00:52:28.38	Sergio Roodin	Um,
00:52:29.56	Sergio Roodin	And HCD is afforded 60 days in the statutes to review any submission that you guys provide after adoption.
00:52:39.55	Sergio Roodin	basically the deadline you're shooting for if you want to ensure you have the full three years for the program of rezoning would be adoption by no later than April 1st.
00:52:49.73	Sergio Roodin	Hopefully that's helpful.
00:52:51.26	Beth Thompson	Thank you.
00:52:52.34	Beth Thompson	Can I interject briefly? Yes, Beth. If I'm trying to get from April 3rd, this is for Sergio Roodin, but if...
00:53:00.34	Beth Thompson	HCD has 60 days to review it. Wouldn't we want to make sure that it's adopted by March to give them that 60 days to review it?
00:53:06.91	Beth Thompson	or no.
00:53:08.58	Sergio Roodin	So.
00:53:09.47	Sergio Roodin	Their deadline, I believe, is May 31st. So yeah, I mean,
00:53:13.34	Sergio Roodin	April 1st, you would want to be submitting it to HCD.
00:53:16.44	Beth Thompson	Okay, I'm sorry, I thought you said the end of April, so yes.
00:53:19.11	Sergio Roodin	Yeah.
00:53:20.49	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, and I'm now going to go to the Planning Commission. Commissioner Sad, you had your hand raised first.
00:53:28.07	Commissioner Sayed	Um,
00:53:29.03	Commissioner Sayed	Thank you, Mayor Blossom for the second opportunity.
00:53:32.24	Commissioner Sayed	Beth,
00:53:34.77	Commissioner Sayed	in one of the
00:53:35.82	Commissioner Sayed	previous HIAC meetings, we had discussed
00:53:38.31	Commissioner Sayed	3D renderings that were supposed to be part of the scope as well.
00:53:41.69	Commissioner Sayed	I believe it was for eight specific sites
00:53:44.72	Commissioner Sayed	Um,
00:53:45.26	Commissioner Sayed	Are those completed and are those going to have an opportunity to have an impact on anything moving forward?
00:53:53.20	Beth Thompson	So I believe six of those have been completed and those have not yet been forwarded to me, but those were completed separately from the housing element update. So those were part of the odds effort. And I believe those have been completed. And so we hopefully will have those for the next town hall meeting. And then the last two, I had forwarded the consultant's recommendations to staff and were just waiting to get those final recommendations.
00:54:17.01	Beth Thompson	final site selection.
00:54:19.57	Beth Thompson	parameters identified so those can be finalized.
00:54:22.78	Commissioner Sayed	Okay, and then we also had discussed an essentially, we worded it somewhat like a pick and choose
00:54:30.19	Commissioner Sayed	type list.
00:54:31.30	Commissioner Sayed	So when we were having the discussion about potentially removing sites, there was a lot of public comment around
00:54:36.75	Commissioner Sayed	some core sites and
00:54:39.01	Commissioner Sayed	leave.
00:54:39.59	Commissioner Sayed	action wanted to be taken, but there was concern if we remove one site, we don't know what the implications were.
00:54:44.97	Commissioner Sayed	Was there a chance to complete that list?
00:54:47.82	Commissioner Sayed	that we were
00:54:49.27	Commissioner Sayed	we'd be able to use to see if we remove one site, how we'd be able to compliment it by choosing a different opportunity site.
00:54:57.95	Commissioner Sayed	So we have.
00:54:58.22	Beth Thompson	We have the list of sites that are in the housing element that went to the state and that was the public review draft housing element. And so that has some, there's some buffer and some access there. And then as part of the EIR, we're also identifying some alternatives to provide the city a little more flexibility.
00:55:04.51	Commissioner Sayed	Right.
00:55:14.01	Beth Thompson	And so that will be part of the EIR.
00:55:16.58	Mayor Blaustein	I just want to be mindful that program for is not proposed for detailed discussion at this meeting. So in order to be compliant with the Brown Act, we have to be careful about how much we talk about specific sites. But I do appreciate the questions with respect to whether or not tasks were completed and what we're still waiting on. Just wanted to make that clarification.
00:55:32.15	Commissioner Sayed	Thank you.
00:55:32.69	Mayor Blaustein	Sorry.
00:55:33.03	Commissioner Sayed	Sure, no, thank you, Mayor Blasian. I was speaking in general. So thank you, Beth, for that confirmation.
00:55:40.99	Mayor Blaustein	Are you completed with your questions, Commissioner Sed? I am. Thank you. Yes. Okay. I will go to Commissioner Feller.
00:55:46.82	Commissioner Feller	Thank you very much, Mayor.
00:55:49.26	Commissioner Feller	Beth, I just wanted to quickly review with you for the benefit of everybody in this meeting tonight. Can we go over a little bit of the math?
00:55:58.56	Commissioner Feller	about the buffer that we had built into what was submitted to the state in terms of the number of sites and the number of units that we could fit. Because my understanding is that I think I understood this correctly that HCD has not commented on the site inventory yet.
00:56:19.39	Commissioner Feller	So I want to understand if you can just quickly review those numbers in that math real quick.
00:56:25.73	Beth Thompson	Absolutely. So the draft housing element includes capacity for about 828 units, which exceeds your regional housing need allocation by 104 units. So you've got some buffer there.
00:56:37.85	Beth Thompson	And the buffer really focuses around the lower income units as well as the moderate income units. There's no buffer for your above moderate income units.
00:56:46.87	Commissioner Feller	Okay, and so if the comments that you and Director Phipps have received so far from HCD don't
00:56:53.64	Commissioner Feller	address any of the site inventory
00:56:56.58	Commissioner Feller	How do you recommend
00:56:59.34	Commissioner Feller	you know, the Planning Commission, City Council,
00:57:02.40	Commissioner Feller	move forth to meet this January 31st deadline with that buffer? Are you
00:57:09.47	Commissioner Feller	suggesting that we actually submit our housing plan with
00:57:14.92	Commissioner Feller	excessive units,
00:57:17.42	Beth Thompson	Most jurisdictions do. So you do want to include a buffer when you submit your housing element. That gives you flexibility as projects are approved. Otherwise, if you approve a project that has less low income units or less units, then you're assuming all of a sudden you have to go back and update your housing element to add additional sites. So it is good to have a buffer in your housing element
00:57:38.48	Beth Thompson	Given that you're looking at the 31st, I think there are some ways to increase your capacity a bit more. It might be
00:57:46.05	Beth Thompson	increasing the minimum densities that are allowed in the housing overlays just to provide a slightly higher unit count in some additional capacity. So
00:57:55.79	Beth Thompson	we may go through and make some recommendations for changes prior to the EIR being completed, just to give you even more flexibility if you're submitting on the 31st. And I'll really have to talk to staff just to see what their direction and their input is regarding
00:58:13.76	Beth Thompson	regarding that.
00:58:15.45	Sergio Roodin	And I would strongly recommend the city include a buffer in terms of its adopted housing element as a result of the state's no net loss law. Which provides that for sites that you have identified at a specific density. You can't prohibit a developer from proposing a project that comes in a lower density, but the issue is if you don't have additional buffer space, then you have to undertake immediate rezoning as part of the approval of their project.
00:58:40.80	Sergio Roodin	So that is something you typically want to avoid having to do.
00:58:44.93	Commissioner Feller	Okay, that's actually very helpful. So thank you for clarifying that.
00:58:49.96	Commissioner Feller	And just a follow on question.
00:58:51.92	Commissioner Feller	related to do you have was there any commitment by HTD or do you and Director Phipps have any
00:58:59.02	Commissioner Feller	scheduled plan to
00:59:01.54	Commissioner Feller	Talk to HTD before their comments get to us on the 26th.
00:59:05.67	Commissioner Feller	Thank you.
00:59:05.69	Beth Thompson	We're planning to speak with them two to three days before their comments come out, but their comments, the preliminary discussions aren't a commitment as to what their comments will be. So we'll still also be waiting to see their actual written findings, but we are hoping to get a little more of a preview of what will be coming our way.
00:59:18.53	Commissioner Feller	We are.
00:59:22.46	Commissioner Feller	Do you expect to get any comment on the site inventory?
00:59:26.55	Beth Thompson	Absolutely.
00:59:27.98	Commissioner Feller	Okay.
00:59:29.03	Commissioner Feller	All right.
00:59:30.26	Commissioner Feller	Thank you.
00:59:30.97	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Mayor.
00:59:32.59	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Commissioner Feller. Commissioner Luxenberg.
00:59:35.22	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
00:59:35.24	Chair Luxembourg	Cheers.
00:59:36.05	Mayor Blaustein	I mean,
00:59:36.99	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Blavsky.
00:59:40.20	Chair Luxembourg	Beth, on the, first of all, the materials that the city council asked for you to submit, you also submit those to the planning commission. That would be helpful. Uh, and with regard to the March 1st, that, uh, was mentioned as far as this, um, trigger not occurring until March 1st.
00:59:59.86	Chair Luxembourg	I want to understand the dates as far as the
01:00:03.86	Chair Luxembourg	HCD response comes in on January 26th.
01:00:07.60	Chair Luxembourg	If we get that response and we get this EIR scope,
01:00:12.02	Chair Luxembourg	AND WE WANTED TO INCLUDE DER, WHAT IS THE EARLIEST DATE THAT WE COULD READOPT THIS BY THE MARCH 1 DATE THAT WAS MENTIONED AS FOR THAT ONE TRIGGER NOT BEING IMPLEMENTED?
01:00:26.45	Beth Thompson	not by March 1st. I would...
01:00:36.14	Sergio Roodin	So under CEQA, you are required to first put out a notice of preparation for an EIR, which has a 30-day comment period, and then you're not allowed to publish your draft EIR.
01:00:36.16	Unknown	So I understand.
01:00:47.92	Sergio Roodin	or your notice availability informing the public that the public comment period is open.
01:00:52.93	Sergio Roodin	until that 30 day
01:00:54.97	Sergio Roodin	period for the scoping and notice of preparation has been completed.
01:00:59.83	Sergio Roodin	After that, you're allowed to
01:01:02.48	Sergio Roodin	have a public comment period, which typically ranges from 30 to 60 days. So even on the short
01:01:08.61	Sergio Roodin	short scale, you know, it would be very difficult, I think, to
01:01:13.08	Sergio Roodin	adopt by
01:01:15.52	Sergio Roodin	the close of March, which would be the deadline to avoid having to
01:01:19.96	Sergio Roodin	complete your programs of rezoning by one year instead of three years. But not necessarily impossible.
01:01:28.38	Chair Luxembourg	Well, let me ask you this question related to that. Then if we move aside the ERR and do this as part of the rezoning or however that was suggested earlier, if we just focus on getting HCD comments reviewed and make sure that we have something that is going to qualify, because going through all this effort and adopting something and then find out it doesn't qualify, because they have a bunch of comments we didn't address,
01:01:57.29	Chair Luxembourg	What is the reasonable timeline you think if we get those comments on January 26th and you talked in my head that we could finish all that and still not have this one year trigger as opposed to the three year on the resulting? What's reasonable to make sure we get a qualified approved plan rather than rushing to adopt something that might not be approved?
01:02:24.54	Beth Thompson	And that, so there's really no guarantee with HCD when you get their comments. And then when they review your submittal, you might get different comments the second time around, or they might not anticipate, or they might not find that you have made all the changes that they wanted to see to address their findings. So there's not, not really a guarantee here, but I would anticipate that from when we get HCD's comments, you know, within three weeks, we would be able to address the majority of them to have a housing element that addresses the comments. Every once in a while, there are comments that take longer to address if they require significant research. But
01:02:57.18	Beth Thompson	I would anticipate that three weeks would be adequate time to review the state's comments, make all of the revisions to the housing element.
01:03:04.05	Beth Thompson	that would be necessary.
01:03:05.43	Chair Luxembourg	you know, necessary.
01:03:06.90	Chair Luxembourg	And if that were approved after that, I guess Sergio, would that still comply so that we still have three years to do rezoning?
01:03:18.14	Sergio Roodin	Yeah, I think as long as the city adopts a compliant housing element, i.e. an element that HCD deems to be compliant,
01:03:25.53	Sergio Roodin	if you adopt it
01:03:27.86	Sergio Roodin	before April 1st so that HCD can make its findings by May 31st, then
01:03:33.11	Sergio Roodin	Yes, in theory, you would have three years to complete your program rezoning.
01:03:37.09	Chair Luxembourg	Okay, thank you very much.
01:03:40.48	Chair Luxembourg	Those are my comments, questions at the moment. They're well-seens. Thank you.
01:03:45.17	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you okay we're going to open it up for public comment at this time and given the amount of items on the agenda this evening we're going to limit public comment to two minutes per speaker so city clerk would you please remind members of the public how to give public comment at this time, both for those present and those on zoom.
01:03:45.44	Chair Luxembourg	you.
01:04:03.70	city clerk	For those that are on Zoom, please use the Raise Hand application. And if you're on the telephone, then you can use a star nine.
01:04:14.06	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
01:04:17.00	city clerk	And at this moment, we'll give it a few moments. See if anybody has their hand up.
01:04:18.41	Unknown	Mm-hmm.
01:04:24.34	city clerk	And we do.
01:04:26.80	city clerk	Peter Maguire.
01:04:36.94	city clerk	Peter McGuire.
01:04:37.70	Mayor Blaustein	Hi, Peter.
01:04:38.18	Mayor Blaustein	Bye.
01:04:40.05	city clerk	Can I unmute yourself, please?
01:04:43.34	Mayor Blaustein	We still can't hear you, sir.
01:04:46.19	Mayor Blaustein	You're still muted.
01:04:46.68	city clerk	Bye.
01:04:46.72	Peter McGuire	Um,
01:04:47.02	Peter McGuire	Thank you.
01:04:47.05	city clerk	Thank you.
01:04:47.10	Mayor Blaustein	Peace now.
01:04:47.42	city clerk	Thank you.
01:04:47.88	Peter McGuire	How do I unmute?
01:04:49.18	Mayor Blaustein	You're unmuted.
01:04:50.44	Mayor Blaustein	Welcome.
01:04:50.87	Peter McGuire	Am I in, can you hear me now?
01:04:52.67	Peter McGuire	We sure can. Thank you very much.
01:04:54.49	Peter McGuire	Um,
01:04:56.03	Peter McGuire	I have comments with respect to a specific site, but before I say that,
01:05:00.52	Peter McGuire	I just want to make a general comment. This is a mess.
01:05:04.53	Peter McGuire	I'm not sure everybody in this room and on this thing understands all the implications of what's going on here.
01:05:11.91	Peter McGuire	And it's kind of disturbing.
01:05:15.50	Peter McGuire	that at this late stage of this process,
01:05:18.44	Peter McGuire	there's this much confusion.
01:05:20.92	Peter McGuire	Truly.
01:05:22.52	Peter McGuire	My name is Peter McGuire and I represent 20 property owners on Marion Avenue and South Street.
01:05:30.29	Peter McGuire	who oppose 66 Maradins.
01:05:32.34	Peter McGuire	in the current housing element.
01:05:34.94	Peter McGuire	I want you to, I referenced you to appendix three comment six of the agenda.
01:05:41.07	Peter McGuire	that first references the opposing letters to 66 Marians.
01:05:46.69	Peter McGuire	There were two statements in that provision
01:05:50.96	Peter McGuire	that I'd like to comment on.
01:05:53.10	Peter McGuire	The first is a statement that there were nine opposition letters.
01:05:56.54	Peter McGuire	This is substantially understated.
01:05:58.79	Peter McGuire	I think there'll be another caller who'll give you more clarified information about that.
01:06:03.97	Peter McGuire	The second assertion bears repeating.
01:06:06.60	Peter McGuire	And I quote,
01:06:08.15	Peter McGuire	At this point in the process, housing sites are not recommended for a removal
01:06:13.94	Peter McGuire	from the draft housing element based upon community opposition.
01:06:18.97	Peter McGuire	Close quote.
01:06:20.79	Unknown	Thank you.
01:06:20.81	Mayor Blaustein	Mr. McGuire.
01:06:21.40	Unknown	Thank you.
01:06:21.42	Mayor Blaustein	I'd like to note that
01:06:21.43	Peter McGuire	and
01:06:23.46	Mayor Blaustein	We are not speaking to specific sites for this evening's meeting. We're not the.
01:06:29.38	Mayor Blaustein	It's not proposed for detailed discussion at this time. We did receive your letter and we will have another meeting on January 30th where we'll go in depth on all of the sites. But I want to make sure that we are in compliance with the Brown Act and only accepting public comment on items as they're agendized.
01:06:43.25	Peter McGuire	Okay, that's fair and I apologize. It was not clear to me looking at the agenda. And again, this is part of this process. It's very confusing.
01:06:53.16	Peter McGuire	And I followed this process very closely.
01:06:56.20	Peter McGuire	over the last months and how this process worked.
01:07:00.14	Peter McGuire	is confusing.
01:07:02.83	Peter McGuire	So if I need to postpone these comments on a specific site until that time, I will do so. But I'd also like to be informed that that's in fact the date that I can make those comments.
01:07:13.64	Mayor Blaustein	like to
01:07:14.45	Mayor Blaustein	interrupts.
01:07:16.01	Peter McGuire	Okay.
01:07:16.04	Mayor Blaustein	Okay?
01:07:17.07	Peter McGuire	Thank you.
01:07:17.12	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you very much, Mr. McGuire.
01:07:17.14	Peter McGuire	Thank you.
01:07:18.98	Peter McGuire	All right, now, again, I just make a general comment because I think I should.
01:07:24.41	Mayor Blaustein	I think we can give him the 30 seconds back on the general comments because he had some comments with regards to the general practice of the housing element before we cut him off
01:07:32.24	Unknown	Okay.
01:07:33.02	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
01:07:33.03	Unknown	Yeah.
01:07:34.01	Unknown	You're muted there, Mr. McGuire.
01:07:36.36	Unknown	I'm muted.
01:07:38.59	Unknown	Still muted.
01:07:43.09	Unknown	Still muted.
01:07:47.09	Unknown	Can you hear us, Mr. McGuire?
01:07:53.72	city clerk	We can't.
01:07:54.16	city clerk	We can't hear you at all.
01:07:55.90	city clerk	And
01:07:57.17	city clerk	Unmute yourself, please.
01:08:02.75	city clerk	you should ask,
01:08:03.49	Mayor Blaustein	Uh,
01:08:03.58	city clerk	I don't know.
01:08:03.59	Peter McGuire	Okay, I tried again.
01:08:03.97	Mayor Blaustein	try it again. Great. I wanted to make sure you have an opportunity to continue. Thank you. And I will, I will
01:08:07.16	Peter McGuire	Thank you. And I will I will I will withhold my comments on a specific site until that later date, as long as I have notification about that. But let me just make a general comment again to what I had. I simply don't understand why this process has been so delayed.
01:08:22.85	Peter McGuire	We seem to be behind every other city in Marin.
01:08:26.88	Peter McGuire	This is a particular concern with respect to the EIR, which is months behind schedule.
01:08:33.30	Peter McGuire	That's going to leave very little time for the public to review and comment.
01:08:39.19	Peter McGuire	You know, I mean, you guys are running a distinct risk
01:08:43.30	Peter McGuire	that this entire process
01:08:45.48	Peter McGuire	will be viewed as fatally flawed.
01:08:48.65	Peter McGuire	And I know a substantial number of property owners
01:08:52.19	Mayor Blaustein	Sure.
01:08:53.16	Peter McGuire	who have coming to that conclusion.
01:08:55.76	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Mr. Farrell. I appreciate it.
01:08:56.08	Peter McGuire	and sort of that
01:08:56.87	Peter McGuire	I appreciate that in mind.
01:08:58.37	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you very much. We'll move on to the next public comment.
01:09:02.89	city clerk	And we have Sandra Bushmaker.
01:09:04.30	Mayor Blaustein	Welcome, Sandra.
01:09:10.28	Sandra Bushmaker	Okay, I'll keep it sweet and short. Good evening, council and planning commission.
01:09:16.68	Sandra Bushmaker	There seems to be still some confusion in the air as to the consequences of certain dates.
01:09:22.91	Sandra Bushmaker	If I heard the city attorney correctly, the three one-year thing with regard to changing the zoning ordinance,
01:09:31.84	Sandra Bushmaker	will not be triggered.
01:09:33.67	Sandra Bushmaker	if we meet it by
01:09:36.09	Sandra Bushmaker	the 1st of April.
01:09:38.59	Sandra Bushmaker	That's what I heard.
01:09:40.39	Sandra Bushmaker	But how about the other consequences? And I think we need to get a really clear notion of what happens to the other consequences of missing that January 31st.
01:09:50.48	Sandra Bushmaker	date.
01:09:51.21	Sandra Bushmaker	And I don't feel that clarity. I don't hear that clarity. And I think we need to know.
01:09:57.64	Sandra Bushmaker	So I am of the opinion, this is my personal opinion, that we need to push and try to do what we can to adopt a housing element by January 31st.
01:10:08.13	Sandra Bushmaker	And I would like to see effort on the city's part and staff's time to make that happen.
01:10:13.28	Sandra Bushmaker	so that we don't get caught.
01:10:16.13	Sandra Bushmaker	after the fact.
01:10:17.70	Sandra Bushmaker	With oops, this consequence does kick in.
01:10:21.13	Sandra Bushmaker	Thank you.
01:10:21.55	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
01:10:22.56	Sandra Bushmaker	Thank you.
01:10:22.63	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Sandra.
01:10:27.94	city clerk	And I believe that was our final speaker.
01:10:31.52	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, I will now close public comment. And in the interest of order, I'm going to hand it over to Chair Luxembourg to take whatever comment there may be from the Planning Commission before I turn it back over to the Council for Staff Direction.
01:10:43.22	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you, Mayor Blonstein. So at this point, the Planning Commission is going to, at its next meeting on the 25th, we'll figure out and get input from staff from De Novo on what we have to do and the steps we have to do it. We would like clarity, we should, we would like clarity, I would like clarity on this confirming ON THIS CONFIRMING OF THIS MARCH OR APRIL DATE, ALSO CONFIRMING WHETHER CBDG THINGS ARE AT RISK AND IF THERE ARE ANY DEVELOPERS THAT COULD USE A DEVELOPER'S REMEDY IN THIS SHORT TIMELINE UNTIL WE GET THIS APPROVED. BUT I THINK WE DO NEED TO GO WITH A QUALIFIED
01:11:25.23	Chair Luxembourg	plan and not rush something that doesn't end up being qualified because we won't have accomplished anything. But as I said, we will be dealing with the next steps at our next meeting. But with that, if we could ask the other commissioners if they have any questions, if you folks could raise your hands, I can call on you if you do have questions.
01:11:49.92	Chair Luxembourg	I'm not seeing any, so I am seeing Commissioner Feller. If you could ask your questions at this point. Thank you.
01:11:58.80	Commissioner Feller	Yeah, I would just, just to maybe reemphasize what you said, Chair Luxembourg,
01:12:04.67	Commissioner Feller	Beth, this is a conversation we've been having for some time. We need a very clear schedule.
01:12:10.83	Commissioner Feller	with deliverables, output, whatever you want to call it, and not sort of
01:12:15.64	Commissioner Feller	colorful diagrams with ranges of dates. We really need to understand and be able to reverse engineer what we need to do and when we need to do it and how long it's going to take us. Obviously we're under the gun and we have less, you know, we have a little over two weeks now to get this done.
01:12:34.40	Commissioner Feller	And we need to be working together
01:12:37.88	Commissioner Feller	Planning Commission, City Council, we obviously rely on the public for their input as well.
01:12:43.38	Commissioner Feller	But we need that from you.
01:12:45.41	Commissioner Feller	So I would ask that you please prepare that urgently and don't wait for any other hearing from either body to get that distributed. The only other thing, Chair Luxembourg, is I just want to note that we also received a couple other public comments on this item in writing. And I just want to, I believe there were two different comments that were received. I just wanna publicly note those for the record.
01:13:17.94	Commissioner Feller	And that's all I have. Thank you.
01:13:21.05	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you, Commissioner of color. Any other commissioners? There's any other questions at this point?
01:13:27.83	Chair Luxembourg	With not, I'll turn it back over to Mayor Blaskin. Thank you.
01:13:31.66	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you. And were there any comments from other commissioners?
01:13:36.29	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, thank you very much planning Commission. We appreciate it. Okay, and now I'm going to turn it over to the Council for for comments and potentially some staff direction.
01:13:47.56	Mayor Blaustein	Council member Kelman.
01:13:49.75	Councilmember Kelman	Thank you, Mayor. I want to pick up on the theme that you articulated around making sure we have a clear plan of attack to get us to that January 30th date. So in addition to endorsing everything Chair Luxembourg just shared with us, I want to just repeat some of the requests I'd made to
01:14:06.71	Councilmember Kelman	Director Phipps and to Beth
01:14:08.42	Councilmember Kelman	UM,
01:14:08.97	Councilmember Kelman	In addition to the planning commissioners comment,
01:14:11.71	Councilmember Kelman	I definitely think we need to understand the risks of the community
01:14:15.08	Councilmember Kelman	block development grants or the CBDG grants.
01:14:18.12	Councilmember Kelman	It sounds like we need further clarity around how quickly we need to act on the odds. I'm hearing we need to act expeditiously and so we need to prioritize
01:14:28.13	Councilmember Kelman	that review and as they relate to this matter.
01:14:31.72	Councilmember Kelman	Sounds like we need to evaluate whether the plan Bay Area EIR could help us streamline some of the EIR and CEQA requirements.
01:14:41.49	Councilmember Kelman	Um,
01:14:42.30	Councilmember Kelman	I heard tonight there was some feedback from HCD. I would appreciate it if Beth could memorialize that in an email to the full council.
01:14:50.70	Councilmember Kelman	in the Planning Commission so we could see exactly what that was. We have that top of mind.
01:14:55.78	Councilmember Kelman	And then any information we may have from DeNovo around schedule, I think one of the planning commissioners mentioned it, with as much specificity as possible. So if it's possible, the HCD might give the feedback to us prior to the 26th. That would be really very helpful. But if it's only going to be the 26th, then certainly we'll plan for that. So I think those are my main comments at this time in terms of next steps. I am fully in favor of having another special joint meeting on the 30th. That makes sense to me.
01:15:26.73	Councilmember Kelman	I appreciate the opportunity.
01:15:29.10	Councilmember Kelman	Thank you, Council Member Hoffman.
01:15:33.20	Councilmember Hoffman	Thank you.
01:15:34.73	Councilmember Hoffman	Thanks to the staff and Beth for your candid responses tonight.
01:15:38.78	Councilmember Hoffman	I think from our strategy and from my understanding of what the quite severe consequences are from not certifying by
01:15:46.02	Councilmember Hoffman	January 31st and the fact that we don't actually need the EIR to certify our
01:15:51.35	Councilmember Hoffman	housing element that we need to decouple that and we need to give direction tonight
01:15:56.85	Councilmember Hoffman	from the city council to the consultant. We want to decouple EIR. We want to go full steam ahead with adopting a plan by January 31st.
01:16:06.14	Councilmember Hoffman	Period.
01:16:07.06	Councilmember Hoffman	And we're, we have our next city council meeting
01:16:11.13	Councilmember Hoffman	Our next regular city council meeting is January 24th. Who knows how many we'll have between them,
01:16:15.82	Councilmember Hoffman	Um,
01:16:16.70	Councilmember Hoffman	I would like.
01:16:17.95	Councilmember Hoffman	I would like Beth to give it, if we don't have another one,
01:16:21.46	Councilmember Hoffman	but Beth to give the full city council updates as we're moving through this.
01:16:26.13	Councilmember Hoffman	And you're going to have my understanding is you're going to have another call with HCD about further comments. I would like to report out.
01:16:34.82	Councilmember Hoffman	about that no later than our January 24th city council meeting. And then whatever we as a council need to do in between to finalize our plan, that's the priority for the next two and a half weeks. That's my perspective. And if we need to vote on that to give direction tonight, then I say we vote on that. But I think we have probably consensus among the city council on that.
01:16:58.60	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
01:16:58.97	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
01:16:59.43	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Councilmember Hoffman.
01:17:02.90	Mayor Blaustein	Councilmember Sobieski, do you want to
01:17:07.71	Vice Mayor Sobieski	I don't know that I need to pile on.
01:17:10.40	Vice Mayor Sobieski	But this sounds like an approach, the one that Councilmember Hoffman laid out and Councilmember Cox articulated. And Councilmember Kelman, I think we have a plan about how we're going to proceed.
01:17:21.11	Vice Mayor Sobieski	there will be a
01:17:23.56	Vice Mayor Sobieski	At times I try to understand again why we are in this position given
01:17:27.69	Vice Mayor Sobieski	the amount of money we spent on this consultant and the timing that Jen Alkomen outlined.
01:17:33.33	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Uh,
01:17:34.24	Vice Mayor Sobieski	And again, it was a secondary question,
01:17:37.43	Vice Mayor Sobieski	I don't know when we have a 5-0 vote on city council,
01:17:41.04	Vice Mayor Sobieski	I don't know why that isn't taken as direction and why the
01:17:44.59	Vice Mayor Sobieski	the
01:17:45.63	Vice Mayor Sobieski	he, I can, or the consultant didn't respond directly to that direction. So there was certainly a problem in our process.
01:17:51.77	Vice Mayor Sobieski	And it's frustrating, but we have to deal with the problem that we have. And it sounds like we do have a path towards dealing with that problem.
01:17:58.73	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Councilmember Sobieski. Councilmember Cox, thank you.
01:18:00.97	Councilmember Cox	you.
01:18:01.71	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
01:18:01.73	Councilmember Cox	um,
01:18:03.33	Councilmember Cox	I totally endorse the comments of council member Hoffman about getting a
01:18:08.18	Councilmember Cox	um,
01:18:08.97	Councilmember Cox	update from
01:18:10.45	Councilmember Cox	Beth on the 24th she was saying that she should hear back from HCD on the 23rd so I would definitely like to have a report to the full Council on the 24th. I don't know if we need to ask for this but.
01:18:24.09	Councilmember Cox	Council member Kelman and I are on the subcommittee of the city council for
01:18:29.73	Councilmember Cox	the housing element.
01:18:31.23	Councilmember Cox	I would like to formally
01:18:33.88	Councilmember Cox	excuse the housing element
01:18:36.34	Councilmember Cox	Committee to be sure that we are not inadvertently
01:18:41.89	Councilmember Cox	accused of not going through them in terms of our final adoption of our housing elements. So I think that
01:18:49.76	Councilmember Cox	this evening or whenever it's appropriate, we should thank and excuse
01:18:53.98	Councilmember Cox	the Housing Element Advisory Committee,
01:18:56.32	Councilmember Cox	I would like authority
01:18:57.67	Councilmember Cox	because staff has communicated in emails
01:19:00.54	Councilmember Cox	to me and Janelle that they do not have adequate time and resources to respond between January 26th
01:19:07.31	Councilmember Cox	and January 30th.
01:19:09.04	Councilmember Cox	to HCD's comments that we're expecting on January 26th, I would like
01:19:14.21	Councilmember Cox	that we're going to be doing.
01:19:14.77	Councilmember Cox	the council to direct myself and
01:19:17.36	Councilmember Cox	Council member
01:19:18.49	Councilmember Cox	Kellman to go ahead and put in the effort and work
01:19:21.94	Councilmember Cox	to draft
01:19:23.64	Councilmember Cox	findings.
01:19:24.59	Councilmember Cox	addressing HCD comments make
01:19:28.08	Councilmember Cox	draft revisions.
01:19:29.58	Councilmember Cox	consistent with HCD comments to present to the city council at our special meeting on the 30th.
01:19:34.83	Councilmember Cox	in an effort to adopt a housing element that is as close to compliant
01:19:39.34	Councilmember Cox	as possible.
01:19:40.38	Councilmember Cox	knowing and understanding that we may well have to adopt an amended housing element
01:19:45.38	Councilmember Cox	prior to April 1.
01:19:48.02	Councilmember Cox	in order to gain HCDs
01:19:51.55	Councilmember Cox	final.
01:19:52.45	Councilmember Cox	approval.
01:19:54.03	Councilmember Cox	I endorse what Councilmember Hoffman said about decoupling zoning, assuming that our city attorney agrees that that's an approach.
01:20:02.69	Councilmember Cox	that our city attorney has worked with other cities that have adopted a housing element prior to completing
01:20:08.97	Councilmember Cox	the CEQA process. So,
01:20:10.52	Councilmember Cox	I don't know if we need to just hit the pause button
01:20:13.76	Councilmember Cox	adopt an exemption with respect to the adoption of the housing element.
01:20:18.05	Councilmember Cox	and then focus on CEQA analysis for the
01:20:23.43	Councilmember Cox	Zoning.
01:20:24.31	Councilmember Cox	amendments. I don't I thought that was really well enunciated by Beth Thompson, but I would like to confirm with our city attorney that that's an acceptable approach to reduce risk to the city.
01:20:40.46	Councilmember Cox	Um,
01:20:42.45	Councilmember Cox	Those are my requests and comments.
01:20:46.09	Councilmember Cox	Thank you.
01:20:46.11	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you very much, Councilmember Cox. So I think that we are all absolutely in agreement that we will submit a housing element by the January 31st statutory deadline. And it sounds like everyone is in agreement with Councilmember Hoffman's approach of decoupling the EIR and zoning from the submittal of the housing element. The direction that we're giving, it seems, will be to do everything necessary to make that happen in a timely manner and verify with our city attorney that that is the best possible legal approach. In terms of us reaching our deadline, I would definitely like to give direction. I feel that we're very fortunate to have two attorneys like
01:21:20.97	Mayor Blaustein	Council member Kelvin and Council member Cox willing to take on a response to all of the comments in such a short timeline.
01:21:26.36	Mayor Blaustein	and appreciate that effort and happy to have them have you spend
01:21:30.32	Mayor Blaustein	several hours of your volunteer time so that we are able to pass this housing element. In addition to us doing the work to get this done, a couple of other direction that I heard with regards to what we'd like to see DeNovo do next.
01:21:44.46	Mayor Blaustein	is to more closely outline perhaps in partnership with the city attorney what exactly the risks of the community are specifically around the block development grants as Councilmember Kelman outlined. What are the what's the clarity on the odds and what do we need to do for the odds and the approach there. And then with regards to the EIR can we evaluate plan Bay Area and can we make sure that we get whatever feedback has already come from HCD.
01:22:07.07	Mayor Blaustein	be memorialized and submitted to both the City Council and the Planning Commission. So we have an idea of what that is in advance of the official comments on the 26th.
01:22:15.80	Mayor Blaustein	And I also would like to see
01:22:17.82	Mayor Blaustein	a decoupling or sorry pardon me a dismissal and thank you to the housing element advisory committee to ensure that we are again in compliance. And I truly truly appreciate all of the effort that the housing element advisory committee put in in their hours of service to work hard to get us to where we are. And I know this is a frustrating situation and I just want to say I think it's clear based on the City Council's comments tonight and the Planning Commission's comments that we are all very committed to
01:22:43.24	Mayor Blaustein	moving ahead and submitting this housing element by the deadline. So with that, if there's nothing else to add or that you'd like to see included, is that direction clear to staff?
01:22:55.52	Mayor Blaustein	Councilmember Hobbs, are you going to?
01:22:57.33	Mayor Blaustein	I can't tell if you're gonna raise your hand.
01:23:00.84	Councilmember Hoffman	There you go, Henry. There we go.
01:23:05.43	Councilmember Hoffman	I would just request that as we started doing last night, that this direction is included as close to verbatim as possible in the minutes for the meeting tonight.
01:23:18.07	Mayor Blaustein	And I would add another, I don't think since we're including it as closely as possible, just to follow up on.
01:23:23.77	Mayor Blaustein	Understanding from DeNova what was the discrepancies from the May 23rd meeting and getting a sense of where the deadlines were and also the expectations of that with regards to their contract. So if that could be included as well in the staff direction.
01:23:36.88	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, so if we are satisfied,
01:23:39.97	Councilmember Cox	Thank you.
01:23:40.02	Mayor Blaustein	Amen.
01:23:40.21	Councilmember Cox	has turned
01:23:40.85	Mayor Blaustein	Oh, I can.
01:23:40.87	Councilmember Cox	Oh, I...
01:23:41.22	Mayor Blaustein	Pardon me, City Manager Zapata, did you want to wait? And I see you've turned on your camera.
01:23:45.29	City Manager Zapata	I just wanted to say it was clear. The direction's clear.
01:23:48.95	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, great.
01:23:50.05	Mayor Blaustein	So now we will move on to agenda item 4B, which is the status of objective design and development standards. And I believe that this stuff report will be coming from director Phipps and Bob Brown. Is that correct? Okay, great. Correct. Thank you.
01:24:04.31	City Manager Zapata	Correct. Thank you, Mayor. We have Bob Brown available this evening, and he will be giving tonight's presentation.
01:24:14.53	Bob Brown	Thank you very much. Let me see if I can share my screen.
01:24:21.16	Bob Brown	Um...
01:24:24.13	Bob Brown	Let's see.
01:24:27.61	Bob Brown	Does that work?
01:24:28.39	Bob Brown	We can't yet see it, Bob. We cannot see your screen. No, I wonder if the city clerk can allow me to share.
01:24:38.39	Unknown	should have co-hosts.
01:24:39.03	Mayor Blaustein	capabilities. Okay.
01:24:39.91	Bob Brown	Okay, I do now.
01:24:41.52	Mayor Blaustein	Fantastic.
01:24:42.31	Bob Brown	All right.
01:24:42.43	Mayor Blaustein	All right. Now we can see that you're, there you go.
01:24:44.28	Bob Brown	Very good. Let me just start this up.
01:24:45.53	Mayor Blaustein	start the
01:24:48.82	Bob Brown	Very good. Well, thank you so much for allowing me to give you an update of where we are on the odds, the objective design and development standards. You've heard a little bit about that tonight. So let me try to walk you through a status report if I may.
01:25:04.35	Bob Brown	So both of your bodies have already received updates from the city attorney over the last year or two.
01:25:10.44	Bob Brown	on new state laws, which really limit local discretion on new housing proposals that include two or more new housing units.
01:25:18.88	Bob Brown	And it's pretty obvious the intent of the legislature is to move housing projects along more quickly.
01:25:24.95	Bob Brown	And with more certainty for the applicant to the building permit stage and thereby increase housing production statewide.
01:25:30.98	Bob Brown	These laws limit review in most cases to locally adopted objective development standards. So that's why we're going through this effort.
01:25:40.78	Bob Brown	There are a lot of objective development standards already in your current code. But dealing with issues like, you know, building design or view impacts or even grading standards, the code contains a lot of subjective criteria that will no longer be able to be applied.
01:26:01.76	Bob Brown	So here's how the state is defining objective standards. They involve no personal
01:26:07.00	Bob Brown	or a subjective judgment by a public official
01:26:10.23	Bob Brown	They must be verifiable by reference or external and uniform benchmarks. They have to be knowable by the applicants in advance and by public officials.
01:26:21.90	Bob Brown	So it's fairly limiting.
01:26:25.09	Bob Brown	So things like criteria like, you know, shall be consistent with the character of the neighborhood or must minimize objective obstruction of views or things like, you know, regulations as defined by the city engineer. Those are not considered objective any longer.
01:26:42.09	Bob Brown	So what we've been doing in response to these state laws that say the city must provide a list of objective standards to applicants,
01:26:50.31	Bob Brown	the council adopted an interim set of objective standards in July of 2021.
01:26:56.31	Bob Brown	And these were simply a listing of all your existing standards in the Muni code that are objective.
01:27:05.54	Bob Brown	and you directed the Planning Commission subcommittee
01:27:08.24	Bob Brown	to and staff to develop new objective standards to replace these.
01:27:13.56	Bob Brown	So the planning commission subcommittee of commissioners Feller and Junius, they've been working with staff and myself on this for about a year and a half to customize a version of the form-based code toolkit
01:27:28.60	Bob Brown	that several Marin jurisdictions commissioned the design firm Opticos to prepare using state grant funds.
01:27:36.91	Bob Brown	We've been revising, we've been revising
01:27:42.43	Bob Brown	the large
01:27:43.39	Bob Brown	code toolkit it's about 400 pages down to those proportions that are most applicable to the scale
01:27:50.65	Bob Brown	and the parcel characteristics here in Sausalito.
01:27:54.52	Bob Brown	We would have finished our work much sooner, but for the parallel housing element update process.
01:28:00.76	Bob Brown	Because the housing element will increase the allowable densities and the building sizes on certain identified sites, the odds we're working on will have to be further modified to allow larger or at least taller building parameters for those housing sites.
01:28:17.75	Bob Brown	So again, we've been waiting while the sites have been identified and waiting for the visualizations that have been prepared to figure out how to further revise those standards.
01:28:31.86	Bob Brown	So let me address what the odds will do and what it won't do for the city's development review process.
01:28:38.52	Bob Brown	It will give you a set of objective standards that will comply with these new state laws
01:28:44.45	Bob Brown	that will hopefully fill in some of the gaps created by not being able to use some of the subjective criteria that you have in your current codes.
01:28:53.51	Bob Brown	I want to be really clear though, that it will only apply to relatively few construction projects in town. Only those who,
01:29:00.77	Bob Brown	which entail projects
01:29:02.47	Bob Brown	where two or more new housing units are being built.
01:29:06.60	Bob Brown	So these standards won't apply to single family homes.
01:29:10.15	Bob Brown	and they won't apply to renovations or additions to existing multifamily or commercial buildings,
01:29:16.06	Bob Brown	unless two or more units are being added.
01:29:19.50	Bob Brown	And as currently written, the draft standards
01:29:22.69	Bob Brown	only apply to multifamily and commercially zoned properties. So it doesn't apply to the single family zones
01:29:30.15	Bob Brown	And so therefore it doesn't comply to SB9 projects.
01:29:35.38	Bob Brown	It could be modified to apply to SB9 single family homes or duplexes. And I would note that Court of Madera recently has done that with their version of the odds.
01:29:47.51	Bob Brown	And lastly, it won't apply to your industrial or your waterfront zones. So that would include the marinship property. It will not apply there.
01:29:59.24	Bob Brown	So what is the DraftOdds form-based code trying to accomplish from a design perspective?
01:30:05.72	Bob Brown	So it's code provisions, which have been tested in a number of other municipalities. They seek to reduce the visual scale of buildings by prescribing maximum building sizes and dimensions. And I'll show you a sketch of that in a second.
01:30:20.43	Bob Brown	They limit the visibility of parking.
01:30:22.64	Bob Brown	so that building facades are more dominant on the streetscape, not parking.
01:30:28.63	Bob Brown	They dictate carefully defined ground floor design, building design and entries and the necessary street improvements that would foster pedestrian oriented and active street frontages.
01:30:42.77	Bob Brown	It includes development restrictions based on steep slopes, and it contains grading restrictions that are best practices.
01:30:50.20	Bob Brown	And it includes regulations on landscape and equipment screening,
01:30:54.01	Bob Brown	protections for privacy between windows on adjacent properties,
01:30:58.44	Bob Brown	lighting, landscape standards, et cetera. So again, it covers quite a bit.
01:31:05.32	Bob Brown	I would note that the firm that prepared these form-based codes, OptiCoast, they're out of Berkeley, they've gained a national notoriety for promoting what they call the missing middle housing types. And you may have heard about this in some of the planning conferences you may have gone to with the League of Cities.
01:31:20.86	Bob Brown	So these missing middle housing types are ones that are sort of closer in scale to single family homes than large mega apartment or condominium complexes. And that's illustrated here in this gradation showing single family home design on the left.
01:31:36.25	Bob Brown	and big apartment or condo complexes on the right. So the missing middle is trying to hit those housing types that are between those scales.
01:31:45.80	Bob Brown	An example is, you know, based upon the odds that we have, they would require larger sites to be developed with multiple smaller buildings like on the left and not a larger complex like on the right. So just a simple example, but that's really what they're trying to accomplish.
01:32:05.85	Bob Brown	So just to also clarify what the odds won't do,
01:32:08.96	Bob Brown	They won't provide geotechnical standards for construction on slopes, which I know is an issue. And I know the general plan has called for, you know, a detailed hillside ordinance to be developed in the future.
01:32:22.27	Bob Brown	It won't deal with infrastructure capacity requirements for individual lots. It doesn't define anything to that level of detail.
01:32:31.43	Bob Brown	And it also won't address view impacts on private properties.
01:32:35.48	Bob Brown	And we've talked to the council about a year ago about that, year and a half ago.
01:32:40.46	Bob Brown	And on the issue of view impacts from private properties, that's a real tough one to deal with. And the Planning Commission subcommittee has spent the better part of a year
01:32:49.59	Bob Brown	trying to figure out ways to define views, to define and quantify view impacts,
01:32:55.13	Bob Brown	how to measure these, and finally, most importantly, how an applicant would submit
01:33:00.24	Bob Brown	and verify a view impact study. So all these things ended up with the city attorney strongly recommending against going in this direction.
01:33:09.13	Bob Brown	And that's particularly true given the really compressed timeframe under these new state laws that the city has to make determinations of compliance. So we're trying to verify something like a view impact study.
01:33:22.14	Bob Brown	very hard to do within 30 days and certainly doesn't allow for really any public review or interaction on something that important. So
01:33:30.73	Bob Brown	I'd point out again though that single family homes aren't subject to these objective standards so
01:33:37.43	Bob Brown	You know, single family home modifications or new individual single family homes are still going to be going through your current discretionary design review and your current view preservation review. So again, this is just dealing with new multifamily or mixed use.
01:33:56.45	Bob Brown	So next steps for the odds, we will finalize the draft that we've been working on. I think based on your comments tonight, we're not going to wait for the housing element to be resolved. So the intent is to adopt it in the near term as another interim measure pending completion of the housing element.
01:34:18.13	Bob Brown	And it looks like depending upon staff and the city attorney's review, hopefully we'll get to the planning commission and council for hearings.
01:34:25.52	Bob Brown	in the February to April timeframe.
01:34:28.48	Bob Brown	And then we would further revise the adopted odds for another round to address these housing opportunity sites after the housing element is formally adopted and the EIR is available. So we would do that as part of the subsequent rezonings to implement your new housing element.
01:34:46.84	Bob Brown	So with that, I'd be happy to take any questions.
01:34:50.38	Bob Brown	that the Planning Commission and the Council may have.
01:34:52.96	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you very much, Bob. We really appreciate it.
01:34:55.21	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, so again, I will go first to the planning commission. If you could show the screen with the Zoom attendees, please.
01:35:02.99	Mayor Blaustein	So I can see who has their hand raised.
01:35:06.85	Mayor Blaustein	Okay.
01:35:07.81	Mayor Blaustein	Chair Luxembourg.
01:35:09.65	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you, Mayor Blasthain.
01:35:11.56	Chair Luxembourg	I have a mechanical question on how technically this gets implemented. So they do an interim basis and approve these odds, but aren't they eventually just code changes to the actual municipal code?
01:35:26.81	Bob Brown	Yes, and so the adoption that I'm referring to would be amending your zoning code.
01:35:31.35	Bob Brown	to put these into it, yes.
01:35:32.98	Chair Luxembourg	into the zoning code. So we we have.
01:35:35.42	Chair Luxembourg	We have design standards, we're adding some design standards, and the code is changing, and that's how it's going forward.
01:35:41.73	Bob Brown	Yeah, in many ways, this is sort of a parallel code to your zoning code that, again, would only apply to these new projects that are building two or more housing units together.
01:35:52.70	Chair Luxembourg	Okay, these new interim standards, these new standards, but that's not to say that we don't we have standards all over the we have objective design standards to route the code already. And these would these would be additional ones for those specific multifamily uses for two or greater.
01:36:12.19	Bob Brown	Correct. The newly adopted code, when you see it, it has a whole section on applicability. So it will cite the parts of the Muni code that still apply regardless of the odds.
01:36:22.60	Chair Luxembourg	OK.
01:36:23.28	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you.
01:36:24.88	Chair Luxembourg	Other commission members, people raise their hand. I guess a vice-torred junior.
01:36:31.33	Vice Chair Juniors	Thank you, Chair Luxenberg.
01:36:33.40	Vice Chair Juniors	And thank you, Bob, for all the work on this. And it's been interesting to work with Commissioner Feller as well.
01:36:39.02	Vice Chair Juniors	through the last year or year plus on these issues.
01:36:41.98	Vice Chair Juniors	I think it's really just important for everybody to understand that this is a very complex process. It's very new. It changes...
01:36:50.23	Vice Chair Juniors	the landscape of how multifamily housing projects are going to get
01:36:54.87	Vice Chair Juniors	reviewed and approved throughout California. So we're, you know, everybody's
01:36:58.77	Vice Chair Juniors	stuck with this situation. It takes a lot of discretion away. It takes all virtually all discretion away.
01:37:04.22	Vice Chair Juniors	or
01:37:05.03	Vice Chair Juniors	projects that qualify.
01:37:06.61	Vice Chair Juniors	under the Housing Accountability Act.
01:37:09.75	Vice Chair Juniors	You know, the thing to keep in mind here is
01:37:12.82	Vice Chair Juniors	You know, unlike the last matter we were
01:37:14.58	Vice Chair Juniors	discussing on the housing element.
01:37:16.30	Vice Chair Juniors	there's no compliance issue here. This is, we are in compliance. We've already adopted, you know,
01:37:22.06	Vice Chair Juniors	A bit of a stop gap measure that
01:37:23.78	Vice Chair Juniors	pretty clearly as Commissioner Luxembourg has just said, identifies the existing objective standards.
01:37:29.83	Vice Chair Juniors	We don't have any projects that I'm aware of and maybe
01:37:32.97	Vice Chair Juniors	Mr. Phelps can address this matter, but you know, this is not an emergency. We're doing as we're doing this as quickly as we possibly can. We do need to get this in place.
01:37:43.00	Vice Chair Juniors	FORM-BASED ZONING IS VERY COMPLEX IN COMPARISON TO THE DISCRETION THAT THE PLANNING COMMISSION AND CITY COUNCILS HAVE HAD IN DECADES PAST.
01:37:49.91	Vice Chair Juniors	But
01:37:50.78	Vice Chair Juniors	I don't see this as anything more than a
01:37:53.14	Vice Chair Juniors	a process that's putting in place rules that will allow us to better comply with state law. But we are in compliance with state law as we sit here right now, and I'm not concerned about that at all.
01:38:05.26	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Chair Luxenberg. Your hand is still raised.
01:38:07.50	Chair Luxembourg	Uh, yes, I'll lower the hand, uh, um, uh, other members of the planning commissioner will have any questions with regard to the odds of commissioner, uh, father.
01:38:18.81	Commissioner Feller	No questions at this time. Thank you, Chair.
01:38:21.25	Chair Luxembourg	Exactly.
01:38:21.79	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you. Commissioner Saad.
01:38:30.23	Chair Luxembourg	You're muted, I think.
01:38:32.68	Commissioner Sayed	Okay, it wouldn't let me unmute. I thank you. I don't have any questions right now or comments, Chair Luxenberg.
01:38:39.24	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you very much. I'll turn it back over to Mayor Blashtine. Thank you.
01:38:43.16	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Chair Luxembourg. Okay, now we will open it up to the City Council. And I see Councilmember Kellman has a question.
01:38:48.98	Councilmember Kelman	Please.
01:38:49.85	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
01:38:49.87	Councilmember Kelman	Yeah, thank you, Bob, for putting that together and Director Phipps for bringing this to us.
01:38:54.72	Councilmember Kelman	at.
01:38:55.42	Councilmember Kelman	So I have a couple questions just to clarify. I guess a little bit confused by the yes and the no as it pertains to steep slopes. And so while this may not be an out of compliant measure, it is certainly top of mind for city leadership, given the storm events that we've been having. And I don't want to let this go another minute at the council meeting on Tuesday.
01:39:18.44	Councilmember Kelman	We unanimously agree we want to bring back the Landside Task Force report and revisit that.
01:39:22.86	Councilmember Kelman	So I saw a slide and said, yes, development restrictions on steep slopes, no,
01:39:28.69	Councilmember Kelman	technical restrictions on steep slopes.
01:39:31.32	Councilmember Kelman	Can you help me reconcile that? Because I didn't pick up the nuances and I know there are.
01:39:32.45	Bob Brown	I'm sorry.
01:39:35.35	Bob Brown	Yes. So as part of the Marin County work, OptiCoast did create standards that reduce development potential on slopes. It requires that, you know, based upon its slopes get steeper, more of the site becomes unbuildable. And it also has standards for retaining wall height and some standards for grading. And these are all sort of generalized best practices. Now they don't get into, you know, really very detailed individual geotechnical uses specifically.
01:40:04.31	Bob Brown	that really need to be looked at more carefully in particular neighborhoods or on particular sites.
01:40:10.06	Bob Brown	So that it does not do. So it doesn't take the place of this, you know,
01:40:13.93	Bob Brown	and probably complicated hillside
01:40:18.10	Bob Brown	ordinance that the city council has called for in your general plan, but it does get you partway there, at least I think as a good holding place better than the current objective grading standards that you have.
01:40:30.28	Councilmember Kelman	Okay, so it's interesting you're mentioning grading standards.
01:40:32.94	Councilmember Kelman	when I think about something that's objective and measurable, the average gradient of a hillside seems to me to be both of those things. And in order for us to fully enhance and embrace the Land and Side Task Force report, it seems we need to sort of reconcile that. Could the odds include
01:40:50.36	Councilmember Kelman	Um,
01:40:51.51	Councilmember Kelman	a language around a percent average gradient, and that would be something that's both measurable and objective.
01:40:58.53	Bob Brown	It could. And again, it does have standards based upon the amount that you know, the percentage of slope that restricts development further in terms of, of how much the site you can develop, you could develop more standards based upon slope. You know, that would take work by your public works department. It certainly could be incorporated as either initially or at some point. Yes.
01:41:19.93	Councilmember Kelman	Okay, yeah, I'm just trying to reconcile with this direction we gave staff on Tuesday that we're want to wholeheartedly embrace landslide task force report and sounds like we need to make some updates and the odds to enable that. Okay, thank you for that.
01:41:32.26	Unknown	There's more work.
01:41:33.41	Councilmember Kelman	Okay, thank you. And then my second question is, we did see a mention of odds in De Novo's presentation, and I appreciate Commissioner Junius' comment that we're not out of compliance with state
01:41:45.35	Councilmember Kelman	However, SB9 has an opportunity to dramatically impact the built environment in all cities in California, particularly Sausalito as well.
01:41:55.09	Councilmember Kelman	both because it's adding ADUs and because it's allowing for lot splits.
01:42:00.14	Councilmember Kelman	Did I hear you correctly that one update we could decide to make tonight is that the odds
01:42:05.62	Councilmember Kelman	could be applied to single family, a part of it could be applied to SB9 projects as well.
01:42:12.20	Bob Brown	That's possible. Cornemideria just took that additional step. I'd have to look closely at the way that they did it. I don't think it would take a lot of additional work, but I would note that OptiCoast was not scoped for that work. But again, I think it could be done fairly simply.
01:42:27.78	Councilmember Kelman	Okay, thank you. And just for everyone's benefit, my questions are coming from a place of public safety and risk and hazard mitigation. And so if that lens is helpful, I want to offer that. Thank you very much. That's all I have. Thank you, Mayor.
01:42:40.49	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
01:42:41.31	Councilmember Kelman	Thank you.
01:42:41.33	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Councilmember Kellman. Councilman, Vice Mayor Sobieski, pardon me.
01:42:44.79	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Thank you, Mayor. And thank you for the presentation. I have a
01:42:48.15	Vice Mayor Sobieski	question for you about this.
01:42:50.80	Vice Mayor Sobieski	goal of reducing visual scale of buildings while also at the same time having objective design criteria that can be measured.
01:42:58.42	Vice Mayor Sobieski	in a environment that is not flat.
01:43:01.75	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Sausalito is a crinkly town with
01:43:04.33	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Reels and ridges and veils and dells.
01:43:08.18	Vice Mayor Sobieski	uh,
01:43:09.60	Vice Mayor Sobieski	a building that is
01:43:12.08	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Two stories in one location could have dramatic impacts on views and feel ominous. A building that's four stories somewhere else could be hidden
01:43:20.99	Vice Mayor Sobieski	in the day I'll
01:43:22.18	Vice Mayor Sobieski	of the surrounding topography,
01:43:24.19	Vice Mayor Sobieski	and its volume
01:43:25.63	Vice Mayor Sobieski	would.
01:43:26.22	Vice Mayor Sobieski	feel
01:43:27.99	Vice Mayor Sobieski	to anyone.
01:43:28.98	Vice Mayor Sobieski	that is much less than the building that's two stories in a different location.
01:43:34.27	Vice Mayor Sobieski	uh,
01:43:35.21	Vice Mayor Sobieski	is
01:43:37.05	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Is there a way of having objective design criteria that capture that
01:43:42.74	Vice Mayor Sobieski	and,
01:43:43.23	Vice Mayor Sobieski	very pivotal nuance for making a beautiful community
01:43:47.29	Vice Mayor Sobieski	that feels delightful for the people that live in it.
01:43:51.09	Bob Brown	Well, I won't say that odds are, you know, the end all in terms of creating gorgeous buildings, because again, we are losing a lot of individual subjective review by both the public and decision makers. So, but saying that, you know, the draft odds does include for slope sites, you know, the requirements that buildings step with the topography. So you can't do, you know, on the downslope side, a 60 foot high wall and, and on the street, you know, 20 foot. It does require that in most cases, buildings are allowed to be three stories, but only two that are very visible. The third story has to be within a sloped roof with dormers. Again, means of trying to diminish the perceived bulk of the building.
01:44:35.94	Bob Brown	Um,
01:44:37.19	Bob Brown	But will it...
01:44:38.95	Bob Brown	deal with all the nuances of each individual site? No, it's much more generalized than that. We're losing that gradation of subjectivity.
01:44:49.65	Bob Brown	Um,
01:44:50.80	Bob Brown	by under the state law. So again, we're doing the best we can, but trying to establish standards that will apply in all cases to all lots.
01:44:59.33	Vice Mayor Sobieski	So, I mean, those standards are
01:45:01.06	Vice Mayor Sobieski	makes sense in a flat topography. The step-backs, the third story in a dormer building, in a dormer roof.
01:45:08.40	Vice Mayor Sobieski	But again, just using, I mean, the case in point,
01:45:11.97	Vice Mayor Sobieski	And I guess,
01:45:13.54	Vice Mayor Sobieski	By way of illustration, I mean, we all know Mission Bay in San Francisco has an entire development area that had a height restriction.
01:45:21.96	Vice Mayor Sobieski	that caused all the buildings there to be
01:45:25.19	Vice Mayor Sobieski	short or shorter than they would might otherwise be. And they use their entire lots. So now you have an entire,
01:45:32.09	Vice Mayor Sobieski	um,
01:45:33.19	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Actually, I think I have a picture of it here. You have an entire area that looks like this.
01:45:38.45	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Um,
01:45:40.02	Vice Mayor Sobieski	or, and, uh,
01:45:42.64	Vice Mayor Sobieski	And that is of a very different scale than something that, I don't know, would look like this.
01:45:49.18	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Right.
01:45:50.19	Vice Mayor Sobieski	So,
01:45:51.21	Vice Mayor Sobieski	similar kinds of units, but...
01:45:53.64	Vice Mayor Sobieski	And we're not talking about either one of those for Sausalito, obviously, but it's making the point that
01:45:58.36	Vice Mayor Sobieski	uh,
01:45:59.32	Vice Mayor Sobieski	that these objective criteria that sound good and are kind of easy to implement
01:46:06.14	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Can you actually
01:46:07.32	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Okay.
01:46:07.96	Vice Mayor Sobieski	create a very nonsensical
01:46:10.34	Vice Mayor Sobieski	or built environment where we are compelled to, where builders are compelled to build structures that don't take advantage of the natural topography that Sausalito affords them to actually make something that feels less massive and is more in keeping with the actual goals of reducing
01:46:28.25	Vice Mayor Sobieski	visual scale of buildings.
01:46:30.43	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Well, I appreciate that.
01:46:32.06	Vice Mayor Sobieski	things as you defined the setbacks and the and the third story inside a roof is
01:46:37.97	Vice Mayor Sobieski	is a way of conceptualizing it. I'm wondering if there isn't, if we try harder, a way of establishing objective design criteria
01:46:45.63	Vice Mayor Sobieski	that would be objective, but actually like a 3D camera would assess and
01:46:51.47	Vice Mayor Sobieski	build a wireframe of
01:46:53.56	Vice Mayor Sobieski	the visual impact of a building from any perspective, not of birds, but of actual people on the street.
01:47:00.33	Vice Mayor Sobieski	that you could have an objective criteria
01:47:03.53	Vice Mayor Sobieski	And you could imagine setting up a tripod with a 3D camera that would build wireframe of buildings.
01:47:11.16	Vice Mayor Sobieski	from different from all the all the visual angles that a pedestrian would see it from.
01:47:16.48	Vice Mayor Sobieski	and measure the implied volume of the visual scale, and that that's the measurable.
01:47:21.32	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Thank you.
01:47:21.37	Vice Mayor Sobieski	criteria rather than these truly abstract objective design criteria that would be just as applicable in Kansas as they are
01:47:29.40	Vice Mayor Sobieski	and the flatlands of Kansas as they are on the rippled dales and bales of Sausalito.
01:47:34.97	Bob Brown	Well, let me say that the basic standards here were developed for Marin County and tailored for Marin County as a whole. So all the jurisdictions were involved, but
01:47:43.97	Bob Brown	Let me say, this is not going to allow high rises. The buildings that these odds would allow would be a maximum of three stories right now.
01:47:52.88	Bob Brown	Now that does not take into account the increased density that you're going to have to look at for your housing opportunity sites that's going to be.
01:48:00.44	Bob Brown	the next round after the housing elements adopted, but based upon your current densities that you allow,
01:48:06.12	Bob Brown	in your multifamily and commercial districts, maximum height would be three stories.
01:48:11.68	Bob Brown	What you described in terms of, you know, again, having some sort of a computer, you know, visualization process and modeling process is, sounds terrific. That was not what was scoped here. You know, we're building off of, again, this countywide process.
01:48:27.81	Bob Brown	toolkit that Sausalito helped fund and the other cities with state grant funds. So that's the direction that we've been going in for the last year and a half. Could something else be done? Yes. I've not seen anything like you described, but it may very well be possible. And
01:48:44.19	Bob Brown	Again, in this new state environment, somebody may come up with that as a model, but
01:48:48.33	Bob Brown	We don't see it yet.
01:48:51.04	Bob Brown	Thank you.
01:48:52.80	Mayor Blaustein	Do any other members of the Council have questions for Bob before I go back to planning Commission because I see that chair Luxembourg has his hand raised.
01:48:59.97	Mayor Blaustein	Oh, Council Member Cox, please.
01:49:03.21	Mayor Blaustein	Yeah.
01:49:03.23	Councilmember Cox	at
01:49:03.68	Councilmember Cox	Thank you.
01:49:04.75	Councilmember Cox	um,
01:49:05.56	Councilmember Cox	Bob, nice to meet you.
01:49:07.55	Councilmember Cox	And thank you for all of your work on this and thank you for providing your PowerPoint presentation in advance of our meeting so that we could review.
01:49:07.72	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
01:49:07.73	Unknown	Thank you.
01:49:07.75	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
01:49:07.87	Unknown	Thank you.
01:49:07.97	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
01:49:14.45	Councilmember Cox	what you had to say.
01:49:16.09	Councilmember Cox	um,
01:49:18.64	Councilmember Cox	ADUs, if we put an ADU on a site, it's now got more than one site and so ODDS applies, right?
01:49:25.32	Bob Brown	No, they'd have to be two brand new units. So if you scrape, if you have a vacant lot and built a single family home and an ADU, yes. Or if you scraped a lot and built two units concurrently, yes.
01:49:26.13	Councilmember Cox	Yeah.
01:49:37.28	Bob Brown	But again, we have not applied the odds to the single family zones.
01:49:41.92	Bob Brown	So we've talked about maybe doing that for SB9. So that would be sort of the avenue.
01:49:47.69	Councilmember Cox	Okay, so I would definitely endorse that.
01:49:51.76	Councilmember Cox	how do we govern industrial and waterfront zones since, um,
01:49:57.73	Councilmember Cox	AND I THINK THAT WE HAVE
01:49:59.34	Councilmember Cox	I suppose if we fail to meet our housing element quota, it's possible those could somehow become subject
01:50:06.95	Councilmember Cox	to development.
01:50:08.99	Councilmember Cox	um
01:50:10.52	Councilmember Cox	How do we put guardrails?
01:50:12.03	Bob Brown	on those areas? Well, right now the odds would not apply to them because again, they're only being applied to your multifamily and your commercial zones. If the housing element is adopted and does show the, you know, the Marin ship sites or other waterfront or industrial sites there, then yes, it's gotta be amended. And we probably have to have somewhat larger building types to accommodate the densities on sites like that.
01:50:39.36	Councilmember Cox	And
01:50:40.65	Councilmember Cox	You're talking about adoption of the odds in several months. What I understand that the planning commission was ready to adopt the odds at the end of last year. What's to prevent us from adopting the odds at the end of this month at our next meeting?
01:50:57.51	Bob Brown	Well, actually the schedule I'd be looking at, um, would probably come to the planning commission. I would imagine in February and the council in March, because right now we just got the revised version, uh, from OptiCoast back last week. I've shared it with, uh, with director Phipps and the city attorney.
01:51:16.66	Bob Brown	when I get primarily a city attorney's comments back, then we'll prepare a final version for the Planning Commission adoption.
01:51:23.54	Councilmember Cox	The reason I ask is if we don't adopt, if for some reason our housing element is found to be non-compliant,
01:51:29.42	Councilmember Cox	we won't have a housing element, which means we lose our zoning authority.
01:51:33.01	Councilmember Cox	which means having the odds in place is critically important. So would it be possible for us to adopt the odds
01:51:41.85	Councilmember Cox	as is, you know, perhaps amend them at some future date, but is it possible to adopt them as is
01:51:48.30	Councilmember Cox	at our special meeting, which is the planning commission and
01:51:51.59	Councilmember Cox	City Council.
01:51:52.74	Councilmember Cox	on January 30.
01:51:55.08	Bob Brown	Well, that's a big lift. I'd have to, again, work with staff and the city attorney to see if they can complete their review that quickly and we can get the noticing done.
01:52:03.77	Councilmember Cox	All right.
01:52:03.98	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
01:52:04.03	Councilmember Cox	Thank you.
01:52:05.04	Mayor Blaustein	Yeah.
01:52:06.59	Mayor Blaustein	I can see that city attorney has turned on his camera. Would you like to weigh in on the feasibility of adopting the odds on the January 30th meeting?
01:52:13.56	Sergio Roodin	There's a timing issue with the planning commission rendering their recommendation at a public hearing on the same day.
01:52:20.60	Sergio Roodin	based on state planning and zoning law. Typically, you have to have 10 days in between those. So...
01:52:22.40	Unknown	on to
01:52:27.45	Unknown	Thank you.
01:52:27.47	Sergio Roodin	That is an issue.
01:52:27.48	Bob Brown	Okay.
01:52:28.28	Bob Brown	that.
01:52:30.34	Bob Brown	Okay.
01:52:30.82	Bob Brown	But I think we can move this along quickly with your direction. And again, follow very quickly after the.
01:52:37.17	Bob Brown	the end of January.
01:52:39.38	Mayor Blaustein	Okay.
01:52:41.40	Mayor Blaustein	And I think most of what I was going to ask is covered, but just this, I'm, I'd like to more clearly understand since there seems to be quite a bit of confusion from the public with regards to the housing element and all of the additional state mandates and the odds
01:52:56.19	Mayor Blaustein	Could you just give a little bit of an overview of the relationship between the odds and passing the odds and our housing element?
01:53:03.81	Bob Brown	Sure, and it is dizzying even for planners and land use attorneys. This is a crazy time.
01:53:10.61	Bob Brown	So again, the odds is not really related to the housing element at all. It's required by state law for housing.
01:53:20.35	Bob Brown	housing projects that have two or more units and it just curtails your flexibility.
01:53:26.55	Bob Brown	The reason it's gotten wrapped around the axle with the housing element, again, is because the housing element is necessitating
01:53:33.16	Bob Brown	higher densities and therefore, you know, taller building parameters.
01:53:37.67	Bob Brown	than what you currently have. And so we were trying to wait for the housing element to be completed.
01:53:42.34	Bob Brown	we would wrap the, you know, the additional, um,
01:53:45.40	Bob Brown	development regulations for those sites into the odds and get it all adopted together. Obviously we're going to have to bifurcate and separate those.
01:53:54.14	Bob Brown	That's the reason, but again, the two are pretty distinct. I mean, the housing element has a program for adopting odds, A, because it is state law and B, because
01:54:03.42	Bob Brown	HCD wants to see that as a means of increasing housing production and certainty.
01:54:09.24	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you. I appreciate that clarification. Okay, we have two more questions from the council and then I will come back to you chair Luxembourg. I just want to make sure that we're
01:54:15.60	Mayor Blaustein	being consistent with each body that we're interacting with. So council member Sobieski, you have your vice mayor Sobieski. I swear I'm going to stop doing that vice mayor Sobieski. And then we'll go to council member Kelman.
01:54:24.76	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Thank you.
01:54:25.57	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Mr. Brown, could you? I'm just talking around the OptiCoast website here and I'm learning a lot about it.
01:54:31.58	Vice Mayor Sobieski	but about form-based coding, which is a concept I haven't heard of before that seems super pertinent to a small town like ours. Can you help me understand what is form-based coding and is that part of what we received from OptiCoast or is that something we have to, is that a premium product?
01:54:48.03	Bob Brown	No, no, it's part of the package. So the form-based code, Opticos, and a lot of other practitioners of urban design have been pushing for a number of years.
01:54:59.56	Bob Brown	the zoning that we've adopted primarily since World War II have been really exclusionary zoning. They've tried to exclude...
01:55:08.12	Bob Brown	incompatible uses near one another. You know, so housing goes in this neighborhood,
01:55:12.47	Bob Brown	And your commercial goes over here and your industrial is over there.
01:55:15.83	Bob Brown	And, you know, they should meet. And so that's part of our transportation problem. It's hard to walk or bike ride or,
01:55:23.57	Bob Brown	even drive sometimes between these areas.
01:55:26.73	Bob Brown	form-based code
01:55:27.86	Bob Brown	really tries to look less at the use restrictions and more at the building form.
01:55:33.78	Bob Brown	and be more predictable about what kind of building forms you're going to end up with and how to break those up
01:55:39.39	Bob Brown	and make them more manageable and how to create really interesting streetscapes. So that's the focus of foreign based code as compared to traditional zoning.
01:55:47.55	Vice Mayor Sobieski	And how is that integrated into the work we're getting from Opticos?
01:55:51.77	Bob Brown	Oh, you'll see when you get a 300 page new form based code to include in your code. Again, you'll see there's a lot more illustrations. There's a lot more certainty about where the buildings end up being placed.
01:56:06.86	Bob Brown	Um,
01:56:07.97	Bob Brown	There's even, you know,
01:56:09.64	Bob Brown	criteria for window placement and things like that so again it's much more detailed design criteria
01:56:17.57	Vice Mayor Sobieski	Okay, and that will be part of the odds then? Oh, yeah. That will be the odds, yes. All right, thank you very much.
01:56:24.44	Councilmember Kelman	Thank you.
01:56:24.48	Mayor Blaustein	Councilmember Kelman.
01:56:25.13	Councilmember Kelman	you
01:56:25.23	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
01:56:25.71	Councilmember Kelman	Thank you, Mayor. Bob, sorry, I want to just circle back and make sure I understand correctly. So it's a clarifying question. Councilmember Cox made the point that if we have a non-compliant housing element,
01:56:36.46	Councilmember Kelman	The odds are helpful in helping us retain some type of control.
01:56:40.05	Councilmember Kelman	You were making the point that if we have a compliant housing element, that the odds don't have a relationship.
01:56:45.76	Councilmember Kelman	Is that accurate?
01:56:48.13	Councilmember Kelman	So that the importance that we are talking about within the context of tonight's conversation is if for some reason HCD deems it's not compliant,
01:56:56.40	Councilmember Kelman	having the odds enacted is a benefit to the city and that therefore
01:57:02.11	Bob Brown	Well, you need the odds because, again, a developer could walk in any time and ask for the relief provided under SB 35 or the Housing Accountability Act. So you need the odds, regardless of whether your housing element is certified or not.
01:57:18.07	Bob Brown	if that helps.
01:57:19.18	Councilmember Kelman	Okay, thank you. Yeah, and I think Asma McCox, your point was also well taken. So thank you. Thank you both.
01:57:24.30	Councilmember Kelman	We'll go back to council member Cox.
01:57:26.03	Councilmember Cox	additional question. Just one more question. I heard you say, Bob, that we received
01:57:32.03	Councilmember Cox	the updated odds from Opticos. When may we see that?
01:57:38.35	Councilmember Cox	I understand you got it a week ago. I'd like to see it as soon as possible.
01:57:38.57	Unknown	Um,
01:57:39.05	Bob Brown	Thank you.
01:57:44.31	Councilmember Cox	Well, I'll certainly-
01:57:44.35	Bob Brown	Planning commissioners would as well. Alright, well, you know, again, it is being reviewed in draft form by the city attorney and Director Phipps.
01:57:54.98	Bob Brown	If there are no objections, I'm happy to have, to ask the director to send it along.
01:58:01.42	Mayor Blaustein	That would be great.
01:58:02.01	Bob Brown	Yeah.
01:58:02.64	Mayor Blaustein	I would like to give that direction if we could have a copy of the draft odds. Councilmember Sobieski, and then I'll go to Chair Luxembourg.
01:58:12.64	Vice Mayor Sobieski	No questions. Sorry, I forgot to drop my hand.
01:58:14.57	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, and just before I go back to the planning commission, is the council
01:58:19.80	Mayor Blaustein	satisfied with their line of questioning. Is there anything anyone wants to add?
01:58:23.11	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, great. All right, Chair Luxenberg.
01:58:25.70	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you, Mayor Blostein. I just want to clarify, Bob,
01:58:31.04	Chair Luxembourg	some of these semantics you're using with odds. Objective design and development standards is not just what you're producing, it's anything in our code,
01:58:39.20	Chair Luxembourg	this objective design and development standards. So you made this comment about SB9, when the city council remitted that to the planning commission,
01:58:49.41	Chair Luxembourg	We worked at length and developed and added a whole bunch of objective design and development standards that are included in ordinance number 1288. So I don't want the public to get any idea that the SB9 implementation that we have doesn't have design and development standards. Now, you might want additional ones, but we went through a whole balancing act to make sure that we, we added those as other communities had, uh, when we adopted 12, 1288. So if you could clarify that would be great.
01:59:24.56	Bob Brown	Yes, yes, Chair Luxembourg, you're absolutely right. You do have an SB9 code that, you know, has maximum building sizes and setbacks and height limits. They don't have a lot of regulations regarding the actual design of the buildings. So that's what we would be adding with, with adding, you know, making the odds applicable to it. Yes, but you already have, you have objective standards that relate to SB9 properties.
01:59:49.35	Chair Luxembourg	Okay, so it'd be helpful to have additional ones, but at the moment, if something came in, in the meantime, we at least have all of those standards that would be applied. Yes.
02:00:00.54	Chair Luxembourg	Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Chair Blasti. Are there other planning Commissioner questions at this point of Mr Brown?
02:00:10.70	Chair Luxembourg	Commissioner Fowler.
02:00:12.25	Jenny Silva	Thank you.
02:00:13.00	Commissioner Feller	I just thank you, chair. I just wanted to make a quick
02:00:17.35	Commissioner Feller	It's not really a question, but as it relates to form based design and development standards,
02:00:24.27	Commissioner Feller	The county of Marin does have an entire toolbox that Opticos and Bob were involved with developing. When we first started out on the objective design and development standards for Sausalito,
02:00:39.37	Commissioner Feller	That is what we referenced and referred to
02:00:42.46	Commissioner Feller	A lot of that, a lot of the information and those standards did not have as much applicability to Sausalito as we were comfortable with, which is why we have developed the odds specific for Sausalito that do take some of our topography and other things into account.
02:00:59.94	Commissioner Feller	So if you want to see an example of what Opticoast has already produced as it relates to form-based design, the County of Marin does have that on their website and that can be referenced. But what we're developing is really specific for Sausalito.
02:01:17.97	Bob Brown	I should also note, I did not in my presentation, that a version of this code now has been adopted by Marin County, Belvedere, and Corte Madera. And I'm working with San Anselmo to customize the code for them. So again, the intent is for several of the Marin cities to ultimately adopt a version of this code.
02:01:41.61	Commissioner Feller	Thank you.
02:01:41.64	Chair Luxembourg	There were any other questions?
02:01:41.66	Commissioner Feller	Go look.
02:01:44.24	Chair Luxembourg	I mean, Commissioner, any other question?
02:01:46.50	Commissioner Feller	No, thank you for that.
02:01:48.90	Chair Luxembourg	Um,
02:01:49.03	Vice Chair Juniors	Vice Chair,
02:01:50.42	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you.
02:01:50.67	Vice Chair Juniors	Thank you.
02:01:51.38	Vice Chair Juniors	And just one other follow up and clarification, Bob, you know, some of the council members questions relate to, you know, the varying geography in Sausalito, the slopes.
02:02:01.23	Vice Chair Juniors	you know, it is a,
02:02:02.62	Vice Chair Juniors	It's a very unique city, not a lot of even even regular lots. Every lot's got a different angle, different size. Why don't you just
02:02:07.54	Unknown	Yeah.
02:02:12.13	Vice Chair Juniors	clarify a little bit that there is a, you know, that when you see the odds and the odds in form-based zoning are basically the same terminology. So let's not get too worked up about that. When you see what the kind of the cookie cutter stuff that OptiCoast puts out, you know, that's the,
02:02:27.88	Vice Chair Juniors	You know, as I think Vice Mayor Sobieski was saying, you know, that's for flatlands and where you've got a perfect environment where you get all the lines have been drawn straight and everything like that.
02:02:36.40	Vice Chair Juniors	that clearly
02:02:38.07	Vice Chair Juniors	that can't really be absolutely applied directly to much of Sausalito. So there is going to be some, I don't know if I'd call it a variance process, but
02:02:47.62	Vice Chair Juniors	IT NEEDS TO BE
02:02:49.58	Vice Chair Juniors	that the.
02:02:51.00	Vice Chair Juniors	the magic here is going to be actually applying it.
02:02:54.91	Vice Chair Juniors	regularly to the very, very interesting topography and site situations in Sausalito. Bob, could you expand on that a little bit?
02:03:04.09	Bob Brown	Yeah, and I think an important thing to note is, again, this is getting into the weeds, but for projects that when you put out these objective standards for projects that cannot comply with them, at that point, they are then subject to your subjective codes. So again, all is not lost. It kind of kicks it back into your traditional design review process where there is some flexibility.
02:03:34.20	Chair Luxembourg	Okay. Vice-Jergenius, any other questions at this point?
02:03:38.31	Vice Chair Juniors	That was it. Thank you, Chair Luxembourg, and thank you for that. I appreciate it.
02:03:43.36	Chair Luxembourg	Okay, any other questions, Commissioner Saad, Commissioner Feller? No. With that, I'll turn it back over to Mayor Blaston. Thank you.
02:03:51.32	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Chair Luxenberg. Okay, I would now like to open it up for public comment.
02:03:56.07	Mayor Blaustein	A reminder that again, we will be limiting public comment to two minutes this evening.
02:04:00.42	city clerk	Once again, you can use the raise hand function on a Zoom application.
02:04:05.31	city clerk	Or if you're on telephone, you can press star nine.
02:04:07.69	city clerk	And if you're in person,
02:04:09.16	city clerk	And if you're in person, actually, the people in person, you can...
02:04:13.01	city clerk	come up to the dais and state your name, please, if you wish.
02:04:19.62	Mayor Blaustein	We will start with in-person commenters this evening.
02:04:22.71	Michael Lennox	Michael Lennox local architect and the
02:04:25.23	Michael Lennox	Well, I'm thanking for having an in-person hearing
02:04:28.85	Michael Lennox	I think it's the first time I've been here in three years. It's kind of shocking.
02:04:32.35	Michael Lennox	I am terribly concerned about odds. I think it's a great acronym because it's odd.
02:04:38.24	Michael Lennox	I'm absolutely horrified by resolution that was passed
02:04:43.84	Michael Lennox	A year and a half ago, resolution 6059, it throws out all our findings.
02:04:48.99	Michael Lennox	Thank you.
02:04:49.09	Michael Lennox	for design review, no view protection,
02:04:51.89	Michael Lennox	No privacy protection.
02:04:53.80	Michael Lennox	et cetera.
02:04:55.27	Michael Lennox	And I understand that
02:04:57.88	Michael Lennox	AND I'M NOT GOING TO BE
02:04:59.67	Michael Lennox	the way it's been described.
02:05:01.74	Michael Lennox	Uh,
02:05:02.35	Michael Lennox	We need to apply these objective standards to any two unit project.
02:05:06.54	Michael Lennox	And I don't understand why that would include R1. If you're building a new house in R1,
02:05:11.21	Michael Lennox	With an ADU, almost every house we design these days has an ADU.
02:05:15.41	Michael Lennox	So as far as I understand, I can design on a vacant lot or tear down a house, put up a new house, add an ADU, and I can block views all I want.
02:05:27.31	Michael Lennox	I can't see any protection.
02:05:29.77	Michael Lennox	I'm terribly concerned that the committee
02:05:33.27	Michael Lennox	It seems to me it was a small committee and didn't reach out to the design professionals to see how
02:05:39.66	Michael Lennox	what's being contemplated plays out in the real world.
02:05:43.22	Michael Lennox	While it may be difficult to figure out how to control or protect views,
02:05:50.23	Michael Lennox	in an objective manner, that doesn't mean
02:05:54.34	Michael Lennox	We shouldn't find a way. In fact, we must, okay?
02:05:57.82	Michael Lennox	And
02:05:59.49	Michael Lennox	I think some design professionals should be involved. And I wouldn't rush to adopt odds. I think that we need to get it right.
02:06:09.11	Michael Lennox	The soil ordinance standards scare me.
02:06:12.23	Michael Lennox	We have so many steep slopes, an arbitrary,
02:06:16.06	Michael Lennox	A limitation on building slopes could result in a taking of people's property rights.
02:06:21.28	Michael Lennox	And the idea that you can't have a standard three-story building
02:06:25.18	Michael Lennox	on steep slopes seems very arbitrary.
02:06:29.49	Michael Lennox	I think it needs a deeper study, specific tailoring to Sausalito.
02:06:34.73	Michael Lennox	And I think it needs,
02:06:37.14	Michael Lennox	testing by people who design buildings in this town and know
02:06:42.19	Michael Lennox	how it works. Okay.
02:06:43.70	Michael Lennox	So I ask that you...
02:06:45.56	Michael Lennox	Thank you very much. Send it back to committee and get professional help from design professionals.
02:06:51.74	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Michael. Welcome back.
02:06:54.96	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, and public commenters on Zoom?
02:06:57.32	Mayor Blaustein	Vicky Nichols.
02:07:01.24	Vicki Nichols	Yes, hi, good evening. Thank you for the discussion. I had a question for Mr. Brown. Bob, this is Vicki Nichols. And I wanted to just follow up. If the draft is presented in the staff report, I apologize, I did not review it, but we did have two opportunities
02:07:22.06	Vicki Nichols	Am I muted?
02:07:24.02	Commissioner Feller	No.
02:07:24.35	Vicki Nichols	We can hear you.
02:07:24.37	Commissioner Feller	We can hear you.
02:07:24.83	Mayor Blaustein	Bye.
02:07:25.39	Vicki Nichols	Sorry.
02:07:26.30	Mayor Blaustein	The draft is not included in the staff report. Yeah.
02:07:27.70	Vicki Nichols	Yeah, thank you. The HPC did have an opportunity to give you comments about
02:07:34.82	Vicki Nichols	particularly form based architecture or design in the historic district. I wanted to confirm that there had been no change from our strong comments that we did
02:07:46.53	Vicki Nichols	view that as a positive addition.
02:07:49.58	Vicki Nichols	and that it is not currently included in the draft that we have.
02:07:55.12	Vicki Nichols	And I'd also just comment that I think you ought to...
02:07:59.34	Vicki Nichols	try to get odds into SB9.
02:08:01.85	Vicki Nichols	And I think you ought to get these approved in, in light of hearing the,
02:08:06.74	Vicki Nichols	a timeline of your housing element. And by the way,
02:08:10.20	Vicki Nichols	I will disagree with a public comment
02:08:13.26	Vicki Nichols	Sausalito is not as behind as it's indicated. Almost every other
02:08:18.68	Vicki Nichols	community is about the same boat. So don't feel
02:08:21.56	Vicki Nichols	Don't feel like you're awful here. We're in the running.
02:08:25.44	Vicki Nichols	Thanks very much.
02:08:27.43	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Vicki.
02:08:28.02	Bob Brown	Bye.
02:08:28.06	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
02:08:29.34	Bob Brown	So what Ms. Nichols was referring to is when we went to the HRC,
02:08:34.23	Bob Brown	there is a chapter in the odds toolkit that was prepared for Moraine County
02:08:40.28	Bob Brown	that is called architectural standards. And it creates very detailed and prescriptive architectural detail standards for different types of design styles. So for Tudor or for Spanish colonial,
02:08:58.70	Bob Brown	or for craftsmen.
02:09:01.45	Bob Brown	It has all these different styles and window dimensions and trim details, et cetera. So you get a fairly authentic rendition of that style. The HPC was very clear that particularly applied to the downtown historic district, those should not be included because they felt they would create
02:09:24.76	Bob Brown	You know, buildings that were so typified, it would almost look like, you know, Disneyland Main Street. So the fact is, we have not included those in the draft. Some other jurisdictions are incorporating them, but they're not in the Sausalito draft now.
02:09:40.69	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Bob.
02:09:42.75	city clerk	And the next speaker is Jenny Silva.
02:09:45.50	Mayor Blaustein	Hi, Jenny.
02:09:51.71	Jenny Silva	Or mute.
02:09:53.36	Jenny Silva	Thanks for bringing up this
02:09:58.93	Jenny Silva	Hi, now I think I'm set.
02:10:00.87	Jenny Silva	Um,
02:10:01.83	Jenny Silva	I had a few comments about the odds. And I just wanna remind everybody that in the housing element, we do say that we're gonna provide them for single family homes.
02:10:11.15	Jenny Silva	And
02:10:12.97	Jenny Silva	And that's not for another couple of years. So we have time on them, but that was the intention that was laid out in the housing element.
02:10:19.64	Jenny Silva	I am concerned with the description that was provided tonight that the odds will increase the cost of development quite a bit, which is also in conflict with the housing element goals
02:10:30.34	Jenny Silva	addressing constraints, one of which is cost.
02:10:33.91	Jenny Silva	and cost of development and parking being hidden and multiple buildings.
02:10:39.31	Jenny Silva	And also I am really concerned that the odds will end up in a functional down zone of our code and we are not allowed to do that.
02:10:48.34	Jenny Silva	due to um
02:10:50.23	Jenny Silva	various housing
02:10:51.78	Jenny Silva	well due to specific housing laws from the states, Sausalito is not in a position where it can down zone.
02:10:57.96	Jenny Silva	And if it reduces the buildable square feet,
02:11:00.68	Jenny Silva	that is an issue for us.
02:11:02.77	Jenny Silva	I'm also concerned with some of the conversation that happened after public comment on the last item.
02:11:09.03	Jenny Silva	I don't see how Sausalito is going to meet its public
02:11:13.57	Jenny Silva	a review process with
02:11:15.97	Jenny Silva	Be.
02:11:16.71	Jenny Silva	timeline that was set. If we get the comments back on the 26th and the public meeting is on the 30th
02:11:22.92	Jenny Silva	The Brown Act requires the agenda be provided
02:11:26.27	Jenny Silva	72 hours in advance.
02:11:28.39	Jenny Silva	So that's a 24 hour turnaround period.
02:11:31.19	Jenny Silva	And there's also a seven day review
02:11:34.46	Jenny Silva	public review period required by the state.
02:11:37.31	Jenny Silva	So I think there is some timing issues that are not actually addressed in the timeline that was,
02:11:43.44	Jenny Silva	set forth.
02:11:44.69	Jenny Silva	Those are my comments. Thanks.
02:11:48.03	Jenny Silva	Thank you, Jenny.
02:11:50.17	city clerk	Next speaker is Sybil Routier.
02:11:59.33	Mayor Blaustein	Welcome, Sybil.
02:12:00.80	Sybil Routier	to
02:12:02.99	Sybil Routier	I just had a quick
02:12:05.76	Sybil Routier	question. I don't know if you can answer it. We have a number of sort of more expensive accessibility features that we have included in the
02:12:17.83	Sybil Routier	housing element.
02:12:19.82	Sybil Routier	including a suggestion
02:12:22.69	Sybil Routier	of visitability standards. And I wondered if any of those
02:12:30.99	Sybil Routier	types of accommodations for more accessibility in our buildings has been included. This is an issue in South Alveda where we have so many stairs and so forth. And a front step issue is a big issue for folks. So I just wondered if any of that has been included in the design, in the odds.
02:12:56.47	Sybil Routier	Thank you.
02:12:58.09	Sybil Routier	Or if it needs to be in there, should it be. It isn't. Thank you.
02:13:03.14	Sybil Routier	Thank you.
02:13:04.45	Bob Brown	Thank you.
02:13:04.49	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Sybil.
02:13:05.01	Bob Brown	Thank you.
02:13:05.05	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
02:13:05.75	Bob Brown	And the answer to that is no, we have not sought to implement any of the other housing element programs in the odds. Again, the intent is the housing implementation will occur, you know, in the subsequent years.
02:13:20.47	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you for that, Bob.
02:13:21.58	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, at this time, I'm going to hand it over to Chair Luxembourg to receive comment or further questions from the Planning Commission. Chair Luxembourg?
02:13:30.10	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you, Mayor Blasdain. Are there any additional comments or questions on this item from Commission members? If you could just raise your hand in the Zoom application or just raise your hand.
02:13:42.42	Chair Luxembourg	Uh,
02:13:42.91	Vice Chair Juniors	Thank you, Chair Luxenberg.
02:13:44.09	Chair Luxembourg	Yes.
02:13:44.92	Vice Chair Juniors	Thank you.
02:13:45.36	Chair Luxembourg	And you know, one of the...
02:13:46.56	Chair Luxembourg	and
02:13:46.66	Unknown	Thank you.
02:13:47.06	Vice Chair Juniors	One of the comments I thought was interesting about, I don't think
02:13:50.69	Vice Chair Juniors	there's any question that we're in uncharted territories. When you really start looking at this thing, it's complicated.
02:13:55.96	Vice Chair Juniors	The odds is pretty detailed.
02:13:58.47	Vice Chair Juniors	And as I said earlier, a major, major change in how we do things with respect to zoning and design.
02:14:03.65	Vice Chair Juniors	I would say though that the
02:14:05.80	Vice Chair Juniors	But the origins of the of the idea of taking discretion away from planning commissions and city councils is actually to try to make things more
02:14:12.93	Vice Chair Juniors	you know, more predictable for the property owners and developers so that they had a set of rules that they know is not going to change before they start designing the project. So in that respect, I think
02:14:21.99	Vice Chair Juniors	The original idea was
02:14:23.43	Vice Chair Juniors	to make things
02:14:24.98	Vice Chair Juniors	relatively more straightforward and more predictable, which should be leading you to less expensive projects as opposed to the
02:14:32.29	Vice Chair Juniors	uncertainties that I think a lot of projects experience in the discretionary world.
02:14:36.07	Vice Chair Juniors	But
02:14:37.08	Vice Chair Juniors	Yeah, yeah.
02:14:38.19	Vice Chair Juniors	the Opticosk
02:14:39.39	Vice Chair Juniors	toolkit and the
02:14:40.68	Vice Chair Juniors	odds that a lot of people are adopting in, um,
02:14:43.53	Vice Chair Juniors	in Marin County as well as now, Sausalito, it's pretty complicated. So I think that the jury's out there, but that was a very interesting comment and I thought I wanted to respond to that.
02:14:55.34	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you, Vice Chair Junius. Other comments for any Planning Commissioners at this time?
02:15:01.28	Chair Luxembourg	I'm not seeing any. I'll turn it back over to you, Mayor Blasden. Thank you very much.
02:15:05.68	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Chair Luxembourg. Okay, I'd now like to hear from members of the City Council with
02:15:10.48	Mayor Blaustein	comments or direction?
02:15:14.48	Mayor Blaustein	Okay. Councilmember Kelman.
02:15:16.25	Councilmember Kelman	Great, thank you, Mayor. I'll just repeat my questions on my informative direction.
02:15:21.43	Councilmember Kelman	I think in order to be consistent with
02:15:23.56	Councilmember Kelman	the unanimous direction this past Tuesday around the Linus Eye Task Force. I think we need to direct staff to find a way to update the odds to include some type of objective
02:15:36.36	Councilmember Kelman	development restriction on gradients. I don't know what that looks like, and I would be open to seeing how this is being applied in other communities. But I do think it's a special concern to us here in Sausalito, and I would like to have staff take a deeper look into that. And then the second thing is I would like some support for staff also looking further into the application SB9.
02:15:58.76	Councilmember Kelman	And I've seen what they've done in Puerto Madera and applying that similarly to the city of
02:16:04.09	Councilmember Kelman	Sausalito and our SB9 ordinance.
02:16:07.11	Councilmember Kelman	Thank you. That's it.
02:16:08.68	Councilmember Kelman	Councilmember Hoffman.
02:16:13.02	Jenny Silva	I support both of those directions.
02:16:16.64	Jenny Silva	That's it.
02:16:17.69	Jenny Silva	Thank you.
02:16:17.72	Mayor Blaustein	Great.
02:16:20.19	Mayor Blaustein	Vice Mayor Sobieski.
02:16:22.65	Mayor Blaustein	Mm-hmm.
02:16:23.29	Vice Mayor Sobieski	No comments, thank you.
02:16:24.54	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, Councilmember Cox, anything to add?
02:16:26.48	Councilmember Cox	Yes, I would like to explore the possibility of including into the odds some of the accessibility features mentioned by Sybil Boutelier, which are critical for our aging population.
02:16:38.78	Councilmember Cox	I would like to endorse the concept of having the odds apply to SB9,
02:16:44.77	Councilmember Cox	industrial,
02:16:46.19	Councilmember Cox	and waterfront.
02:16:47.78	Councilmember Cox	development as
02:16:49.40	Councilmember Cox	as well as single family homes to the extent that
02:16:52.55	Councilmember Cox	They supersede.
02:16:54.38	Councilmember Cox	um,
02:16:56.38	Councilmember Cox	design review guidelines or that design review guidelines were
02:17:01.80	Councilmember Cox	abolished that formerly applied to single family homes. So,
02:17:05.87	Councilmember Cox	I would like to be sure that the odds have as broad an application
02:17:10.58	Councilmember Cox	as necessary to protect the charm
02:17:15.23	Councilmember Cox	and value.
02:17:17.92	Councilmember Cox	of our
02:17:19.79	Councilmember Cox	town.
02:17:20.18	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
02:17:21.85	Mayor Blaustein	Council member. Thank you, Council Member Cox. Council Member Hoffman, did you wanna add something?
02:17:21.88	Councilmember Cox	I can't remember.
02:17:27.13	Mayor Blaustein	No, I forgot to.
02:17:27.26	Councilmember Hoffman	No, I forgot to lower my hand, but I do concur.
02:17:28.30	Mayor Blaustein	Yeah.
02:17:31.13	Councilmember Hoffman	I concur with the suggestions from Councilmember Costa. Okay, great.
02:17:33.85	Mayor Blaustein	cost is
02:17:34.98	Mayor Blaustein	All right. Unfortunately, Commissioner Feller, we've moved beyond the Planning Commission. We're at the staff City Council direction period for this item. So
02:17:44.23	Mayor Blaustein	I'm just gonna continue and sum up the comments from the council.
02:17:47.65	Mayor Blaustein	And so it seems like what I'm hearing as a consensus is that there is definitely support for staff to look further into the application of SB 9.
02:17:55.92	Mayor Blaustein	and find an understanding of whether or not
02:17:58.85	Mayor Blaustein	these can apply. I don't feel comfortable directing staff to immediately
02:18:05.13	Mayor Blaustein	include odds with SB nine before seeing the odds, since we didn't have them yet attached to the staff report and we have yet to see a draft. But I think exploring that going forward is what I'm hearing is the direction.
02:18:15.97	Mayor Blaustein	and seeing where we might have a broad application of the odds.
02:18:19.71	Mayor Blaustein	support for looking into the application of Ada as mentioned by civil atelier and seconded by Councilmember Cox and of course the inclusion of gradients per the landslide task force. And I would also just I would like us all to have an ample amount of time to review the odds before
02:18:39.49	Mayor Blaustein	They come before us and make sure all of this is considered. Okay, C2, hands up again. So go ahead, Council Member Kelman.
02:18:45.06	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
02:18:45.08	Councilmember Kelman	Yeah.
02:18:45.21	Councilmember Kelman	Thank you, Mayor. I agree with all of that. I'm wondering if you want to give some direction around timing. So as staff has to prioritize its tasks coming out of tonight and knowing we want to have a meeting on the 30th.
02:18:45.25	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
02:18:55.88	Councilmember Kelman	It sounds like there is some desire to move
02:18:58.93	Councilmember Kelman	forward quickly but also intelligently. Any thoughts on timing and how
02:19:04.80	Councilmember Kelman	Do we want to report back on the status on the 30th? Or what are your thoughts? I think given that
02:19:11.98	Mayor Blaustein	It has been clearly outlined by both Commissioner Junius and Bob Brown that we are in compliance with the state at this time with regards to odds and that our top priority as a council right now is submitting our housing element.
02:19:22.42	Mayor Blaustein	within the statutory timeline of January 31st. I am hesitant to direct staff to prioritize the odds prior to the submittal of the housing element
02:19:31.63	Mayor Blaustein	And so I would say after the 31st, it would be something that would be
02:19:35.87	Mayor Blaustein	And in the meantime, Bob can take into consideration the comments that we've given in the direction that we've given this evening.
02:19:44.78	Councilmember Kelman	Okay, I'll just go on the record that I would like it to be prioritized. So if there's other support for that, I would welcome that. I understand your perspective. Appreciate that. I just wanted to mention my concerns.
02:19:57.15	Councilmember Kelman	I appreciate that.
02:19:57.98	Mayor Blaustein	From what I understand, it's not possible for us to to complete it in time with the necessary state comment periods to be available at the meeting on the 30th. Could you weigh in on that, Bob, or city attorney?
02:20:10.65	Mayor Blaustein	given the planning commission requirements and that you had mentioned.
02:20:17.11	Sergio Roodin	I don't think it likely.
02:20:20.25	Mayor Blaustein	Okay.
02:20:21.43	Mayor Blaustein	Yeah.
02:20:21.47	Councilmember Hoffman	Councilmember Hoffman.
02:20:23.07	Councilmember Hoffman	I just, I wondered if Chair Feller was going to weigh in on, with her expertise in the planning commission on one of the, one of the, um,
02:20:33.46	Councilmember Hoffman	the
02:20:36.55	Councilmember Hoffman	one of the direction that we were trying to get. And so I just wanted to see if that was one of her comments.
02:20:41.97	Councilmember Hoffman	to be taken.
02:20:42.04	Jenny Silva	It's a bit of.
02:20:42.66	Jenny Silva	I don't know.
02:20:42.98	Councilmember Hoffman	I'm sorry, pardon me, go ahead.
02:20:45.31	Councilmember Hoffman	I mean, if she's trying to weigh in about one of the direction that we were trying to give and then it conflicted somehow
02:20:52.47	Councilmember Hoffman	with the
02:20:53.16	Councilmember Hoffman	you know, the
02:20:55.06	Councilmember Hoffman	planning directives, then I think we needed to hear that.
02:20:58.90	Commissioner Feller	The only, the reason I raised my hand is I certainly wanted to,
02:21:04.16	Commissioner Feller	I certainly heard and understood very clearly the
02:21:07.10	Commissioner Feller	sense of urgency to get the objective design and development centers in front of both the planning commission and the city council.
02:21:15.79	Commissioner Feller	if we begin to modify the odds to include the SB9 and issues like that, the question is
02:21:22.37	Commissioner Feller	Would it be beneficial to bifurcate
02:21:24.76	Commissioner Feller	and get what we've done already in front of the City Council Planning Commission City Council for that for approval and then separately bring the modification for SB 9 so that was the reason I raised my hand.
02:21:40.31	Councilmember Hoffman	Okay, thank you for that. So I think that might be an approach then that we might want to consider. How does the rest of the council feel about that?
02:21:49.40	Councilmember Hoffman	So we've, we've, we've listed a bunch of additions that we want to have, right? That we want to include SB nine and we want to include some other things.
02:21:56.02	Councilmember Hoffman	But the urgency of getting
02:21:57.82	Councilmember Hoffman	at least a minimal odds adopted before
02:22:02.01	Councilmember Hoffman	January 31st.
02:22:04.86	Councilmember Hoffman	How do we feel about that?
02:22:06.51	Councilmember Hoffman	Thank you.
02:22:06.53	Mayor Blaustein	I'm
02:22:07.63	Mayor Blaustein	I share the urgency for adopting the odds, but I want to do it right. And I want to include the concerns that have been mentioned. And I want to include sufficient public comments so that they are legally
02:22:17.70	Mayor Blaustein	sound and so that the community feels like they've had an opportunity to weigh in. We have a lot on our plate with the housing element and public comment required for the housing element. And I would really like to prioritize completing the housing element and then immediately agendizing working on the odds. I haven't even seen a draft of the odds and I would like an opportunity to give them significant attention. And right now the clear priority is the attention on the housing element. I know that they are related and the topics are related.
02:22:42.47	Mayor Blaustein	But given the needs of staff right now, the timelines on staff and also the
02:22:48.01	Mayor Blaustein	lack of support that we've been receiving as expected from our consultants on this. I'm a little bit concerned, not you, Bob, obviously.
02:22:57.44	Mayor Blaustein	I'm concerned about about that approach. That's just my if there's a timeline in which we can, I would really like to get the consensus on this. So if there's a timeline in which we can work on the odds, that's maybe a combination of this. I'm totally open to those.
02:23:11.09	Mayor Blaustein	ideas.
02:23:12.34	Mayor Blaustein	whatever you
02:23:13.59	Mayor Blaustein	Maybe Councilmember Kelman, you raised your hand. Or Councilmember Cox, pardon me, go ahead.
02:23:15.90	Councilmember Cox	Or it keeps on recording.
02:23:17.03	Councilmember Cox	Yeah.
02:23:17.71	Mayor Blaustein	I just wanted, I had a piece of
02:23:19.97	Councilmember Cox	previously asked for a draft of the odds.
02:23:21.94	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
02:23:22.32	Councilmember Cox	I believe we're in a better situation to answer this question about bifurcation after we've actually had an opportunity to see this draft. We haven't seen the draft.
02:23:31.39	Councilmember Cox	So may I ask perhaps that we see the draft
02:23:34.84	Councilmember Cox	and then perhaps put on consent for the 24th, a proposed timeline for,
02:23:38.77	Mayor Blaustein	for
02:23:39.63	Councilmember Cox	adoption of the odds that we will be able to intelligently weigh in on having seen a draft of the odds.
02:23:46.24	Councilmember Cox	Thank you.
02:23:46.26	Mayor Blaustein	I definitely like that idea, although it might not be a consent item because I would probably like to have a discussion about it as well if we might, but we'll see. Council Member Kellman or...
02:23:55.20	Councilmember Kelman	Yeah, no, thank you for that, Councilmember Cox. Excellent idea. I think that's a wonderful way to address this. So I support that. I just want to maybe check in with Director Phipps because I want to be clear what staff thinks they're taking on. I think Councilmember Cox and I have obligated ourselves to do a very heavy lift, which may have freed up some time for staff to devote to the odds. I could be wrong, but I think just checking in with our director might be helpful.
02:24:23.27	Councilmember Kelman	just given that workload allocation.
02:24:27.74	City Manager Zapata	Yeah, thank you very much, Councilmember Kelman, and appreciate you being sensitive to the capacities that we have at CDD. I think that it is no surprise that CDD, even prior to the housing element and the odds, is very short-staffed. And our ability to take on new work,
02:24:46.99	City Manager Zapata	housing element and odds aside has been and is continues to be difficult for us. So, so I think what I want to do and my goal in this position is to be able to support the vision of city council and city management. And I am, you know, very much here available to commit myself to whatever direction that we are provided. I think there are certain realities associated with capacity. And once I'm able to assess the work, the direction provided by council planning commissioners here, maybe there's a greater discussion to have offline as to, okay, what can be prioritized feasibly, what cannot, and how can we most efficiently approach these things by prioritizing those items that we feel are of the utmost priority. So, so I think short answer is I am here to implement vision of council and city management.
02:25:15.51	Vicki Nichols	Uh,
02:25:47.47	Councilmember Kelman	So director Phipps, sorry to interject your bit, then can you, would you be able to comply with the suggestion of Councilmember Cox to provide us with the schedule? My understanding is that city staff actually has done very little on odds because we outsource that to Opticos. So that's actually a consultant workload, not a city staff workload, although I'm sure you want to spend time with it as well. Can you commit to that 24th per Councilmember Cox's concept?
02:26:11.57	City Manager Zapata	Certainly yeah, I'm very happy to support consent item on the 24th for a calendar of adoption for the odds.
02:26:20.40	Councilmember Hoffman	Wonderful, thank you.
02:26:21.76	Councilmember Hoffman	Councilmember Hoffman?
02:26:22.96	Councilmember Hoffman	Oh, that's good. That's where I was headed. So.
02:26:26.34	Mayor Blaustein	It's good.
02:26:27.43	Mayor Blaustein	Great. So just summing up directions so we can include this clearly in the minutes and that we're all on the same page here.
02:26:32.83	Mayor Blaustein	We are going to agendize this for the 24th with the draft and a potential calendar for adoption of the odds.
02:26:39.09	Mayor Blaustein	And in consideration of the odds, we're also going to look at
02:26:42.25	Mayor Blaustein	gradients and the inclusion as well of ADA and also a consideration for SB9 with regards to the odds and a more broad adoption of the odds. Is everyone in agreement with that?
02:26:53.25	Mayor Blaustein	Yes.
02:26:54.25	Mayor Blaustein	And if you could send and as well, if the staff could send the draft sooner rather than that would be fantastic. Okay, great. So now we will move on to our final agenda item, which is a presentation on SB nine local implementation ordinance number 1288 interaction with odds and housing element and direction to staff and we will be hearing from our Community Development Director Brandon Phipps.
02:27:17.52	City Manager Zapata	Mayor, thank you very much for the introduction. I'm going to pass the mic on to Principal Planner Neil Toft, who has a presentation.
02:27:27.10	Mayor Blaustein	Hi, Neil.
02:27:29.45	Mayor Blaustein	We can't hear you.
02:27:36.44	Unknown	We still can't hear you.
02:27:50.22	Neil Toft	How about now?
02:27:51.18	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
02:27:51.22	Neil Toft	Thank you.
02:27:51.25	Mayor Blaustein	now we can hear you.
02:27:51.79	Neil Toft	Thank you.
02:27:51.83	Mayor Blaustein	I'm sorry.
02:27:51.86	Neil Toft	Thank you. You're welcome.
02:27:52.26	Mayor Blaustein	Okay.
02:27:53.85	Neil Toft	Just had to re-plug in my headphones. That was it.
02:27:57.51	Neil Toft	Thank you, Mayor Blasdy and members of City Council.
02:28:01.85	Neil Toft	You know, number one, I think you've actually...
02:28:06.12	Neil Toft	had a discussion that really hit on
02:28:08.50	Neil Toft	one of the main reasons for having this presentation and that is
02:28:12.73	Neil Toft	kind of discussing the interaction between
02:28:16.01	Neil Toft	SB9 and ODDS
02:28:17.86	Neil Toft	And if you'd like, I'll go ahead and sort of run through the presentation, but I'm going to be very quick about it.
02:28:22.67	Neil Toft	I think most of this is things that the,
02:28:25.51	Neil Toft	Commission, the Planning Commission, and the
02:28:28.23	Neil Toft	council are very familiar with. This is something you've been working over last year.
02:28:33.68	Neil Toft	Um,
02:28:34.52	Neil Toft	probably know more than I do.
02:28:36.36	Neil Toft	So I'll,
02:28:37.84	Neil Toft	I'll run through real quick, but it does sound like in terms of the decision made, if there's
02:28:44.07	Neil Toft	If there's any questions about SB9, how we're implementing it, what's going on,
02:28:47.97	Neil Toft	We can certainly try to field that tonight.
02:28:50.91	Neil Toft	Let me go ahead and get my share screen on.
02:28:54.74	Neil Toft	if the clerk
02:28:56.58	Neil Toft	has that for me. I think we've got it.
02:29:03.68	Neil Toft	Okay, there we go. Can you see my screen?
02:29:08.51	Neil Toft	Yes.
02:29:08.57	Unknown	Yeah.
02:29:09.15	Neil Toft	Okay, great.
02:29:12.74	Neil Toft	So just quickly, the intent of this SB9 mandate
02:29:19.10	Neil Toft	was very,
02:29:22.12	Neil Toft	basically target single family zoning as an obstacle to meeting the state's housing supply.
02:29:28.40	Neil Toft	Essentially, the purpose of the law is to allow up to two dwelling units on new states
02:29:32.52	Neil Toft	on single family lots.
02:29:34.44	Neil Toft	and or allow minor lot splits to permit further development of what may be termed as
02:29:40.84	Neil Toft	SB9 units.
02:29:42.80	Neil Toft	Further, the law seeks to require ministerial permit processes for these things.
02:29:47.89	Neil Toft	and eliminate public hearing review and neighborhood impact
02:29:51.30	Neil Toft	as this is again seen as an obstacle and a cost to development in housing.
02:29:56.70	Neil Toft	I,
02:29:57.21	Neil Toft	And
02:29:57.97	Neil Toft	In this regulation, the agencies can adopt implementing regulations.
02:30:02.96	Neil Toft	There are limits on how much local control the agency's
02:30:06.89	Neil Toft	can be imposed. Some agencies have
02:30:10.30	Neil Toft	and
02:30:11.23	Neil Toft	Fairly liberal with those, basically adopting what the state mandates have.
02:30:16.44	Neil Toft	Others have sought to try to implement greater
02:30:20.04	Neil Toft	standards, sometimes to the
02:30:22.08	Neil Toft	degree of objective standards.
02:30:24.26	Neil Toft	trying to implement
02:30:26.94	Neil Toft	you know, some detailed control over particularly how these units might be designed.
02:30:34.81	Neil Toft	So these,
02:30:36.51	Neil Toft	You know, in general,
02:30:38.32	Neil Toft	Um,
02:30:40.69	Neil Toft	The main implementing regulations, for one, they cannot be used as short-term rentals, so the state recognizes that does not help housing.
02:30:48.20	Neil Toft	One of the main
02:30:49.81	Neil Toft	changes to our setback regulations is,
02:30:53.15	Neil Toft	Zoning restrictions are limited to four feet on site and
02:30:56.59	Neil Toft	rear lot lines.
02:30:58.38	Neil Toft	Um,
02:30:59.10	Neil Toft	Again, the city can implement objective standards,
02:31:02.61	Neil Toft	as long as it does not preclude development
02:31:05.36	Neil Toft	up to two 800 square foot units
02:31:08.27	Neil Toft	on each lot.
02:31:10.21	Neil Toft	Um,
02:31:12.76	Neil Toft	subject lot or an SB9 lot that's created through subdivision.
02:31:17.92	Neil Toft	The city may permit ADU and JDUs on
02:31:22.21	Neil Toft	in conjunction with SB9 development.
02:31:25.41	Neil Toft	Um,
02:31:26.48	Neil Toft	And the city may require an off-street parking space and the city does.
02:31:30.76	Neil Toft	for each unit.
02:31:32.35	Neil Toft	From our understanding, there are some
02:31:35.76	Neil Toft	caveats to that.
02:31:37.68	Neil Toft	that the city cannot require, agencies can't require parking,
02:31:42.12	Neil Toft	For the city of Larksburg, it's our understanding that the only exception for this
02:31:46.52	Neil Toft	is for parcels within
02:31:48.58	Neil Toft	a half mile walking distance of the ferry.
02:31:51.79	Neil Toft	That is a major transit stop. But other than that,
02:31:55.15	Neil Toft	that's their
02:31:58.45	Neil Toft	restrict the city from requiring a parking space.
02:32:05.88	Neil Toft	And for just a quick background, again, this basically...
02:32:10.40	Neil Toft	became effective January of last year. The city had adopted
02:32:15.25	Neil Toft	some interim guidelines soon after the law was
02:32:19.04	Neil Toft	AS WE HAVE BEEN IN THE
02:32:20.90	Neil Toft	the law in September, 2021.
02:32:23.75	Neil Toft	Um,
02:32:24.44	Neil Toft	And so the city had adopted guidelines and did eventually
02:32:28.02	Neil Toft	through.
02:32:29.45	Neil Toft	building off work of the legislative committee and input from the planning commission.
02:32:33.50	Neil Toft	adopted ordinance 1288.
02:32:36.24	Neil Toft	in June of last year. And this is a,
02:32:39.02	Neil Toft	basically are effective.
02:32:41.03	Neil Toft	control over SB9.
02:32:43.81	Neil Toft	lot splits and SB9 units.
02:32:46.94	Neil Toft	Um,
02:32:50.34	Neil Toft	And just for some framework,
02:32:51.91	Neil Toft	SB9.
02:32:54.53	Neil Toft	We've,
02:32:55.37	Neil Toft	The city has done a survey and done an analysis and believes that SB9 could apply of up to 945 parcels.
02:33:03.41	Neil Toft	That's sort of a broad stroke.
02:33:05.70	Neil Toft	there would be additional criteria that could be
02:33:08.37	Neil Toft	evaluated on a site by site basis.
02:33:11.25	Neil Toft	But certainly we are looking at
02:33:12.99	Neil Toft	potentially hundreds of parcels that could
02:33:15.34	Neil Toft	utilize SB9 as a development option.
02:33:23.07	Neil Toft	So first is the urban lot split standard section 9.70 of subdivisions that this is the
02:33:30.66	Neil Toft	the section that regulates urban lot splits and
02:33:33.95	Neil Toft	essentially,
02:33:35.42	Neil Toft	Per the state mandate, we must allow a pretty small lot size
02:33:39.42	Neil Toft	1,200 square feet.
02:33:41.59	Neil Toft	But it also allows cities to require that the lot areas be somewhat balanced.
02:33:46.50	Neil Toft	with one lot being no less than 40% of the whole or the original lot.
02:33:52.04	Neil Toft	Um,
02:33:53.63	Neil Toft	Regulations also require at least 20 feet of street frontage and at least, uh,
02:34:00.41	Neil Toft	Sausalito allows for at least 10 feet
02:34:03.41	Neil Toft	frontage for a flag lot.
02:34:05.81	Neil Toft	um,
02:34:06.74	Neil Toft	It does...
02:34:08.00	Neil Toft	limit the
02:34:10.40	Neil Toft	the lot split to only a one time
02:34:12.51	Neil Toft	Uh,
02:34:13.40	Neil Toft	application.
02:34:14.80	Neil Toft	A lot that's been split under SB 9 cannot be split further, so there's no
02:34:19.88	Neil Toft	splitting of additional lots.
02:34:21.96	Neil Toft	New dwelling units on an SB9 lot are limited to 1,200 square feet of floor area.
02:34:27.76	Neil Toft	And there are no more than two units per lot.
02:34:30.77	Neil Toft	perpetuity.
02:34:32.29	Neil Toft	Now,
02:34:33.18	Neil Toft	As I note,
02:34:35.42	Neil Toft	The standards do require up to one parking space per lot.
02:34:39.71	Neil Toft	And the only exception being those within a half mile of the ferry.
02:34:47.17	Neil Toft	Um,
02:34:50.85	Neil Toft	There are, let me make sure I'm getting right here.
02:34:60.00	Neil Toft	There are standards that apply to the
02:35:03.13	Neil Toft	development of
02:35:04.62	Neil Toft	whether it's on an SB9 lot or whether it's on an existing lot.
02:35:09.75	Neil Toft	with a single family home or tearing down a single family
02:35:13.21	Neil Toft	with building.
02:35:14.24	Neil Toft	SB9 units, there are standards
02:35:16.40	Neil Toft	that
02:35:16.84	Neil Toft	can be considered objective design standards for development of these units.
02:35:21.78	Neil Toft	Again, there's a limit on the number of units and the size.
02:35:25.34	Neil Toft	There's also a 16-foot height restriction
02:35:28.75	Neil Toft	but that only applies to portions of the dwelling located between the forefoot
02:35:33.49	Neil Toft	Um,
02:35:34.30	Neil Toft	state mandated setback.
02:35:36.21	Neil Toft	and the standard side and rear yard setbacks.
02:35:39.75	Neil Toft	There are also special setbacks that apply
02:35:42.42	Neil Toft	to second story decks and rooftop decks.
02:35:45.41	Neil Toft	And these can only be built over conditioned space.
02:35:48.71	Neil Toft	So that's,
02:35:50.13	Neil Toft	That's a detailed design standard there.
02:35:55.02	Neil Toft	And there is a requirement for minimum off-street parking
02:35:59.72	Neil Toft	There's also...
02:36:01.27	Neil Toft	an objective standard
02:36:03.11	Neil Toft	It requires installation of fencing and or clear story or opaque windows
02:36:08.22	Neil Toft	to address or minimize
02:36:10.75	Neil Toft	potential privacy impacts.
02:36:15.33	Neil Toft	And, um,
02:36:16.30	Neil Toft	I apologize if Beth already covered this. I, I,
02:36:19.41	Neil Toft	was having technical troubles getting on
02:36:22.30	Neil Toft	beginning of the meeting.
02:36:23.76	Neil Toft	But
02:36:25.11	Neil Toft	As we know, HCD has indicated that in terms of
02:36:28.72	Neil Toft	applying SB 9 development to the housing element
02:36:32.35	Neil Toft	projecting that for meeting your arena needs.
02:36:35.19	Neil Toft	HCD has taken a pretty conservative approach.
02:36:38.68	Neil Toft	They require detailed evaluation of SB9 sites.
02:36:42.80	Neil Toft	in a property owner survey.
02:36:44.57	Neil Toft	in order to really
02:36:46.54	Neil Toft	come up with numbers to project towards meeting
02:36:49.72	Neil Toft	your goals,
02:36:50.85	Neil Toft	And again, HDD is taking a very conservative approach.
02:36:54.75	Neil Toft	in identifying qualifications.
02:36:56.45	Neil Toft	sites even for this state mandated program.
02:37:01.97	Neil Toft	So in conclusion,
02:37:04.04	Neil Toft	In terms of SB9,
02:37:05.71	Neil Toft	course, we could continue with business as usual, applying the current standards.
02:37:10.37	Neil Toft	Um,
02:37:11.17	Neil Toft	the,
02:37:11.87	Neil Toft	Council could consider more restrictive standards or we could consider
02:37:16.73	Neil Toft	more objective types of design standards within the ordinance.
02:37:20.58	Neil Toft	but it does sound that the consensus is to
02:37:24.43	Neil Toft	look at the odds and
02:37:26.62	Neil Toft	try to look at how that can apply to SB9 development.
02:37:30.76	Neil Toft	And I think one thing to keep in mind in doing this, and we'll be looking for some direction,
02:37:35.75	Neil Toft	is anytime we're adding
02:37:38.13	Neil Toft	Any objective, any objective,
02:37:40.31	Neil Toft	additional kind of design standards
02:37:42.77	Neil Toft	those can certainly help to
02:37:45.30	Neil Toft	protect the neighborhoods, encourage, improve the aesthetics.
02:37:48.80	Neil Toft	So things fit within the neighborhood.
02:37:51.41	Neil Toft	It can also create obstacles and make it a bit more difficult than that.
02:37:56.09	Neil Toft	is
02:37:56.74	Neil Toft	Probably the balance we're looking for is really to
02:37:59.60	Neil Toft	encourage those SB9 developments that
02:38:02.48	Neil Toft	fit well within the city of Larkspur and well within the neighborhoods.
02:38:06.35	Neil Toft	and not
02:38:08.81	Neil Toft	We use standards that avoid those that
02:38:11.02	Neil Toft	The dump.
02:38:12.52	Neil Toft	So,
02:38:13.67	Neil Toft	With that, we'll take any further direction
02:38:16.27	Neil Toft	on odds.
02:38:18.01	Neil Toft	excuse me, on SB9 and odds as it applies to that.
02:38:20.98	Neil Toft	Thank you.
02:38:23.10	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you very much.
02:38:24.59	Mayor Blaustein	And I will now go to, if you could show the planning commission on the screen here, I'm going to pass it over to.
02:38:30.97	Mayor Blaustein	Chair Luxembourg to give questions from the Planning Commission to Neil.
02:38:36.23	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you, Mayor Blasden.
02:38:39.71	Chair Luxembourg	Neil, thank you for a very thorough presentation. I think you capsulized what we have. I just want to make one minor correction of something that you had in there.
02:38:49.02	Chair Luxembourg	uh in Sausalito I believe and um others can correct me if I'm wrong the bus stops on Bridgeway uh bus stops on Second Street and the bus stop up at Spencer all qualify as transit and therefore the half a mile is not only from the ferry terminal but all of those bus stops so there is a number of places in single family zones that don't have to provide parking. So I just wanted to make that comment. But again, thank you for a very thorough presentation. Commissioner Feller, questions?
02:39:25.47	Commissioner Feller	I just had a question for clarification, Neil, and thank you for your presentation.
02:39:30.38	Commissioner Feller	But you had, I believe on one of the slides, a total number of
02:39:36.07	Commissioner Feller	SB9 qualifying lots
02:39:39.56	Commissioner Feller	Um,
02:39:40.73	Commissioner Feller	And that number differs than the number that we had received some time ago from an interim CDD director Heidi Scoble.
02:39:50.40	Commissioner Feller	So can we just verify that number?
02:39:55.54	Neil Toft	I can certainly work to verify with that for you. And I'll let the council know if there's a difference in that number.
02:40:03.51	Neil Toft	And I apologize if this was information that I had gleaned from recent
02:40:08.91	Neil Toft	presentation. So I was building off of that.
02:40:12.13	Neil Toft	Do you remember, was that number
02:40:14.16	Neil Toft	Um,
02:40:15.15	Neil Toft	larger or smaller or what do you
02:40:18.43	Neil Toft	remembers being the
02:40:20.59	Commissioner Feller	Sure, I don't remember the actual number, so forgive me for that, but it was substantially smaller than what I saw on your slide.
02:40:30.54	Commissioner Feller	And I just think maybe we can work with Director Phipps just to pull up
02:40:35.54	Commissioner Feller	that list. It was a very exhaustive process that Interim Director Scoble had gone through and I think we need to be clear about which lots actually could be eligible because the lot has to be of a certain size to be SB 9 eligible.
02:40:56.70	Neil Toft	Okay, thank you.
02:40:58.25	Neil Toft	I do want to let you know that I had actually contacted
02:41:02.71	Neil Toft	Um,
02:41:04.11	Neil Toft	uh,
02:41:04.95	Neil Toft	planners from the transportation authority of Marin. I was checking on this issue of
02:41:09.66	Neil Toft	high quality transportation corridors and what come,
02:41:12.78	Neil Toft	what,
02:41:14.64	Neil Toft	What qualifies as that?
02:41:16.58	Neil Toft	And the response I got back is that we do not have high quality transportation corridors
02:41:22.33	Neil Toft	through
02:41:23.75	Neil Toft	that,
02:41:24.27	Neil Toft	the Southern Brink
02:41:25.54	Neil Toft	area.
02:41:26.65	Neil Toft	But I will make sure that's been an interesting moving target for directors and planners.
02:41:33.77	Neil Toft	all across the Bay Area and particularly in Marin.
02:41:36.54	Neil Toft	So I'll,
02:41:37.45	Neil Toft	I'll verify on that because that's a critical issue.
02:41:40.47	Neil Toft	as to whether we can or cannot
02:41:42.65	Neil Toft	require parking for these types of units. And certainly,
02:41:47.65	Neil Toft	the city may
02:41:49.53	Neil Toft	preferred
02:41:50.34	Neil Toft	not to require or
02:41:52.08	Neil Toft	you know, again, that could end up becoming an objective standard, but I will work to really nail that down.
02:41:58.24	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you, Neil. And thank you, Commissioner Feller.
02:42:03.81	Chair Luxembourg	With regard to the parking, we have not had a case on the SB9 come before the commission, obviously, because it's ministerial, but we have had multiple cases of ADUs that come before us because of other things in the project.
02:42:18.19	Chair Luxembourg	And the language for ADUs is identical to the language for SB9 in the law. So I'm presuming that it would be helpful if you could clarify that because we have been using that criteria on ADU projects. And if that's not the case, if those don't count, we need to be aware of that.
02:42:41.31	Chair Luxembourg	Um, thank you. Uh, with that, uh, I'll go to commissioner Saab for questions. Thank you.
02:42:49.09	Commissioner Sayed	Thank you. Yes, thank you for the presentation.
02:42:53.47	Commissioner Sayed	I'm going to mention what
02:42:55.89	Commissioner Sayed	Commissioner Feller had mentioned also was significantly lower and I do think that caveat was based on the 1200 square feet, so I think it's not.
02:43:04.43	Commissioner Sayed	It looks like your number probably
02:43:06.82	Commissioner Sayed	around the R1 zoning versus what we had decided on the square footage. That being said, it's also that and I believe I just had it open. I think it was in the seventh.
02:43:20.19	Commissioner Sayed	HEAC meeting.
02:43:22.09	Commissioner Sayed	because there was a survey that had gone out for projected SB 9 units and
02:43:29.06	Commissioner Sayed	It was significantly lower in terms of the response. And I think it was about 15 respondents
02:43:37.21	Commissioner Sayed	for property owner surveys and 34 respondents who responded to the needs and priority surveys.
02:43:45.33	Commissioner Sayed	We're actually interested in SB 9 units. I'm not sure if that makes
02:43:49.30	Commissioner Sayed	a terrible difference for the nature of your presentation, but it's just a general call out for, I think what we're trying to
02:43:55.66	Commissioner Sayed	that she would be housing element
02:43:58.86	Commissioner Sayed	if we're gonna go with more, you know,
02:44:03.05	Commissioner Sayed	what can actually be built
02:44:05.16	Commissioner Sayed	It was a good survey to get some actual feel and temperature from the community.
02:44:12.26	Commissioner Sayed	So I just wanted to note that because it was an important chunk in one of our HEAC agendas.
02:44:19.03	Commissioner Sayed	But other than that, I don't think I have any further questions. Thank you again for the presentation.
02:44:24.14	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you, Commissioner Saag. Vice Chair Juniors, questions?
02:44:28.97	Vice Chair Juniors	Thank you, Chair Luxenberg. Just a quick question to Director Phipps or Mr. Taub. Have we how many SP9 applications has the city of Sausalito received?
02:44:38.98	Vice Chair Juniors	Do you have an idea of that?
02:44:41.09	Vice Chair Juniors	Any?
02:44:43.15	City Manager Zapata	We have received some as far as a specific number, I want to say greater than one,
02:44:50.43	City Manager Zapata	And less than 10, Neil? Probably.
02:44:53.34	Neil Toft	Probably.
02:44:54.94	Neil Toft	Probably less than 10. I think we were actually trying to tackle that question over the last couple of days.
02:44:59.87	Neil Toft	Um,
02:45:00.81	Neil Toft	We do have two active applications in,
02:45:03.70	Neil Toft	And we have had inquiries, I think we've got about two,
02:45:08.36	Neil Toft	sort of inquiries, we certainly
02:45:11.07	Neil Toft	whether they're very valid, you know, or
02:45:13.22	Neil Toft	actionable.
02:45:14.60	Neil Toft	It's hard to say, and so sort of projecting backwards,
02:45:18.50	Neil Toft	There may have been a few or a handful over the last year.
02:45:23.41	Neil Toft	I think the
02:45:25.05	Neil Toft	Like ADUs, SB9 is now becoming a little bit more of a
02:45:31.88	Neil Toft	Uh,
02:45:32.52	Neil Toft	You know, there's a little more vocabulary through the development community about it, its possibilities.
02:45:37.80	Neil Toft	So I think you'll see that begin to kind of
02:45:41.80	Neil Toft	head upwards.
02:45:44.30	Neil Toft	Yeah, not a whole lot of activity yet, but we anticipate it'll continue to rise.
02:45:51.00	Vice Chair Juniors	I do think we should acknowledge the fact that it is
02:45:54.09	Vice Chair Juniors	it's a little more complicated process than it would seem on its face. You are creating new lots, it requires surveys, it requires a lot of different considerations.
02:46:04.90	Vice Chair Juniors	I'll just be curious as the years move on how many this benign projects we actually get. I'd be surprised if it was a ton, but we'll see how it goes.
02:46:13.68	Neil Toft	And I think to kind of...
02:46:15.91	Neil Toft	A conversation I was overhearing today in the virtual counter meetings
02:46:20.97	Neil Toft	The applicant was a bit frustrated by the various regulations and constraints that do apply.
02:46:28.48	Neil Toft	at,
02:46:28.92	Neil Toft	It's not really there just to build the
02:46:31.74	Neil Toft	biggest market rate housing. It's there to build.
02:46:36.80	Neil Toft	smaller units and affordable units, and there are constraints to it.
02:46:43.08	City Manager Zapata	If I may just briefly want to communicate to commissioners and council that we are creating a process within CDD to detailed to have a detailed system whereby we track new units. And I'm working with principal planner, Neil Toft and Kristen Taiki on that. And that will make it much more efficient and easy for us to answer very specific questions about very specific unit types and in what quantity.
02:46:43.36	Neil Toft	Yeah.
02:46:43.43	Neil Toft	Thank you.
02:46:43.63	Unknown	Thank you.
02:46:43.67	Neil Toft	I'm not.
02:47:17.55	Mayor Blaustein	I see your hand Councilman Kelvin we're not yet to city council questions, but I know that your hand is raised.
02:47:23.14	Chair Luxembourg	So, do you have additional questions?
02:47:27.84	Chair Luxembourg	Any other commissioners have any questions before we go bring it back to the council?
02:47:32.94	Chair Luxembourg	With that, Mayor Blunstein, it's the
02:47:36.70	Chair Luxembourg	The pun's yours, so to speak.
02:47:38.80	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Chair Luxembourg. Okay, so I'll start with Councilmember Kelman as she already has her hand raised.
02:47:40.37	Chair Luxembourg	Yeah.
02:47:42.97	Mayor Blaustein	you
02:47:43.03	Councilmember Kelman	Thank you, Mayor Bussin. So, Neil, you just made this comment that the SB9 is designed to
02:47:50.36	Councilmember Kelman	provide more units than affordable units. And it may come to as a shock to some that it's not just intended to
02:47:56.67	Councilmember Kelman	build a house without review.
02:47:58.46	Councilmember Kelman	This is more of an existential question, but also I guess direction to consider.
02:48:03.01	Councilmember Kelman	which is as we develop our objective development design standards, and should they be applied to SB 9,
02:48:08.28	Councilmember Kelman	What are some ways in which we can
02:48:10.84	Councilmember Kelman	continue to support those objectives and make sure that we are in fact
02:48:15.42	Councilmember Kelman	utilizing SB9 within the spirit in which it was intended of affordable
02:48:19.92	Councilmember Kelman	units, not just market rate. And that's a rhetorical question at this time, because it's springing in on you, but I just wanted to flag that. And then I guess Neil or.
02:48:31.94	Councilmember Kelman	Maybe you want to comment a little bit
02:48:33.98	Councilmember Kelman	We've talked a lot.
02:48:35.09	Councilmember Kelman	on Tuesday and tonight about hazard mitigation, about disaster preparedness, one of the key components of SB9
02:48:40.73	Councilmember Kelman	If I am correct, is that remove SQL review.
02:48:43.85	Councilmember Kelman	How can we as a community take into account the lack of environmental
02:48:50.03	Councilmember Kelman	planning and secretive view includes hazards and public safety. How do we reconcile that with some of the other policy objectives we are trying to focus on here as a council?
02:49:05.47	Neil Toft	Well, I think there's two things. One is...
02:49:08.20	Neil Toft	SB9 doesn't waive
02:49:10.12	Neil Toft	Um,
02:49:10.70	Neil Toft	building code and safety standards
02:49:13.11	Neil Toft	The fire department does do the reviews for both the lot splits and any construction.
02:49:18.61	Neil Toft	So there is requirements for emergency access and egress.
02:49:23.29	Neil Toft	If it's a matter of looking more at the question of
02:49:27.76	Neil Toft	you know,
02:49:28.53	Neil Toft	site stability,
02:49:31.69	Neil Toft	maintaining vegetation on slopes.
02:49:35.30	Neil Toft	slope stability.
02:49:36.99	Neil Toft	Um,
02:49:37.88	Neil Toft	There may be additional
02:49:40.28	Neil Toft	Uh,
02:49:41.12	Neil Toft	you know, standards we can look at and apply
02:49:44.40	Neil Toft	sort of specific to those criteria
02:49:47.87	Neil Toft	And certainly there's some objective stairs as it may make it more difficult
02:49:52.53	Neil Toft	the steeper the slope.
02:49:53.97	Neil Toft	Thank you.
02:49:54.02	Neil Toft	the harder it is to meet certain objectives.
02:49:57.17	Neil Toft	Again, those all become things we need to check through with
02:50:01.56	Neil Toft	the city attorney as you need to,
02:50:04.72	Neil Toft	design these in a way you're not precluding
02:50:07.65	Neil Toft	the ability. So I think it's a matter of
02:50:11.84	Neil Toft	We can take that.
02:50:13.47	Neil Toft	you know, try to take that a little step further.
02:50:15.63	Neil Toft	But you do have to,
02:50:16.90	Neil Toft	You have to treat it with the same
02:50:19.19	Neil Toft	sort of code standards as you would any normal construction
02:50:23.21	Neil Toft	by and large,
02:50:24.58	Neil Toft	uh,
02:50:25.72	Neil Toft	So I hope
02:50:26.60	Neil Toft	That kind of answers your question, but I think in the
02:50:29.27	Neil Toft	in the guise of the
02:50:30.57	Neil Toft	looking at this through
02:50:32.69	Neil Toft	whether it's the objective design standards or just tightening up.
02:50:36.29	Neil Toft	thing.
02:50:37.22	Neil Toft	Current standards, we can,
02:50:38.60	Neil Toft	you know,
02:50:39.21	Neil Toft	Um,
02:50:40.15	Neil Toft	try to do.
02:50:41.25	Neil Toft	Now look at that.
02:50:42.33	Neil Toft	all.
02:50:42.92	Neil Toft	specifically.
02:50:44.61	Councilmember Kelman	Okay.
02:50:45.43	Councilmember Kelman	Yeah, thank you.
02:50:47.22	Neil Toft	It's all I know.
02:50:47.39	Councilmember Kelman	So I know.
02:50:48.25	Neil Toft	The other one thing I wanted to say is
02:50:51.29	Neil Toft	Yeah.
02:50:53.03	Neil Toft	affordability.
02:50:54.46	Neil Toft	Some communities, and I'm not sure early on,
02:50:58.73	Neil Toft	I'm,
02:50:59.44	Neil Toft	imposed
02:51:00.57	Neil Toft	requirements for affordability, deed restrictions,
02:51:04.55	Neil Toft	And I'm not sure where that stands legally now.
02:51:08.00	Neil Toft	relative
02:51:09.13	Neil Toft	whether that's tested or challenged by the state.
02:51:11.93	Neil Toft	But the other reality of that is,
02:51:14.49	Neil Toft	you know, this is the
02:51:16.65	Neil Toft	conflict of trying to build housing and affordable housing is if you
02:51:21.41	Neil Toft	Um,
02:51:22.31	Neil Toft	If you do impose a deed restriction standard, are you then be creating an obstacle
02:51:26.68	Neil Toft	to actually developing
02:51:28.31	Neil Toft	units by imposing
02:51:30.73	Neil Toft	um,
02:51:31.62	Neil Toft	you know, levels that just don't make a pencil out for the property owner.
02:51:35.75	Neil Toft	Those are all challenging.
02:51:37.56	Neil Toft	issues to balance and
02:51:39.87	Neil Toft	Study.
02:51:41.27	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
02:51:41.54	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Neil.
02:51:44.02	Mayor Blaustein	Thanks Councilmember Kelman. Okay, do we have further questions from members of the council?
02:51:49.00	Mayor Blaustein	Council member Cox, yes.
02:51:50.28	Councilmember Cox	you
02:51:51.21	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
02:51:51.97	Councilmember Cox	I wanted to just confirm you mentioned, um,
02:51:55.55	Councilmember Cox	Your presentation contains some comments regarding offsite parking.
02:51:59.40	Councilmember Cox	I wanted to just confirm that
02:52:02.55	Councilmember Cox	We adopted...
02:52:04.10	Councilmember Cox	an ordinance
02:52:06.16	Councilmember Cox	in,
02:52:06.77	Councilmember Cox	with our ADU ordinance.
02:52:10.00	Councilmember Cox	That does require offsite parking close to transit if necessary to protect health and safety.
02:52:16.24	Councilmember Cox	because some of our roads are so narrow
02:52:18.57	Councilmember Cox	that if we allow on street parking
02:52:22.33	Councilmember Cox	fire vehicles will be unable to traverse those roads. And we had that happen.
02:52:27.68	Councilmember Cox	just prior to adopting that ordinance. So I just wanted to
02:52:31.54	Councilmember Cox	confirm.
02:52:32.67	Councilmember Cox	You may not be able to confirm that this evening that that ordinance is still
02:52:36.91	Councilmember Cox	in place and has not been superseded because
02:52:40.32	Councilmember Cox	It was important to public safety
02:52:42.80	Councilmember Cox	that even those
02:52:44.45	Councilmember Cox	units.
02:52:45.74	Councilmember Cox	close to public transit,
02:52:47.61	Councilmember Cox	if they are situated on narrow streets,
02:52:50.68	Councilmember Cox	still have fire
02:52:52.57	Councilmember Cox	protection services available to them.
02:52:56.81	Neil Toft	It still has that language, yes.
02:52:58.29	Councilmember Cox	Thank you.
02:52:59.25	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you so much.
02:52:59.78	Councilmember Cox	Thank you very much.
02:53:01.95	Mayor Blaustein	Thanks Councilmember Cox. I did have one question in light of our previous discussion on the odds. I'm not sure Neil, if you've had an opportunity to review the draft of the odds, but I'm wondering how
02:53:11.94	Mayor Blaustein	different the design standards in ordinance 1288 that we adopted in conjunction with the adoption of SB9 as a state law.
02:53:20.48	Mayor Blaustein	are from the new odds. Do you think that they are quite different or will it be not much of a change or a challenge to integrate our new odds into SB9?
02:53:30.13	Neil Toft	Well, I haven't studied the odds in detail. As Bob said, it's a big document I was somewhat familiar with.
02:53:38.40	Neil Toft	the origin.
02:53:40.19	Neil Toft	was working
02:53:41.39	Neil Toft	with one of the other agencies with Opticos, as Bob said, most
02:53:45.39	Neil Toft	Most of the agencies throughout Marin are in the process of either having
02:53:48.88	Neil Toft	had recently adopted or in the process of adopting odds
02:53:52.19	Neil Toft	with that toolkit.
02:53:53.59	Neil Toft	in various
02:53:54.97	Neil Toft	forms and using various
02:53:57.12	Neil Toft	different parts of the toolkit,
02:53:59.18	Neil Toft	feeling what's
02:54:00.44	Neil Toft	APPROPRIATE FOR THEIR
02:54:01.93	Neil Toft	jurisdiction.
02:54:03.36	Neil Toft	but the
02:54:05.67	Neil Toft	I would say
02:54:07.09	Neil Toft	My sense of what the odds toolkit will do is it's going to provide a lot more detail
02:54:12.90	Neil Toft	And it creates more of an off-the-shelf or out-of-the-box situation
02:54:17.42	Neil Toft	design options for
02:54:19.81	Neil Toft	a property owner. So that's good and bad. It gives them
02:54:23.71	Neil Toft	a
02:54:24.83	Neil Toft	kind of a template to work from, which is not
02:54:27.41	Neil Toft	What ours does, ours just creates sort of form limits
02:54:30.75	Neil Toft	And here's some restrictions.
02:54:32.64	Neil Toft	but in terms of any
02:54:34.38	Neil Toft	kind of material treatments and
02:54:36.33	Neil Toft	other things that
02:54:37.70	Neil Toft	the odds would provide a lot more
02:54:40.23	Neil Toft	detail to that.
02:54:42.33	Neil Toft	And again, it may, it could serve to help
02:54:45.90	Neil Toft	expedite,
02:54:47.34	Neil Toft	and assist development to some degree.
02:54:50.44	Neil Toft	or it could also, you know, depends on what the applicants or property owners trying to achieve.
02:54:56.05	Neil Toft	It may.
02:54:56.82	Neil Toft	Some may consider it an obstacle.
02:54:58.66	Neil Toft	I think it kind of depends on how that works.
02:55:01.48	Neil Toft	how it works, but
02:55:03.17	Neil Toft	I haven't had a good chance to look at
02:55:05.53	Neil Toft	the our odds currently and how
02:55:08.78	Neil Toft	like Corte Madera is applying it to
02:55:11.22	Neil Toft	this type of development.
02:55:13.97	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you. I appreciate that.
02:55:15.50	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, I wanna open it up to public comment.
02:55:20.18	Mayor Blaustein	Yes, Michael Rex.
02:55:25.96	Michael Lennox	Thank you again, Michael Rex, local architect. And I wanna draw attention to
02:55:31.30	Michael Lennox	Letter I just distributed tonight before the hearing.
02:55:35.50	Michael Lennox	that addresses concerns
02:55:37.93	Michael Lennox	the
02:55:38.54	Michael Lennox	Senate Bill 9 and how we're implementing it and it also talked about the odds program so
02:55:44.75	Michael Lennox	I ask everyone to take a moment to read it when you can.
02:55:49.61	Michael Lennox	I'm concerned about odds. I've seen how it's been applied already.
02:55:54.16	Michael Lennox	I think there's some good things and bad things.
02:55:57.44	Michael Lennox	on the concern side is that ministerially, I think we've gone overboard.
02:56:03.71	Michael Lennox	there's no noticing to the neighbors.
02:56:07.71	Michael Lennox	I'm,
02:56:08.47	Michael Lennox	just because there can't be a hearing doesn't mean that neighbors can't be notified and shouldn't be. They should.
02:56:14.92	Michael Lennox	So they're not surprised and they have an opportunity if they know about it.
02:56:18.93	Michael Lennox	to
02:56:20.13	Michael Lennox	talk to their neighbor and try to work something out that's compatible between neighbors.
02:56:24.96	Michael Lennox	If they don't know about it, they can't do that. And also because it's the ministerial approved,
02:56:29.41	Michael Lennox	Um,
02:56:30.24	Michael Lennox	they're still on our code, the ability to
02:56:32.62	Michael Lennox	appeal a decision made by staff.
02:56:35.86	Michael Lennox	And yet I'm told that's not the case here.
02:56:39.27	Michael Lennox	because it's mandated.
02:56:41.01	Michael Lennox	staff can air and how they apply Senate Bill 9.
02:56:44.60	Michael Lennox	And also,
02:56:46.00	Michael Lennox	indicates the appeal process because if you don't know about it how can you appeal it
02:56:50.83	Michael Lennox	until after it's all approved.
02:56:52.79	Michael Lennox	That's part of our code. We shouldn't apply Senate Bill 9
02:56:59.01	Michael Lennox	and negate the appeal.
02:57:00.65	Michael Lennox	The good sizes, you downside houses to 1,200 square feet.
02:57:04.63	Michael Lennox	That's gonna, and you require a setback, a step back as it goes up above 16 feet, it has to set a set further back. That's gonna help reduce intrusion of mass and bulk looming over houses. But the goal that the committee had adopted
02:57:20.95	Michael Lennox	to
02:57:22.22	Michael Lennox	uh,
02:57:22.89	Michael Lennox	Protect privacy isn't going to work.
02:57:25.12	Michael Lennox	the way the code's written in ordinance 1188,
02:57:30.30	Michael Lennox	is that if you have windows facing
02:57:32.86	Michael Lennox	All right, Jason. Thank you very much.
02:57:35.48	Michael Lennox	Can I complete a sentence?
02:57:37.34	Mayor Blaustein	you can complete your sentence.
02:57:38.94	Michael Lennox	if they require a
02:57:41.66	Michael Lennox	opaque windows or windows above your head.
02:57:44.24	Michael Lennox	Well, adjacent properties could be the downhill. That's just not going to work. It's going to need further thought, and I recommend
02:57:52.14	Michael Lennox	you engage with some design professionals in that further analysis.
02:57:57.13	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Michael.
02:57:58.51	Mayor Blaustein	Do we have any public comment from those on zoom?
02:58:04.61	city clerk	Yes, we do. We have Sybil Boutier.
02:58:07.52	city clerk	Thank you.
02:58:07.54	Mayor Blaustein	Hi, Sybil.
02:58:08.56	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
02:58:08.57	city clerk	Thank you.
02:58:08.62	Mayor Blaustein	Mm-hmm.
02:58:08.72	city clerk	Thank you.
02:58:11.36	Sybil Routier	Thank you, Maria Blasim.
02:58:14.73	Sybil Routier	Since we're still talking about housing, I hope this isn't too much off subject, but I just wanted to mention, I was reminded,
02:58:23.57	Sybil Routier	that, um,
02:58:25.46	Sybil Routier	Some of us, previously with former Mayor Kelman, we did have some conversations with Senator McGuire.
02:58:34.17	Sybil Routier	about opportunity for senior housing and state support for that in South Toledo. And just like last week at
02:58:45.83	Sybil Routier	the County Commission on Aging, which I
02:58:49.48	Sybil Routier	and South Sweetle's representative at.
02:58:54.02	Sybil Routier	He reiterated his interest in supporting the concept that we were discussing and his willingness to help us with funding. And I bring that up because it's so important that we make sure that we're in compliance and move. And if we want to take up this opportunity, we want to make sure that we keep that that we keep that moving as well.
02:59:16.14	Sybil Routier	And
02:59:18.30	Sybil Routier	since we have already agreed that senior housing is one of the things that we lack of sufficiency of affordable senior housing in our community. So thank you so much. I just wanted an opportunity to bring that forward.
02:59:35.44	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Sybil.
02:59:37.27	Mayor Blaustein	Do we have any further public comment at this time, city clerk?
02:59:39.56	city clerk	We have no further public comment.
02:59:41.23	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, I will now close public comment and I'm going to hand it over to chair lexenberg to receive comments or final questions from the planning Commission.
02:59:49.26	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you, Mayor Blasdine. New members, this is really a status item. And we're waiting for getting copies of the odds. We would like copies of the odds submitted to us as well. And we can figure out whether they will be helpful to SB 9 at a future meeting. But with that, are there any other comments or questions from any of the commissioners? I see Commissioner Feather's hand up. So.
03:00:17.14	Commissioner Feller	Thank you chair Luxenberg, I would only ask that public comments received or issued to city council for a joint hearing also be copied to the planning commission and posted to the agenda, so we have the benefit of reviewing those as well.
03:00:34.56	Commissioner Feller	Thank you.
03:00:34.94	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you, Commissioner Feller. Yeah, there was a comment earlier about something that was dropped off in the chamber and we have not received that. So if that could be sent to us, that'd be helpful.
03:00:44.48	Chair Luxembourg	any of the other commissioners, Vice Chair Juniors, Commissioner Saad, any further comments this evening?
03:00:50.66	Chair Luxembourg	With that, I'll turn it back over to Mayor Blas-Need. Thank you.
03:00:54.66	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Chair Luxembourg.
03:00:55.82	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, I'm now going to open it up to the council for questions on this item. Are there any council?
03:01:01.07	Mayor Blaustein	pardon me, comments on this item.
03:01:03.75	Mayor Blaustein	Yes, Vice Mayor Sobieski, let's start with you.
03:01:05.73	Vice Mayor Sobieski	I saw Michael Rex's comments around noticing of neighbors seemed quite reasonable and just making sure people are actually informed. Can those things...
03:01:15.38	Vice Mayor Sobieski	easily be adopted into the process.
03:01:19.44	Vice Mayor Sobieski	It's kind of a question for
03:01:22.26	Vice Mayor Sobieski	people that know.
03:01:24.91	Mayor Blaustein	Neil, have you had a chance to review the public comment from Michael Rex on SB9 and the odds?
03:01:30.82	Neil Toft	No, I haven't. Sorry.
03:01:33.30	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, Vice Mayor, we will get an answer to that from staff forward.
03:01:39.73	Mayor Blaustein	Are there comments? Council member Kelman.
03:01:42.67	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you.
03:01:42.70	Councilmember Kelman	Thank you, Mayor. I'll just make the comment, which is a thank you to staff.
03:01:46.90	Councilmember Kelman	into our consultants. I thought the meeting tonight flowed exceptionally well. I think by the time we got to this item, SB 9, which could have been complicated and unclear, I think we all now understand how these pieces fit together. So I really just want to thank you for that. I've already given my comments, I think, in my question related to Neil.
03:02:04.03	Councilmember Kelman	around you.
03:02:05.06	Councilmember Kelman	There's this thread now, disaster preparedness, resiliency, hazard prevention. It's a theme for us, and I want to make sure it gets embedded into each and every one of these as well. And so I think we talked about SB9 when we talked about the odds.
03:02:18.08	Councilmember Kelman	whether or not they interplay, same comment again. But I really just want to take the opportunity to thank staff. This flowed, I think, in a really helpful manner. So well done, everybody.
03:02:29.98	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you, Councilmember Kellman. Councilmember Hoffman, I see your hand raised.
03:02:32.45	Councilmember Hoffman	Thank you.
03:02:32.92	Councilmember Hoffman	Thank you.
03:02:32.93	Mayor Blaustein	Hi.
03:02:33.04	Councilmember Hoffman	Yeah, I concur. And this has been a very difficult process. And so I think this was a really helpful joint meeting. So thanks to also Planning Commission for all your tremendous work and having a joint meeting with us tonight. And also, before we adjourn tonight, I would ask that...
03:02:52.44	Councilmember Hoffman	Our director, Phipps, introduced Neil because he's new. And we usually do that at the beginning of meetings when there's a new guy in our midst as part of our team. So, yeah.
03:03:03.90	Councilmember Hoffman	Anyway, maybe it's now, maybe it's when we, before we adjourn, but anyway, thank you.
03:03:07.97	City Manager Zapata	No, certainly. Councilmember Hoffman, very happy to make the introduction. And yeah, apologies for those of you who haven't had the opportunity to meet Neil Toft, our new principal planner. He started with CDD in early December. He is a former employee of City of Salcedo and also a former planning director in City of Larkspur. And I have to say he's an incredible asset to our team, and I am very pleased to have the opportunity to work with him. planning director in the city of Larkspur. And I have to say he's an incredible asset to our team and I am very pleased to have the opportunity to work with him. Neil, I'll turn it over to you if there's anything you want to add to your intro.
03:03:44.01	Neil Toft	No, I just would like to say I did, in fact.
03:03:48.00	Neil Toft	kind of cut my teeth in the city of Larkspur as an assistant planner.
03:03:51.69	Neil Toft	and then rose up to an associate planner through
03:03:54.86	Neil Toft	The 90s left in about 2001.
03:03:58.37	Neil Toft	over to Larkspur and then eventually went on to become planning director.
03:04:02.93	Neil Toft	for
03:04:05.38	Neil Toft	last several years and then retired at the end of, uh,
03:04:08.26	Neil Toft	2021.
03:04:10.03	Neil Toft	Um,
03:04:10.84	Neil Toft	And just as a warning, I am
03:04:13.26	Neil Toft	working here.
03:04:14.24	Neil Toft	Part-time.
03:04:15.01	Neil Toft	That's.
03:04:15.49	Neil Toft	part of the
03:04:16.68	Neil Toft	Uh,
03:04:17.27	Neil Toft	arrangements, but we also have
03:04:19.94	Neil Toft	Kristen Taiki, I'm not sure if you've all met her. She's also...
03:04:25.29	Neil Toft	on call tonight, I think, yeah, but we've worked together
03:04:28.39	Neil Toft	both here and in
03:04:30.59	Neil Toft	Larkspur. So, you know, we both are
03:04:34.17	Neil Toft	excited to be here working with
03:04:37.10	Neil Toft	Brandon and try to help
03:04:39.60	Neil Toft	you know, get,
03:04:40.73	Neil Toft	get some backlog cleared out.
03:04:44.07	Neil Toft	at Sausalito.
03:04:45.56	Neil Toft	you know, on,
03:04:46.81	Neil Toft	moving forward.
03:04:48.14	Neil Toft	And I would say, yeah, for an example,
03:04:51.06	Neil Toft	Um,
03:04:51.92	Neil Toft	We really.
03:04:52.86	Neil Toft	tried to look at what has been done with SB9 over the last year.
03:04:57.22	Neil Toft	And what,
03:04:57.99	Neil Toft	the whole conversion to digital processing
03:05:01.43	Neil Toft	from paper over the last many years for
03:05:04.27	Neil Toft	Sausalito.
03:05:06.13	Neil Toft	like every city.
03:05:07.70	Neil Toft	that creates efficiencies and it also creates deficiencies and confusion. So
03:05:13.74	Neil Toft	we're going to keep working on making that better so we can actually
03:05:18.14	Neil Toft	come to you with some really good reporting on various
03:05:22.11	Neil Toft	project types and things like that.
03:05:24.30	Neil Toft	but
03:05:25.16	Neil Toft	It was always fascinating to work
03:05:27.56	Neil Toft	Sausalito is a dynamic
03:05:29.26	Neil Toft	Uh,
03:05:30.07	Neil Toft	interesting.
03:05:31.42	Neil Toft	and very engaged community. So it's exciting to be here.
03:05:35.78	Neil Toft	Thank you.
03:05:36.75	Mayor Blaustein	We're very lucky to have you back and glad to have you. It looks like Kristen's on the call too, if you wanted to introduce her as well, Brandon.
03:05:45.85	City Manager Zapata	Certainly, yeah. Kristen, are you there?
03:05:45.99	Mayor Blaustein	Like,
03:05:46.59	Mayor Blaustein	Yeah.
03:05:49.53	Mayor Blaustein	I'm going to give you a heads up that you'd have to turn your camera on, Chris.
03:05:53.21	City Manager Zapata	I'm very happy to welcome Kristen Taiki to the team. She is also a former city of Sausalito employee, as well as a former senior level planner in city of Larkspur. And actually, Kristen and Neil have had the opportunity to work together for some time. And I'm pleased that they're able to provide a one-two punch in CDDs. Kristen, I'll turn it over to you.
03:06:21.96	Neil Toft	on news.
03:06:22.50	Mayor Blaustein	We can't hear you.
03:06:22.76	Neil Toft	Can't hear you.
03:06:23.97	Mayor Blaustein	I think you might be muted or your mic isn't off.
03:06:25.44	Neil Toft	Turn on mic.
03:06:32.31	Neil Toft	Now try it again.
03:06:34.33	Neil Toft	How's that?
03:06:36.88	Mayor Blaustein	I wonder if your mic's not working. You could run into Brandon's office.
03:06:40.68	City Manager Zapata	Yeah, Neil's office or my office?
03:06:45.13	City Manager Zapata	There you go.
03:06:45.60	Neil Toft	Thank you.
03:06:46.21	City Manager Zapata	Come put these on.
03:06:46.97	Neil Toft	Thank you.
03:06:47.00	City Manager Zapata	Thank you.
03:06:50.03	Mayor Blaustein	I think this is a great example of teamwork that they're going to run into each other's office and share the headphones.
03:06:56.73	Mayor Blaustein	So.
03:06:57.59	Mayor Blaustein	We're off to a great start with our new planning staff. All right.
03:07:01.48	Mayor Blaustein	And then I promise we'll get back to comments on the item. All right.
03:07:03.76	Kristen Taiki	I'm sorry.
03:07:04.47	Kristen Taiki	Hi, everybody.
03:07:07.10	Kristen Taiki	Can you hear me now?
03:07:07.17	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you.
03:07:07.20	Mayor Blaustein	Can you hear me?
03:07:07.54	Chair Luxembourg	me now.
03:07:08.27	Kristen Taiki	Yes.
03:07:08.60	Chair Luxembourg	Yes, we can.
03:07:08.91	Kristen Taiki	Thank you.
03:07:09.09	Kristen Taiki	Okay.
03:07:10.46	Kristen Taiki	Yeah, this was actually the first city I worked for after my internship in the city of Cupertino back in the late 1980s.
03:07:17.60	Kristen Taiki	And then I left...
03:07:19.15	Kristen Taiki	to San Jose, came back to Sausalito for a number of years and then went to Larkspur.
03:07:24.13	Kristen Taiki	So-
03:07:25.02	Kristen Taiki	Yeah, it's funny.
03:07:26.86	Kristen Taiki	the
03:07:27.54	Kristen Taiki	returning back to your roots in a sense.
03:07:31.24	Mayor Blaustein	Thank you we're so pleased to have both of you back in Sausalito and looking forward to seeing the the great work that CD does under our new Community Development Director Phipps. So just to get back to the item here SB 9 to make sure all of the Council members are able to weigh in and provide comments that we might give the right direction to staff do other Council members have comment to add I know i'm still waiting for Vice Mayor to weigh in and Council Member Cox so whomever would like to go first.
03:07:56.01	Councilmember Cox	Councilmember Cox, yes please. Thank you.
03:07:56.04	Mayor Blaustein	Councilmember, go.
03:07:58.03	Councilmember Cox	Um,
03:07:59.28	Councilmember Cox	and thank you to Neil, uh,
03:08:01.80	Councilmember Cox	And we are certainly fortunate to have you and Kristen.
03:08:06.13	Councilmember Cox	with your level of expertise join our staff so thank you and welcome and thank you for your work on this update. I would like to endorse what the Vice Mayor said about including the comments from Michael Rex. I actually reached out to Michael yesterday to request
03:08:24.17	Councilmember Cox	his feedback, because I think it's important that we include members of our professional community as we
03:08:29.76	Councilmember Cox	forge ahead with projects such as this.
03:08:32.86	Councilmember Cox	Um,
03:08:33.77	Councilmember Cox	I some of his suggestions I think make a lot of sense, including public notice.
03:08:38.77	Councilmember Cox	the public's right to review the submittal applications and plans,
03:08:42.23	Councilmember Cox	and to appeal
03:08:43.75	Councilmember Cox	staff decisions,
03:08:45.23	Councilmember Cox	The steps to avoid massing so that structures over 16 feet
03:08:50.18	Councilmember Cox	or second floor decks and balconies
03:08:53.23	Councilmember Cox	be set back.
03:08:54.99	Councilmember Cox	uh,
03:08:55.68	Councilmember Cox	to the normal setbacks, not the reduced setbacks.
03:08:59.90	Councilmember Cox	The re looking at the wholesale deletion of findings two through 13 of our design review standards, I think that needs to be closely examined.
03:09:11.32	Councilmember Cox	um,
03:09:12.84	Councilmember Cox	Objective criteria such as measurement of heritage trees, story poles, size access easements.
03:09:21.41	Councilmember Cox	When the public right of way is used or there's an easement that needs to be deducted from the square footage of the property.
03:09:29.29	Councilmember Cox	available.
03:09:30.44	Councilmember Cox	for calculating development. So those are just some examples of
03:09:34.91	Councilmember Cox	Um, Mr. Rex's comments, I think are well taken and should definitely be carefully considered.
03:09:40.16	Councilmember Cox	as we update our SB9 ordinance. And finally, I wanted to say thank you to the agenda setting committee for scheduling this special joint meeting.
03:09:48.99	Councilmember Cox	of our City Council and Planning Commission. I think it has been extraordinarily
03:09:53.02	Councilmember Cox	helpful, probably a little bit overdue. So thank you so much for making that happen.
03:09:58.74	Mayor Blaustein	Vice Mayor, do you have comments you'd like to have?
03:10:01.19	Vice Mayor Sobieski	No additional comments, thank you.
03:10:03.70	Mayor Blaustein	Okay, and I just want to echo a big thank you to staff and the Planning Commission and my fellow members of the City Council.
03:10:10.43	Mayor Blaustein	for conducting this meeting in such an effective way. I feel like it was quite informative and we have an idea of what we need to get done to move forward.
03:10:18.62	Mayor Blaustein	with our housing element and we've discussed some really critical
03:10:21.82	Mayor Blaustein	design standards and responses to state ordinances.
03:10:25.91	Mayor Blaustein	This was a big success, so thank you to everyone for your participation and your feedback.
03:10:30.82	Mayor Blaustein	In terms of this item, just to sum up direction to staff,
03:10:34.30	Mayor Blaustein	And I think
03:10:35.66	Mayor Blaustein	Council member Kelman suggested that we make sure
03:10:38.50	Mayor Blaustein	But when we're looking at SB9, we're doing it with an eye to disaster preparedness, which is a critical lens that we should have for
03:10:44.64	Mayor Blaustein	for any considerations in our community.
03:10:47.49	Mayor Blaustein	And I think we also all agree that the memo that was prepared by Michael Rex on SB9 and the odds is a really good starting point for our staff to take a look at and consider the
03:10:55.98	Mayor Blaustein	great recommendations that were pointed out by Council Member Cox.
03:10:58.88	Mayor Blaustein	And importantly, we should make sure that the Planning Commission as well has a copy of this memo. If they did not yet receive it, it will be in the packet from tonight's meeting. But if it could be directly forwarded to them, that would be helpful. So if there are no further comments from the rest of the Planning Commission and the council, just before I adjourn, our next meeting, regular scheduled meeting is on January 24th. We are likely to have a special meeting a week from tomorrow.
03:11:26.59	Mayor Blaustein	in for a closed session. So look out in your inboxes,
03:11:30.32	Mayor Blaustein	date and time for that meeting. And perhaps there will be more joint meetings determined based on what we hear from DeNovo about what we need to do in advance of the 31st. So a big thank you to everyone for your participation tonight.
03:11:43.08	Mayor Blaustein	And it is now 843, and I'm going to go ahead and adjourn the meeting. Thank you very much.
03:11:49.29	Chair Luxembourg	Thank you.
03:11:50.32	Mayor Blaustein	Good night, everyone.
03:11:51.26	Chair Luxembourg	Never mind.
03:11:52.17	Chair Luxembourg	Bye.

City Council Joint Session Jan 12, 2023

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City Council Meeting Transcript

Planning Commission Jan 25, 2023

City Council June 14, 2022

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