Apr 22, 2025 4:00 PM - Redding Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

>> [CALL TO ORDER] >> [CALLING ROLL] >> And we will move on to approval of the minutes from the March 25, 2025 meeting. Are there any questions or comments from any of the commissioners on those minutes? >> I'll make a motion to approve those minutes. >> Second >> Okay. Thank you. Do we have any announcements? do we need to do a vote on that? >> Yes. >> All in favor? >> Aye. >> Against? Approved. Announcements? >> Yeah. I just want to express my thanks to Commissioners Greene and Hatch for your service for four years. I know we're up against your last meeting here and it's been really great to get to know you personally the last few years and appreciate your perspectives you brought and getting to know each other better these last couple years has been really nice. So, appreciate your time on this commission and I'm sure we'll be working more together in the future and seeing each other in our personal lives crossing or at other meetings. So, thanks so much for being a part of this commission. It's been really great to work with you. So just wanted to say that. >> Thank you. Okay, we will move on to number four planning commission items. We have no consent calendar, so we will move to B the public hearings and 4B1 the environmental impact report EIR2025 00478 and its use permit up 202401017 by the city of Reading. The use permit is for Pump Station 1 Replacement Project to allow the proposed pump station to encroach on the regulated Federal Emergency Management Agency 100-year floodplain, the Sacramento river and Jenny Creek. The environmental Impact report is for the project in its entirety and we have Lily. >> Thank you. Good afternoon, Commissioners. This project for the Pump Station one replacement project came before you. The draft EIR was open for a public hearing in September of last year and we did not receive any comments during that hearing. However, we did receive some written comments. And so since then, Jacobs, the consultant for the city, has worked on addressing those comments and have finalized the EIR. It's been released for the public as of April 16th in anticipation of this meeting for your review and certification along with this use permit, and the purpose of this use permit is because the pump station is going to be encroaching into the floodplain of Sacramento river and also Jenny Creek. So, under our use permit ordinance, floodplain regulations require that hydraulic analysis be done. And so that has been done. And so here before you are both the certification for the EIR and the use permit. So, let me go into some specifics of the project. So, the existing pump station was built in about 1937. There's been some major renovations done on the pump station, probably I think three times now. The most recent was in 1987. And so generally the pump house is outdated now. It's relatively to, you know, current standards, and it needs numerous improvements. There are many issues that limit the ability to renovate or remodel the existing pump house. Mainly one that I recall in those meetings is the intake, which are the pipes around them. If you look onto this exhibit, I don't know if this can point to it, but right down at the water are the intake valves. And during low flow, those intake valves are too high. And so, they're not able to put in water and intake for capacity. So, with that said, a new pump station is being proposed about quarter mile upriver along the same side of Sacramento River. With regards to zoning, both locations are in the OS open space district. This is a site plan of the new pump station. It's going to be on a raised station platform. It's going to consist of the station in blue, the electrical room in red, and the operations building and employee restroom that's highlighted in yellow. So, an aerial view of what this might look like from a bird's eye, you'll see the pump station electrical room. And then the smaller building is the operation building. The pathway that comes from the north east kind of upper left is the Jenny Creek Trail. And then what you'll see is also the Sacramento river running alongside that. This is a view of the pump station from the river. What you see is the raised platform, and those are sheet piles. And this is a view looking to the south along the river trail. So, one of the issues with the impact is that there is one unavoidable impact, and that's with regards to noise. This is after a full evaluation of all the impacts. There was something like 60 impacts evaluated with regards to noise. They evaluated all the regulatory standards. So, if we look into the EIR, we peel back. How does it compare to the city exterior noise standards with regards to construction and residential? They set some standards depending on the time Nighttime hours are defined as 10pm to 7am Daytime hours are defined as 7am to 10pm and just want to make clear that there are some exceptions to this noise standard, particularly to public utility facilities when it's in operation. Although this facility will be in compliance with that, what will not be compliant is the construction noise. So that is the portion of our code that highlights what the exemption is for public facilities. The section of the code that allows for public works construction projects to be exempted from the noise standard is also highlighted. That's pulled straight out of our zoning code. So, the EIR goes on to evaluate what is that noise level going to be. These are average noise levels from the construction equipment. It's a top table. So, for instance, I'm reading the top table row there, 50ft from the project area, it's going to be about 87 decibels, which well exceeds obviously our noise standards during those times. And then the pile driving noise at 50ft will be about 94 decibels. So, with that said, obviously there's going to be some unavoidable impacts during construction. And although we are exempt, the EIR proposals mitigation measures. And this noise mitigation measure is found in the Mitigation Monitoring Reporting Program that's part of your packet. It's measure 13. One has 14 items under that mitigation. So, they're trying to avoid and minimize as much as possible, such as using like jackhammers and pavement breakers, things like that, to minimize the use of those type of equipment. One I do want to call out is also minimize noise intrusive impacts during most noise sensitive hours. So, they're going to take into consideration using that type of equipment, especially during the evening hours. With that said, when there is an unavoidable impact, there is a need to adopt what we call the statement overriding consideration regarding for the final EIR and that is for the noise. You also need to adopt the mitigation Monitoring report program as well. And so those are just the covers of the documents that's attached to your staff report. So, I want to get into a little bit about the floodplain. So, the new location is along Sacramento river and at the confluence of Jenny Creek. This next exhibit shows the project location in reference to the floodplains. So technically it's what we call the flood way. The Sacramento river it's going to the platform will extend about 40ft into the Sacramento river, which is really a minor distance relative to the width of the river at that location is about 425ft. As I indicated, the hydraulic analysis does indicate that the project will not have an impact on the floodplain. It's anticipated that the movement of juvenile and adult salmon, steelhead and sturgeon would be substantially affected. Would not be substantially affected by the station. And the project also includes the restoration of Jenny Creek. The channel itself will be at the end result, will have an approximate slope of about 2.6%, which is pretty minor. It's going to have a 10-foot bottom span and on the sides, it's going to have a slope of 2 to 1. This realignment will make it more accessible for upstream spawning and rearing of habitat for salmonids and also potentially improving water quality and other wildlife habitat. So, with that we find that the use permit is consistent with the general plan specific health and safety element policy, HS2E and also, it's consistent and compliant with the zoning floodplain overlay district has been demonstrated by the hydraulic analysis that it will not have an impact. So, in conclusion, there's a few things that needs to be done here. So, I've kind of listed them down and they're in your staff report as well. You need to adopt the findings of fact and statement of overriding consideration and mitigation monitoring reporting program, adopt a resolution certifying the EIR, make the necessary findings for the use permit, and approve the use permit subject to the draft conditions of approval. That concludes my presentation. But I also have city staff here from public Works if you have any questions about the project and the specifics. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Ms. Toy, do we have questions at this time from. Okay, go ahead. >> Hello, Lily. So this Jacobs EIR was a little different format than I'm typically used to. Where we would see when you're looking at mitigation measures or things that needed to be mitigated, it would say like, this is less than significant, this is this is unavoidable. So in this EIR, all these mitigation measures are other than the unavoidable noise, are they less than significant? >> I have. >> I mean, are they. When they're mitigated, do they become less than significant? >> Yes. So, I've kind of compiled table ES1 out of the draft EIR. I kind of pulled it. I don't know. I don't know. >> What page is that? >> Yeah, it's in the very front. It's like it says this page, Roman numeral 4. >> I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. >> Roman numeral 4 of the draft EIR. And it does have a Summary of impacts and mitigations associated with the proposed project. And in my staff report, I kind of summarize that there's 47 of those impacts which are less than significant, four do not have any impact, and then 10 of which have mitigations and once mitigated, have less than significant. >> Once they're mitigated. >> Yes. >> Okay. In regard to the noise impact, I didn't see anything specifically referencing city of Redding ordinance or regulations that you can't do work before 7am or after a certain period of time. >> It was discussed in the noise section of the EIR and those tables I showed earlier, those are extracted straight out of that EIR. >> Okay. So, they won't. They'll. As much as possible. Except I think there's a carve out for traffic issues. It will adhere to the existing noise regulation. >> They actually will not. >> Because of just the pile driving. My experiences when Cypress Bridge was redone. I live all the way up by starlight at the time. At night, everything's quiet. You can hear the driving. It vibrates in this valley. So, you could hear I don't know what that's going to be like for this project. >> Okay, so the pile driving will be occurring after normal potential noise ordinance. >> Yes. >> And would you characterize this as loud as the Cypress Bridge project? Equal to or more than. >> I can't say because I didn't feel that EIR back. >> Yeah, but it will be significant. >> It will be particularly for the sensitive receptors nearby homes and schools. >> When I was looking at the site plan and there's like a rendering, a nice little rendering that shows the building and it appears that there's a fence. I was wondering if that isn't a public viewing opportunity there. >> Actually, that was. Yes, there will be a viewing opportunity. Okay, so at the confluence, this pointer doesn't really show up here, but if you can look at the platform to the right side where the two trails come together. >> Okay. >> That is there's going to be a bench and everything. >> But that big plaza area will be fenced off. >> Yes. >> For public. >> Yes. So, the building and everything towards the river will be fenced off with a right iron gate. >> Okay. I have a question regarding the Overhill Road access. That new access, what is going to be at the term where it connects with the existing Overhill Road? Is that going to be a gate or a barricade or what's that going to look like? >> Yeah, I'm sorry, I can't answer that. >> I'm just thinking about. >> This new road is going to connect. Access road is going to connect with the existing Overhill. >> That's correct. >> Is it just going to be a direct? There's. It's not going to be a thoroughfare. There's got to be some. I mean, are you going to be able to drive your car down there? >> No, no, no. It's a pedestrian access only. So very much like where you can go down to the existing pump station. >> Will there be, like, bollards there? I'm just wondering what the treatment is for the neighborhood. >> Yeah, I'm not sure if there's going to be bollards. Maybe somebody from public works can answer that specifically, but it's because it is not for vehicles. >> Okay. And will the trail section affected here be closed or relocated prior to construction or after the construction? >> It's going to be intermittently closed during construction. >> Okay. So, there will be periods of time where the public will not be able to access that south side of the river trail? >> That's correct. >> Okay. Okay. >> But that is it. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for the presentation. I'm curious, can you remind us when the project is supposed to commence? >> I don't know if they have a start date. >> Okay. >> They're still gathering funding for the project. >> And then with regard to trying to mitigate the noise, are there any, you know, are we going to try to ensure that it isn't affecting some of the schools that are nearby, or is there going to be some noticing that kind of takes place ahead of schedule when that will be happening so that people can make different plans or try to mitigate it themselves? >> Yeah, the part of the plan is for the contractor to actually minimize a lot of that. And, you know, with the city and we have a lot of social media type of outreach, I think we can work together to notify those receptors. School particular Shasta High School and Right. Is back there. So, we'd be pretty sensitive to that. So probably give them some notice when the louder noise is going to happen. Sure. >> All right, thank you. >> Kind of piggybacking on what Michelle was asking, but on page 10 of our packet was what you were discussing for significant impact and whatnot. And it just. You categorized them like 9, 10. It would be helpful probably for city council if you could itemize those for them so they know which items you're referring to. >> Oh, I see. Okay. >> Yeah. Just. It would. Because it's hard to figure out even reading what Jacobs presented. >> So. Okay. >> You know, that would be my suggestion when you take this to city council and Then just to confirm, the two written responses were from the state and fed. Are those the only two? >> Yes, from the state water board and also CDFD. >> So, all the mitigations that were done were in response to those two letters. >> It was a lot of addition to the text just to be more clear. But it did not change any mitigations that were previously in the draft EIR. >> Thank you. And last question. This project's going to be done mostly with grant funding. Is that what I understood in reading in the packet? >> I think some of it is from grant, right? >> (INAUDIBLE) >> This is Kurt Mayer with our public works department. >> So yeah, and for those that didn't hear me. So, pursuing several grants for the Jenny Creek portion of the work and then SRF loans and a WIFIA loan for the pump house and then also water utility funds. And for the Overhill Drive question that came up, that's not a through road, so there's a fence on the east side and bollards on the west side. So, as it is now, cars can't drive through there. And then construction optimistically, we're hoping to start in early 2026, but that's pretty optimistic because there's a lot of funding and other questions to figure out still. >> How long of a project is this? How long will it take? >> The construction is going to be over two years. >> So, you'll have to pause construction during the bat maternity periods. >> Now that, I mean it should be ongoing for the duration. They're going to have to schedule things because the sheet pile driving is going to have to be when the permits allow.And I can't remember exactly when that period is going to be, but they'll. There's constantly going to be activities occurring for two plus years. >> But to confirm the sheet pile driving is the, from the noise standpoint the largest consideration. And that is only one portion of the two-year project. >> Correct. That and it won't be and sorry, I don't know the duration but it's. Yeah, definitely not for the full two years. We're talking a couple months for the sheet pile driving and they're going to try to get that done in one period that is allowed by the regulating agency. So, I think the window is like from February to April or something like that. So, it's going to be a couple month period, mostly in the winter. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> Okay. Seeing no more questions from the commission, we will open for public comment. Do we, did not receive. If you have a public comment, please grab one of the blue cards and bring it up. And we will, we will welcome you up to the stand there. >> (INAUDIBLE) >> Not in the cubbies in the back anymore. >> (INAUDIBLE) >> Madam Vice Chair, if I could just have you use the magic words. I am going to open the public hearing. >> And now I will open the public hearing. So, we have Ann. >> Yes, my name is Ann Silvera and I'm concerned because I live right on Jenny Creek, actually. So, when I look at this rendering on the presentation here, where is this new structure in relationship to the old one that I'm assuming would be torn down. >> In the same location? >> No, it's not. >> It seems so much larger that I'm assuming. And it looks like when I look at this rendering that the new pump house location is, I guess would be west of the old pump station. Because I'm. And I'm seeing the turquoise line must be Jenny Creek. >> That's correct. >> So, the pump station now is sort of where all those diagonal lines are, I believe. Or the orange area too. It's hard to even see to me further east of. >> Yes. >> Yeah, further east. And what is the rectangular box that's sort of orange? Maybe that's the old pump station. I'm not sure. >> If you look at the exhibit at the top right corner. >> Top right corner. Okay. >> There is a small box that's the existing. So, it's on the larger exhibit. It's not on the screen. >> Okay. >> It's about quarter mile downstream. >> The new one is. >> So, this is upstream, like you say west? >> Yes. >> Okay. And the old one is east. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> So. >> And is this about four times bigger than the existing one or even bigger? It's hard to tell. >> It is bigger, but I don't know relative to size. >> I am thinking after the construction, which like might take two years, there will be considerable noise to the Sunset Terrace neighborhood on Arbor Place. >> Actually, the. The existing one is pretty loud. There're limits on how we can improve that. So, the new station actually will be. >> Not as loud, will be better, not as bad. >> Yes. >> All right, thank you. >> Do you have any additional public comments? >> Okay. >> Seeing none, I will close the public comment period and bring it back to the commission. Do we have any follow up questions or comments from any commissioners? >> I do want to make clear that because this is the final body use permit you have authority to approve. And also, the EIR stops here. It's the final, final certification. So, it does not Go to city council. I will take note on the future on expanding the environmental impacts. >> Do we have a motion on this item? >> I'll be happy to Chair to move all elements of the staff recommendation. >> I'll second the motion from council's side. >> Would you like us to read out the recommendation? Is that more helpful? >> Honestly, I think you're fine as long as it's specific to the what is outlined in the staff report. >> Okay, so then that we will be adopting the EIR and the use permit. Okay. And we will take a vote on that. All in favor? >> Aye. >> Opposed? >> Okay. >> Passes unanimously. Thank you very much. And we will move on to item 4B2. This is the rezoning application RZ2025 00477 by the City of Redding. This is to consider the amendment to the city's zoning ordinance pertaining to modifications to the short-term rental requirements. Do we have a presentation from Steph? >> Yours truly, Commissioner Greene. I didn't want Lily to have all the fun, so. Although I'm sure she would have taken it had I asked. But her and I worked on this these amendments a couple years ago. And so, I wanted to take the lead on this and take a little bit off her plate. And so, I'll be presenting this afternoon on proposed amendments to our short-term rental ordinance. So just by way of a little bit of background, we had community discussions and feedback back in 2022 and 2023. And these largely came about because of the proliferation of short-term rentals within the community. As you'll recall, during kind of pre Covid and post Covid, there was a real boom in tourism and traveling and the city was no exception. We saw over a number of years, sort of year over year, doubling of the number of short-term rentals that were in town. And so, as those permits began to be issued, our neighborhoods quite simply started feeling the impacts of the short-term rentals more and more. And so there was some community engagement and some feedback which really drove us towards amending the ordinance. There you see in June of 2023. A couple of the biggest pieces of Those amendments in 2023 were the 400-unit cap in the city. There's now a cap of 400 units citywide for short term rentals as well as a 600-foot buffer that we called it. You might recall, for those of you that have been on the commission for a while, whereby council ultimately adopted changes that short-term rentals couldn't be closer than 600ft to each other. And that way you're sort of spreading out the impact across the city acts as kind of a density buffer to limit the impacts to our neighborhoods. And really the concern at that time and what council reiterated was just preserving our neighborhoods and preserving our housing stock were some of the two big components to regulating short term rentals in this fashion. So, after the amendments in 2023, we began hearing from some downtown property owners concerns primarily with respect to vacation rentals not being allowed in apartments and duplexes in the downtown mixed-use district. So those amendments did allow for short term rental operations in the downtown core. And I will show some slides on this later, but not in the mixed-use district. So, property owners in the mixed-use district were expressing some concern and frustration that they couldn't have this as a permitted use in that part of the city. So, we gave an update to council in May of 2024 regarding implementation of the ordinance, how it was going and got some direction from council at that time to bring it back to this body and look at the ordinance with some fresh eyes and consider allowing for short term rentals, namely vacation rentals in the downtown mixed-use district. We continue to see receive feedback from downtown property owners in 2024 and 25 along these same lines. And so, as we finally had time to tackle this, staff has reviewed the ordinance and we've developed some basic recommendations for amendments that I'd like to present to you today. Again, the main one is this first sub bullet point, vacation rentals and apartment units and duplexes in the downtown mixed-use district. And then there'll be a handful of cleanup items that I'll walk us through after that. So, we really have four bullet points here. You'll see in your staff report. It might be the most helpful if you want to follow along with me. The strike underlined version will help you understand sort of exactly what we changed. And so, if you go to packet page 68, I'm going to start with that section of code which is with respect to vacation rentals in the downtown specific plan area. So, we're adding a section to allow vacation rentals and duplexes in the downtown core. Furthermore, though the main gist of this is expansion of the allowance of vacation rentals for again apartment units and duplexes within the downtown mixed-use district. Furthermore, we're going to amend or we're proposing to amend and clarify regulations not applicable to vacation rentals in the downtown core district. Namely you'll see that on J1 that's with respect to the density requirements is not applicable in the Core as well as off street parking requirements, we're adding a section to clarify that vacation rental buffer requirements are only applicable to parcels in the downtown mixed-use district adjacent to a residential single-family district. And lastly, adding a section to clarify off street parking would not be applicable for a vacation rental on a parcel in the mixed-use district if it's a legal non-conforming use. So, in other words, if there's an existing apartment or duplex there, they wouldn't be required to have off street parking because they're legal, they're grandfathered in if there were new apartments built subsequent to our downtown specific plan. Our specific plan does require off street parking in the mixed-use district, not in the core. So, let me put some pictures and some simpler words to this to explain it better. So here in the center of the screen you can see in the purple that is our downtown specific plan area. The center which is indicated by DCD is your core district surrounded by the DMUD or the mixed-use district. And so, these proposed amendments allow for vacation rentals in the entire purple area comprised of those two sub areas and these bullets here on the bottom right or my way of trying to distinguish the differences. So, in the core, no off-street parking required and no 600-foot buffer required. That's the current code. That's not a change, that's how the code reads today. The changes that you're considering today are in the mixed-use district where the 600-foot buffer would only be required adjacent to the yellow single-family zoning that you see where the garden tract is on the southeast corner and no off-street parking required. Again, if it's a legal non-conforming apartment unit, they're wanting to convert to a short-term rental. So, some rationale for this. Vacation rentals are permitted in the core district already. Expansion to the mixed-use district from staff's opinion is logical. If you review the downtown specific plan, you'll see it's in the staff report as well. Some of the visions and goals of the specific plan line up well with offering up a mix of land uses that cater to visitors and people, citizens alike, as well as being a helpful economic driver for tourism and whatnot. In the downtown specific plan area, you'll see the zoning districts on the northwest and east in this figure are largely multifamily public facility, general commercial, general office. These are acting as a buffer to the single family to the west and other residential zoning districts. And so originally when staff, when Lily and I were working on this, we chose the core. It's the Most restrictive, most conservative boundary in terms of allowing vacation rentals and apartments. And we were thinking the mixed use would act as a buffer between it and the surrounding zoning districts. But if you look at this map, you'll see there's higher intensity uses surrounding the mixed-use district on all three sides really, except for the garden tract. And we heard from garden tract residents quite a bit when we were developing these amendments a few years ago. And so that's why the amendments proposed today are implementing the 600-foot buffer rule to the garden track neighborhood. And so, I'm going to give you a figure here to put a little more flesh on this. So, what you'll see is the garden track there, it's kind of washed out in light blue. That's the exclusion area. So, we're applying the 600-foot buffer rule. If you look at the blue squares and the orange squares in the garden track, these are currently permitted either hosted homestays or vacation rental type short term rental uses. So, the shaded blue area is the 600-foot buffer applied to these parcels, which means no vacation rentals could go in parcels that are shaded there. The way this would work then. And you can see here by these arrows where the purple overlaps with the blue. Any parcel that's adjacent to a single-family district, if it's in the exclusion area, would not be. We would not permit a short-term rental there. So, it really hugs the boundary. And again, I don't think this. Do we have a laser that actually works on the screen? Does yours work there? Thank you. Press the button. Okay. I might lose some volume here, but really the core runs here, jogs over and does this. We're only talking really about a handful of parcels that are directly adjacent to the single-family zoning. Much of them, quite a few of them aren't even apartments or duplexes, they're commercial properties. But where this overlaps here, you can see like in the. There're some single-family homes here, there's some apartments in here. If that overlaps, then we would not allow under these proposed amendments, we wouldn't allow a vacation rental here in the mixed-use district if it was within 600ft of a vacation rental in the garden tract. So that's a way to allow for vacation rentals here on the outskirts of the mixed-use district and apartments and duplexes. But to honor the buffer rule where it abuts the residential single-family zoning district. So, you can see garden tract is at this point pretty well built out. You can't as of today, probably wouldn't really be able to have a vacation rental in the mixed-use district in this area because the garden tract has so many. These ones that are clustered close together are legal non-conforming units. So those were units that were permitted before the buffer rule went into effect. So, we will likely see attrition over the coming months and years as legal non-conforming units let their permits lapse. You'll start to see some of this spread out some more. But long story short, likely if these proposed changes were recommended to council and then adopted, we wouldn't see on the edge of that mixed-use district where it abuts single family. Likely there's no room there for a vacation rental today. But that's the gist of how this proposed code would actually be implemented in the future. So, I'll wrap up with minor amendments, then I can circle back to that more complex piece if you have questions. Of course, if you go to packet page, let's see if you scroll up or back a few pages to the other packet pages. I'll walk us through these minor, minor changes. The corrected hosted home state type is simply changing that to a letter of determination because that's the actual permit that we issue instead of, I think we had a zoning clearance in there before. We're amending the hosted homestay types and vacation rentals to the occupant type to persons instead of adult. To be consistent, we're correcting a reference to government code section so that we're properly referencing government code as it respects to accessory dwelling units. Moving along, you'll see the road classification we took out major arterial because actually our transportation element now in our general plan doesn't distinguish between those types. So, we're just calling it an arterial road. And we added open space easement as a natural buffer allowance. So, we have in their creek corridors, arterials and such that that allows you to reduce your buffer from 600ft to 300 if you recall. And so, we just added an open space open space easement as another option. So, if there was an open space easement between two vacation rentals, that would give staff the discretion to allow for a slightly lesser buffer distance, clarifying local contact availability just 24,7. And we took out phone and just added a more general requirement for messaging again for vacation rentals, amending the occupant type to persons instead of adults. And then a minor verbiage change there on the last section. This is related to the legal non-conforming. We interchanged terms and we had allowances I think and Exemptions. So, we just changed the terms to all be consistent so it read a little easier. So, these are all really minor, fairly insignificant, non-substantive changes, but just some cleanup items that staff's recommending. Since we're digging into the ordinance and proposing changes, we wanted to do some cleanup as well. So next steps, as opposed to the last item you just heard, this is a legislative action being proposed. And so, this requires city council approval. So, for this particular item, we're looking for planning commission for you all to provide a recommendation to city council regarding this item. And then we'll follow the normal course with public hearings, first and second readings, and then the ordinance would become effective 30 days from the second reading of council this afternoon. We're looking for the conducting of a public hearing and determining the passage of this is not a project according to CEQA and recommend the council this moves on to council for adoption of the ordinance. So, with that, I'm going to close. If you have any questions, I'm going to maybe go back here to some of these figures. If you have questions on what I was going through. I'm available for questions if you have any. >> Thank you. Director Pagan, do we have questions? >> Okay, Mr. Hatch, thanks for the presentation. Can you say a little bit more about what you mean about open space easement is like if something is designated as zoned as open space, is that interchangeable in your mind of what you mean or you say a little more? >> Yeah, I mean, for us, I think it was just. I was only just thinking of easements. I don't know if Lily had different thoughts on that when we were talking with Mychi, but not necessarily a zoned open. Not an open space zoning, but an open space easement, like an overlay. I think our staff said she's ran into it maybe once or twice in reviewing applications. So, she brought it forth saying, hey, if they had that other type of buffer, say an easement of sorts, or we have private open space easements along the river corridors and that kind of thing, that if that existed, it would be one more option that we could consider to reduce the buffer. I wasn't thinking zoning. I was thinking more of easements. >> An actual easement. >> Yeah. >> Okay, great. My other question is, how close are we to that 400 cap? >> We are not close. We are in the neighborhood of 150, 170. Does that sound all right? Yeah. >> Has that reduced recently? >> I mean, we saw it reduce a bit after the last round of amendments because we finally had staff. So as part of those amendments, we were able to hire an assistant planner to implement the program. And she did a lot of cleanup. We had quite a few out there operating without permits. We had some permits that were lapsed. We had permits that were in the wings waiting to be approved. And then we've also seen the market cool off for short term rentals since the height of COVID So those factors combined, I would say we're at a little bit less lesser of a number of short-term rentals than we were a couple years ago. Not by a drastic amount, but we certainly haven't seen the kind of growth what led to these amendments, like I said, was we were seeing year over year doubling of the amount of permits we had issued for short term rentals. And that growth has definitely flattened off. >> Got it. And about how many short-term rentals do we have currently in the downtown core? >> Not many. You see it in fact in this figure in the core you'll see a couple of shaded oranges. We have apparently some hosted homestays according to our GIS system, but in the core, not a whole lot. There's not a lot of apartment units in the core. And some of those, the apartment units we do have are affordable or have covenants or restrictions and that kind of thing. So not a ton right now. You'll see a little bit on the outskirts of the mixed-use district to some potential hosted homestays, but not very many. This is more sort of looking forward. I know of a few different properties in the mixed-use district where we have apartment units that folks have interest of renting out. But as of today, there's not a ton being done in the core. You can see it from the map here. >> And then my last, last question is, so theoretically, I know this isn't the case now, but if there isn't a density restriction that's 600ft, theoretically somebody could have a whole apartment building that is only for short term rentals. >> Yeah, that's correct. >> Got it. >> There's no, there's no density requirement in the core as proposed. You'll have the density requirement and the mixed use only adjacent to residential single family. >> Got it. >> Those would be subject to the citywide cap though of the 400. >> Yeah, sure, I lied. I have one more question. My last question for real this time is having we like talked to the housing department in terms of like how our like arena numbers are and how we're kind of meeting some of that housing for our housing stock? >> Yeah, we just did a housing element update and took that to council. We expect getting our arena numbers here in a year, year and a half. So, I don't, I don't have them off the top of my head. I think we're doing decently, certainly like the above, moderate and moderate, some of those categories. We do better in the very low and extremely low categories. Maybe not keeping up, but it's not terrible. Although I've been hearing from other jurisdictions that new arena numbers are coming out and they're quite high. And so, a lot of jurisdictions throughout the state are seeing that their housing allocation numbers are skyrocketing. So, then they're sort of scrambling when they go to do their housing element update. But we're not due for an update for a couple of years. So, I think we're doing decent. But then again, those are goals. And then of course, as you all know, we don't, we don't drive the development. So, we can only sort of have the goals and the state establishes those for us and we try to achieve them. But. But I think overall, we're doing pretty well, although I don't think we're quite meeting the mark that's in our housing element. >> All right, thank you. >> Do we have any other commissioner comments, if I may? >> Director Pagan? Just following up on that same question. I want to make sure I have it straight in my head. So, we don't have it. We won't have a density restriction in this new area, but I hear you saying that that is unlikely to be a concern because there really are relatively few market rate apartments in this area, so you can only have so many. Right. And then number two, I think I heard you imply that even if they did get a little compacted, which has been an issue in traditional single-family neighborhoods, but if they got a little bit compacted, the benefits, the economic and vitality benefits are worth it. Is that a way of summarizing it? >> Yeah, I think that's staff's position. And two, I think the downtown core certainly, and the mixed use maybe to a lesser degree, is certainly a more intense land use than single family zoning. And what we heard from the community and from this commission and council years ago was how do we preserve single family zoning? How do we lessen the impacts to our traditional single-family zone neighborhoods? That's a land use, more of a land use incompatibility than say, this and the core of our downtown or mixed use. So, I would also offer that as sort of some of staff's perspective on it. >> Yeah, thank you. That makes sense. It took me a while to wrap my brain around that and had to Put it in my own words. Thank you. >> Yep. >> Do we have any other commissioner comments? Okay, I will make mine. I have pretty significant concern about the mixed-use portion of this not having any restrictions. Primarily my experience in having a business in downtown was that the building was purchased and all of the apartments above our mixed-use space were turned into short term rentals. Although they did not receive a permit and they've been waiting for that was 8 very moderately priced and highly coveted apartments that were taken off the market. These were students, these were teachers, these were nonprofit employees who all were evicted. In the time that I was in that space, this building did not have not one single parking space. And so, as we experienced it, the eight units upstairs were utilizing the on-street parking immediately 24 7. And so, we had, we went from having approximately six parking spaces outside of our business to having no parking spaces. So, I would like to see some restriction on the density. I mostly because my concern becomes that we have approximately 225 available permits. And so, to me that tells me that all of the apartment buildings that are in that sort of liberty corner of the downtown mixed area, there's a number of small apartment buildings there. All of those could turn into essentially boutique hotels that have no on-site management. And I view that as very, very different than the way a vacation rental affects a downtown core. When we have entire buildings turn into vacation rentals, that looks to me a lot less like a vacation rental and a lot more like a boutique hotel. So, I have significant concerns on the density issue here. Any other comments? >> Sorry, I'm struggling with my button. I, I would love to hear Director Pagan's response to that because I think that's a legit concern. I'm not interested in regulating the one offs and maybe that's a one. >> I would agree with you and >> Don't, I don't know. But you know, if we're going to have one or two one offs, that might be two offs, then, then that's one thing. And I'm not a big fan of a bunch of rules just because of that. Sometimes you just got to suck it up and say dang, vitality hurts every now and then to the benefit of the whole hold that against me someday. But I would like to hear some response to that just to have some perspective. Thank you. >> Well, maybe I'd ask for clarification from Commissioner Greene in terms of are you more concerned about parking? Are you more concerned expressing concern regarding housing stock or you know, because boutique and Lily can help me out here maybe in Terms of permitted by ride in or uses in the core? I mean in the mixed use that's. The core doesn't require parking as it is. The mixed-use district requires what one, one space per unit of off-street parking. But you can also put a small boutique hotel in the mixed-use district. I don't know what entitlement level you need, if anything. We don't have it in front of us and I don't have it all memorized yet. But. So, I guess to hone in on your question to help me respond, maybe what's the driving overarching concern? >> The number one concern was the housing element. We don't have. >> That's. >> I feel like that is a section of our housing that we're not currently building out. We've had some big projects come forward the past year and that's excellent. But that really highly affordable market rate housing that is very dense in this area doesn't exist in a lot of the rest of the city. And so, seeing an entire apartment building turn at once was very shocking to me. And I'm concerned with having no density cap. We will see other small apartment buildings turn completely. Two vacation rentals. >> Yeah, I suppose it's a possibility. I mean you can kind of what if it that one you're talking about? You know, I'm familiar with too. To my knowledge they're not operating it as a short-term rental. Now. I don't even know if they have tenants or not. But I suppose yeah, the rules as drafted would permit an entire apartment unit to go that direction. Whether the market would support that and whether it would actually happen, I can't, I can't really guess so I would just say, I mean there's. I think it's valid, I think it's a valid point. I mean I don't. You could, you could add density in terms of within buildings. You know only X percentage of your units could be, could be short term rented versus the other captain long term rent. I could pull up or maybe we could find arena numbers to maybe give you specifics on how we're doing within our housing element. Like I said, I think we're doing pretty well. But to me, if you look at the core and the mixed-use district too though, there's a lot, there's a lot of talk regarding tourism, entertainment zones, businesses, commerce, tourism, that kind of thing. So, is that where we're driving a lot of our long-term housing or elsewhere in the city? Do we have. We have plenty of zoned property throughout the city for housing so would to Commissioner Windham's point, would the benefits outweigh the cons? I think that's your purview to decide as a body. I think staff feels, I feel pretty good about this recommendation. But of course, it's this body's prerogative. If we want to add that as a piece for council to consider, you know, we're happy to do that. >> Thank you. >> Did staff conduct a survey of how many properties within this mixed-use district could take advantage of this? >> That's a great question. We did have it on our last staff report. I didn't pull it over. In terms of the amount of multi family units. >> The reason I ask, I think, you know, there's a, it might be a. It's at least an 8 plex. It might be 12 plex at the corner of Sacramento and East Street. And I think if that all went to short term rental, that's a whole different cap. I mean you are talking about a motel at that point. So that is a concern. And I'm not sure what the process is to get a permit to for motel or a boutique. You know, what's that? >> Outright permitted. Lily's looking at the plan now. They're outright permitted by Right, they're outright permitting. Yeah. >> And there's no parking requirement for a motel downtown. So, if Marriott came in with a Business model, accommodations and the core but in mixed use, they'd still have off street parking requirements. >> And would that be the same? But that's not the. Is that the case for in the mixed-use district? I'm sorry, you probably answered this but is that parking required in the mixed-use district? >> So, it would be required for new construction. Okay, but if your grandfather as proposed we would have a legal non-conforming unit be able to convert without requiring the parking as proposed. >> Yeah. It just seems to me that if you're leasing out eight units as a short-term rental you should call it a motel and whatever requirements are required of a hotel. I think there, I mean when I first read this I said well if someone has a duplex that's fine. But now we're getting into the potential for a large residential building or to be converted. And what about. I mean I see that in the, where the Pine street school is located there's a loud. In the upper north part there's a lot. There're definitely apartment complexes up there. There's one on Riverside Avenue by Caltrans, there's a couple up there. And so, a couple concerns that's very intense. If one of those Go for the neighbors. And I agree with Brandy. I mean the potential to further deplete workforce housing market rate. Workforce housing is real. In that case. >> Thank you. >> Commissioner Goedert. Do we have any other comments from the commission or questions? Okay. We will open public comment. If anyone has public comment on this item, please bring your blue card forward. Seeing none, we will close public comment. We'll bring it back to the commission. Do we have any further discussion? No. Commissioner Balkovek, do you want to go? >> Yes. Would it be extraordinary to limit the number of those units you could have in any one structure? No, I think, yeah. Kind of what I was alluding to before. This body could make a recommendation where a percentage of an apartment building with multiple units is a cap. You know, so if you have an 8 unit or an 8 plex, then no more than 25% can be short term rentals or something to that effect. >> Yeah, that's very similar to like our, the state ADU regulations, accessory D units. They don't allow more than 25% of the existing units to be converted to an accessory doling unit. >> Okay. So that, that wouldn't be too hard to codify. I might have to look at our assistant city attorney in terms of. I think we could take it as a recommendation from this body and then codify it when we go to council. I don't know if we have to come back to this group with new code language. >> Given that it's a pretty significant change, you probably would. >> Okay. But it'd be a pretty simple tweak to the proposed code language. I think you could make it fairly plain language so it's pretty easily implementable. >> So, go ahead. >> Yeah. >> Vice Chair. I would also say another thing to consider would be, you know, maybe just if we have a definition of what a traditional block is and just say a certain number per block. Otherwise you'd see like. Well, you can allow 50% if it's a duplex, but a different percent if it's a six plex or an eight plex. You get into more complex language. So, I would just say maybe there's whatever the simplest way is to put a boundary around it that isn't perfect but gets us a little bit better control. >> If we did it geospatially or by block, you could still end up with whole cell conversions of buildings to, to some of the other commissioners' points. >> Right. >> And I'm, I'm not opposed to the idea that no greater than 50% be used as short-term rentals. I mean, that's a, in my Mind, that's a significant number. Say, in a small (INAUDIBLE). If you were a resident living in that complex and half of the homes were vacation rentals, I would feel like that's pretty significant. But I would think it would be a better nod to the potential benefit to commerce in downtown and to the reality of needing highly affordable workforce housing in our downtown corridor, given we live in a community where transportation is not always as useful or accessible as we need it to be. So, I would be willing to make a motion that we approve the recommendations from staff with the amendment to the portion related to the downtown multi use district and specify that no more than 50% of the homes in a building be used for vacation rentals. Do I have a second? Thank you. And we can call for a vote unless there is any additional conversation. Seeing none. Okay, we'll call for a vote. All in favor? Aye. >> Opposed? That passes. >> Thank you. Just to clarify with our attorney. >> I was eyeballing the attorney. >> I was waiting for a pop up. >> But okay, so I understood the motion. Is that acceptable enough for a staff to go back and. But do you still think we need to come back to this body or. >> I do not. Given the specific language in the motion, I think you would be fine. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay, let me get us back on track. We will now go to full public comment. If you have anything that is not one of our agenda items that you would like to bring before the commission, now is the time to bring forward a blue comment card and we will welcome you to speak. Seeing none, I will close public comment and we will go to the commissioner's comments commission. Do we have any comments? Aaron? >> Seeing that this is my last planning commission meeting for this term, maybe sometime in the future, I just want to thank my fellow commissioners for the dedication to the city. And this is, you know, it takes time and work and you have to be a little nerdy to even want to be up here. So, thank you all for being here and to my previous colleagues who have cycled off. And then I just want to thank staff, especially the ones that keep us on track down here. I think they're the unsung heroes of making sure that things are accurate. And I've really appreciated working with Lily and Jeremy and Mr. Anthony. You don't say a lot when you're up there, but I've appreciated you as well. So, I just want to say that I've appreciated my time and I appreciate all of you. >> Thank you. And I would echo those comments Additionally, to the assistant planners that bring presentations before us, I know that it can be a lot and I appreciate how much you've taught us about what we do up here and sometimes you have to teach us under fire. So, I appreciate you doing that well and softly as possible. But yeah, it's been a learning experience and I thank you all for the help and for the opportunity. Any other comments from the commission? >> I would like to also so thank you publicly, thank you for being planning nerds, thank you for your service, thank you for doing this. You're absolutely right. It's a big deal and it's been a little bit hard. I hope you walk away feeling very proud of your service and the city thanks you. I thank you. >> Okay, we will move to the director's report. >> Well, I already said my thanks, but I'll say them again. Yeah, going to miss having you on the commission and appreciate all you've done for the city and for this commission. Just a couple quick items. So, on the tree ordinance front, we are getting closer to having some review done by our city attorney's office and should hopefully have that coming. We might be getting some feedback from council and having that come back to this body in the next, I'm hoping month or two. We'll see. And then on the riverfront specific plan we're targeting loosely, the agenda is not out yet, but we're looking at bringing an update to council the second meeting in May. So, if you want to pencil that in on your calendars, if you have interest in tuning in or attending, we're moving on to the next phase of trying to summarize all our community engagement, like I said, and moving on to some land use planning concepts, high level alternatives analysis and getting some final direction from council. So, we can then put pen to paper, draft the plan and begin working on CEQA throughout the summer, hopefully coming back to this body by fall winter time frame. So just a couple updates. I don't think I have anything else for you at this time, but if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer. >> Any questions from the council. Okay, thank you. Director Pagan and I will adjourn the meeting.